by Thorpe, Kara
The relationship between Claire and Prask was strained, but Georgiana didn’t want Claire to hear about her father’s downfall from a reporter looking to get a juicy quote. “Your father’s in some pretty hot legal water. He’s in the middle of a financial difficulty, too.”
Claire sighed. “You always were too nice, Georgie. Let me guess, Dad’s flat broke and did something monumentally stupid to try to save his ass?”
“Yes.” Georgiana licked her lips and swallowed down the lump in her throat. Claire was her oldest friend and had always seen, with perfect clarity, the type of man Walter Prask was. She wasn’t worried about Claire not believing her. It was just hard admitting out loud how close she’d come to losing her brother.
“What did he do, Georgie?”
“He tried to kill Tab.”
“Jesus,” Claire breathed. “Is Tab okay? What was that crazy old fool thinking?”
“Tab’s getting better, but your father indirectly caused two deaths.” Georgiana squeezed the bridge of her nose. She wondered if she could get away with sneaking off to Robert’s office as soon as she was through with Claire. “He went after Dan Norwood, too. He wanted to whittle away at my life so that I was desperate enough to see him as the white knight rushing in to save me. Like most of his plans, it was doomed for failure. He’s going to be arrested soon.”
“Step-mommy Georgie,” Claire chuckled. “Oh, dear. And with you engaged to yummy Robert. Tell me, is he as delicious in person as he is in print?”
“No,” Georgiana managed with a straight face. Claire’s shocked gasp nearly ruined her composure. “He’s better.”
“I had such a crush on him in high school,” Claire sighed. “In honor of our friendship, though, I’m willing to overlook my crushed dreams of perfect babies and design your wedding dress. Unless you’ve found someone else already.”
Georgiana grinned at the trace of uncertainty in her old friend’s tone. “Like I would let anyone else dress me,” she teased, “you’re the only one who knows how to cover my flaws.”
“Ms. Collier,” Yvonne said. She tapped Georgiana on the shoulder, one hand covering the mouthpiece of the desk phone receiver. “It’s Mr. Robert Norwood.”
Georgiana whirled the chair around. She eyed Yvonne speculatively. “Claire, I’d like for you to do all the dresses for the wedding, if you’re up for it. You can work with my assistant Yvonne. I have her right here, if you want to start brainstorming a few ideas.” She handed the phone up to a wide-eyed, stunned Yvonne. “Happy early birthday, Yvonne.”
You are the most amazing boss, ever!” Yvonne squealed, throwing her arms around Georgiana for a quick hug before trading phones. Yvonne pranced out of the office jabbering a million miles an hour at Claire.
Georgiana cradled the heavy receiver between her shoulder and the side of her head. “Hello, Bobby.”
“Sounds like you made Ms. Ruiz’s day. Did you give her the afternoon off?”
“Better. She’s working with Claire on the dresses for the wedding.” Georgiana tapped her pen against the side of her laptop. “Have you heard from Allan?”
“Buchanan gave up Prask. Seems he didn’t trust the bastard, and recorded the audio from their meetings. He has the original parts from Tab’s Mercedes, as well,” Robert said.
Georgiana frowned. She should have felt relieved, but she didn’t. She felt sort of hollow. “That’s it? Just like that? It’s over?”
“It would appear that this is over, at least until Prask goes to court. Allan is going to remain in Dallas until he learns what the authorities decide to do about Prask.” Robert’s sigh echoed Georgiana’s unease.
Georgiana’s phone beeped. She glanced at the display; there was an incoming call from the security desk. “I need to put you on hold for a second, Bobby.”
Before Robert could protest, Georgiana put the call on hold and pressed the button to switch lines. She listened to the head of security for a moment. With every word he spoke, her face grew paler and her lips compressed until they were a bloodless line.
“Thank you, Mr. Isodore. Please continue according to procedure. I will be downstairs shortly.”
The finger that pressed the button to switch back to Robert trembled. She swallowed and prayed her voice didn’t give too much away. “I am sorry, Bobby. I am needed in the lobby. It appears that Mr. Prask has sensed his impending crash-and-burn and, at the moment, has a handgun pressed against my senior receptionist’s head.”
Robert strung together a creative series of curses that, on any other day, Georgiana would have appreciated. “What does he want?”
She smiled bitterly. “Honestly, Bobby, shouldn’t that be obvious? He has agreed to release Barbara if I speak with him face-to-face.”
“And you told him that there was a greater likelihood of him being sainted, right?”
“Not quite. I told my head of security that I would meet with Prask.”
Something on Robert’s end of the connection crashed. He swore again. “You are not going downstairs, Gigi,” Robert thundered.
“Yes, I am. I am not cowering behind my desk while one of my employees has the barrel of a gun pressed against her forehead!” Georgiana’s knuckles were white around the receiver. “Prask has harmed two people that I care about in an attempt to get at me. I’ll be damned if I allow him to harm a third.”
“Please,” Robert’s voice lost its hard edge and picked up a pleading note. “Please don’t do this, Gigi.”
Georgiana hung up the phone without saying another word. If she allowed Robert to continue, her shaky resolve would crumble. She passed through the doorway into Yvonne’s office. Yvonne was still chatting happily with her fashion idol.
“Yvonne,” Georgiana said, hand pressed against her swirling stomach. “Could you please make sure that Mr. Isodore has called police so that they can deploy a SWAT team to this location? I have to run downstairs for a bit. Stay up here. Please.”
“Georgiana?” Yvonne dropped Georgiana’s cell onto the desk. “What’s going on?”
Georgiana’s knees were growing weaker by the second. She wasn’t a hero. Her heart was pounding so hard she feared it would burst through her chest. She bit her lip to keep from snapping at Yvonne. It wasn’t her assistant’s fault Prask was so unhinged or that she hadn’t properly warned her security about him.
“Could you please just do as I ask? Thank you.”
Georgiana knew exactly how long it took the elevator to reach the lobby from her office. She calculated the time anyway, in hopes that simple math would ease some of her anxiety. At a rate of speed of 5.2 meters per second, the 58 meter ride was only 11.15 seconds. Each second felt like an hour. By the time the elevator reached the lobby, sweat dotted her forehead and her legs were the consistency of unset Jell-O.
The first thing she noticed when the doors slid open was the silence. Not even the light background music was playing. Her footsteps were like gunshots echoing around the spacious lobby. Sweat dripped down her spine. It was a struggle to keep her head held high when all she wanted to do was duck behind the furniture like the rest of her employees.
Prask, his navy blue suit rumpled and stained with sweat, had Barbara backed against the curved metal receptionist desk. The barrel of a small, sleek handgun was pressed against her temple, and he had one arm around her neck. White pearls were scattered on the floor in front of them. She made a mental note to have Yvonne purchase Barbara a replacement necklace.
“You took your sweet time getting down here,” Prask snarled.
Indignation stiffened Georgiana’s spine. She arched an eyebrow at Prask. She was terrified, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her fall to pieces. “I thought I made it clear that all appointment requests needed to go through Yvonne.”
“Get that bitch over here, and she can trade places with this sniveling cow.”
“Your filthy language is unnecessary, Prask. As is your behavior. Now, you told my security staff that you would r
elease Barbara if I spoke with you. I am here now.” She gestured at a sobbing Barbara. “Please release my receptionist.”
“No.”
“No? Are you saying you won’t honor our bargain? That’s truly a shame to hear, Mr. Prask. If you don’t have your word, sir, you don’t have anything.”
“I don’t have anything,” he howled. His wild eyes were bloodshot. He released Barbara’s neck to shake his fist at Georgiana. Barbara raced from Prask’s side to the waiting arms of a uniformed security guard. The guard immediately pulled Barbara out of the line of fire.
“I just got off the phone with your daughter, so I know that is a bald-faced lie,” Georgiana countered. With Barbara freed, she felt a small measure of relief. There was no one else for Prask to use against her.
She watched the gun carefully. She could calculate velocity of the projectile based on the caliber. She could approximate the trajectory based on distance and the angle of the gun and average velocity. The only variable she couldn’t account for was Prask’s marksmanship. His fingers were twitchy.
“She’ll be on your side before she’ll be one mine. Those damn Norwoods have taken everything from me. Danny-boy’s spreading stories in the clubs and now all my suppliers are cutting off my credit. Your precious Bobby is buying up large pieces of all my companies for a fraction of what they’re worth.”
He took one lurching step towards Georgiana. Though her instincts insisted she flee, she stood her ground. The alcohol fumes wafting from him stung her nose and burned her tear ducts. She kept her eyes on the gun and adjusted her calculations.
“He stole you from me,” Prask continued.
“I was never yours.” Georgiana’s fists were tight balls at her sides; anger, swift and hot, rushed through her. “You were crazy to think that getting rid of Dan and my brother would be enough to make me turn to you. You’d have to kill every person on this planet for me to be that desperate, and even then I’d turn you down.”
“Uppity bitch.” Prask’s lips curled up in a sneer. “Just like your bayou trash mother. Her mama was from a good Creole family, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a Coon-.”
“Enough,” Georgiana snapped. “Mom turned you down because she had actual taste. She wanted a man and not a pathetic, whiny child.”
“Georgiana, darling.” Robert’s voice, silky smooth with an undercurrent of sharp steel, drifted across the lobby. “Perhaps you should save the insults for when Mr. Prask is not pointing a gun at your lovely face.”
Georgiana wanted to look at him, but she couldn’t take her gaze off the gun. Judging from the direction of his voice, he was near the entrance to the tunnels. She wanted to hug him and then she wanted to punch him in the mouth. Prask hated him as much as anyone; he might was well have walked in wearing a bull’s-eye.
“The building is surrounded by armed officers, Prask,” Robert said. His footsteps were quiet but not silent. Prask’s eyes frantically darted back and forth between Georgiana and Robert. He kept the gun aimed at Georgiana. “Your associate Buchanan has been arrested, and he has revealed every detail of your plot to ensure Tab Collier’s demise.”
“So then I really have nothing left to lose, do I?” Prask taunted. His fat lips stretched in a broad, crazed grin.
Georgiana felt as if someone had flipped a switch and turned the air to the consistency of molasses. She watched Prask’s finger twitch a final time, squeeze the trigger. The calculations she’d been so careful to adjust for every movement he made fell apart in her head. She couldn’t focus on the bullet to guess its trajectory. A second shot rang out.
Something heavy, solid, slammed into her side and sent her dropping to the floor like a concrete brick. Her head hit the marble floor with a sickening crack. Multicolored spots obscured her vision. Blood filled her mouth and her tongue throbbed. Over the top of the hulking mass covering her, she spotted the shattered glass tile behind where she’d been standing. It was at least seven inches off from what she’d calculated.
“Oh,” she murmured, swallowing the blood and trying not to gag.
“Gigi?” Robert moved off her. His hands were hot, hard vices on her shoulders. “Are you hit? Is that blood?”
“I always forget the ballistic coefficient,” she said. She tried to lift her arm to point at the tile, but there was a disconnect somewhere between her brain and her muscles. The vibration of feet pounding on the floor rumbled through her. “We need to get off the floor. My stomach can’t take much more of this.”
“We need to get your head examined,” Robert bit out. The gentle way he helped her sit up was at odds with the anger in his voice. “What in the hell were you thinking coming down here to confront Prask? I take back what I said earlier. You don’t need a bodyguard, you need to be locked in a padded room. I swear, Gigi, you took ten years off my life. I didn’t realize you were so eager to send me to my grave.”
“Sorry,” Georgiana kissed the crease between his brows. “I wasn’t thinking at all. I just… he went after Tab, he went after Dan, and now he goes after my employees? I wanted him to have to go after me. To stop being such a sleazy coward.”
Seated on the floor of her lobby cradled in Robert’s arms, Georgiana watched officers swarm around traumatized employees. Prask was facedown on the floor, a bullet in his shoulder courtesy of one of her soon-to-be-promoted security personnel, with two officers standing guard over him. Through the tall windows she could see an ambulance racing up the street and at least two news vans.
With a groan, she buried her face in Robert’s shoulder. “I give it twenty minutes before Missy Galvan digs out her phone tree. It’s bad enough they’re calling this a fairytale romance. The last thing we needed to add was a vanquished villain. We’ll never hear the end of this.”
Robert chuckled, lips brushed her ear. “At least they didn’t forget to give us a happy ending.”
She pulled back to grin at him, teeth stained pink and lip split but more radiant than the sun overhead. “That part’s enough to make everything worthwhile.”
The elevator door swooshed open. An ashen, frantic Yvonne dashed across the floor. With a trembling arm, she held out Georgiana’s cell phone. From the floor, Georgiana could hear her brother and Dan shouting.
“It is your brother,” Yvonne said, voice cracking. Her eyes shifted to Robert’s face. “And your father.”
Georgiana eyed the phone as if it were a burning coal. She nudged Robert’s shoulder. “Go ahead, macho man. Talk to your dad.”
“Oh, no, I think you should offer your brother the reassurances he obviously needs.”
“No, no,” Georgiana insisted, “your father’s heart is still weak, remember. You should ease his mind before he puts himself back in the hospital.”
Robert shook his head. He shifted away from the phone. “Your brother is emotionally fragile. You should talk to him first.”
Yvonne snorted in disgust. Composure regained, she lifted the phone back to her ear and glared down at the bickering couple on the floor. She mentally selected a pair of shoes and a matching purse that she would wheedle out of Georgiana as payment for what she was about to do.
“Mr. Norwood, Tab, they’re both just fine, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to take a message.”
Epilogue:
"Freeze!"
Startled, Georgiana complied.
"Put down the soldering iron down and turn around. Slowly."
Georgiana flicked off the tool, set it on its stand, and pivoted to face a stern, glaring Yvonne.
"Cashmere." Yvonne clucked her tongue. "I see I'm going to have to have another talk with Cedric about letting you get away with crimes against fashion."
"You have no idea how nice it is to have an assistant who doesn't care if I spill acetone on my shirt or drop a bucket of grease on my shoes." Georgiana bit back a grin at the horror filling Yvonne's eyes. While she didn't miss Yvonne's constant nagging, she missed riling the younger woman. They saw each other daily, but their relationship had c
hanged after Yvonne’s promotion to Chief Operating Officer of Collier Analytics.
"Oh, trust me, he's going to start caring," Yvonne said, tone of voice promising a wealth of unpleasantness for her live-in boyfriend. "Wait! Grease on your shoes? Which pair? Oh, please, please tell me you're not talking about that gorgeous pair of Choo boots Tab gave you for Christmas."
"The boots are fine." Georgiana jerked her chin at the stack of magazines in Yvonne's arm. "Do you have Tab’s article in there?"
"Yes ma'am. Ten copies as requested. ’Ric's finishing the beta testing with Mr. Norwood, so I thought I'd drop them off. If you have time, we can grab lunch or order something in."
"So the meeting with human resources about the new training went well, then? They didn't try to pressure you into a different timetable?"
Yvonne blinked, swallowed. Once she recovered, she handed one of the glossy magazines to Georgiana. "Why couldn't you have paid this much attention when you were running things day-to-day?"
"It wasn't fun. It sorta is now that I don't have to do it."
Georgiana collapsed on the dusty chair in front of her workstation and grinned at the picture of her brother posed in jeans and a navy blue tweed sport coat on the cover of the magazine. He'd agreed to do the interview for his eighteenth birthday, but had only allowed Dan to read the proof copy. He'd insisted that it be a surprise for his sister and brother-in-law.
The headline named him the "Crown Prince of Tech" with the subtitle "The Next Robert Norwood." She groaned at that. Her husband's ego was going to be unbearable once he saw the cover.
The questions started with Tab’s first semester at Stanford and how he'd enjoyed his summer internship at Norwood Systems. The article touched on Prask’s meltdown in the CA lobby and Tab’s reaction to the incident. Thanks, in part, to Prask’s plea agreement, no mention was made of the accident or Tab’s eight months as a recluse. Her brother skillfully brushed off questions about his non-existent romantic life. Halfway through the article, the focus shifted to his family and growing up in the Collier family.