Countdown: Steele

by Boniface, Allie

  “What the hell’s going on in here?”

  Steele stepped between them. “Get out of here, Mirables, or I’ll call the cops. You’ve got thirty fucking seconds.”

  The guy laughed. “Or what? You’re in here too. You’re trespassing just as much as I am.”

  “I had an invitation. You didn’t.” Steele grabbed the guy by the shoulders and threw him into the wall.

  “Is that her?” The guy craned his neck to look at her. “Is that Isabella?” He fumbled with his phone and held it up as if to take a picture.

  Before he could, Steele marched him to the door and shoved him into the night. Then, without a word, he knelt and began scooping books into his arms. “I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t want you to see that—I wanted him to leave before you knew he was here.” He kept his gaze averted until he’d slid every last book onto a shelf. Wrong shelves, in most cases, but Kira didn’t say anything.

  “What was going on? Who was that?”

  He sank into a chair, and she saw a bruise under one eye, a scrape on his forehead, a tear in his shirtsleeve. “It’s a long story.”

  “Can’t be that long.”

  He sighed. “Let’s just say there’s a lot of people standing on the other side of the fence who want to get inside this house.”

  “Bullshit. How’d he get past security?”

  “You might want to tell me that. Apparently there’s a shallow spot in the moat.”

  She paused. Damn. “You’re sure you didn’t sell me out? Invite him up here? You knew his name.”

  “Because he’s an intern in our office, and my father sent him here because he didn’t trust me. Hell. You think I was rearranging books in here? No, I didn’t sell you out.”

  She hunched up her shoulders and fingered her necklace, trying to draw strength from the silver between her fingertips. Okay, maybe Steele was telling the truth. He looked a little worse for wear, and staging a fight just to throw her off seemed a little dramatic even by Hollywood standards.

  He didn’t say anything else. Instead, he worked on stuffing his shirt back into his pants. She caught a glimpse of plaid boxer shorts and dropped her gaze to her toes.

  “Listen, I’ll go now,” he said.

  “Wait.” She cocked her head. She was going to regret this decision. The tingling at the back of her neck told her as much. But she opened her mouth anyway. “You got rid of that guy for me?”

  He nodded.

  “You got a black eye fighting off another reporter. From your own office.” It came out as a sentence rather than a question. “So you could have me all to yourself?” The words sounded wrong, loaded with innuendo, but it was late and she was tired and the whole damn day had done nothing but turn her upside down.

  “Not entirely,” he said with a wink, and she knew he’d heard the innuendo too. He righted the lamp and set it gently near the door, then dragged the chair back into place. “Because for the first time, I understood what it was like to be on the other side. To be you.”

  10:00 p.m.

  “Don’t try to flatter me,” Kira said.

  He grinned. “Won’t work?”

  “You know it won’t.” She turned away before he could read her expression. She sounded not quite mad, not quite forgiving. Somewhere in between. Without another word, she disappeared through the library door and pulled it shut behind her.

  Well, she didn’t kick me out. Not yet, anyway. He touched the tender skin under his eye as he followed her into the foyer. “Does this mean I can stay?” He didn’t want to push his luck, but he needed to know where he stood.

  She didn’t answer. She’d pulled open one of the front curtains a few inches, and moonlight streamed through the space. It outlined her frame, thin but muscular, tensed as if coiled and waiting to run. Over her shoulder, on the far side of the fence, he could make out a row of vehicles, black humps in the dark. A couple had their parking lights on, but most sat in dark silence. Waiting.

  “You really think that’s a good idea?”

  She turned. “They can’t see in here. There’s an entire orchard between us and the driveway.”

  Us? He liked the word, the way she said it, the things it might imply. Maybe that meant he could stay after all. He wanted to. He wanted more than that, actually.

  She pulled the curtain tight across the window. “There. Happy?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t give a damn about the cars out there, not really. But he’d liked the way the moonlight edged along her curves. In the semi-darkness, he had to use his imagination to picture them—not that his imagination had ever let him down when it came to beautiful women.

  “Sure I can’t take your picture?” he asked suddenly.

  “I thought we already had this conversation. No. You’re just gonna sell it to the highest bidder. Don’t pretend we both don’t know that.”

  Steele felt himself redden. Okay, maybe that had been his motivation two hours ago. But the more he looked at her, the more he examined the symmetry of her face and the way emotions ran across it, the more he wanted to capture it on film. For himself.

  “I just—you’re beautiful.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.” She brushed by him and trotted in the direction of the kitchen. Her bare feet made a pattering sound on the floor, and it twisted up his heart.

  “Hang on.” He doubled back to grab his camera gear and followed her. “Isa—Kira.” Kira, he repeated inside his head. Get it right, moron. But she didn’t even indicate that she’d heard him.

  By the time he caught up with her, she’d poured herself another glass of wine. “Care to join me?” She laughed, but it sounded bitter. Resigned. “Only if you leave the camera at the door, though.”

  He shrugged the bag off his shoulder and took the glass she offered him. “No pictures,” he agreed. “So how about some conversation?”

  She sighed, and he wondered if he was pushing his luck. He didn’t care. She mesmerized him, the way her gaze moved around a room, the way she filled up a space. She was unlike anyone else he’d ever met. Reckless. Unconcerned with her looks. Defensive as hell. And simmering with sexuality.

  “Okay,” she said after a long silence. “As long as we’re stuck here. But off the record.”

  “Of course.”

  They sat at the table in the breakfast nook. Her back was mirrored in the window behind her, and Steele had to stop himself from staring at her long neck, her chopped-off hair, the way she held her chin a little higher than she had to.

  “Me first.” He took a long drink. “So why’d you leave?”

  She choked on her wine. “Start with the easy questions, why don’t you?”

  “Sorry.” He thought a minute. “Okay, why’d you cut your hair?”

  She pursed her lips. “That’s not really a good question, either.”

  “Fine. Then you start.”

  She looked hopeful. “I can ask a question?”

  “Sure. Then I get one. We’ll take turns.”

  “Fine.” She took another sip of wine.

  Steele shifted in his chair and tried not to watch the way her mouth met the rim of the glass.

  “Why did you go into journalism?”

  He pushed his glass away. He hadn’t expected that question, not right off the bat. “You want the real answer?”

  “What do you think? Are we just going to sit here and lie to each other?”

  But he wasn’t sure she did want the truth, which was that he’d almost flunked out of college, and writing for the paper was the only way his father would save his last two semesters. He’d given in to blackmail of sorts, and it had haunted him ever since.

  He spun the stem of the wineglass between his fingers. “My great-grandfather founded The Chronicle. My grandfather ran it, and then my father took it over. Neither of my brothers wanted to work there, so I was the last one left. Graduated from UC Santa Barbara and didn’t have much else going on, so...” That sounded good. And more than half-true, an
yway.

  “What do your brothers do?”

  But Steele shook his head. “One question. That was it. Now it’s my turn.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Go ahead, then.”

  “What’s the first memory of your father?”

  Kira studied her wine for a long moment before looking back up at him. Her eyes grew serious with memory. “I guess I was maybe three or so. He used to play with me outside, on the back lawn. He’d roll these giant plastic balls across the grass, and I’d try to stop them before they got to the moat.” She smiled, and Steele loved the way it lit up her face. “I didn’t realize Martin—he worked security here before Simon—I never knew he was about ten feet behind me, ready to catch them if I missed, until I was older.”

  She paused. “I never missed.” She tipped the wine bottle to refill her glass.

  “Okay,” he said. “Your turn to ask.” But he almost didn’t want her to. Not because it meant answering, but because it meant she’d stop talking for a minute or two. He liked the lilt of her voice.

  “Hmm. Do you have a girlfriend?”

  He smiled. “Interested for personal reasons?”

  “God, no. I was just wondering if there was any female out there dumb enough to fall for your lines.”

  “Ouch.”

  “You’re not my type, anyway, Walker.”

  He wondered if that was true. “That’s too bad.” He rested his hand on hers for a moment, until she pulled it away. “No. I do not have a girlfriend.”

  “Why not?”

  “One question at a time. I warned you.”

  “Your answers aren’t detailed enough.”

  “Now who’s the reporter?”

  She stared at him until he asked his next question.

  “Fine. Do you know anything about your biological mother?”

  All expression left her face, and at once he was sorry he’d asked. “Forget it. I take it back.” He tried to think of something else to ask.

  “No,” she said before he could. “I don’t.” But something in her answer, and in the way she looked down at her fingers, belied the words.

  He decided to leave it alone. “Your turn.” His cell phone rang before she could ask. “Sorry. Hang on a minute.” He moved a few feet away. “Hello?”

  “Is it true you’ve got Isabella Morelli there with you?” His father’s words came out staccato fashion, hard and demanding.

  “Jesus, Dad.” His father made it sound as though he’d hunted her down and wrangled her in the backyard. Steele thought about lying. Nope, just a mistake. Mirables heard wrong. But the part of him that wanted to impress won out. “Yeah,” he admitted. “She came home to see Francesca.”

  David Walker spluttered something he couldn’t make out. “What was that?”

  “I said, what the hell’s she say about the kidnapping? And where’s she been? How’d she get in? Why didn’t I know? Why the hell have you been waiting to tell me?”

  “Which question do you want me to answer first?”

  “Fuck off. Listen, I want the interview with the girl. I’ll send a photographer out there if he can get a shot of the two of them together. Grandmother and granddaughter. It’s perfect.”

  I’m a photographer, Steele wanted to say. In case you forgot how I spend all my spare time. He glanced over at Kira. She stared back at him, and he almost lost himself in her gaze.

  “She want money for the photos? Is that it?”

  “Shit, I don’t know.”

  “We’ll pay. I don’t care how much it is.”

  “Seriously?” Kira hadn’t stopped looking at him, and suddenly he didn’t care much about pictures or interviews or winning his father’s admiration. “She’s not really in the mood for talking,” he said. “Or having her picture taken. I already asked.”

  “So get her in the goddamn mood. You’re there in the house with her, right? How hard is it to ask a few questions? You’re a reporter. You want to be, anyway. This is your chance.”

  Ask a few questions... That’s exactly what he’d been doing for the last ten minutes, Steele realized, yet he hadn’t had any interest in writing things down.

  His father raced on. “Front page news. You’ll be the lead story in tomorrow’s issue and on every major news site before noon.”

  Steele’s heart leapt up. Front page of The Chronicle? He turned away from Kira, because if he kept looking at her like a woman rather than an interview subject, there was no way he had a prayer of writing anything at all. “What’s the latest on Edoardo?”

  Papers shuffled in the background. “They’ve got hostage negotiators working on it. No other progress. No news of any release.”

  “He’s still alive?”

  “Right now, yes.” His father harrumphed into the phone. “Now get the damn interview with the girl before he isn’t.” Lightning struck somewhere close by, and the lights in the kitchen flickered.

  “Get me the story,” his father repeated. “I’ll be waiting on it.”

  Steele hung up without answering. By the time he slid back into his chair, Kira sat facing the darkness. Lightning flashed again; the rain that had subsided for a while returned. “I’m guessing that was dear old dad,” she said.

  He refilled both their glasses. “You’re a genius. Either that or psychic.”

  “Not really. Doesn’t take a genius or a psychic to tell when someone’s talking to the one person he both hates and loves most.”

  She knows. He had to look away. Here was the first woman he’d ever met who had a sense of the battle that simmered inside him every day. It unnerved him. She unnerved him. She fell silent, and his thoughts shifted again. Who’d really been responsible for her disappearance all those years ago? Edoardo or Francesca? Or some other factor he hadn’t yet discovered or considered?

  “Your turn,” he said and cleared his throat. “You get the next question.” He’d give her that, and then he’d direct the conversation back to father figures.

  “Okay.” She raised her chin. “Why didn’t you tell your father you’d give me up? Get the interview or the picture?”

  Good question. “Because he’s an asshole who doesn’t know you.”

  “And you do?”

  He set down his glass and took her hand. This time, she didn’t pull away. “Maybe I want to.”

  She made a face. “That was a really bad line. Want to try again?”

  He pressed her hand against his shirtfront. “Yes, oh beautiful, honorable one, I would like to try again.” Let me in.

  She laughed, and he loved the sound of it, happiness echoing against the walls of a too-still house.

  “Okay, then. Make it good, though, or I won’t answer your next question.”

  But he didn’t have anything to say after all. All the words he summoned up inside his head sounded stale and wrong. “You intrigue me,” he finally said.

  Her brows lifted. “Hmm. Well, that’s better. Not totally original, but better.” She pulled her hand away. “Your turn.”

  He flattened his palms on the table and decided to go all in. “Okay. Why did you leave home when you were eighteen?”

  The expression on her face changed again, but this time, it resembled resignation more than anger. “I knew that one was coming.”

  “And?”

  “How much time do you have?”

  “All night.” He meant it too. He’d sit here in the kitchen of this enormous house until dawn. He’d watch the rain come down and listen to her choose her words for the next twelve hours, if that’s what it took. And it didn’t have anything to do with overtime pay or a front-page story or the chance of finally impressing his old man.

  “You’re so full of it.” She reached for the wine bottle and drained the last bit into her glass. “I was tired of the Hollywood life.”

  He nodded and waited.

  “I grew up in front of the camera. You know that—everyone knows that. Stupid grape juice ads when I was five. Stupid preteen movies when I was twelve.” />
  “You didn’t like any of it?” Steele thought he recalled a bubbly, bright-eyed girl giving interviews and beaming at the audience during talk shows. Had it all been a façade?

  “I didn’t know anything else. I grew up on movie sets, either Francesca’s or my father’s. They sent me to a private school for a year, but I couldn’t keep going once I started making films of my own. So I got tutored at home or on the road.” She drank deeply. “Most of the other kids I knew had film or TV careers too. I thought that was the way everyone lived.” She paused. “That’s not true. Not everyone. But I thought it was just sort of...the life that was thrust upon me.”

  If he’d had a notepad in front of him, Steele would have written that quote down. How many people lived the life thrust upon them, without questioning or resisting it? How few had the courage to walk away from it all? Or come back to it in a moment like this one? His fingers, restless, drummed against the table. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the lights flashed again.

  “When I turned eighteen, I decided I’d had enough.” Kira’s face darkened, and she pressed her lips together. Steele wondered again if something had transpired with her father. Hurtful words, maybe, or a discovery that Edoardo wasn’t perfect after all, but rather a regular guy.

  “And that’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “What about the hair?”

  She blinked. “What do you mean?”

  He gestured in the direction of her face. “You had all this long dark hair. The columnists used to write about it. And now—”

  She raised a hand to the back of her neck. “And now I look like a guy.”

  “No.” She could never look like a guy, not with that heart-shaped mouth or the gentle curves her clothes did nothing to hide. “That’s not what I meant.” He cracked his knuckles. “Just that most women I know would do anything to grow their hair halfway down their back. He didn’t finish the sentence. When they chop it off, it means they’re either trying to get over a man or pretend they’re someone else entirely.