Cold Feet at Christmas

by Debbie Johnson

  “What do you think?” Rob asked. He’d been telling her about the city as they drove; about its history, about its architecture; its food and music and art. His passion was endearing – how could she do anything but love it?

  “It’s amazing,” she replied. “Brilliant. What’s that?” she said, pointing to an enormous building off to their left. It was so high she couldn’t even see the top of it through the limo’s windows.

  “It’s the Willis Tower,” he said. “Used to be called the Sears Tower. Tallest building in the States. Cavelli Tower is near here, on Dearborn Street. Not quite as big as the Willis, but size doesn’t matter. Or so I’m told.”

  “Actually,” she replied, still staring out at the vibrant city streets. “Size does matter. That’s a lie women tell to make men feel better.”

  “Darn. I always suspected. Any complaints?”

  She turned back to him. Smiled in a way that made his heart lurch and his crotch stir.

  “Well, we’re in Chicago now, and officially just friends, so I don’t want to flirt too much. But if you were a Chicago building? The Willis Tower would be feeling emasculated.”

  The car drew to a halt before he could respond, which was probably a good thing, Rob decided. Because if he was a Chicago building, he was growing a couple of extra levels with every passing second.

  The driver got out, opened the door, and passed Rob an open umbrella.

  He held it over Leah’s head as they walked towards the glass doors to the lobby of his office building; another skyscraper, one which doubled as office and home for both Rob and his brother Marco.

  The car pulled silently off, taking their cases around to the service lift. Leah assumed they’d be whisked away, up to Rob’s apartment in the penthouse. Don’t get too used to this lifestyle, young woman, she reminded herself – you’ll be living in a rat-infested fleahole and surviving on microwave rice once you get this whole independent woman thing sorted.

  “Welcome to my humble abode,” said Rob, guiding her towards the entrance, his hand in the small of her back as they walked towards the lobby.

  The doors slid open, and Leah saw elegant fittings; dark wood; framed paintings. Old charm combined with cutting edge technology. Freestanding vases filled with stunning floral arrangements. A genuine fire blazing in the corner. A bank of security cameras; a computerised info point with a touch screen, three separate sets of doors to the lifts. A polished mahogany concierge desk. Coffee tables piled high with glossy magazines surrounded by stylish, comfortable sofas.

  And, in the middle of all of this, four burly men. In uniform. With guns. And batons. And tasers.

  “Mr Roberto Cavelli?” one of them said, stepping forward, his voice flat and calm and ever so slightly menacing.

  “Yes?” Rob replied, clearly concerned. Leah tightened her grip on her bag; flooded with the sense of foreboding that the emergency services always provoked in her. Ever since the day when she was eighteen, and that knock on the door came. The one that told her about the fire that had killed her parents. The policewoman they’d sent was young and kind, but that hadn’t changed the brutality of the news.

  Was this bad news? For Rob? For someone he loved?

  “Mr Cavelli,” the cop said, walking forward, unhooking a set of plastic handcuffs from his waistband. “You need to come with us. You’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…”

  Chapter 9

  “So. Am I in trouble?” asked Rob, trying to manoeuvre his bound wrists into a more comfortable position. One that maybe involved blood flowing into his hands.

  He was sitting on a hard plastic chair, in a hard plastic room, somewhere inside a hard brick police station. Outside, he could see Leah having an animated conversation with the officer who’d arrested him; arms flying, hands waving, eyes huge, body fizzing with energy. You go girl, he thought. You’ll talk him to death if nothing else.

  “Yeah,” replied his brother Marco, perched on the table next to him, sipping coffee so bad it made him wince. “And I’ll tell you why. You’ve been arrested. You’re sitting in an interview room in cuffs. You’re facing charges of kidnap and assault. And all you’ve done since I got here is watch that woman’s ass through the door. So yeah, bro, I’d say you were in pretty big trouble, one way or another. What the hell’s going on?”

  Rob grinned up at Marco, who was looking spectacularly un-attorney like in his sweats and dirt-stained T-shirt. He’d called his cell as soon as the cops let him use his phone, and rudely interrupted his traditional festive period activity of playing football in the park with their cousins. Usually fun, usually violent, and always, always muddy. It was a boy thing.

  “Wish I could tell you, Marco. But I’m not even sure myself. She just walked into my life. Christmas Eve. Turned up like a magic fairy on the doorstep. I’ve told you, I couldn’t turn her away. She’d have died.”

  “I get that,” said Marco. “I do. I even get that she stayed a couple days because of the weather. Where I start to get confused is the part where you assault her, and coerce her into coming to Chicago with you.”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake, Marco, you know me better than that! There was no coercion involved – in any of it! It was all consensual. Just two consenting adults who…”

  Rob trailed off, not wanting to kiss and tell, even in his current circumstances.

  “What? What did you consent to?” probed Marco. “Roberto Paolo Cavelli, have you been, and I’ll phrase this diplomatically, intimate with that woman? You? At Christmas?”

  Rob’s expression told Marco everything he needed to know. Guilty as charged, your honour, he decided. Marco didn’t know whether to call the psych ward or go outside and shake Leah Harvey’s hand. His brother had shunned pretty much all human contact at Christmas for the last three years, never mind shared a bed with someone. There’d been women, obviously, but never at Christmas. That was sacred, untouchable. He glanced outside, saw the small blonde woman still going off at the cops like a pocket rocket. Okay, she was pretty. Hot, in fact. But Rob got a lot of offers from hot women – what made this one so special that he broke the yuletide embargo for her? Blackmail? Witchcraft? Rohypnol?

  As he pondered, the door to the interview room flew open, pushed so hard it thudded back into the wall with a crash. Patches of bare plaster chip around the hinges said it wasn’t the first time that had happened, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.

  Leah strode in, eyes flashing with fury, hands on hips, chest heaving with restrained anger. The harassed look on the policeman’s face made it clear she’d come pretty close to getting arrested herself. She’d probably only avoided it because Officer Karlsson was enjoying the heaving chest as much as the next man.

  “This is my brother, Marco,” Rob said, nodding towards his twin.

  Leah paused, giving Marco a quick glance and a polite ‘pleased to meet you’ and acknowledging how similar they looked before returning her eyes to Rob. She could barely see anything else, she was so angry. She stared at the bloody handcuffs, chafing into his flesh. Okay, maybe one day, handcuffs would be fun, she thought – but this was neither the time nor the place, and she was so angry she thought her brain might come out of her ears. He really didn’t deserve this.

  “It’s because of the car,” she said. “After I walked out on the wedding, Doug couldn’t get me on the phone. He drove for hours looking for me, then eventually went back to London, expecting to find me there. When there was no sign of me, he freaked out.

  “It’s kind of my own fault – I should have found a way to let him know I was okay. But I didn’t, and he had a big dollop of guilty conscience to add into the mix as well. So he called the police and reported me missing! They traced the car, and came to check at your cottage in case you’d seen me. By this point I think they expected me to be dead under a snow drift or something. Instead, they found, er,” she flushed slightly, avoiding Marco’s piercing gaze, “they found signs of activity. In the bedroom. The ruined wedding d
ress. And my blood, in the kitchen. From—”

  “The god-damn broken plate!” Rob said, everything falling into place and making slightly more sense. “But they can see you’re okay now, can’t they? What’s the problem?” he added.

  “The problem is Doug. He’s convinced I’ve been abducted or something ridiculous and, well, I suppose he’s been really worried. For days. Thinking maybe I’d topped myself or something because of what he did. So I’ve been explaining to Officer Karlsson here that I am duress-free, here because I very much want to be, and that a couple of hours ago I was trying to persuade you to have sex with me in a bloody aeroplane toilet!”

  The last word was delivered three notes higher than the rest, and Leah’s wide eyes filled with tears of frustration. What a great start to her new life – getting the man who was making it all possible arrested, because she’d been too stubborn and too dumb to bother letting Doug know she was alive and well and having her brains bonked out by a gorgeous American stud. Or at least the first two parts.

  It was understandable that she hadn’t wanted to talk to Doug. Especially given all the bonking, and the genuine lack of phone signal. But she could still have called from the airport. Even just texted him. Now, as well as having got Rob into this trouble, she even felt a twinge of guilt at how worried Doug must have been.

  “I’m so sorry, Rob,” she said, holding his cuffed hands up to her mouth and kissing the sore skin of his wrist. “I’m nothing but bad news.”

  Marco watched as Rob stared into those tear-filled amber eyes, reassuring her it was all okay. He hadn’t seen that look on his brother’s face for…well, for ever.

  “Leave this to me, guys,” he said, sliding off the graffiti-scarred table and leaving the room.

  ***

  Less than an hour later, the three of them were sitting at a secluded corner table at a restaurant called Giordano’s on Jackson Boulevard. In front of them was possibly the largest pizza Leah had ever seen. It was, she’d been informed, stuffed, not deep pan – the subject of much distinction in the Chicago food world. And it was also, she’d been told, known as a ‘pie’.

  A pie the size of a small planet, she thought, staring it down. It was the enemy, and would be defeated.

  “Thanks, Marco, for getting us out of there. For some reason you were able to manage it when I couldn’t,” she said, scooping a slice of pie onto her plate. Steaming hot cheese oozed out, and the delicious smell of mushrooms and garlic wafted towards her. Yum.

  “Yeah,” he answered. “For some reason, those cop guys listened more to a kick-ass Chicago-born attorney than a crazy English chick. Go figure.”

  “Ha. The swines; sexist and racist,” she replied cheerfully, taking a mouthful and looking across at the two brothers facing her. Rob hadn’t mentioned his twin, and now she was calm enough to see straight, she realised there were distinct advantages.

  They had the same wide, sculpted lips. The same strong jaw; cheekbones you could cut yourself on. But there were some differences as well. Marco was bigger – not taller, but more brawn, more bulk, more brazenly built. Rob’s body was that of an athlete, all sleek, lean muscle; Marco’s of a football player. In-your-face beefcake. His hair was cut shorter, brutally cropped to his scalp, which meant either he was fresh out of the Marines (which she knew he wasn’t), or it grew big and curly if he let it. The eyes. Again, not the same. Rob’s were chocolate and gold; Marco’s hazel. Not identical. But still twins. And still both drop-dead gorgeous.

  Double yum.

  She realised they’d both stopped talking as she carried out her totty inspection. Mildly embarrassing. She didn’t even have score cards to hold up.

  “So, what do you think? Do we pass muster?” asked Marco, breaking the silence.

  “Oh God, don’t ask her that. She’ll only tell you.” groaned Rob, burying his face in his hands. Leah gave him a look and laid down her knife and fork next to her plate.

  “Well,” she said, “if you insist, I was actually thinking that you two bring a whole new meaning to the phrase Italian beef sandwich. And that being the filling wouldn’t be a totally awful experience at all.”

  Marco stared at her in disbelief, pizza slice paused midway to his mouth. Rob snorted, the sound muffled by his hands. “Told you so,” he muttered. “There’s no filter, Marco. She thinks it, she says it.”

  “Okay, fair enough,” said Marco, recovering his composure. “I can respect that. While we’re being honest, then, Leah – why are you here?”

  There was an edge to his voice she couldn’t help but notice. Not aggression, not exactly, but a note of warning. She understood. He was protective of Rob. He didn’t know her, or her motives, and wanted to let her know he was watching out for him. Leah didn’t have siblings herself, but if she did, she hoped they’d react like that. She felt a twinge of loneliness tug at her. Parents dead; Doug over, friends minimal. There was no-one in the world to look out for her like that. Rob was lucky, and she hoped he knew it.

  “Marco, don’t—” started Rob, obviously knowing his twin well enough to sense the hidden meaning behind his words. His eyes flew to Marco’s, sparking with his own warnings, clenched fists slamming down onto the table top.

  “No, it’s fine Rob; in fact it’s a good question,” she said gently, holding out a hand to his to calm him. The last thing she wanted to do was cause a rift between brothers. Particularly when she had no place in their lives at all, other than a passing moment. She’d be gone before they could say double pepperoni, and that was probably a good thing for all of them.

  “Marco, in all honesty I don’t know why I’m here. Like you said, I’m just a crazy English chick. My life got turned upside down, and I discovered I liked it better that way. I won’t bore you with the details, but not many people get the chance to turn things round like this, and that’s what your brother’s given me the opportunity to do. Yes, okay, so I’ve spent the last few days as his slave. Cooking for him, cleaning for him —”

  “Give me a break!” said Rob, the corners of his eyes starting to crinkle in laughter.

  “Cooking for him, cleaning for him, providing him with first-rate sex…” she continued, as though he’d never spoken, “and in return, Marco, he’s been kind to me. He’s offered me a chance to escape when I most need it. He’s offered me a place to stay and a job until I find my feet. He’s offered me friendship. He’s also made it more than clear that’s what we have – friendship. He doesn’t want more than that. I don’t want more than that. We’re not a couple. I’m not looking for a boyfriend. Or a husband. I’m not looking to hurt him in any way. I’m just grateful that I met him. So. What do you think? Do I pass muster?”

  There was silence again. The background noise of clinking glassware; steam from coffee machines; laughter and chatter and chairs scraping against wooden flooring.

  “Yeah,” said Marco, smiling. “You pass muster with me, Leah. But tomorrow, there’ll be a bigger test.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Mom called earlier,” said Marco, looking back to his brother. “She heard you got your ass hauled off to the copshop and she’ll be round for breakfast.”

  “Oh shit.”

  Chapter 10

  Dorothea Cavelli was not what Leah expected. Admittedly, all her preconceptions of a widowed Italian American matriarch were based on watching The Godfather movies – and Dorothea was about as far removed from that as it was possible to be.

  She was in her late 60s, but looked nowhere near it. Her hair was pure snowy white, and cut thick into a funky, chunky bob. Her eyes were a glacial green, and her make-up was applied with understated precision. She wore a knee-length purple sweater dress over designer jeans, coupled with bohemian costume jewellery.

  She was also, Leah realised with mounting concern, quite, quite serious.

  “It’s just a small affair,” she said, sipping her coffee and crossing elegantly long legs. “Family, friends, some business colleagues. We’ll have it here, in fact
. It’s big enough.”

  “Will we? Is it?” asked Rob, pouring himself a cup too. He looked exhausted, Leah thought, watching the way he sank down into the chair, rubbing his eyes as though he was still half asleep. Smart suit, white shirt, navy tie; perfectly co-ordinated with jet lag, adrenaline and fatigue. She’d spoken to Doug, sorted out the misunderstanding without getting too deeply into it and promised to call him back. But it had still been a tough day, and it had clearly taken its toll on Rob.

  She didn’t feel much better herself, but at least she didn’t have to go to work on top of it all. At least, she hadn’t thought she did, until Mrs Cavelli revealed her plans for a New Year party. A party that urgently needed a caterer. She’d moved impressively fast: she could only possibly have found out what Leah did for a living the night before, and was already in action. Leah could almost feel the silky touch of a web being weaved around her.

  Ideally she needed nothing but sleep today. About ten hours, preferably drug induced and dream free. That’d perk her up no end. Maybe then, she’d feel up to a few rounds with Mama Cavelli, who was still talking. Maybe then, she might be able to unravel the tangle of emotions she was feeling after her first night as ‘just friends’ with Rob – which hadn’t ended up all that friendly.

  They’d got back at stupid o’clock, after a night of contrasts: cop shop, restaurant, impromptu tour of Chicago waterfront. The adrenaline of the day, and the fact her body clock thought it was still the afternoon, had kept her going through it all.