Once Upon a Dream (8 page)

Turning, she looked in the other direction. How had he come back without her noticing? Had he snuck around?

Her heart sank. She hated that he’d gone directly to his girlfriend. She tried to convince herself that he had to—Sondra Fawkes was probably waiting for him. And he’d only just met Summer, so he had no attachment to her.

Except
those kisses
.

She watched them holding hands, feeling as green as her dress. She wished he’d leave Sondra and come claim her now.

It was better this way, she told herself. She didn’t want a man who’d insensitively abandon his girlfriend at a party.

Her heart was still sad though. Disappointed, she turned and pushed her way through the crowd to Bea’s waiting limo.

Chapter Eight

There was a wrapped package on his desk. With a floppy pink bow.

Jon studied it from all angles. Leaning down, he listened to it. No ticking. Using a pen, he moved it and then stepped back.

No detonation.

He went to the doorway of his office and poked his head into the reception. Trudy was standing on a ladder, installing shelves, a determined smile on her face.

That smile terrified him in a way that not even a guerilla chasing him with a machine gun could.

“What are you doing?” he asked, not certain she was talking to him yet.

She looked over her shoulder. “Putting up shelves.”

“Yes, but why?”

“Because we need them and they look nice,” she said as though she were explaining it to a child.

“We’re closing the office in a month,” he pointed out. “We have no need for new shelves.”

She shook her head, her smile sharpening. “You’re going to change your mind.”

He frowned. “I’m not, Trudy.”

“Did you get my present?”

He glanced back at the gift on his desk. “Should I be worried about it exploding and nailing me with shrapnel?”

“You’re so suspicious.”

His frown deepened. Now he was really concerned. “What is it?”

“A gift. From me to you, to show you how much I appreciate you as a boss and that the next year is going to be great.” She arched her brow, as though daring him to contradict her with talk of retirement. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

“I don’t know.”

She rolled her eyes. “What happened last night? The masquerade wasn’t all you wanted it to be? You weren’t the belle of the ball?”

Glaring at her, he went back into his office and slammed the door shut. He strode to his desk, sat down, and fixed his glare on the package. The pink bow mocked him.

Belle of the ball, indeed. He grunted. He still couldn’t figure out what had happened last night. He went to get champagne, and when he came back Summer wasn’t there any longer.

Ryan Huber was though, and he was holding hands with a different woman.

Jon suspected that Summer had seen Ryan, become upset with the man, and had gone off to lick her wounds. He’d decided to go up to Huber and face the man, to see what his story would be. Jon couldn’t have been more surprised to find out that the cow-faced woman on Huber’s arm was his girlfriend.

Evidently Summer wasn’t his fiancée.

Then who was she? And why had she claimed she was going to marry Huber?

Pondering the questions, Jon picked up the package and shook it. It rattled, a soft metallic clank. He set it back down and got up. “Trudy,” he said, flinging the door open, “I need information on a woman named Summer Welles.”

“Have you opened your gift yet?” she asked, not turning around from where she was screwing a nail in the wall.

“Is that a condition for you doing your work?”

“Of course not.” She smiled sweetly over her shoulder. “The gift is purely to show my appreciation for you.”

“It’s to bribe me to stay.”

“That, too.”

Shaking his head, he went back into his sanctum.

Half an hour later, Trudy strutted into his office, a manila folder in her hand. “Here you go.”

Jon took the folder. It was exceptionally thin. He frowned at it, flipping it over and back. “This is it?”

Trudy shrugged. “Not everyone has a sordid past.”

Not true. Everyone had skeletons to hide. He had his fair share of bodies buried.

“You haven’t opened it yet.” She nodded at the present.

He grunted.

She put a hand on her hip, tipping her head. “It’s not going to bite. You may even like it.”

“Doubtful,” he murmured.

“Fine. Be an unappreciative wanker.” She huffed and strutted out.

He frowned. He wasn’t unappreciative. He compensated her well. He gave her bonuses every year. He tried to make her take vacations, which she never took. Once he even bought her a ticket, though she never used it. He was a damn fine boss.

Putting the offending package away in a drawer, he grabbed the file and focused on the information listed in it.

Summer Welles. Born to Tabitha Welles and Reginald Summerhill, both deceased. Illegitimate. Law school, worked at Orson & Tomlin. Residence in Mayfair. No arrests. No citations, not even traffic tickets.

Summer Welles was too good to be true.

Meaning she was.

Last night, Jon had noticed her the moment she’d walked in. Hair piled high, draping down one bare shoulder. Bright green dress, so opposite from the black he’d always seen her in that it was a slap upside the head. Her mask, purple and gold with a matching green plume. The tall sparkly shoes. He almost hadn’t noticed the jewels she’d worn, and that was saying something.

Those stones weren’t fake. That was certain by their luster and shine. Were they hers, or had Huber given them to her?

His door opened and Trudy poked her head in. “I made some coffee if you want some.”

“Since when do you make coffee?” He got up to get a cup.

“Since you started talking about retiring. I’m showing you how great it is here.”

“Trudy, I know you think I’m going to change my mind, but I’m not. I’m moving to Thailand.” He’d already bought the house on Koh Phangan. It was just a matter of this last debt to Bradley.

“So you’ll keep your island paradise as a raunchy bachelor’s pad where you take ladies for a week of sex in the sun. But you won’t be able to retire.”

For some reason, he pictured Summer lying naked on his small stretch of private beach. Her hair glinted gold, and her nipples were plump and pink, and they’d turn red when he kissed them, just like her lips had.

He shifted his weight, shaking his head to make the image dissipate. “I’m retiring, Trudy.”

She shrugged. “I still have a couple weeks to change your mind.”

“You can’t change my mind.”

“Have you opened the present?”

He glared at her and, taking his coffee, returned to his office. He sat on the couch and reread through Summer’s file, paying attention to the details, making notes.

None of it added up. Something was off with her—no one was as sweet as her eyes made her out to be, like she was spun of dreams and fairy dust. It had to be an act. What game was she playing?

Going into his closet, he pulled out a cap, a dark jacket, and glasses. “Start polishing your résumé,” he told Trudy as he walked out of the office.

“I’m thinking of expanding the office into the space next door,” she called after him. “It’s available, and how great would a pool table be in here?”

Shaking his head, he closed the door and strode toward the elevator. With each step, his posture changed, so by the time he was on the street, he was a little hunched and seemingly a smaller man.

He went to Orson & Tomlin and took up post across the street.

It was a couple hours before Summer walked out, presumably to go to lunch. She was with the shorter woman she’d been with the first day he’d seen her. Their body language intimated that they were close friends. Summer wore all black, which was in complete contrast to the colorful bird she was the night before.

Except for that scarf. That scarf confounded him.

He followed them to lunch and back. He waited for her to leave work, tailing her to her home in Mayfair.

Most people never realized that they were being followed. It had partly to do with being unaware but mostly to do with the person following them: Unless you projected your image, no one sensed you.

Jon was a master at being invisible.

He watched her enter the enormous red-bricked house. It must have been a grand place at one time, but now it was a little ashen and worn at the edges. The family crest above the entrance was chipped, the words
Family and Honour
grayed with dirt. The file told him it’d been her father’s house, and he’d left half to his wife and half to his mistress. Summer received the inheritance at her mother’s death last year.

And she lived there, which didn’t make sense because Trudy’s information claimed Jacqueline Summerhill, the countess of Amberlin, still resided there as well.

He saw an older woman enter the house at approximately 19:30. Opening the file on his mobile, he pulled up her picture. Jacqueline Summerhill, Countess of Amberlin.

Jon frowned. What kind of woman was this, to take in the bastard daughter of her husband? Nobody was that good.

Strolling around the block, he spied the Mount Street Gardens behind the South Street house. The gates were closed, but that was remedied by a few seconds with his lock pick.

The gardens were still, without even a rustle of wind. He sat on a bench in the middle closer to Summer’s house and surveyed the other homes. Few lights were on here and there, a panorama of domesticity.

A light went on in Summer’s house. It was pure luck that it was her silhouette framed in it.

He hunched on the bench even though he knew she wouldn’t see him. He was too good, and it was already dark. He watched her, his gut tightened at the sight of her in the window. He tried not to remember the way she’d clutched him and told him she always knew he’d be hers.

He’d never been anybody’s.

He wasn’t hers, either, he told himself, shutting down that dangerous path of thought.

Facing the window, oblivious, she took off her sweater.

Jon stilled. Then he stopped breathing as she unbuttoned her blouse. He reminded himself that this was work, that finding out more about Summer Welles was an assignment.

Sometimes he loved his job.

She wore black lace under her blouse. Normally he loved black underwear. Hell, he loved any underwear, especially if it was discarded on the floor. But he wondered what she’d look like in something vivid, like the green of the dress she’d worn last night.

He waited, intent, for her to take the bra off, too. At the same time, he wanted to yell at her to close the drapes.

He wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or frustrated when she slipped a sweatshirt over her head and worked her arms through the sleeves. He expected it, but he was still disappointed when she turned away and turned off the lights.

Chapter Nine

The doorbell sounded.

The noise yanked Jacqueline out of her writing, her chair making a shrill shriek on the kitchen floor as she startled. She looked up from her journal at Fran, who stopped in the process of rolling out dough. “Are we expecting a delivery?”

“Not that I know of.” Fran shook her hands, reaching for a towel.

“No, you finish your bread.” Jacqueline stood, closing the notebook. “I’ll get it.”

“If it’s a handsome man, send him my way.”

She smiled, trying to picture their Franny having a rendezvous with a man in the kitchen. There’d be flour all over.

Still smiling with the image, she opened the door to a man’s back. There was a worn leather bag at his feet, of fine quality that had cost quite a bit at some point. “May I help you?”

The man turned around. He had brown hair that needed a cut. His clothes were also very fine, though they were wrinkled and too loose. His mouth was drawn with fatigue, as though it’d been a long time since he’d found sleep, and his face was textured with a good bit of shadow.

His eyes were most striking though. His eyes were like her daughters’—the telltale Summerhill blue.

It could only be one person. “Sebastian Tate?”

He smiled faintly. “By your reaction, I take it my arrival isn’t the most convenient.”

“That’s not it at all,” she said politely. She stepped aside to let him in. “I just wasn’t expecting you, and we get so few visitors. Please come in.”

“You didn’t get my letter? I sent one in reply to yours.” He picked up his bag and walked inside, his gaze taking in everything. “Although it’s possible I arrived ahead of it.”

Obviously. She refrained from commenting on that. “Is your business in London urgent?”

“You could say that,” he mumbled. He set his bag down and faced her. “You’re exactly how I envisioned.”

She frowned. “I hope that’s a good thing.”

“It’s reassuring, I can tell you that.” He smiled. “I really appreciate that you answered my letter. I didn’t think you would. In fact, I expected you to turn me away now.”

“Do I have reason to turn you away?”

He shook his head, his gaze earnest. “I’m not here to do any harm to you or your family.” His brow furrowed. “You have family, don’t you?”

“Seven daughters,” she said. It was her turn to frown. “You didn’t know?”

“It was a surprise to me that I had any family, even distantly related. The first I heard of any of you was when the lawyer contacted me to say I inherited a title.” He smiled self-deprecatingly. “Can you imagine, me, an earl?”

She looked at him, his rumpled state, his bag, and it dawned on her. “Did you
just
arrive from the States?”

He nodded. “I came directly here. I don’t even have a place to stay yet.”

Why? She shook her head, wanting to ask but too polite to. “You must be completely exhausted, and perhaps famished?”

“I am hungry,” he admitted.

She nodded. “Leave your things here and follow me.”

She led the way to the kitchen, feeling him behind her. Curious, that he’d come here before checking into a hotel. She glanced at him over her shoulder. He didn’t have the look of someone who lacked funds.