by Nora Roberts
“What?”
“Looks like a bronc rider. I wonder if Carlson or any of the others have any interest in this building.”
Pandora set her coffee down before she tasted it. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“As I remember, Jolley turned over Tristar Corporation to Monroe about twenty-five years ago. I remember my parents talking about it.”
“Tristar. Which one is that?”
“Plastics. I know he gave little pieces of the pie out here and there. He told me once he wanted to give all his relatives a chance before he crossed them off the list.”
After a moment’s thought, she shrugged and picked up her coffee again. “Well, if he did give a few shares of Sanfield to one of them, what difference does it make?”
“I don’t know how much we should trust Lockworth.”
“You’d have felt better if he’d been bald and short with Coke-bottle glasses and a faint German accent.”
“Maybe.”
“See?” Pandora smiled. “You’re just jealous because he has great shoulders.” She fluttered her lashes. “Here’s your turkey.”
They ate slowly, drank more coffee, then passed more time with pie. After an hour and a half, both of them were restless and edgy. When Lockworth came in, Pandora forgot to be nervous about the results.
“Thank God, here he comes.”
After maneuvering around chairs and employees on lunch break, Lockworth set a computer printout on the table and handed the box back to Michael. “I thought you’d want a copy.” He took a seat and signaled for coffee. “Though it’s technical.”
Pandora frowned down at the long, chemical terms printed out on the paper. It meant little more than nothing to her, but she doubted trichloroethanol or any of the other multisyllabic words belonged in French champagne. “What does it mean?”
“I wondered that myself.” Lockworth reached in his pocket and drew out a pack of cigarettes. Michael looked at it for a moment with longing. “I wondered why anyone would put rose dust in vintage champagne.”
“Rose dust?” Michael repeated. “Pesticide. So it was poisoned.”
“Technically, yes. Though there wasn’t enough in the wine to do any more than make you miserably ill for a day or two. I take it neither one of you had any?”
“No.” Pandora looked up from the report. “My puppy did,” she explained. “When we opened the bottle, some spilled and he lapped it up. Before we’d gotten around to drinking it, he was ill.”
“Luckily for you, though I find it curious that you’d jumped to the conclusion that the champagne had been poisoned because a puppy was sick.”
“Luckily for us, we did.” Michael folded the report and slipped it into his pocket.
“You’ll have to pardon my cousin,” Pandora said. “He has no manners. We appreciate you taking time out to do this for us, Mr. Lockworth. I’m afraid it isn’t possible to fully explain ourselves at this point, but I can tell you that we had good reason to suspect the wine.”
Lockworth nodded. As a scientist he knew how to theorize. “If you find you need a more comprehensive report, let me know. Jolley was an important person in my life. We’ll call it a favor to him.”
As he rose, Michael stood with him. “I’ll apologize for myself this time.” He held out a hand.
“I’d be a bit edgy myself if someone gave me pesticide disguised as Moët et Chandon. Let me know if I can do anything else.”
“Well,” Pandora began when they were alone. “What next?”
“A little trip to the liquor store. We’ve some presents to buy.”
They sent, first-class, a bottle of the same to each of Jolley’s erstwhile heirs. Michael signed the cards simply, “One good turn deserves another.” After it was done and they walked outside in the frigid wind, Pandora huffed and pulled on her gloves.
“An expensive gesture.”
“Look at it as an investment,” Michael suggested.
It wasn’t the money, she thought, but the sudden futility she felt. “What good will it do really?”
“Several bottles’ll be wondered over, then appreciated. But one,” Michael said with relish. “One makes a statement, even a threat.”
“An empty threat,” Pandora returned. “It’s not as if we’ll be there when everyone gets one to gauge reactions.”
“You’re thinking like an amateur.”
Michael was halfway across the street when Pandora grabbed his arm. “Just what does that mean?”
“When an amateur plays a practical joke, he thinks he has to be in on the kill.”
Ignoring the people who brushed by them, Pandora held her ground. “Since when is pesticide poisoning a practical joke?”
“Revenge follows the same principle.”
“Oh, I see. And you’re an expert.”
The light changed. Cars started for them, horns blaring. Gritting his teeth, Michael grabbed her arm and pulled her to the curb. “Maybe I am. It’s enough for me to know someone’s going to look at the bottle and be very nervous. Someone’s going to look at it and know we intend to give as good as we get. Your trouble is you don’t like to let your emotions loose long enough to appreciate revenge.”
“Leave my emotions alone.”
“That’s the plan,” he said evenly, and started walking again.
In three strides she’d caught up with him. Her face was pink from the wind, the anger in her voice came out in thin wisps. “You’re not annoyed with Lockworth or about the champagne or over differing views on revenge. You’re mad because I defined our relationship in practical terms.”
He stared at her as her phrasing worked on both his temper and his humor. “Okay,” he declared, turning to walk on. Patience straining, he turned back when Pandora grabbed his arm. “You want to hash this out right here?”
“I won’t let you make me feel inadequate just because I broke things off before you had a chance to.”
“Before I had a chance to?” He took her by the coat. With the added height from the heels on her boots, she looked straight into his eyes. Another time, another place, he might have considered her magnificent. “I barely had the chance to recover from what happened before you were shoving me out. I wanted you. Dammit, I still want you. God knows why.”
“Well, I want you, too, and I don’t like it, either.”
“Looks like that puts us in the same fix, doesn’t it?”
“So what’re we going to do about it?”
He looked at her and saw the anger. But he looked closely enough to see confusion, as well. One of them had to make the first move. He decided it was going to be him. Taking her hand, he dragged her across the street.
“Where are we going?”
“The Plaza.”
“The Plaza Hotel? Why?”
“We’re going to get a room, put the chain on the door and make love for the next twenty-four hours. After that, we’ll decide how we want to handle it.”
There were times, Pandora decided, when it was best to go along for the ride. “We don’t have any luggage.”
“Yeah. My reputation’s about to be shattered.”
She made a sound that might have been a laugh. When they walked into the elegant lobby, the heat warmed her skin and stirred up her nerves. It was all impulse, she told herself. She knew better than to make any important decision on impulse. He could change everything. That was something she hadn’t wanted to admit but had known for years. When she started to draw away, his hand locked on her arm.
“Coward,” he murmured. He couldn’t have said anything more perfectly designed to make her march forward.
“Good afternoon.” Michael smiled at the desk clerk. Pandora wondered briefly if the smile would have been so charming if the clerk had been a man. “Checking in.”
“You have a reservation?”
“Donahue. Michael Donahue.”
The clerk punched some buttons and stared at her computer screen. “I’m afraid I don’t show anything under Donahue for
the twenty-sixth.”
“Katie,” Michael said on a breath of impatience. He sent Pandora a long suffering look. “I should never have trusted her to handle this.”
Catching the drift, Pandora patted his hand. “You’re going to have to let her go, Michael. I know she’s worked for your family for forty years, but when a person gets into their seventies…” She trailed off and let Michael take the ball.
“We’ll decide when we get home.” He turned back to the desk clerk. “Apparently there’s been a mix-up between my secretary and the hotel. We’ll only be in town overnight. Is anything available?”
The clerk went back to her buttons. Most people in her experience raised the roof when there was a mix-up in reservations. Michael’s quiet request touched her sympathies. “You understand there’s a problem because of the holiday.” She punched more buttons, wanting to help. “We do have a suite available.”
“Fine.” Michael took the registration form and filled it out. With the key in his hand, he sent the clerk another smile. “I appreciate the trouble.” Noting the bellhop hovering at his elbow, he handed him a bill. “We’ll handle it, thanks.”
The clerk looked at the twenty in his palm and the lack of luggage. “Yes, sir!”
“He thinks we’re having an illicit affair,” Pandora murmured as they stepped onto the elevator.
“We are.” Before the doors had closed again, Michael grabbed her to him and locked her in a kiss that lasted twelve floors. “We don’t know each other,” he told her as they stepped into the hallway. “We’ve just met. We don’t have mutual childhood memories or share the same family.” He put the key in the lock. “We don’t give a damn what the other does for a living nor do we have any long-standing opinions about each other.”
“Is that supposed to simplify things?”
Michael drew her inside. “Let’s find out.”
He didn’t give her a chance to wonder, a chance to debate. The moment the door was shut behind them, he had her in his arms. He took questions away. He took choice away. For once, she wanted him to. In a fury of passions, of hungers, of cravings, they came together. Each fought to draw more, still more out of the other, to touch faster, to possess more quickly. They forgot what they knew, what they thought and reveled in what they felt.
Coats, still chill from the wind, were pushed to the floor. Sweaters and shirts followed. Hardly more than a foot inside the door, they slid to the carpet.
“Damn winter,” Michael muttered as he fought with her boots.
Laughing, Pandora struggled with his, then moaned when he pressed his lips to her breast.
It was a race, part warring, part loving. Neither gave the other respite. When their clothes were shed, they sprinted ahead, hands reaching, lips arousing. There was none of the dreamy déjà vu they’d experienced the first time. This was new. The fingers tracing her skin had never been felt before. The lips, hot and searing, had never been tasted. Fresh, erotically fresh, their mouths met and clung.
Her heart had never beat so fast. She was sure of it. Her body had never ached and pulsed so desperately. She’d never wanted it to. Now she wanted more, everything. Him. She rolled so that she could press quick, hungry kisses over his face, his neck, his chest. Everywhere.
His mind was teeming with her, with every part of her that he could touch or taste or smell. She was wild in a way he’d never imagined. She was demanding in a way any man would desire. His body seemed to fascinate her, every curve, every angle. She exploited it until he was half mad, then he groped for her.
She’d never known a man could give so much. Racked with sensations, she arched under him. Hot and ready, she offered. But he was far from through. The taste of her thighs was subtle, luring him toward the heat. He found her, drove her and kept her helplessly trapped in passion. Helplessly. The sensation shivered over her. She’d never known what it had meant to be truly vulnerable to another. He could have taken anything from her then, asked anything and she couldn’t have refused. But he didn’t ask, he gave.
She crested wave after wave. Between heights and depths she pinwheeled, delighting in the spin. On the rug with the afternoon light streaming through the windows, she was locked in blinding darkness without any wish to see. Make me feel, her mind seemed to shout. More. Again. Still.
And he was inside her, joined, melded. She found there was more. Impossibly more.
They stayed where they were, sprawled on scattered clothes. Gradually Pandora found her mind swimming back to reality. She could see the pastel walls, the sunlight. She could smell the body heat that was a mix of hers and his. She could feel Michael’s hair brushing over her cheek, the beat of his heart, still fast, against her breast.
It happened so fast, she thought. Or had it taken hours? All she was certain of was that she’d never experienced anything like it. Never permitted herself to, she amended. Strange things could happen to a woman who lifted the lid from her passion. Other things could sneak in before the top closed again. Things like affection, understanding. Even love.
She caught herself stroking Michael’s hair and let her hand fall to the carpet. She couldn’t let love in, not even briefly. Love took as well as gave. That she’d always known. And it didn’t always give and take in equal shares. Michael wasn’t a man a woman could love practically, and certainly not wisely. That she understood. He wouldn’t follow the rules.
She’d be his lover, but she wouldn’t love him. Though there would be no pretending they could live with each other for the next three months platonically, she wouldn’t risk her heart. For an instant Pandora thought she felt it break, just a little. Foolishness, she told herself. Her heart was strong and unimpaired. What she and Michael had together was a very basic, very uncomplicated arrangement. Arrangement, she thought, sounded so much more practical than romance.
But her sigh was quiet, and a little wistful.
“Figure it all out?” He shifted a little as he spoke, just enough so that he could brush his lips down her throat.
“What do you mean?”
“Have you figured out the guidelines for our relationship?” Lifting his head, he looked down at her. He wasn’t smiling, but Pandora thought he was amused.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I can almost hear the wheels turning. Pandora, I can see just what’s going on in your head.”
Annoyed that he probably could, she lifted a brow. “I thought we’d just met.”
“I’m psychic. You’re thinking….” He trailed off to nibble at her lips. “That there should be a way to keep our…relationship on a practical level. You’re wondering how you’ll keep an emotional distance when we’re sleeping together. You’ve decided that there’ll be absolutely no romantic overtones to any arrangement between us.”
“All right.” He made her feel foolish. Then he ran a hand over her hip and made her tremble. “Since you’re so smart, you’ll see that I’ve only been using common sense.”
“I like it better when your skin gets hot, and you haven’t any sense at all. But—” he kissed her before she could answer “—we can’t stay in bed all the time. I don’t believe in practical affairs, Pandora. I don’t believe in emotional distance between lovers.”
“You’ve had a great deal of experience there.”
“That’s right.” He sat up, drawing her with him. “And I’ll tell you this. You can wall up your emotions all you want. You can call whatever we have here by any practical term you can dream up. You can turn up your nose at candlelight dinners and quiet music. It’s not going to make any difference.” He gathered her hair in his hand and pulled her head back. “I’m going to get to you, cousin. I’m going to get to you until you can’t think of anything, anyone but me. If you wake up in the middle of the night and I’m not there, you’ll wish I were. And when I touch you, any time I touch you, you’re going to want me.”
She had to fight the shudder. She knew, as well as she’d ever known anything, that he was right
. And she knew, perhaps they both did, that she’d fight it right down to the end. “You’re arrogant, egocentric and simpleminded.”
“True enough. And you’re stubborn, willful and perverse. The only thing we can be sure of at this point is that one of us is going to win.”
Sitting on the pile of discarded clothes, they studied each other. “Another game?” Pandora murmured.
“Maybe. Maybe it’s the only game.” With that, he stood and lifted her into his arms.
“Michael, I don’t need to be carried.”
“Yes, you do.”
He walked across the suite toward the bedroom. Pandora started to struggle, then subsided. Maybe just this once, she decided, and relaxed in his arms.
Chapter Nine
January was a month of freezing wind, pelting snow and gray skies. Each day was as bitterly cold as the last, with tomorrow waiting frigidly in the wings. It was a month of frozen pipes, burst pipes, overworked furnaces and stalled engines. Pandora loved it. The frost built up on the windows of her shop, and the inside temperature always remained cool even with the heaters turned up. She worked until her fingers were numb and enjoyed every moment.
Throughout the month, the road to the Folley was often inaccessible. Pandora didn’t mind not being able to get out. It meant no one could get in. The pantry and freezer were stocked, and there was over a cord of wood stacked beside the kitchen door. The way she looked at it, they had everything they needed. The days were short and productive, the nights long and relaxing. Since the incident of the champagne, it had been a quiet, uneventful winter.
Uneventful, Pandora mused, wasn’t precisely the right term. With quick, careful strokes, she filed the edges of a thick copper bracelet. It certainly wasn’t as though nothing had happened. There’d been no trouble from outside sources, but… Trouble, as she’d always known, was definitely one of Michael Donahue’s greatest talents.
Just what was he trying to pull by leaving a bunch of violets on her pillow? She was certain a magic wand would have been needed to produce the little purple flowers in January. When she’d questioned him about them, he’d simply smiled and told her violets didn’t have thorns. What kind of an answer was that? Pandora wondered, and examined the clasp of the bracelet through a magnifying glass. She was satisfied with the way she’d designed it to blend with the design.