The Big Uneasy Bundle

Chapter 2-4

When he took her features, her figure apart, there was nothing special, and yet…somehow the sum was something more than not-special. Was it her eyes? There was intelligence in them and humor. Not the malicious kind, but he did resist a need to shift in his chair. If she was here for some hidden purpose, why wait two years to act? Unless…was that her aim? Force them to make their move? Or perhaps her plans were long term? If so, she was a cool customer. Very cool.

“There.” A final tap and she looked at him. “What seems to be the problem?”

Besides her? He shifted, leaning in so that his arms rested on the desk top, pretending an intention to look at the screen, but instead he looked at her. His eyes, he’d been told, were more dangerous than his smile. And his smile was most dangerous indeed.

“Miss Burland mentioned something about the date?”

Most women could not construct a coherent sentence while he looked at them. Except that assistant principal. He’d stopped picking fights that year, waited until she’d changed schools. “Yes.” He leaned closer and asked, “Do you like New Orleans? It must be very different from Wyoming.”

She leaned back in her chair, as if giving the question serious consideration, not putting distance between them, her retreat so smoothly managed it didn’t look like a retreat at all.

“It’s almost completely opposite. But yes, I like it.” Then she grinned. “I love the food. The heat, not so much.”

He could not pretend the grin was for him. He might have—regretted how quickly it was gone. When she smiled she was almost…

“I, too, do not care for the heat.” He boosted the accent. Women liked it and she was a woman. Now they would chat—

“It’s a beast.” She turned back to the screen. “According to your file, we have your dinner booked for the nineteenth.”

It seemed casual chatting was not her game. Was she afraid of what she would betray? She should be.

“My uncle insists he told me the twelfth, but I checked my notes and I have the nineteenth as well.” He moved his shoulders in a “what can you do” shrug. His shoulders were broad and he moved with tigerish grace. At this angle, he could see her pulse, see it not change. Surely even ordinary women had biological responses to wildly attractive men?

“The twelfth. Let me see…” Her right hand moved the mouse, clicked.

Did she swing the other direction? Sarah had not acted indifferent to him, though she had taken care to remain professional, but the two women did live together.

“We are booked for the twelfth, and according to Sarah’s notes, that booking was made before your initial visit. With our system, it isn’t possible to double book.”

He fought the odd sense of being pulled into the unfamiliar as she continued—saying, while managing to not say—that if a mistake had been made, he’d made it.

“We can try to find you a different date or cancel the booking. You will,” she looked professionally regretful, “have to forfeit your deposit if you cancel.”

The brown gaze was sympathetic, regretful, but devoid of all the things he come to take for granted when a woman gazed at him. He summoned another smile, though it felt off, unfamiliar. For the first time he understood what an alternate reality might be like.

“I am going to risk my uncle’s wrath and hold the current booking,” he said. That she didn’t look away this time helped, for it seemed to him that finally she looked, and in this looking, finally saw him. He boosted the smile with I’m bad and spoiled, so why fight it? His lids half-masted again. He was a very bad boy, quite possibly the worst she’d ever meet.

Nell didn’t blush. Or wriggle. Or giggle. She blinked, the thick, silky fan almost endearing as it made the trip down to her cheeks, then rose again. “We are happy to hold your booking while you check. Just don’t forget there are additional cancellation penalties if he changes his mind later. The sooner you confirm or cancel, the better.”

He’d have liked to pretend there was a double meaning in there, but he hadn’t risen to second in command of his uncle’s empire by pretending. That also meant he knew when to push. “I can take my punishment.” He gave her a wicked, intimate smile—

And she chuckled. Her tone both dry and librarian-ish, she said, “Because men are so good at taking their punishment.”

She was very like that assistant principal.

“You should laugh always.” The imperious tone brought her gaze back to his, her brows shooting up. “It is most pleasing.”

Another of slow blink. “Thank you.”

He waited for a laugh or a smile. Instead she sobered, her gaze turning more librarian-like. What did she think of—

“Though sustained laughing might be annoying. And it would be difficult to sustain,” she pointed out quite seriously. “There is that need to breathe…”

She did not seem to be making fun of him, but seriously considering the problem. He tried a different tack.

“Have we…met before now? You seem familiar?”

She considered this question seriously as well. “I don’t think so, unless, have you been to a party catered by Blue Bayou? I pass out the canapés and petite fours and such.” Her hands lifted from the keys and she fluttered her fingers in the region of her shoulders. “This is my wait get up, too. Most waits dress like this, only pants, not skirts.”

It was his turn to blink. Had she truly missed his point? Did she think he noticed the wait staff? Or did she choose to ignore it? He summoned a smile, though it was getting more difficult. “I doubt I could forget you, even for canapés.”

It was clumsy. He knew it. She knew it. So the kindness in her slight smile surprised him. Was this, could this be his opening? She turned back to her keyboard.

“I’m putting a note in the file for Miss Burland.” She finished and hit “save,” then leaned back once more. “Was there anything else I can help you with, Mr. Afoniki?”

It was an opening—or a trap. He could admire her skill, even though he was seriously unhappy. His uncle would not be pleased. He was not pleased. Usually all he had to do was look at a woman and she did what he wanted. They were, after all, the intuitive s*x, though this one made him wonder.

A distant sound of a door closing and footsteps approaching brightened her expression. “Miss Burland’s back.”

He nodded, as if pleased, while inside he cursed the timing. As the tap of heels against wood grew closer, he rose, trying to frame a question that would provide an opening.

Nell rose, the principal manner back. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Afoniki.”

So polite. Like a child. And yet, her eyes were wiser than a child’s, older. Was that what made them so unsettling? The mix of innocence and old? His window of opportunity was closing.

“I asked you to call me Dimitri,” he reminded her, moving to block her escape.

She had the height to almost look him in the eyes, though she stopped further from him than most women would have. Usually they came right up, tipping their chins up in invitation. No sign of inviting in her old-young eyes. He held out his hand, determined to get some reaction from her. When she reciprocated, he gripped it, lifted it to his lips, his mouth lingering against skin that tasted unexpectedly sweet. His fingers wrapped her wrist again, settled where her pulse should race to betray her—

Before he could find a flutter, her hand was gone once more and she’d moved past him. It felt like rejection, though it couldn’t be. Must have been a retreat. She’d not known what to do with a man such as himself. Of course she wouldn’t know what to do. He turned and saw Sarah looking at him over Nell’s head. Her appreciate gaze soothed—not that his ego was bruised. Not by an ordinary, clueless, annoying female.

He smiled at Sarah. To show chagrin was to expose weakness. He widened it to include Nell as she half turned to offer a prim, “Good-bye.”

“Until we meet again,” he corrected, waiting for the blush—which wholly failed to appear. She did pause, her head tilted, her gaze once again curious and assessing, then, with a quick half smile, she passed from his sight. Her retreat sounded different, not like retreat at all. He’d heard many women walk away from him. None had sounded quite so…indifferent.

From her attic eyrie, Nell saw Afoniki leave, moving with a long, confident stride toward the street, a broad shouldered man falling into step behind him. Once he’d slid into a limo and pulled away, Nell grabbed her portfolio and clomped downstairs, happy to be back in shorts and boots. Sarah, who had to have heard her coming four flights away, waited at the bottom.

“Well?”

Nell grinned. “Rutabaga.”

Sarah’s brows shot up. “But the guy is—”

“There are very handsome rutabagas.” Probably. “You should study them instead of just whacking them to bits with your seriously huge chef knife.”

“I don’t have time to study my veggies when I’m cooking. Or when I’m not.” Sarah turned, heading back to the office, her cool summer dress a perfect frame for her tall, slim figure. Nell followed her, fingers itching to sketch, though her muse was torn between capturing her “rutabaga” on the page or going for a classic, semi-vintage of Sarah. That twenties style and Sarah were a match made for a muse. And then there were all the other images tumbling in her brain, not unlike how her body had tumbled this morning. Twice.

Unable to sort through it all, Nell sank on the arm of the chair recently occupied by the rutabaga, wrinkling her nose at the heavy scent still lingering in the still air.

“I don’t know what the big emergency was.” Nell tossed the portfolio into the other chair, rather pleased at its perfect landing.

Sarah half shrugged from her spot behind the desk. “He didn’t tell me when he called.”

“Maybe he just wanted to see you?” Sarah made a face, prompting to Nell to add, “He is rather gorgeous.”

Sarah leaned back. “And?”

Nell traded chairs with her portfolio, which reduced the scent intensity to bearable, and considered the question. “A bit brooding. A bit…creepy.” Now that she thought about it, more than a bit. If she drew animals—which she didn’t—she’d have cast him as a tiger. She didn’t say it. He was a client and she could be wrong. She often was. “You looked him up.”

Sarah looked everyone up. She and Google were besties.

She nodded. “Add womanizer and ruthless to creepy.” Sarah frowned. “Hints of something more. The stench of not quite legal hanging around. If we lose the booking, I won’t cry.” She straightened. “What was that ‘til we meet again’ about?”

Nell chuckled. “No clue.” She frowned. “I have no experience of course, but it did seem a bit plummy, over done. Maybe he thinks chatting me up will help him with you?”

Sarah laughed as she shook her head. “He’s not interested enough in me to work that hard. Maybe it’s a Russian thing.”

“And my inability to understand it is a Wyoming thing.” And a lack of experience thing. Nell grinned and then stretched. Rubbed her temples. Too many images vied for attention inside her head, the clamor growing almost to the point of giving the muse a headache. And she needed to eat. But the muse was usually harder on her head than her stomach.

Sarah knew the signs. “You’d better go do some dump sketching or you’ll be mainlining Tylenol.”

Nell collected her portfolio and headed for the door, remembered she hadn’t yet told Sarah about her adventures in crashing, but when she turned back, Sarah was already focused on the computer. She hesitated, but it wasn’t like there was anyone to tell on her. She could fess up later. And speaking of up, she needed up and sketching. In that order.

Helenne St. Cyr sat in the chair that overlooked her garden and waited, with the calm knowledge that she waited for the last time. She was not impatient. The long years had bled it out of her. If she’d known how long when it started she might have turned aside. The young did many things they should not because they did not know better, because, even as they believed they’d live forever, they did not know how long forever could be. She was supposed to remember her youth now that she was old. She did not remember anything but hating Phineas. And him hating her.

For so many years they’d been locked in a silent war to survive the other. To win. Neither dared to kill the other until—her lips curved in a smile. Today, she sighed, today he lost it all. How he’d hate losing. He’d hate that more than dying. He’d hate knowing he couldn’t take her down with him

It must be done by now.

Done. A small, neat check on the to-do list she’d almost despaired of finishing. Her revenge wasn’t just cold, it had almost dried to dust. Almost she’d given up.

Phineas had kept his secrets well, had never trusted her or liked her. Oh, he’d wanted her for a few minutes. He was a man and she’d been beautiful. She hadn’t minded when he’d moved on. She’d never wanted him, just his power. Had needed it to strike at the man she had wanted. The man who hadn’t wanted her even briefly.

If either of them had wanted anyone but her. Eleanor. Ellie. Her other mistake.

How ironic that Ellie had been Phin’s mistake, as well. Now, at the end, she could be amused by that.

If he hadn’t tried to match her son with Ellie’s child…

No, she’d still have wanted him dead. Her hand trembled a bit and she gripped the sides of her chair. Even if her beautiful Phillip had—if, if, if. What was the point of looking back?

What couldn’t be changed had been endured.

And she’d made sure Phin hadn’t enjoyed the years either. She smiled, wondering what he’d thought today when the blow had fell. Had he known it came from her? His stupid, sentimental decision to take the sun in the French Quarter had made him vulnerable just when she needed it. How exquisitely ironic was that?

She shifted her arm, just enough to see the time on the very expensive watch Phin had bought her for her last birthday. She’d hoped to feel it, to sense the moment his life ended, but she felt nothing, not even relieved. Perhaps she no longer could feel. She did not mind. Feeling was over-rated.

She lifted her chin, as if sensing an arrant breeze. Almost she laughed. It seemed she could feel one thing. The tremor as Phin’s death swept out to take down Aleksi and Bett. She felt again the flash of anger that she’d almost missed it, too. But she hadn’t. The weapon was in her hand, not theirs.

Speaking of which, he should be here soon—ah, yes, here he came.

He moved through the garden with surprising grace for a man who had none, for one so different from her beautiful, dead son. He was not really a man at all. He was a hammer and he did not know it.

He didn’t knock, just slipped in a gap in the door, then shut it behind him with a care unusual in a hammer.

She didn’t look at him. One didn’t look at tools unless one had to. “It’s done.”

“It’s done.” He was terse. “Loose ends tied.”

She liked him terse. Was pleased he knew it. She looked then, bestowing approval. It would be his only reward. A pity, but he’d become a weak link, a loose end.

“You saw it.”

He nodded, something flickering over his usually blank face.

“What?”

“There was a contact—” He frowned. “I took a picture with my cell.” He extracted it, tapped the screen a couple of times, then handed it to her.

She stared down at the tiny screen, adjusting it until the blur cleared. The tableau was small, but the body language was interesting. She knew every nuance of Phin’s. She’d had so many years to study him. She messed with it until his companion came into view—her whole body went stiff. How had he found out? She’d been so sure he hadn’t—clever bastard. He’d given no sign. None.

“How…interesting.” She directed a look at him. “I think, yes, I very much think I need you to do one more thing for me today, dear boy.”

“Of course.” His face was impassive, but his eyes gave him away.

She smiled at him, the mothering one that made him stupid. Tools sometimes needed that extra care to do their best. “I do not, I really do not know what I’d do without you.”