by Anne Stuart
Not that people hadn’t tried. Jilly, returning from a month-long honeymoon, had left message after message. Laura’s response had been warm, friendly, and so distant that nothing could reach her. Susan and Frank had flown out for a long weekend, and they’d spent the entire time working out details for a new three-way partnership. Not that Laura really cared. If it had been up to her, she would have given the business to Susan, who, with Frank’s expertise, seemed to be making it the hottest modeling agency in the city.
But Susan had been adamant, and Laura was too calm to fight. Nothing had the ability to dent her unruffled calm, not even the news that Marita Milopoulos was on the cover of Paris Vogue with an astonishing amount of diamonds surrounding her perfect face. Laura simply smiled and talked of Emelia and how much she loved California, and Susan and Frank watched her with sympathy and frustration.
The one thing she refused to talk about was the Glass House. She’d let it go, turned her back on it with a completeness that was almost brutal. She didn’t want to hear about Dubrovnik Plaza, and she most especially didn’t want to hear about Michael Dubrovnik.
He knew where she was. His lawyers had been pestering her, telling her there was one last agreement to sign, and she’d always politely agreed to their requests and never showed up at the appointed hour. If something was standing in his way, that was his problem, not hers. Not hers at all, she told herself fiercely.
But there’d been no word. Not of thanks, not of apology, not even to tell her that she wasn’t being held responsible for the condition of her building—it had been up to his lawyers to do that. Michael must have pulled some strings to work that, but she wouldn’t thank him. She couldn’t stand the thought of facing him in his triumph, with the corpse of her beloved building lying between them.
It was the building she was grieving for, she reminded herself. The anachronistic pile of glass and bronze that had been her grandfather’s crowning achievement. A thing of great beauty and even greater impracticality, it had owned her, body and soul, and she was mourning its passing. Not the loss of something she’d never had. Not the loss of Michael Dubrovnik.
Even Sonya knew where she was. She’d sent her a triptych for Christmas, the ancient, jewel like colors glowing from the painted wood. It was Laura’s only Christmas decoration in her little house, but it was enough. She spent a lovely Christmas Eve drinking Russian tea laced with vodka, toasting the triptych and its Holy Family. And refusing to think about that other family—of Russians in New York.
It was early January when she got the phone call. Susan’s voice, breathless, insisted she turn on the television to the evening news.
“It’s only three-thirty in the afternoon, Susan,” Laura said calmly. “It’s not on for another three hours.”
“Well, for God’s sake, watch it!” she snapped.
“Don’t be so grumpy. Doesn’t marriage agree with you? I told you you should have a big wedding. No one enjoys elopements.”
“We did,” Susan said with the trace, just the trace of a raunchy laugh in her voice. “Besides, we did it for you. We knew you wouldn’t come East, and if we couldn’t have you at our wedding, we didn’t want anyone.”
“Don’t make me feel guilty.”
“Just watch the news. Then tell me how you feel.”
She wasn’t going to do it. She’d avoided the news in the three months she’d been in California, had avoided the reality with an assiduousness her mother would have been proud of. It was probably just another puff piece on the wealthy Mrs. Milopoulos. The evil creature was probably expecting twins.
Or maybe it was about another person she’d recently known far too well. Maybe someone else had married and was now expecting twins.
The suddenness of the pain that split her came as a shock, and she sat on her narrow sofa, breathless, waiting for it to subside. That couldn’t be it. Susan would have warned her. She wouldn’t have left it up to the evening news to tell her that the Whirlwind had gotten married.
She almost called the East Coast. Not Susan—she knew her friend well enough to know that she wouldn’t say anything more than she’d already said. Jilly might be coerced into talking, but Jilly had never watched the network news in her life. If PBS covered it, there might be a possibility, but Jilly didn’t even manage to have time for PBS nowadays, so smitten was she with her new young husband.
There was no answer at Sonya’s Upper West Side apartment. Just as well, Laura thought, replacing the receiver. What could you say to the sister of the man you loved?
Chances were she would have burst into tears at the sound of Sonya’s voice.
One thing was certain, she couldn’t stay there and watch the clock for three hours. There was no food in the house, and Laura had developed a healthy interest in food. She’d put five pounds on her spare frame, and instead of bewailing the fact, she liked the way it made her look. Curves were nice, even if there was no one around to appreciate them.
As luck would have it, the traffic leading into the canyon was monstrous. She was late getting back, the news was half over, and she raced into her living room, scattering packages of food as she went, turning on the huge flat screen television that had come with the house.
The newsman had just finished the words “Glass House.” As she watched in terror and amazement, she saw the grainy, overblown projection of the Glass House on the screen. Not a pile of rubble carted away, not a shiny new box. Her Glass House, surrounded by scaffolding, surrounded by new buildings going up on either side of it. It was still there.
She sank to her knees in front of the screen, staring numbly. The story was brief and to the point. The famous New York landmark, the Glass House, was serving as the focus of billionaire Michael Dubrovnik’s latest project, a huge glass and steel construction known as the Glass House Plaza. The architects’ model shown on the screen told the story better than any words. Tall buildings abounded with shiny glass spires, their roofs angled downward so that no light was kept from the centerpiece. The Glass House sat in the middle, a tiny jewel of a building in a perfect setting. Delicate, inviolate, shored up and strengthened to last centuries.
She waited until she stopped crying to call the airlines. They were still in the midst of the post-holiday rush, and she couldn’t get a flight for two days. She considered calling him, but knew that wouldn’t be enough. She had to face him. To thank him, to exorcize old demons, to get on with her life. If they could meet civilly, the battle between them finished, then perhaps they might be friends. That was the best she could hope for, and for right now, that was ambition enough.
Chapter Nineteen
“I’m not in the mood for this, Sonya,” Michael warned, glaring at her from behind the desk in his make shift office on the top floor of the Glass House.
“Mischa, you’ve been like a bear with a sore paw for too long,” Sonya said, meeting his glare with one of her own. “For three months, to be exact. Your sister goes to all the trouble of coming down to this terrible mess, just to bring you a Christmas present, and you act as if I’ve done you a grave injustice.”
“You’re going to lecture me, and I don’t want to hear it.”
“I’m the only one around who can lecture you,” she returned sternly. “Someone has to point out the error of your ways.”
Michael leaned back with a weary sigh. He knew his sister too well to suppose there’d be any escape. She’d put on her best dress, her fanciest hat and the sable coat, the one extravagant present she’d ever allowed him to give her since the debacle of the East Side condo. She was dressed for battle, and he was no match for Sonya on the warpath. “All right, Sonya,” he said. “Tell me where I’ve gone wrong. I have a few minutes to spare.”
“You’d need days,” she said, sitting down opposite him and placing two jars of homemade jam in front of him. “But I’ll start with the mortal sins. We’ll go on to the venial sins later.”
“Thank you for the jam,” he said politely. “You already sent me down a case
ful.”
“This isn’t from me. This is from Laura.”
He froze, staring at the two small jars for a moment before taking them into his large hands. He didn’t even recognize her handwriting. He’d only seen it once, on the bottom of the legal papers she’d left for him, transferring ownership of this expensive whim of his.
“All right,” he said, not noticing that his thumbs were subtly caressing the diamond-ridged jars. “Tell me what a rotten SOB I am.”
“I wouldn’t demean our mother with the suggestion,” Sonya said with great dignity. “You haven’t done anything wicked, Mischa. Just stupid. That’s not like you.” She looked around her, at the sawdust and debris littering the floor, the staging outside the new glass panels that practically obliterated the bright winter sunlight, the skeletons of the buildings surrounding them. “This is good, Mischa. The right gesture. But you haven’t gone far enough. You must go after her.”
He looked at his sister with fresh exasperation. “Why?”
“You won’t be happy until you do. Admit it, brother, you’re in love with her. You’re stupid to fight what can’t be fought.”
“Who said it can’t be fought?” he countered. “She’s not what I had in mind.”
“Do you think Tim O’Reilly was what I had in mind? Or our parents? Love has nothing to do with plans, or common sense, or economics. Love is the silliest, most impractical thing that God ever created. But you should know by now when a battle is hopeless, and give in with good grace.”
“She knows where I am,” he said, his eyes hooded.
“You know where she is.”
“We’ll drive each other crazy.”
“It can’t be any worse than it is now.”
He just looked at her for a long moment. “The damnable thing about you, Sonya,” he said, “is that you’re always right.”
Sonya beamed at him. “Never forget it, Mischa. You’ll go tonight?”
“The next flight I can book.”
“You have your own jet. What’s the excuse?”
“Tonight,” he agreed, grinning at her. For the first time in months he felt a great weight lift from him. He’d hoped the news conference would move her. Every waking minute of every hour he’d waited for her call. Some sign from her, even a paltry emotion such as gratitude would have been something. But in the last two days only silence had issued from that tiny house in California.
Right then he would have given anything just to be certain she hadn’t changed her mind and started seeing someone. That she hadn’t gotten over him. He needed to know there was something left, some spark he could resurrect. Sonya was right, he couldn’t live without her. It made no sense, it complicated the hell out of his life, but it was useless to deny it any longer. And since she wasn’t coming to him, he had no choice but to go to her.
He spent the rest of the morning clearing his desk of anything pressing. Chances were he wouldn’t be able to find it when he returned. There were times when he considered moving his base of operations over to Dubrovnik Court. Glass Faces was doing very well in the offices he’d set up for them there, and the lure of peace and efficiency was a heady one.
But he couldn’t leave the Glass House. Maybe it exerted its own potent magic. Laura had been tied to it with more devotion than she’d shown any man in her life. Maybe it bewitched people. Maybe he’d been a fool not to tear it down.
Maybe, hell. He knew he was a fool. He’d seen the revised estimates, he knew to a penny the cost of the original architects’ drawings that had had to be scrapped. He was out of his mind, and even crazier to go chasing after her when she’d shown no inclination that she still wanted him. Maybe she thought the plaza was a travesty. Maybe she hated him.
The intercom buzzed, and his new secretary’s voice announced his California lawyer’s name. He sighed, punching a button and listening to the man’s excuses.
“She still wouldn’t sign the agreement, Mr. Dubrovnik. Wouldn’t even look at it. She said to tell you that if you wanted her to sign anything else, you could damn well bring it to her yourself.”
“Did she really?” That was the most encouraging thing he’d heard in months.
“Of course, the press conference hadn’t been aired then. She’s probably feeling a lot more mellow by now.”
“Maybe,” said Michael in his frostiest tone. He didn’t like people to try to explain Laura’s motives to him. His sister was bad enough—he drew the line when it came to his lawyers.
“What’ll I do next?”
“It appears you’ve failed,” Michael drawled. “I’ll handle it from here.” And he cut the connection.
It was two-thirty, his jet was set to leave Newark in less than an hour, when Ms. Jackson interrupted him one more time. “There’s someone to see you, sir.”
He grimaced, mentally cursing Zach for taking back the efficient Ms. Anthony and leaving him to deal with another incompetent. “I told you I wouldn’t be seeing anyone else today. I have a plane to catch.”
“But sir...”
“No one!” he snapped, slamming down the phone.
He should have installed a lock, he thought dismally as the door to his office opened. Once things were at a stage where he could concentrate on interior decorating, he’d see that he had an automatic lock on his office door, accessible from his desk.
The girl who came in was hesitant, as well she should be, considering he didn’t want to see anyone. He glared at her as she approached his desk, his cold blue gaze dissecting her.
She was a woman, not as young as he’d first suspected, maybe in her late twenties. She had soft brown hair that framed her face in loose curls, a narrow, slightly curved body, and small, beautiful hands which she’d clasped together in an attempt to appear casual that only betrayed her nervousness. She was wearing pale lavender, something soft and clinging and surprisingly seductive. He looked down at her feet, at the four-inch heels, and then back to her face in shock.
“Yes, it’s me,” Laura said with a little laugh that bordered on panic. “I didn’t think you’d forget me so quickly.”
“You look different,” he said, rising from the desk and heading toward her. She backed away, still nervous, and he slowed his advance. He had to handle this right, he thought. One false move and she might be gone forever. “You look wonderful,” he said, meaning it. With the razor-cut black hair, the vibrant, trendy clothes and sharp manner she had been undeniably seductive. Today, with the sharp edges softened, she was well-nigh irresistible. He decided it was just as well half the room stood between them. If she was within reach, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself touching her, pulling her into his arms, pushing her down onto the floor and making her moan the way she had a century ago, lying in his bed.
He shook his head, trying to clear the erotic thoughts from a brain already over stimulated. He hadn’t even been listening to what she was saying, so bemused was he by her sudden reappearance.
“I wanted to thank you for this,” she said. “I don’t know what made you do it, but I wanted to thank you anyway. I hope it wasn’t guilt. You don’t need to blame yourself for anything that happened. It was my fault—I was running around in circles and I didn’t realize it. You just got caught in the cross fire.”
“Explain yourself. In English this time.”
Her smile was self-mocking. “You won the Glass House in a fair fight. It was yours to do with as you pleased. The loss of it didn’t destroy me, much as I thought it would.”
“Great,” he said roughly, thinking of the money he’d lost on this foolish, glorious gesture.
“And it wasn’t your fault that I threw myself at you,” she continued, her voice cool and precise. “You don’t need to feel guilty about seducing and abandoning me.”
Anger flared within him. “I sure as hell don’t. I didn’t do the abandoning.”
“As I remember, you were responsible for the seducing part, weren’t you?” she retorted with a flash of her old fire.
He was oddly relieved. He liked the new, softer Laura, but he wouldn’t want her too sweet. “So I don’t need to feel guilty for taking you to bed?” he inquired evenly.
She nodded, pleased that he’d understood. “I realize you didn’t care for me, that you just sort of got trapped into it. I just wanted you to know that I understand.”
He shook his head in exasperation. “I have never in my life seen anyone trapped into seducing someone. But if it makes you happy to believe that...”
“What else can I believe?” Her voice sounded a little raw by then. A good sign. A very good sign. Moving around her, he walked to the door, opened it, and sent Ms. Jackson home with a glare that brooked no denial. Then he locked the door, turned around and surveyed his delectable prisoner.
She didn’t realize she was a prisoner yet. She just looked at him, her chin raised defiantly, waiting.
“You can believe what you want to believe,” he said, brushing her body deliberately as he reached across the desk and took the agreement he’d been planning to hand-deliver to her. “You’re ready to sign this?”
“Of course.” Without even glancing at it, she flipped to the last page, set the agreement on the desk and signed it with a flourish.
“Aren’t you going to read it?”
“I trust you.”
“Why?”
She appeared startled. “I don’t know. I just do.”
“Why don’t you carry that trust just a step further? Read what you just agreed to.”
Her dark eyes took on a wary expression, and the last of her diffidence vanished. “What have you done, you snake?”
He finally let himself touch her, putting his hands on her shoulders and shoving her gently onto the paper-strewn sofa. “Read, Larushka. Then we’ll talk about traps.”