by J. R. Ward
The answer, she now knew, was passion. When her parents had been together, there had been magic and sparks and tenderness, even with the perennial conflict. Her father had been very tall and statuesque, a powerful man with a deep chest and a low voice that rumbled like thunder. Usually, he was very serious, but under the right circumstances, her mother could shake him out of his somber moods. Callie suspected that must have been part of the attraction for her mother. Transforming someone so great, so powerful, even if it was only for a short time, must have been meaningful.
And perhaps the passion, the emotion, the laughter, was what her father had lacked in his bigger life, but found in their tiny apartment.
Callie shook her head, thinking she would never know. Maybe he’d had those same things at Grace’s house, too.
Arthur butted his head against her hand, but when she went to scratch the scruff under his chin, he looked pointedly at the picnic basket.
“Right.” She snapped to attention and opened the thing up. Tossing him a strip of chicken, she started in on the salad while deciding it was time to take a break. She was contemplating a walk when she remembered the documents that were in the closet.
When she was finished with lunch, she lifted the top container off the stack and muscled it over to the couch. As she removed the lid, there was no sense pretending she wasn’t preoccupied with going out to dinner with Jack, and she figured she could handle sorting paper with a scattered brain.
It was safer than playing around with chemicals and the painting—that was for sure.
12
LATER THAT evening, Callie stared at her reflection in the bathroom and played with her hair. Up? Down?
She let it fall across her shoulders, knowing it shouldn’t matter.
Two minutes later, her hands were propping it up on her head again. She couldn’t help herself and a lot of it was pride. She didn’t want to meet Jack looking anything less than composed. Refined. Elegant.
Although she was going to need a different wardrobe to really pull it off. She’d settled on a black skirt that fell below the knee, a white blouse that was pretty nondescript, and a black sweater to wrap around her shoulders. The black tights and shoes were also garden variety. Regarding herself in the bathroom mirror, she figured she was one step away from looking like a nun, saved only by the red fall of her hair.
Definitely down, she thought. And lose the old-lady tights.
She ran a razor over her calves, put on some nude stockings, and slipped into a pair of shoes with a modest heel.
Throwing on her coat and picking up her purse, she headed for the stairs quickly because Thomas was waiting for her. She was about to hit the top landing when Mrs. Walker’s voice stopped her.
“Going out this evening?” The woman stepped into the hall and looked over what Callie was wearing.
“Yes. I am.”
“With my son?”
Callie lifted her chin. Rule number two when dealing with a bully: Show no fear.
“Yes.”
“Well. You’ve certainly made an impression on him. I imagine you must be quite pleased.”
As if Callie had set out all along to seduce her son.
“If you’ll excuse me, I don’t want to keep Jack waiting.” She turned and started down the stairs.
“Don’t fool yourself, Ms. Burke. My son is very much in love with his fiancée. There is no hope for you.”
Rule number three for dealing with bullies: If you have to set them straight, do it firmly. Any weakness is perceived as an opening and will immediately be capitalized on.
Callie looked over her shoulder and spoke clearly. “Please don’t take offense at this, but you are presuming a hell of a lot of things for no good reason. Good night, Mrs. Walker.”
She forced herself not to race down the stairs. The last thing she wanted to do was slip and fall, and her legs already felt like pipe cleaners.
It was a relief to find Thomas in the kitchen wearing a biker’s jacket, all ready to go.
“You’re going to like Nico’s,” he said, holding the back door open. “The owner’s a friend of mine. Best osso buco in Little Italy.”
Waiting outside, with the motor running, was the Pontiac GTO she’d seen in the driveway earlier.
“Nice car,” she said, getting in.
“You’ve got excellent taste.”
Twenty minutes later, he piloted them through a cramped network of streets and stopped in front of a bright red door.
“Thanks for the ride.” She got out and waved as he screeched off.
She went inside Nico’s, and when her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw a fleet of tiny tables and dozens of waiters dancing around with trays held high on their shoulders. The place was packed with people talking and laughing and there was some kind of fabulous opera playing in the background.
No, wait. That was one of the waiters singing.
“Welcome!” A man came up to her and smiled. “I am Nico! Come this way, Ms. Burke.”
“How did you—”
“He is right, of course. The red of your hair. Beautiful!”
Bemused, Callie followed the man past a bunch of people who were obviously waiting for tables and she looked for Jack in the crowd.
But he wasn’t there and she wasn’t led to a table. Nico went straight through the room and into the kitchen. There, at a linen-covered table in the back, Jack was sitting down and laughing at something one of the cooks had said.
“Mr. Walker is an old friend,” Nico explained with a smile. “So we always make a special place for him.”
Nico took the coat from her shoulders just as Jack turned and saw her. He stopped laughing and seemed to take a breath. Abruptly, the noise of the kitchen quieted down and she felt the eyes of the staff on her.
“Go to him, yes?” Nico prompted with delight. “He has been waiting for you.”
Jack got to his feet, his eyes traveling up and down the length of her. He was wearing a black suit, a crisp white shirt, and a brilliant red tie. For some reason, he seemed even taller than she remembered.
Oh, God, Callie thought. Yes, she wanted to go to him.
As she walked to the table, she heard the chefs go back to work, which was just as well. Jack’s attention was quite enough for her to handle.
“Hello.” He came around and pulled out her chair.
He was about to sit down again when his face broke out in a grin.
“Gray! You made it.” The relief in his voice was obvious.
Callie looked down and saw the third place setting. So that was it. He’d wanted to set her up with his friend and was giving it another shot.
Right. Good.
As she turned around, she made sure her smile was in place.
Well, at least Gray Bennett was easy on the eyes, she thought as she looked at him.
Jack’s friend was tall and had hair that was lightly graying around the temples. His pale eyes were sharp, his suit pin-striped and beautifully tailored, his tie perfectly knotted. She could see instantly why he and Jack might get along.
“Jack’s told me a lot about you,” the man said, offering her his hand.
“Oh, really?” She felt nothing as they touched and was a little disappointed.
But the night was young, she thought.
As she went to sit down, Jack and Gray both reached for the back of her chair. With a dark laugh, Jack stepped back and let his friend settle her into the table.
Gray smiled at her as he took a seat. “I understand that you worked on the de Kooning with Micheline. She’s a very close friend of mine. She restored two of my family portraits.”
Of course. Bennett as in Bennett Trust Company. As in the Bennett School of Private Industry at Harvard University.
She frowned, thinking she’d also heard of Gray Bennett himself, but not in the financial sector. What had it been?
“Would you like some wine?” Gray asked, picking up the bottle of red off the table.
“Sh
e only likes white,” Jack said, taking her glass and filling it from a bottle of Chardonnay he had cooling in a stand.
By the time the antipasto course had been eaten, Callie was surprised at how easy Gray was to talk to. He was interested in what she said, asked questions about her work and where she was from, but didn’t probe the way Jack did. And when he talked about himself, she figured out why she knew of him.
Gray Bennett was a heavy hitter in politics. As a consultant specializing in elections, he knew a lot about Washington, and she was fascinated by his juicy stories about the political world, even if he edited out some of the names. As the entrées arrived, she decided that having dinner with him wasn’t quite the chore she’d assumed it would be.
Jack was the one making her uneasy. He was a constant source of movement, tapping his foot on the floor, folding his napkin again and again, rearranging his place setting. He looked like he couldn’t wait to get the meal over with, and as a plate of pasta was set before him, he told the waiter to start preparing the dessert.
Gray grinned at her. “You’ll have to excuse Jack. He hates downtime. Any wasted moment is a crime to him.”
When Jack’s mouth tightened, Gray cocked an eyebrow at him. “Do you want to leave? I can assure you, Callie and I will do just fine on our own.”
Jack looked as if that was about as attractive an option as staying was. He brushed a hand through his hair and seemed tired. “Just ignore me. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
Gray looked across the table at her. “Did he tell you we were roommates at Harvard?”
When she nodded, the man poured himself a little more wine and settled back in his chair. “Did he tell you how we were almost expelled?”
“No, I didn’t,” Jack said.
“Ah, good. A fresh slate.” Gray rubbed his palms together. “Picture this. It’s right before Christmas break, around midnight. Jack, his brother, Nate, and I decide that we’ve had enough of studying. We head out of Eliot House, convinced there has to be more to life than Aristotle, Homer, and their crew of deep-thinking, togawearing wordsmiths.”
“I think I was studying stats, actually.”
Gray waved Jack into silence. “We end up at the boathouse and decide that taking a shell or two out on the Charles will be a great way to burn off some energy. The three of us get on the water in separate boats and decide we’ll race between bridges. Losers have to take off a piece of clothing after each sprint. The winner gets bragging rights and seventy-four dollars and fifty-three cents, which was all the cash we had on us at the time.”
“God, do you remember how cold it was that night?” Jack interjected.
“Now, Nate and I, we know who we’re going up against. Jack was captain of the varsity crew team. The man could row anyone under the table. Hell, he probably still can. In light of his scary skills, we made him start twenty yards back. But you cheated, didn’t you?”
“Like I had to with you two lightweights?” Jack was warming up now, his eyes flashing. “I don’t think so.”
“So we start racing,” Gray went on. “After four laps, Jack is fully clothed, Nate and I are rowing without shirts and shoes. A crowd starts to gather on one of the bridges so, of course, we start showing off. Jack didn’t lose once, but Nate and I put on one hell of a strip show at the end of each pass. We were down to our underwear when the accident happened.”
Callie glanced over at Jack and saw his smile dim.
Gray also got more serious. “Nate was taking off his boxers and waving them to the crowd when his shell tipped. I can still see him right before he went in, tilted at a totally wrong angle, arms pinwheeling, eyes wide. He hit his head on an oar as he went into the river. Before I was even out of my seat, Jack had whipped off his jacket and plowed into the water. How cold was it?”
“Probably forty-five degrees. It hadn’t frozen yet, but it was close,” Jack said, bringing his wineglass to his lips.
“Anyway, Jack dragged Nate back to shore. The police, alerted by the rowdy crowd, showed up just as they collapsed on the ground next to the bridge. The two of them got carted off with the lights going. It was very exciting.”
“At least they gave us blankets.”
Gray looked at his friend thoughtfully. “I’ve never seen anyone move as fast as you did.”
“It was my brother in that river.”
The two fell into silence.
“You were very lucky,” Callie said, imagining what could have resulted from such a plunge into that kind of water. “But what happened to you, Gray?”
“Nothing.” He grinned widely. “I’m no dummy. As soon as I could see Nate was fine, I hid under the bridge in my boat until the fervor died down. Snuck the shell back in the boathouse. Was never caught.”
Jack smiled. “Isn’t that just like a consultant.”
“Hey, I posted your bail.”
“Yeah, you did. My father had no interest in taking care of that. He told me later he would have preferred we’d spent the week in jail.” Jack looked over at her. “Fortunately, the charges of public indecency and misuse of private property were later dropped, but only because one of my crewmate’s fathers was the judge. Harvard put us both on probation.”
“We were heroes that last semester in school,” Gray said, with a chuckle.
When dinner was over and their plates were being cleared, Gray had started to talk about his vacation home in the Adirondacks.
“It’s been in my family for generations. Jack’s spent a lot of time there, although Blair hasn’t been there yet, has she?” He leaned back while a cup of cappuccino was set in front of him. “We’ll have to get the two of you up this summer for a proper vacation. Come for a week.”
Callie looked away quickly as Jack made some noncommittal reply. Gray pressed on. “You know, I think she’d really like it up there. She strikes me as the kind who’d be just as comfortable in hiking boots as she is in a ball gown.”
Jack’s response was quiet, something along the lines of agreement.
“Callie, have you met his fiancée yet?” Gray asked.
Her heart stopped and she could feel Jack’s eyes burning from across the table. She forced herself to look up and smile. “I haven’t had the pleasure, no.”
“You’re going to love her. She’s a remarkable woman. And a terrific match for Jack, considering what he’s about to get himself into.”
As Gray turned and cocked an eyebrow in inquiry, Jack cleared his throat. “I haven’t mentioned anything, but we can talk about it in front of her.”
What she would have preferred, Callie thought, was having no more talking at all.
“In all likelihood,” Gray said, “our friend here is going to run for governor of this fine commonwealth next year.”
Callie glanced across the table at Jack.
Political ambitions. How appropriate, given his family’s history.
She tried to picture him leading the state and could see it clearly. He was charismatic, smart, compelling. And he probably wasn’t going to stop there. Knowing him, he would shoot for the Oval Office.
Jack nodded at his friend. “I’m pulling together my team now. Gray’s going to make himself indispensable, aren’t you?”
“And you’re going to need all the help you can get. This is going to be a nasty fight, considering who the incumbent is.”
“Who will you be facing?” Callie asked.
“Bill Callahan. Better known as Butch Callahan,” Jack answered. “He likes to play dirty, and fortunately, I’m not put off by a good fight. I’m going to enjoy trying to beat him.”
She thought back to him in his study, phone up to his ear, looking like he was about to reach through the wires and grab someone around the throat. And then she saw him crawling into the ceiling over the garage, determined to fix the stereo even if it took him all night. He was the kind of man who would stand up to anything and persevere until he had what he wanted. She figured whoever he was up against had better watch out.
Gray shook his head. “Like I said before, you’re going to have to be prepared to have some serious mud thrown at you. Butch and his buddies are going to get into everything, especially your, ah, past.”
Jack frowned while his friend looked at Callie.
“But fortunately, his wild days are over. There’s no more carousing with the ladies and Blair is a great asset. Photogenic as hell with a background that’s clean as a whistle. She also happens to be a fine person, which is the most important part.”
“How about dessert?” Jack asked.
How about getting the hell out of here, Callie thought.
As Jack nodded to the waiter, she had no idea how she was going to sit at the table for another moment. It was a relief when they were finally done and Jack, who insisted on paying, left to find Nico.
Gray regarded her steadily and smiled. “I’m in town for the next few weeks. Would you like to get together again?”
She hesitated, but then Jack came back to the table.
“Yes, I would.”
“Yes, what?” Jack asked.
Before Gray could say anything, she stood up. “This has been lovely.”
Which was partially the truth. Under different circumstances she would have enjoyed getting to know Gray. He was charming and witty, though he could have been a troll for all the attraction he had for her.
No, she saved her lusty thoughts for the unattainable. Lucky girl that she was.
After they thanked the chefs and Nico, she and Gray waited outside the restaurant while Jack went to get the car.
“So how do you like working for Jack?” Gray asked.
“I love the painting.” It was as close to the truth as she could get at the moment.
“It is a masterpiece. When Nate Six went bankrupt, he sold it off and Jack was infuriated. At the time, he was just out of business school and starting at J. P. Morgan in New York. He was working his tail off, but he didn’t have enough money of his own to meet the asking price. He’s waited for years to get that portrait back.”
Callie stared at Gray in surprise. Bankruptcy and the Walker name were two things she never thought would get linked.
“How did Mr. Walker go—what—er, what did Mr. Walker do for a living?”