Glass Houses

by Anne Stuart

  “Miss Murphy?” Michael echoed, mystified.

  “Marita,” Laura clarified, taking the letter from him and ripping it open. “Good God, that little swine.”

  “Big swine,” Michael supplied. “She’s almost a foot taller than you are.”

  “It’s her nature that’s small,” Laura said with dignity. “She’s eloped.”

  “What?” Susan shrieked.

  “With Constantine Milopoulos.”

  “You’re kidding?” Frank was the first to respond. “She’s eloped with that filthy old man?”

  “He’s a very rich filthy old man,” Michael observed. “Richer than me, and that’s saying a lot. Word has it he’s more into watching than doing, and Marita’s a girl who likes to be watched. Sounds like a match made in heaven. Does she say anything else?”

  “Yes,” Laura said, crumpling the letter in her hand. “She’s holding on to the copy of the engineer’s report. She figures it might come in handy someday.”

  “It’ll be academic by the time she returns from her honeymoon,” Michael said smoothly. “The Glass House won’t even exist by then.”

  Laura froze. It shouldn’t have bothered her—she knew full well that almost every bit of his energy was concentrated on wresting her heritage from her. It still felt like a particularly nasty form of betrayal after their time behind the desk.

  “That’s that,” she said briskly. “You can all let yourselves out.” She headed for the door, Michael hard on her heels, but Susan, bless her heart, intervened, forestalling him.

  “Where are you going?” Michael demanded, his voice rich with frustration.

  “To see my mother. I promised we’d indulge in some long overdue girl talk.”

  “Your mother isn’t...” His voice trailed away as she vanished into the corridor and headed down the stairs. By the time she reached the lobby she could see that the rain, rather than abating, had gotten even heavier. She hadn’t paid much attention to the news, but vaguely remembered the news fussing about a hurricane. It looked like a tropical storm outside, the slender trees bending in the wind. There was very little traffic, and she was willing to bet that what there was of it didn’t include any empty taxis.

  It didn’t matter. Her mother’s apartment was only five blocks away. Maybe the rain would wash some of the anger, some of the hurt away.

  She was shivering by the time she reached Jilly’s apartment on Seventieth Street. She was livid by the time she realized that Jilly simply wasn’t home that night, despite her promise to be there. She turned and headed out into the night again, when George, the elderly doorman who’d known her for years, stopped her.

  “Shall I call you a cab, Miss Winston? It’s a nasty night out.”

  She smiled at him, summoning up the last of her energy. “I don’t think even you could find one, but thanks for the thought. When my mother comes in, would you tell her I was looking for her?”

  “I would, miss. But she’s not expected back for an indefinite period of time.”

  Laura stopped dead in her tracks. “Where’s she gone?”

  “To Paris, I believe. With a young man named Peter McSorley. I hesitate to mention this, miss, but she showed me her new engagement ring.”

  It took all her effort to summon a wry smile. “That sounds like Mother. Good night, George.”

  “Good night, miss.”

  She’d always loved rainy nights in the city, but that night she discovered a new advantage in them. She found she could walk five blocks, sobbing like a child who’d lost its favorite toy, and no one would even notice.

  She took the elevator up to the eleventh floor. She was half afraid that Michael would be lying in wait, but her apartment was blessedly empty. There were messages blinking on her answering machine, but for once she ignored them as she headed for the bathroom and the deep marble tub.

  It took the better part of an hour to soak the chill out of her bones. The better part of another hour to drink three glasses of Chardonnay and decide that she’d die before she let Michael Dubrovnik near her again. And one more hour to slip on her four-inch heels, wrap a silk kimono around her lime-green silk chemise, and head down the stairs to his apartment.

  He was coming through the door when she reached his landing, and at the sight of her he stopped, a wary expression on his face. That look surprised Laura. She wouldn’t have thought he’d be uncertain about a thing, particularly about her reaction to him.

  “Were you going somewhere?” she questioned coolly.

  “I was coming up to get you. I thought you weren’t coming.” He backed into his apartment, and she followed him, holding the peach silk kimono tightly around her.

  “I don’t remember being invited,” she said, as he shut the door behind her, staying very close.

  “That’s what last night was.” His voice was a low, sexy rumble, but he didn’t touch her.

  “I’m not going to sign those papers,” she said fiercely. “I’m not going to sell you this building.”

  “I don’t give a damn about the building,” he said. “Not right now. What goes on between us in bed has nothing to do with a piece of real estate.”

  She looked at him for a long moment, saying nothing. And then she dropped the kimono onto the floor, standing there in the skimpy, transparent shift and her high, high heels.

  He smiled then, a tight upturning of his mouth as he surveyed her. “Tell you what,” he murmured. “You can wear your shoes to bed.”

  “You’re definitely taller than I am lying down,” she said, with just the faintest hint of a smile.

  He moved, pulling her into his arms, and she went willingly, her body trembling slightly in anticipation and delight. “I just wish you could trust me.”

  “I do. To a certain extent. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

  His own smile was crooked. “I suppose that’ll have to do.”

  “It’ll have to do,” she agreed, sliding her arms around his neck and pulling down his mouth to meet hers. “For now,” she added against his lips, so quietly that he didn’t even notice.

  Chapter Eighteen

  >Michael lay in bed, watching the rain sluice down the sides of the building he’d been planning to demolish. It caught in the cracks in the thick smoked glass, and the rivulets turned first into streams, then into rivers. Lightning split the predawn sky, and the entire building trembled. For a moment he considered waking the woman lying beside him, to point out just how compromised the old building was, to be so vulnerable to the vagaries of the weather.

  But if he woke her, they’d just end up making love again, with nothing settled between them. And nothing could be settled, until he figured out exactly what was going on in his own mind.

  Sleeping with the enemy was a major mistake, and at least for now Laura Winston definitely was the enemy in this latest financial endeavor, that is. It was hard to believe, looking down at her, lying curled up so trustingly by his side, that she could be just as stubborn, just as ruthless as he could.

  Well, maybe not quite as ruthless. But once her initial distrust had relaxed, once she’d accepted the fact that she was in bed with him, she’d proved to be fully as passionate as he’d expected. It was no wonder he couldn’t keep his hands off her. Even thinking about her body made him hard again, something that shouldn’t even be remotely possible after such an active night. But it was, and all he wanted to do was roll on top of her, bury himself in her warm, clinging body and listen to her sighs and whispers.

  Sex he could understand. What still confused him was the peculiar feeling of tenderness that swept over him whenever he thought of her. Little things, like the clear glasses she wore over her contacts, the glasses he’d tossed beneath an oncoming car. The way she’d charmed Sonya. That uneasy, vulnerable expression in her eyes when she thought he wouldn’t notice. Her bravery, her stubbornness, her determination.

  He wanted to wrap her in his arms and protect her from all the evil creatures who wanted to do her harm. The damna
ble thing was that of all that threatened Laura Winston’s well-being, he was the worst. No one could hurt her as much as he, simply by taking away her accursed building.

  And it was too late to change his mind, to pull out of something he’d already committed millions of dollars to, just because he’d developed an irrational, quixotic fancy for one of the stumbling blocks. Zach was right; he could have used that engineer’s report as a counter to her restraining order, and she would have been up a very muddy creek without a paddle. But even back then he’d been curiously ambivalent.

  He couldn’t see any way out of it. He couldn’t scrap a project that was so far along, and there was no future for them if he won. They were trapped, and the sexual attraction made it even worse. Hell, whom did he think he was kidding? It wasn’t just a sexual attraction. She was most of the way in love with him, despite the fact that she considered him a sneaky, manipulative snake. And he...he’d never felt the way he was feeling, not in his almost forty years. He’d be damned if he’d call it love. But he didn’t know what else it could be.

  She murmured something in her sleep, turning over and snuggling closer to him. She’d made remarkable progress from that first, shy, almost virginal coupling to her enthusiastic seduction of him a few short hours ago. Everything they did was very new to her, and her wonder and delight made it seem new to him, too.

  He couldn’t resist. Leaning over, he kissed her mouth, lightly at first, then deeper, as she stirred and slid her arms around his neck. When he drew away she was smiling up at him, her distrust, her defenses temporarily banished. “You,” she whispered, “are voracious.”

  He smiled back. “I try to do my best.”

  “You succeed,” she said in a husky voice as he pulled the cover from her naked body. “You surely do succeed.”

  Laura heard the pounding on the door from the mists of a deep, deep sleep. The noise seemed to shake the entire building, and she buried her head under a huge down pillow, trying to shut out both the noise and the world. Then voices penetrated, harsh, rapid-fire, excited voices, and slowly, reluctantly, Laura lifted her head.

  She was alone in the middle of Michael Dubrovnik’s king-size bed, wrapped in a fur throw that had to be sable. She felt decadent, sated and very sleepy, as the lightning flickered behind her eyelids. Then the building shook again, but there was no telltale sound of thunder, and with sudden grave misgivings she opened her eyes.

  The lightning wasn’t flickering outside. It was the electricity in the building, flashing, sinking into the darkness of a rainy morning and then coming on full force. Laura watched in horror as wide, dangerous cracks sped along the length of the glass panels, as once more the building seemed to shift and resettle.

  Michael slammed into the room, dressed in jeans and sweater, soaking wet. “Get dressed, Laura. They’re evacuating the building.

  “What have you done?” she demanded in a horrified whisper, ignoring the small crew of men beyond the door, their hard hats and slickers shining with rain.

  Dubrovnik slammed the door, stalking over to her as she huddled away from him, the sable throw pulled tight against her. “What did I do?” he echoed, his voice edged with fury. “What the hell did you do, damn it? The foundations started collapsing this morning. The whole block is cordoned off, the army corps of engineers is flying in, and there’s a man, a good man, trapped beneath your stupid anachronistic heap of glass and rubble.

  “Oh, God!” she breathed, as guilt swamped her. “Who...?”

  “One of my workmen. A twenty-seven-year-old father of two. They’re working as fast they can, shoring up the building, but he hasn’t made a sound in the last ten minutes. Get up and get out.”

  He was covered with mud halfway up his thighs. She had no doubt he’d been down there himself, digging with his hands, trying to get to the man. The horror, the guilt of it threatened to strangle her, and she immediately rejected it.

  “If you hadn’t been sending bulldozers banging away at the building for days,” she said bitterly, “it probably would never have happened.”

  If she’d hoped to shatter him, she’d underestimated his coldness. “Maybe. You think that exonerates you?”

  She just stared at him without a word, sitting naked in the middle of his bed, the bed they’d shared with such mesmerizing results a few short hours ago.

  He ran a hand through his wet hair in sudden exasperation. “Listen, we can’t talk now. Get your clothes on and get out of the building, and we’ll figure out how to deal with this. In the meantime you’re in danger.”

  “Mischa!” Zach Armstrong stormed through the door, equally wet and mud-splattered, politely oblivious to Laura’s presence in the bed. “They’ve got him out. They’re taking him to Lenox Hill Hospital right now, but I don’t know how he’s doing. I’ve got a car waiting.”

  “I’m coming. Get out of here, Laura,” Michael said again, with no kindness in his voice. “Go to your mother’s place.” Without another word he was gone, taking Zach and his crew of workmen with him.

  Huddled in the bed, she sat very still, watching as the lights flickered on and off. They went off entirely, plunging the room into an unnatural gloom, and still she sat, wrapped in priceless sable, watching the window cracks widen.

  She assumed she was alone in the building. If it collapsed, only she would be killed. There was a certain grim justice to it all. It wouldn’t be so bad to die wrapped in sable and the remains of a multimillion-dollar building.

  The lights came back on, slowly at first, just a dim glow, growing ever stronger. The building was no longer shaking, despite the insistent rain that was dashing against its sides, as if desperate to penetrate those long, dangerous cracks in the glass. And suddenly Laura lifted her head, struck by a strange but unavoidable conclusion.

  The Glass House wasn’t worth dying for. Her grandfather had died for it, murdered by his lover’s husband, the poor cuckold who’d financed the building. Now a workman had nearly died for it, leaving his family alone in a harsh, cruel world. He still might, but not if Michael Dubrovnik had anything to say about it. Michael could snatch someone back from the very jaws of death. If he was going to the hospital, there was no way the man could die.

  And it certainly wasn’t worth the death of a thirty-two-year-old, proud, stubborn fool named Laura Winston. Granted, she’d been so blind and greedy that she hadn’t wasted a moment’s thought on anyone else’s welfare. She’d refused to consider the possibility that the Glass House might have outlived its destiny, had kept her mind rigidly shut until she’d almost brought her world crashing down around her. It was time to let go. For the first time in years, it was time for Laura Winston to admit defeat.

  She managed to find her kimono and wrap it around her shivering body, leaving everything else behind she walked out of his apartment up one flight to his office. It only took her a moment to find the papers. She signed them, each one, with a flourish, not even bothering to check the terms. The price for the Glass House was absurdly generous—it should go toward her legal expenses and leave enough to live on besides.

  It took her just over an hour to make a few phone calls and pack up what she needed. If the building survived, she could ask Susan to pack the rest and put it into storage. In the meantime all she needed were warm-weather clothes and her grandmother’s gaudy jewels. The rest could tumble into the muddy foundation with the shards of glass.

  The list of Michael’s payoffs was still sitting in her safe. She stared at it, hesitating, then tore it in half. Tucking it into an envelope, she sealed it, wrote Michael’s name on it and left it on her bed. If he got it, fine. If he didn’t, that was all right, too.

  When Laura stepped out into the rain, Susan was behind the barricades, restrained by the police and Frank’s strong hands. She escaped both of them, running across the cordoned-off street to Laura’s side, grabbing her hands.

  “Do me a favor,” Laura said without preamble. “If the place survives, find a spot for Glass Faces. It’s stil
l a viable concern—Frank could be an enormous help if he felt like it. It’s yours, if you want it.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous—”

  “I’ll send you ownership papers. Or part-ownership papers,” she amended with a wry grin. “I’m going to need some income.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “California. You know Emelia—she always needs someone to hold her hand through these things. If she does well, there’s no telling what will happen.”

  “But the Glass House....”

  “I’ve sold it to Dubrovnik. I imagine it’ll be gone in a matter of days.”

  “Oh, Laura,” Susan breathed, sympathy and pain in her voice.

  Laura shook back her cropped black hair, smiling determinedly. “It’s time. You and I both know it. I’ll call after I get settled.”

  “What about Michael?”

  “What about him?” she asked coolly.

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it,” Laura said. “I’ll call you in a few days.” And hoisting her duffel bag over her shoulder, she took off into the rainy morning, without a backward glance at the building that had meant more to her than life.

  There was one good thing to be said about Southern California, Laura decided three months later. You weren’t as acutely aware of the passage of time, for the simple reason that the seasons never changed. The end of December was only a couple of degrees cooler than midsummer, the rain was still practically nonexistent, and the balmy, smog-laden air was comforting in its sameness.

  Comfort was a key word in her life nowadays. Things were settled, even, one smooth day after the other. Not that she wasn’t kept busy. Emelia’s burgeoning film career required constant attention, and Laura welcomed the challenge. When she wasn’t busy arranging interviews, dealing with impossible demands from Amblin, holding Emelia’s hand or generally trying to make her temperamental client’s life run smoothly, she was busy trying to settle into her own little nest.

  She sublet a tiny cottage in Laurel Canyon, with an algae-covered swimming pool, bugs and rodents in the garage, and a spectacular view of the mountains ringing L. A. She’d obtained an unlisted phone number, and once she’d ascertained that Susan, Frank and Glass Faces were still intact, she’d remained blissfully remote.