Call it Love

by Kress, Alyssa

  He stood by the closed door, an oblong box in his hands and a very funny expression on his face.

  Too much, Cookie decided. As she brushed back her hair with her fingers, she could feel color rise from her neck. She hadn't meant to tease him, had she?

  He frowned briefly, looking irritated, then schooled the frown away. He gestured with the box. "Luther's wedding present. It's pretty heavy."

  "Probably something from his studio. We can open it when we get home." She hoped it wasn't one of those vases Luther patterned after her figure. She didn't think Chess would understand.

  He set the box aside and walked toward her. "Rebecca, I have to ask you something."

  Oh, no. Rebecca.

  "What?"

  He took hold of her hand. "This is something I need to know, Cookie, so please be honest with me."

  She swallowed hard. "I'll try."

  His thumb played gently over her fingers, doing the oddest things to her inner physiology.

  "Rebecca, are you frightened of me?"

  She froze, staring up into his intent, sober face. "No," she whispered faintly. "I mean, I don't think so."

  His eyes remained on her face as he brought her hand up to his mouth. There his lips softly brushed her skin. She'd never have guessed the skin on her hand was so sensitive. The velvet touch of his lips made her knees weak.

  His eyes remained on her face. "Are you sure?"

  "No," she heard herself admit in a whisper.

  A corner of his mouth lifted. "Ah, that explains—a lot." He let go of her hand, but his regard remained intent. "Please forgive me if I make a few missteps. I'm learning here. But at least I know where to start now."

  "What?"

  "In convincing you not to be afraid any more."

  "Oh."

  He was speaking in such a soft, soothing voice that Cookie felt as though she were falling under a spell.

  "We'll start now," he declared.

  Cookie blinked a few times. "I'm sorry, what? What are we doing?"

  "Teaching you not to be afraid of me."

  Before she had a chance to react, he leaned forward and planted a short kiss on her mouth. It was just long enough and just hard enough to be more than merely friendly.

  It made fairy bells ring through Cookie's head.

  Meanwhile, Chess stepped back to scan her face. "Not bad," he decided, looking cautiously pleased. "Come on, Cookie. Let's go home."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A few evenings later in his ground floor laboratory at the plant, Chess regarded the array of glass bottles before him. The scent he had in mind was definitely going to be a challenge. No jasmine, no sandalwood, no musk. He couldn't use any of the common ingredients found in most perfumes. It would have to be a masterpiece of innovation.

  Fortunately, he knew he'd suffer no interruptions. The plant had emptied out for the day.

  Cinnamon, Chess thought. Something spicy. Seated at his composing center, he reached for an empty bottle. He had three hours before he had to pick Cookie up from the theater. Plenty of time to get started.

  Satisfaction seeped through him as he anticipated the late night rendezvous. Although it grated to admit it, Luther had been absolutely correct. Chess was finally getting somewhere with Cookie, and it was all because he'd started to think with his brain instead of his cock.

  Cookie was afraid of him. His pride hadn't wanted to admit that, hadn't been able to understand why he was so much less acceptable than all of her other lovers. But once he'd accepted the fact, he'd known how to go on.

  He kept the physical stuff safe. Agonizingly safe. He barely even kissed her.

  This method had been working. Slowly, she was losing her reserve. Gradually, she was starting to trust him.

  Chess dipped a pipette into a bottle of evil-smelling brown goo. He dropped a spot of it into his empty bottle. Meanwhile, he thought about the rare kisses he had taken. Each completely chaste. Unfortunately, the more chaste he'd kept things for Cookie, the more wild his own unmet fantasies became. It had reached the point where all he had to do was walk into a room with her in it, and he'd be half-aroused. Let him get close to her, and it reached the level of pain.

  Sighing, Chess prayed he could hold out in this delicate dance they were about. As he reached out for an ethyl alcohol base, a loud buzzer went off at his desk. He halted, startled, then nearly dropped the bottle.

  "Hell!"

  He shot out of his chair. In two strides, he was at his desk. He squatted down and peered underneath where he'd had the security company secretly install the indicator lights for the new alarm system. One light blinked red. Chess squinted to make out the typed label.

  Kate's office.

  He flew out his door and halfway across the lab, murder on his mind. This spy had breathed his last. He'd be lucky to see the light of day tomorrow.

  But at the stairwell door of the fourth floor, Chess paused, catching his breath. He was going to have to exercise some caution. Hell, the guy might be armed.

  Slowly, he turned the knob of the stairwell door. Armed or not, Chess was going to catch the guy.

  The hall was empty, but Chess could see that Kate's office door was open. A faint light spilled out of it onto the patterned carpet of the hall.

  Ballsy son of a bitch. Chess slipped out of the stairwell and closed the door silently behind himself. Just as silently, he crept toward Kate's open office door.

  The sound of rummaging could be heard from inside: drawers opening and closing, papers rustling. For the first time, it occurred to Chess to wonder what the spy wanted in Kate's office. Nothing of corporate value was stored there. The formulas were locked in the vault off the lab mezzanine. Any marketing ideas were in Ruth's office up Market Street. If the spy should be anywhere, it should be in Diana's office on the third floor.

  "Shit," a voice muttered softly from inside the office.

  What the hell—? The voice was one Chess knew very well. With no further apprehension about armed intruders, he boldly strode around the corner and through the door.

  He stopped about two steps inside, hands on his hips.

  Alex looked up from his seat on the other side of Kate's cherrywood desk. He froze, his youthful features limned in stark lines from the single desk lamp he'd lit. Alarm and then guilt flew over his face. "Shit," he repeated.

  "That about says it," Chess agreed. "What the hell are you doing?"

  Alex fell back in Kate's expensive chair. The papers in his hands dropped into his lap.

  "Oh, for Christ's sake," Chess grumbled. "Don't faint on me." But the pallor in his half-brother's face said he wasn't listening. Chess went directly for the wood cabinet behind the desk. "Kate keeps a bottle of something here for clients, doesn't she?"

  Chess found the bottle. It was twelve-year-old Scotch. Shrugging, he poured a mouthful into one of the glass tumblers sitting next to it. Kate wouldn't begrudge the expense for her youngest.

  He was just in time. Alex coughed on the hard liquor, but some of the color returned to his cheeks. "Thanks," he croaked.

  Chess sat on the edge of the desk. He gave Alex a less than gentle tap on the back. "You're welcome. Now, tell me what the hell you're doing here."

  Alex closed his eyes. "I saw your light and thought you were busy in the lab."

  "Obviously, or you wouldn't have gone snooping around Kate's desk. What's the idea?"

  Alex hesitated before shooting Chess a wary look. "I think Mom's having an affair."

  Chess's immediate reaction was to laugh. It was hard to imagine Kate defrosting enough for anything remotely that passionate. "Even if that were true, what does it have to do with you nosing in her desk?"

  Alex grabbed the loose papers that had fallen into his lap. Chess now recognized them as phone message slips. Alex held about a dozen of them which he proceeded to dump on the clear top of Kate's desk. "Look at this. Thirteen of them. All from some guy named N.J. Williams."

  Chess fingered through the pile. None of
the messages said anything further than the date and the name of Kate's caller. "So?"

  "So." Alex gnashed his teeth. "These dates. Last Friday. The Tuesday before that. And Monday. Those are all the days she came home late from work."

  "I'm not getting the connection."

  Alex gave Chess a look that said he was one prime idiot. "She gets a call from N.J. Williams. Then she's an hour-and-a-half, two hours, late coming home. Her face is all flushed, and she looks guilty as all get out."

  Chess wasn't yet ready to bite. But neither did he meet Alex's eyes. "We don't even know that N.J. Williams is a man."

  "Oh, spare me. Mom is meeting a woman for clandestine rendezvous."

  "There may be nothing clandestine about it. Or romantic. This could be a buyer she's trying to woo." Even as Chess said the words, his brain raced to remember if any of their buyers had the name of Williams. "That isn't my side of the business," Chess murmured out loud. "I don't know if one of the big department stores has changed their contact person."

  Alex was disgusted. "No business would take two hours of Mom's time after work, two or three times a week."

  Chess had to admit that Alex's reasoning was solid. Nor did he understand why he was resisting the idea. Why did the possibility of Kate taking a lover make him so uncomfortable? "Where did you find those message slips?" he stalled.

  "Hiding under some accounting paper in the bottom drawer."

  "Why would she keep them?" Chess wondered softly.

  "Hide them, you mean," Alex corrected.

  A bolt of wood seemed to hit Chess in the chest. "He might be married."

  "Holy shit," Alex groaned.

  The vague discomfort inside Chess expanded into something a lot less vague and a lot more familiar.

  "Holy shit," Chess echoed. He sat there, staring down at Alex and trying to think of any other possible explanation. Hidden phone messages. Meetings that went on for hours and had nothing to do with business. And not a word, not a peep out of Kate that she was seeing anybody on a legitimate basis.

  "What are we going to do?" Alex's face had again paled.

  "Have some more of this." Chess pushed the Scotch toward him. Then he rose from his perch on Kate's desk. His legs took him restlessly across the room. "To be perfectly honest, none of this is our business." But the statement didn't have much conviction. He had to protect Kate. That was his job. It had always been his job. Protecting Kate was the only way he'd ever been able to reach her.

  "Right. You're just going to sit back and let her get screwed?"

  "We don't know for sure that's what's happening."

  Alex's expression was scornful. "Why do you think I'm here? She was three hours late tonight. And her lipstick was all wiped off."

  Something curled inside Chess's stomach. Why would she hide the phone messages? "All right," he suddenly decided. "We'll keep an eye on her."

  "How do we do that?" Alex was gathering the phone messages. He opened the bottom drawer of his mother's desk.

  "The loudspeaker system. It will announce if she's getting a call from this N.J. Williams."

  "What if she's in her office when he calls?"

  "If he's calling as often as all that, the chances are at least once she won't be. I'll hear the announcement."

  Alex pulled up the blank accounting paper and stuffed the illicit messages underneath. "Then what are you going to do?" He looked up to meet Chess's eyes. "You going to follow her?"

  The thought made Chess sick. "Forget it."

  "Or you could try to prevent her from keeping the appointment," Alex continued. "Keep her busy here. Make up some excuse she can't leave."

  "That won't work forever."

  Alex gave a tight smile. "No. But we'll know then, won't we? If she won't simply say that she has to meet somebody, then we'll know it isn't legit."

  Yes, Chess thought, then they would know. And after that what would he do? When he'd been nine years old and kids at school had called Kate names, he'd punched their lights out. At eighteen when he'd heard that a man named David Thibideaux had proposed, he'd ditched school in Boston and secretly flown out to San Francisco to challenge the man's intentions. When his mother had needed his talent, he'd joined her fragrance company.

  It seemed that every time he turned around, she needed him. But every time he tried to help, she never thanked him for it. This particular time, Chess was sure, she would appreciate his interference least of all.

  "After that," Alex stated, "you'll have to follow her."

  Chess knew that he was right.

  ~~~

  "Darn, I ran out of crumbs to throw," Kate lamented. At the end of the lonely fishing pier, she shook the bag that had held the sourdough loaf they'd bought for dinner. She then eyed the hopefully circling seagulls to which she'd been tossing the leftovers. "Sorry, guys. Feeding time is over."

  Bernard came up to take the bag from her and peer inside. "You'd have had more to throw if you hadn't eaten so much of the loaf yourself. You resembled a linebacker."

  "I was starving." Kate laughed.

  Bernard's eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled back at her. "Skip lunch again?"

  "Mm. Maybe."

  Their eyes met, and Bernard came to stand beside her at the railing to look over the bay.

  Kate felt a mixture of excitement and comfort at his proximity. Bernard had not had to threaten Kate in order to get her to meet him this evening. He hadn't had to threaten Kate for some time now. She looked forward to seeing him now, his companionship, the small thrill of his closeness.

  It was like they were starting over.

  All he'd had to do was stop mentioning Chess.

  "Should I go buy another loaf?" Bernard offered.

  Kate knew he would if she asked him to even though it would mean walking all the way back to the shopping area at the other end of the pier. Bernard was very sweet to her.

  "No, but thank you. I doubt bread is even very good for them." Meanwhile, Kate wondered if Bernard was good for her. Sometimes it felt like he was. It felt like he was helping her heal from her loss. When he indulged her so far as to forget his claim on Chess, he almost felt safe.

  Well, maybe not completely safe, Kate admitted as Korman shifted close enough to put an arm around her shoulders. That felt too nice to be safe.

  It felt so very nice that sometimes she wondered if Bernard was playing her, like a man played a fish on a line.

  Sometimes.

  With his free arm, Bernard sketched an arc encompassing the choppy water of the bay and the scudding clouds overhead. "This is what life is all about, isn't it? The sea, the sky, fresh air. It's so big. Makes everything else seem small and petty by comparison."

  "Everything?" Kate teased. Feeling reckless, she added, "Even your business?"

  "Especially my business." Still looking over the water, Bernard shook his head. "Maybe it would be different if I felt I was leaving a legacy, but none of my daughters are interested in carrying on."

  "You didn't bring them up to want it," Kate chided.

  Bernard lifted a shoulder. "I had to be honest about where their passions lay. A parent can't impose his own wants and needs on his children."

  Guilt stabbed Kate. This was exactly what she'd done with Chess: imposed her own worldview on an innocent child. She'd thought she was protecting him, teaching him to be independent, teaching him not to need. In truth, she'd only been indulging her own fears and clouding his life with her bitter outlook.

  "Probably just as well none of the four of them wanted to go into the fragrance business," Bernard continued with a chuckle. "To be honest, not one of them inherited a drop of the talent."

  Kate swallowed uncomfortably during the complete silence that followed this statement. They both knew Bernard did have one child who shared both his passion for the business and his talent. The one child he was not allowed to know.

  "It's getting late," she declared in a hoarse voice and moved to straighten from her position leaning next
to him at the rail.

  Bernard let go of her with an amused look. "Is there somewhere you have to be?"

  Anywhere but in this incredibly tight position into which she'd let herself fall. "Not really, but Alex will wonder where I've been." Actually, she imagined her younger son was too interested in preserving his own freedom to inquire too deeply into hers.

  "Let him wonder." Bernard straightened, too, and took Kate's hands. He drew her toward him until he was close enough to bend his mouth right next to her ear. "Come home with me."

  As if she weren't in this thing too deep as it was. And yet the vibrations of his voice sent excitement shuddering through her. A crazy part of her wanted to say yes.

  "I can't."

  Leaning back enough to look into her eyes, Bernard held her hands against his chest. "We've been dancing around this for weeks now. Let's put out the fire."

  She closed her eyes, feeling surprisingly tempted. On the other hand, the timing of his offer was rather suspicious, given the most recent turn of their conversation. If she slept with him, she'd become so vulnerable...

  "Actually, I think you're suggesting playing with fire, not putting one out." She opened her eyes. "It's too dangerous."

  "How? We're both free, consenting adults. Who would it hurt?"

  "As it is, the more often we meet, the more likely someone will find out about us."

  "So what?"

  Kate rolled her eyes. "Think about it, Bernard. Our companies are rivals. Our relationship would make no sense. People would—come to crazy conclusions."

  "People." Bernard dropped her hands. "You mean Chess."

  With the one word, he drew back the curtain from the elephant in the room. Kate felt her forehead heat. "He wouldn't understand."

  "No. You're worried he might understand all too well."

  She lifted her chin. "Of course I am."

  He opened his mouth as if to retort, but only ended up shaking his head. "Kate...all this angst. Why don't you just tell him the truth?"

  Her throat closed. "Impossible!"

  "Why?" He looked down at her, his expression tired. "Answer me that. Better yet, answer it for yourself. Why can't you?"

  Did he imagine this was a reasonable question? God, maybe it was. Kate's forehead felt hotter than ever, her throat constricted. The image of being a fish on a line flew back into her mind. "You're manipulating me."