Call it Love

by Kress, Alyssa

  "So tell me." Alex regarded her closely. "Why the sudden defense of Chess?"

  Cookie frowned. Had she been defending Chess? "No reason," she mumbled and placed a towel over her face. She hadn't been defending Chess. Just looking for confirmation to prove she'd been right to reject his proposal out of hand.

  Deliberately, she put Chess and his problems out of her mind as she rubbed the towel down her face. The action removed the last trace of Theodora Scampi. Fortunately, she would reappear tomorrow night, come alive again by the magic of theater. Cookie smiled, already looking forward to it.

  Alex, watching in the mirror, seemed to read her thoughts. "It's too bad Dad never got to see the play."

  Cookie slowly lowered the towel, her voice careful. "Oh, I don't think he'd care for Murder at Sea. Too fluffy, you know. And the audience has to walk around the rooms. Not the thing."

  Alex grinned. "You're in it, aren't you? He'd have loved it."

  That's why Cookie adored her little brother. Always a bright thought, no matter how unlikely. She smiled. "You're a sweetheart. Can I buy you a cup of coffee on the way home?"

  Alex checked his watch. "All right. If you hurry changing."

  Cookie was just about to step behind a screen to change when the rest of the cast, having finished the play, all entered the dressing room in one noisy, boisterous bunch. Hedi exclaimed over Alex and ruffled his blond hair. Peter clapped Cookie on the shoulder and teased her for the evil eye she'd shown one leering member of the audience. Bob loudly complained about someone dropping a prop.

  But Cookie's attention was on Rina as she lifted her baby from the crib. Envy and desire went through Cookie like twin shafts of fire.

  It was utterly cruel she could want a baby so badly when she had no desire to go through the requisite physical interaction to get one. Why, in twelve years the closest she'd come to a man had been her embrace in the lonely cemetery with Chester Bradshaw.

  ~~~

  "Are you sure this is worth our time?" Ruth Coldwell asked Chess. An angular, sharp-featured woman close to his own age, the advertising executive sat by his side on the overstuffed white sofa in his living room. Her sketches for the proposed ad campaign were spread over the teak coffee table in front of them, anchored by a pair of glasses of Unti from Sonoma. Chess had opened the bottle from the up-and-coming winery in order to repay Ruth for agreeing to come over after her other work had carried late into the night.

  "I'm sure it's worth it." Chess refused to consider the informal meeting with his old friend, Ruth, a waste of time. Indeed, he couldn't afford not to proceed with plans for the new perfume's launch. He needed to have the very best campaign possible if, by some miracle, he managed to round up the money necessary to execute it.

  Ruth sighed. "All right, then." Her expression showed her own pessimism regarding the deal, but she proceeded with her presentation. "The idea is to portray the idea of freshness." With an ink-stained finger, she pointed toward a photograph showing a meadow of yellow wildflowers.

  Chess looked at the photograph. Freshness. Innocence. New life. Sounded good to him. Then he glanced toward Ruth Coldwell's profile as she extracted another photo from her pile. She had a long, aquiline nose and smelled faintly of one of the classic Scents Allure perfumes.

  Two years ago the two of them had tried an affair. It hadn't lasted long. As Chess recalled, they hadn't been very compatible in bed. They'd soon decided they got along much better on a purely platonic basis.

  But now as Ruth frowned and made a pencil mark on the margin of the photo she'd just pulled, he wondered if he could rustle up some of his old desire for her.

  He wanted to make sure he still had a male appetite.

  "No, this one is no good," Ruth muttered and slid a different photo in front of herself.

  Chess hadn't realized Diana had been coming on to him at the plant yesterday until long after the fact. Missing something like that wasn't like him. He wasn't dense about the signals women sent out. Hell, he liked sex. He maybe liked it too much since one of the reasons he and Ruth hadn't worked out was because his appetite was so much stronger than hers.

  On the other hand, he hadn't even thought about sex since he'd discovered the problem with the classic perfumes four months ago.

  He leaned closer to Ruth. He didn't want to do anything, just wanted to feel something. Anything...

  The doorbell chimed.

  Chess leaned away and frowned. "It must be after midnight. Who could that be?"

  Ruth smiled her thin lips as she reached for her wineglass. "Knowing you, I'm afraid to ask."

  But Chess was far from expecting female callers. At his front door, he switched on the porch light before unbolting and opening the door. Then he simply stood on the inside of his marble-tiled foyer and stared at the woman before him. She was the very last female he had expected.

  "Rebecca," he said aloud.

  She was wearing a long, afghan sweater, loose over a form-fitting, black leotard. Little black boots encased her feet. As usual, she was just a hair this side of respectable. She rubbed her arms, and he finally realized that he was making her stand outside in the cold.

  "Please. Come in." He stepped back. His heart began to thud as she warily crossed his threshold. So maybe he hadn't completely messed up the other day...

  "Chess?" Ruth's voice drifted into the hall before Chess had quite got the door closed behind Cookie.

  She began to back up. "Oh, dear. I didn't mean to interrupt anything."

  "You aren't." Chess caught her arm before she managed to slip out the door. He wasn't letting such a heaven-sent apparition get away.

  "I saw your light on," Cookie babbled, gesturing with one arm toward the dining room windows. "So I didn't think I'd wake you."

  "And, as you can see, you didn't wake anybody," Chess assured her.

  Ruth appeared in the arched opening of the living room. Her eyes went to Chess, humorous and questioning.

  "Ruth Coldwell," Chess said, "may I present Rebecca Thibideaux?" With his grip still about her upper arm, he gently ushered the woman toward Ruth and the living room. The further he got her from the front door, the better.

  In the living room, Cookie took in the two wine glasses on the coffee table, and Chess thought he saw her blanche.

  "Sit down," he ordered, before she could again decide that she'd interrupted.

  Ruth was eyeing the whole proceeding with undisguised amusement. "Thibideaux. Isn't that—?"

  "David's daughter," Chess replied with a warning glance. A lot of Ruth's money was involved here, too. She shouldn't mess things up with an indiscreet mention of something unkind Chess might have said about Cookie. "Would you like a glass of wine, Rebecca?"

  Cookie didn't appear to have heard him. Her eyes were curiously scanning the magazine layouts as she lowered onto the sofa. "Is this what you were working on?"

  Ruth shot Chess a concerned look. So far, the ideas for the proposed ad campaign had been closely guarded. The advertising would be a large part of what sold the product. Temptation, Scents Allure's new perfume, would rely on the uniqueness of its campaign to attract name-brand recognition.

  "I'll get another glass," Chess said. "Ruth, why don't you explain it to her?"

  Ruth's eyes widened on Chess before he left the room. He'd just given her permission to divulge the secret war code.

  When he came back with the bottle of wine and another glass, Cookie was slowly leafing through the stack of drafts, her chin in one hand. She glanced briefly up at Chess as he re-entered the room and then slid a speculative look in Ruth's direction. Chess couldn't blame her for wondering but also couldn't think of a credible way to explain Ruth's late-night presentation. It was probably safer not to try.

  "How many ads did you say?" she asked as Chess took a seat in the chair opposite her.

  Chess poured the wine, letting Ruth answer.

  "Starting in September, at least one full-page ad in all the major women's magazines. Then in December
for the last Christmas push, we're thinking of a four-pager in three of the top-selling mags."

  Cookie kept her eyes on the layouts. "Sounds expensive."

  "And that doesn't include the television commercials," Ruth added. She glanced over at Chess, obviously still confused about why he was revealing all of this.

  Chess kept his gaze on Cookie.

  What in the world was going on under that coffee-colored fall of hair? It was pulled back from her face with a pair of combs and fell from there in waves to her shoulders. If he looked carefully, he could just make out the generous curve of breast under the loose, brightly-colored afghan sweater.

  He was wishing that David's daughter had as much endowment in the region of her brain when she looked up and straight at him.

  She tapped her finger on top of the sheets. "How many millions of dollars is this?"

  Chess was too startled to reply. She'd latched straight in on the essentials, and she was even in the right ballpark regarding the money involved.

  "At least ten," Ruth replied, checking Chess for approval before revealing this figure. "We figure we should use fifteen, though, to ensure a payback."

  Cookie closed her eyes. "No wonder Kate's got cold feet."

  Chess stared at the woman. So, she'd figured that out, too.

  "How much can you raise," Cookie asked, "without her?"

  Ruth looked at Chess with uplifted brows.

  "Close to two." Chess's voice was rough with surprise.

  Cookie pursed her lips. "Not even close."

  "Coldwell Advertising is willing to joint venture in for five," Ruth carefully admitted. "But that still won't do it."

  Cookie fixed her gaze on Chess. "I'm beginning to see more of the picture here."

  Chess was starting to worry just how much she might actually be able to see. He hadn't intended to reveal to her quite this much in a way she could understand quite so well. In another question or two, she'd reach beyond what Ruth knew. Perhaps it was time to get her alone.

  "I've kept you far longer than I promised, Ruth." His smile was apologetic as he stood. "Thanks for staying to explain things to Rebecca."

  Ruth rose with a wry smile, catching on that she was being dismissed. "Glad I could help."

  "Rebecca, I'll be right back," Chess warned before following Ruth into the hall. He felt nervous about leaving Cookie alone even for that moment. Victory, he sensed, was close. But not quite yet. It could still slip away.

  At the front door, Ruth looked around Chess's circular driveway as though she couldn't find her car.

  "What's the matter?" asked Chess.

  "I'm looking for that sillyhead chickadee you told me about. I can't seem to find her anywhere."

  Chess laughed softly. "I guess I should have figured that with David Thibideaux as her father she had some brains hiding in there somewhere."

  "I thought you've known this woman for twenty years." Ruth did not sound happy. "You assured me this was going to be a piece of cake."

  Chess was quick to defend himself. "I never said that. I only said that I could handle her." Also a lie, but Ruth didn't have to know it.

  "I'm not sure which worries me more," Ruth mused, buttoning her jacket. "The possibility you won't be able to convince her to marry you—or the possibility you will."

  Chess smiled. "I can take care of myself." Certainly nobody else had ever done the job.

  For a moment Ruth stood, wavering. "I don't know, Chess. I've never seen you—" She abruptly broke off, apparently unwilling to finish the sentence.

  "You've never seen me what?"

  "I've never seen you trust someone so far," Ruth admitted in an apprehensive rush. She waved a hand in the air. "But I suppose she's family, after all."

  "Family?" Chess frowned. He'd never considered he owned one of those. Neither was it true that he wanted to trust Cookie. But he'd realized a few minutes ago that he didn't have a choice. Trusting her was the key. It was the only way to make her trust him. As Ruth's BMW roared away, he stood a moment longer alone in his driveway.

  He was used to people distrusting him, questioning his motives. Often they had good reason to be suspicious, and usually he fooled them anyway. But he was beginning to realize he wasn't going to fool Cookie. It was a sobering realization.

  But a seasoned warrior understood when a strategic retreat was in order. He'd make his surrender look real and then fall back to a more fortified position. It was still possible he wouldn't have to tell her everything. He wasn't ready to trust anybody that far.

  ~~~

  Cookie looked up to see Chess standing in the opening from the hallway. He'd been silently watching her. The expression on his face was carefully blank as he came into the room.

  "I didn't know advertising people could be so nice," Cookie remarked.

  "Ruth is more of an artist than a salesman," Chess explained. He sat in the chair opposite her.

  Not for the first time, Cooke got the impression of being a bug in a glass jar, under scientific observation.

  Meanwhile, she had made her own observations. "Have you known her long?" She wondered about the precise nature of a relationship where business was discussed over wine in a private home at an hour past midnight.

  "Years," was Chess's helpful reply.

  "Ah, that's nice," she murmured as her gaze slid away from his. Cookie was aware of the long trail of women in Chess's life; occasionally, she'd met a few. Blond, for the most part, slender, sharp, intelligent. All fully confident in their bodies. All the very opposite of herself.

  Granted, Ruth Coldwell, with her sharp features and boyish figure, didn't exactly fit the mold, either.

  "Have you been thinking about my proposal?" Chess asked.

  Cookie studied her fingernails. They were Theodora Scampi's nails, painted a bright and uninhibited scarlet. "A little," she admitted quietly. Her stomach turned. She still wasn't sure why she'd nixed a ride home from Alex, after all, and then told her cab driver to go past Chess's house. But his proposal, an idea she'd firmly refused from the outset, kept creeping back into her mind.

  "Anything I can provide to help you make up your mind," Chess's voice darkly offered, "just let me know."

  Cookie nodded, and the question she'd been harboring for the past fifteen minutes blurted out of her. "The two million you've raised—how much of that is your own money, Chess?"

  He hesitated for a long moment before admitting, "All of it."

  Somehow, she wasn't surprised. "Just how far are you extended on this?"

  His eyes narrowed on her, becoming points of dark green suspicion. "Does that matter?"

  "Yes." Was he nuts? Of course it mattered.

  He paused in apparent thought before his mouth suddenly quirked into an ironic smile. "Extended enough that you won't be getting a diamond engagement ring."

  Oh, boy. He was in even deeper than she'd imagined. As far as she knew, Chess was not a gambler. Yet here he was, strapped to his last dollar to finance what appeared to be one big throw of the dice. "Why?" she asked aloud.

  Something flickered behind his fixed gaze. It was anger. He opened his mouth—she was sure in order to tell her it was none of her business. Then he closed his mouth again. It seemed to take a very great effort, but he tamped down his temper. "All right," he muttered. "Come with me."

  Cookie had to scurry to keep up with Chess as he led the way out of the living room and down a narrow hall off the main entry foyer. He opened a door to what appeared to be a study. Inside were shelves of chemistry books, some sort of antiquated laboratory device, and a large, leather-bound desk. Chess went to this desk and, removing a set of keys from a pants pocket, unlocked the top drawer.

  "Here." He took out a thin stack of papers and dropped it on top of the desk. "Here's what you want to know."

  Cookie carefully lifted the stack, aware of the heavy weight of disgust in Chess's voice. "What am I looking at?"

  "That shows our earnings for the past four quarters. We've been losin
g more sales every quarter. Last month's sales were only twenty percent of what they were during the same month the previous year." With a short laugh, he averted his eyes. "In other words, Rebecca, Scents Allure is quietly going down the tubes."

  Cookie clutched the earnings reports in her hands. "Does Kate know about this?"

  "Yes," Chess hissed. He stared at the striped pattern of his sepia-colored wallpaper. "She thinks we should just hang on and hope things get better."

  "But they're getting worse," Cookie deduced, "not better."

  "They're getting worse."

  "The launch of a new perfume is a big risk, true," Cookie went on, feeling her way. "But if it succeeds, it could put you back where you used to be."

  "You understand the picture." He sounded more than a little surprised and turned to glare at her. "You also know more about the situation than anyone other than Kate and myself."

  "It stops here," Cookie assured him.

  He gave her a close look. "You better believe it does."

  The warning in his voice sent a chill down her back. At that moment Chess was pure male: possessive to the potential point of violence. Cookie could see that he would do anything to protect what he considered his.

  Wow. That was...kind of fascinating. Assuming one was a part of what Chess protected and not on the other side of that battle.

  Blinking at the thought, Cookie shoved the accounting forms back at him. "Here, you can put these away. I don't need proof. I believe you."

  Chess took the papers and put them back in the top drawer, which he then locked. Cookie wondered how many times he'd slipped down here in the middle of the night when unable to sleep and grimly stared at those traitorous numbers.

  He finished locking the drawer and looked up. In the dim light of the study, his eyes were a dark, metallic color. "Anything else I can help you with?"

  Cookie could tell it had cost him dearly to reveal to her as much as he had. Chess didn't like to show his weaknesses. But he had them. "Alex is wrong about you," she heard herself say.

  "Alex?" Chess took a seat behind his wide desk. "That's not terribly surprising. Alex is wrong about a lot of things." He picked up a pen and tapped the point of it on his desk. "But, what in particular, is Alex wrong about this time?"