Flash (13 page)

“Ah,” Jasper said softly. “And you'd rather he didn't?”

She leaned back against the counter, crossed her arms, and rolled her eyes. “How would you feel about having a politician in the family?”

He grinned. “Point taken. Personal sentiments toward politicians aside, what really worries you about the possibility that your brother is involved in a relationship with Lancaster?”

She hesitated, gazing thoughtfully into the middle distance. “Right now Eleanor's on a political roll, thanks in large part to Todd's skill as a political theorist. I guess I'm worried about what will happen to the relationship if Eleanor loses the election.”

“In other words, you're afraid Lancaster's feelings toward your brother have more to do with the fact that she needs him as a consultant than with true love?”

“And, to be fair, vice-versa. I'm afraid that Todd is attracted to her, at least in part, because she's given wings to all his policy theories and ideas. He sees her as a sort of modern-day warrior queen, Boadicea leading the Britons against the invading Romans.”

“Got it.”

“But what do I know?” She unfolded her arms and pushed herself away from the counter. “I'm the first to admit that I'm not the world's best judge of what makes a relationship work.”

“Neither am I.” Jasper was startled by the sound of his own words. He did not know where they had come from. He had not intended to say them. But there they were, hovering in the air alongside hers, stark admissions of past failures.

There was a short silence. And then Olivia got very busy taking plates down from a cupboard. The microwave pinged. Jasper jerked open the door and took out the steaming containers. He winced when his fingers came into contact with hot spots on the plastic. He grabbed a towel.

Sharing a kitchen and being threatened by a blackmailer could promote only so much togetherness between two people who had very separate agendas, he reminded himself.

Five minutes later, dinner was on the table. Olivia managed to wait until she had finished her lasagna and salad before she swept her plate aside and fixed Jasper with a steely gaze.

“Well?” she said. “You've been fed, and you've had a chance to think. Got any ideas about how to handle Zara's problem?”

He took his time savoring the last of the lasagna. Then he put down his fork. “First we need a list.”

“A list of what, for heaven's sake?”

“Of all the people Zara knew in the good old days.”

Olivia's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “That would
probably be a very long list.” She gave the subject a few more seconds of reflection. “It could take ages to check out every person who worked with Zara and then try to figure out which one might be the blackmailer.”

“It won't take long for an experienced private investigator to figure out which ones are here in Seattle at the moment,” Jasper said bluntly.

“Of course.” She stared at him, understanding flashing across her animated face. “Jasper, that's brilliant.”

“It's a CEO's job to be brilliant. That's why I get the corner office with the big windows.”

She ignored him. “I should have considered that approach right off. Whoever is blackmailing Zara has to be here on the scene. He could hardly pick up a blackmail payment from L.A., could he? Besides, he obviously knows too much about all of us and the layout of the Market.”

“Right.”

“The threat is definitely local. There can't be that many people who both knew Zara in the old days and who also happen to be here in Seattle.”

“It's a place to start.” Jasper told himself not to get too excited about the look of glowing admiration in her eyes. “It means Zara has to be convinced to bring in a PI, however.”

Olivia waved that problem aside with a flick of her wrist. “Don't worry. I can talk her into it.”

“Get the list from her first. When you have it, I'll call someone I know at a firm I use for background checks on potential business clients.”

“I'll have Zara start working on the list first thing in the morning.” Olivia jumped to her feet and began clearing the table. “You know, I feel much better about this whole thing now that we have a plan.”

“Nothing like a plan.” He wished he felt as buoyed as she apparently did. He rose, picked up his dishes, and followed her into the kitchen. “Promise me you won't do anything else about this blackmail thing without talking to me first.”

“Okay,” she said a little too easily. She set the dishes in the sink. “Speaking of consulting with each other, that reminds me. We have to talk about Melwood Gill. What with this blackmail mess, I almost forgot about him.”

Jasper came up behind her to put his plate and silverware into the sink. He was so close he could smell the warm, womanly scent of her body mixed with something herbal from the soap and shampoo she used. He wondered what she would do if he put his arms around her and kissed her.
Bad timing
.

“If you want to see the reasons I shifted Gill to another position,” he said, “I'll be happy to open my briefcase and show them to you.” He ought to move back, put some distance between them. He was too close for his own good. He was getting hard again.

She took care of his dilemma by stepping adroitly to the side. He watched her turn and lead the way back out of the kitchen.

“You can bet your corner office with the window that I want to see those reports,” she said.

He stifled a groan. It was better this way. Even someone with bad timing in this kind of thing could see that.

Reluctantly he followed her out into the living room.

Lightning crackled in the distance just as he reached down to open his briefcase. Real lightning, not his libido-driven imagination this time, he thought. It was followed by a distant roll of thunder.

Great. The rain would hit soon. Just about the time he was ready to walk back to the ferry dock. He'd get drenched.

Distracted, Olivia swung around to stare out the windows. A look of anticipation crossed her face. “We're in for a genuine summer thunderstorm. We don't get too many. I love to watch from here.”

She opened the sliding glass doors and stepped outside onto her small corner balcony.

Jasper took his hand off the briefcase latch. He watched Olivia go to the railing. She stood there studying the dark, roiling clouds as if something she saw in them fascinated her.

He followed her out onto the balcony. She did not turn around.

“Olivia.” He was intensely aware of the energy-charged air. He tried to think of something intelligent to say. “About Gill—”

“It's not that I don't think you know what you're doing,” she assured him without turning around. “It's just that I feel a certain sense of responsibility toward the longtime employees of Glow.”

“I understand.” He closed the distance between them until he was once more standing directly behind her. “It was because of his long years of service that I did not let Gill go.”

“But it's humiliating for a man in his position to be moved aside.”

“It would be considerably more embarrassing for him if I fired him.”

She turned around very quickly, her eyes huge and shadowed in the strange storm light. “Are you absolutely certain that there is no better way to handle the situation?”

“Absolutely certain. Give me a little credit here. A few minutes ago you called me brilliant, remember?”

She smiled wryly. “I remember.”

He watched her face. “It may interest you to learn that when it comes to business, I'm known for having a really great sense of timing.”

“Is that a fact?”

“So they tell me. I am not, however, known for my good timing when it comes to other things.”

“Such as?”

“Such as this kind of stuff.” Need overrode logic. He bent his head and kissed her full on the mouth.

She went very still, but she did not pull away. Jasper put his hands out on either side of her and gripped the balcony railing with so much force that he wondered it did not fracture.

He felt the tremor that went through Olivia. It made everything in him very hard and tight. He heard a small, muffled sound, and then she pulled her mouth an inch or so away from his. She looked at him with deep, unreadable eyes.

“I don't have the best timing in the world when it comes to this kind of thing, either,” she whispered.

“Maybe we both need practice.”

He took his hands off the railing and wrapped her in his arms. This time her mouth opened beneath his. Some of the wild energy in the air pulsed in him. He felt her palms settle tentatively on his waist, not clinging, but not pushing him away, either. She touched him cautiously, as if testing the waters of a very deep, very dark pool.

He could feel the thrust of her breasts beneath her loosely fitted denim shirt. The warmth of her body was a sharp contrast to the cool breeze that heralded the onrushing storm. He wanted to lose himself in that soft, feminine heat.

He deepened the kiss. Her arms went all the way around his waist. He eased one hand down the length of her spine to the graceful curve above her buttocks. He urged her hips against his thighs, seeking to ease the straining tension of his heavily aroused body.

She was invitingly firm in all the right places, enticingly soft in others. And she wasn't wearing a bra beneath the poet shirt. He could feel the tight buds of her nipples.

He slid his leg between hers.

The rain struck without warning. The balcony overhang provided little protection against the chill, wind-driven blast, and Jasper was suddenly drenched. The cold, wet fabric of his shirt clung to his skin. Olivia flinched in his arms.

“Good grief.” She stepped back quickly, pushing a tendril of wet hair out of her sultry eyes. Her kiss-softened mouth curved in with laughter. “I'm soaked. So are you.”

“You see what I mean about my lousy timing.”

She was still laughing a few minutes later when she handed him his jacket and his briefcase and ushered him out of her cozy little villa.

“Hurry.” She leaned out into the hall to watch him get on the elevator. “The cab will be downstairs by now. You don't want to miss your ferry.”

Jasper was still smiling to himself when he got out of the elevator eleven floors below. He should have been feeling at least a little let down, given the abrupt ending to what had promised to be an interesting evening. But for some reason he was in a surprisingly good mood.

There was a new, unfamiliar sense of anticipation humming inside him, a feeling of possibilities.

Or maybe it had just been so long since he'd gotten laid that he'd forgotten what the prospect could do for his mood.

He nodded to the doorman who had summoned the taxi and walked out onto the sidewalk. The wind gusted, sending another sheet of rain across his shoulders.

The cab was not directly out front. It waited on the far side of the street. It figured.

Jasper jogged through the rain to where the taxi was parked. He opened the door of the cab and got inside.

“Ferry dock,” he said.

“You got it.”

Jasper looked back as the car pulled away from the curb. His eyes went straight to the eleventh floor. It was easy to spot because Olivia was standing at the railing, watching him leave.

The Mediterranean warmth of the sunny palazzo glowed behind her. She had put on a hooded raincoat for the second venture outside. It gave her a romantic, old-fashioned glamour. Juliet on a high-rise balcony.

As he watched, she raised her arm in a farewell wave.

He returned the salute and then settled back against the seat. A mistake. The movement plastered his damp shirt against his back. Still, he felt good.

Very, very good.

The rain was still coming down steadily forty-five minutes later when he walked off the ferry on Bainbridge Island. But he was still feeling good. He found his Jeep in the parking lot, climbed inside, and drove
to the big house overlooking the waters of Puget Sound.

The mildly intoxicated sensation lasted until he walked into the darkened kitchen.

Three steps past the door, he came to a halt, keys in hand. For a moment he listened to the silence. There had been a lot of it since Kirby and Paul had left for college. He was slowly growing accustomed to it.

But for some reason the sense of deep quiet was disturbingly intense tonight. It felt wrong.

Awareness flickered through him. He reached out and pushed the control panel button that turned on the lights in every room in the house at once. When the place was fully illuminated from top to bottom, he listened hard.

No panicked, fleeing footsteps. No squeak of floorboards.

But the sense of wrongness persisted.

Jasper walked slowly from room to room. Nothing was missing. There was no evidence of a break-in. No shattered windows. No one leaped out of a closet.

The heavy door to the basement was still safely locked. Jasper had had it specially designed. It would have taken a great deal of effort to open it. Any attempt to do so would have left obvious signs.