True Bliss (23 page)

Sebastian put his feet on the floor and rested his elbows on his knees. "Maybe you should explain what you mean by that."

"You figure it out."

Bliss had said she'd been threatened at the Wilmans' when the lights went out. She said some man had pawed her. Old man Moore was sick, had always been sick—was he sick enough to be menacing Bliss?

"I want—"

"That's it for tonight," Sebastian snapped. He couldn't take anymore.

"You listen to—"

"I'm not listening. And don't call back. Mess with me again and I'll take it up with my lawyers. Don't mess with me, Moore. And stay away from my family—and my friends. Got it?" He smacked the phone down and scrubbed at his face.

"He can make trouble," Zoya said.

Maryan had told her things Sebastian never told anyone. He looked up. "What are you doing here, Zoya?"

She threaded an arm behind Maryan's shoulders. "Maryan and Ron invited me over."

Maryan's eyes were glazed but she nodded. "Zoya came to swim with us. We're all worried about you, Sebby. We're all worried about what's going on here."

"This was dropped off," Zoya said, proffering the envelope.

Sebastian pushed to his feet and took it. "What is it?"

"How should I know?"

He turned the envelope over and studied the metal butterfly closure.

"The guy wanted to talk to you," Zoya said. "I told him you weren't available."

"Damn it!"

"Hey"—Zoya held up a hand—"don't yell at me. You weren't available. He came just before you got back. We're all trying to run a business here while you're all over town making a spectacle of yourself with one of those tight asses you were telling me about."

Fury turned Sebastian's hands to fists. "Stay out of my private life."

"If your private life was private, we wouldn't even know about it, would we? As it is, there are probably more photos like those in the hands of the press right now."

Sebastian stared into Zoya's eyes and said softly, "You already opened this? Thoughtful of you."

She showed no embarrassment. "You'd better take a look."

From the envelope, Sebastian slid a wad of photos. On top was a cryptic note: "Busy woman. I'm not the only one watching her. Used a Polaroid for tonight—figured you might want to see what I got at once. Nose."

Sebastian read and reread the words.

"Come for a swim, Seb," Maryan said, blinking slowly. "We'll swim and talk."

Someone other than Nose was watching Bliss. Sebastian

hadn't thought about Nose in days. The first photo showed Bliss outside the lodge with the little boy. They were talking to the painter, Vic. Sebastian flipped through several more innocuous shots and came to one that stopped him: a Polaroid of Bliss at Sebastian's side outside the Wilmans'. The expression on her face turned his stomach. Fear and anger mixed there, and confusion. The serape-clad banner wavers were prominently featured. More prominent was Prue O'Leary, shouting at Bliss.

"Did you know that was being taken?" Zoya asked.

He shook his head.

"We can pray the press don't have a matching one," Ron said.

Sebastian ignored him. There was even a Polaroid of the scene in the dining room at the Wilmans'. He flipped through rapidly, frantically, and felt his own sweat before the rush of relief at finding there were certain photo opportunities that Nose had missed.

He started again and went more slowly. A picture of Bliss with Prue O'Leary stopped him. They faced each other beside what appeared to be a tangle of barbed wire. Water showed behind them. Lake Washington? Both women were drenched and the O'Leary woman was gesturing, making a point. The photos were dated on the back. This one had been taken the previous day—probably in the afternoon before the Wilmans' party. Bliss was enmeshed with the woman.

He looked at the final shot. Bliss at the open doors to her room. Her eyes held fear. Sebastian frowned and looked more closely, and checked the date. It had been taken the night she dashed away from him—the first night they spent together. He touched her face on the print. What he felt for her wasn't going away.

"For God's sake, Sebby," Maryan said. "Stop mooning over that colorless little nothing. She's nothing, absolutely nothing. We've got important things to do."

"Shut up," he said wearily and stood up. "I'm going to bed."

"We need to talk," Zoya said. "You can't put it off any longer. We've got a company to run."

"I've got a company to run," Sebastian told her, meeting her gaze. "And I'm running it."

He began to push the photos back into the envelope but stopped. He took a closer look at the photo of Bliss on the threshold to the deck outside her bedroom. On the wall behind her—it would be the wall on the opposite side of her bed—was a large mirror with an old-fashioned gilt frame. He brought the shot closer and studied the mirror.

Faint but unmistakable was a dark silhouette. Not the substance, but the shadow of someone looking toward Bliss, someone inside her room, probably just inside the bathroom door, watching her.

Fifteen

Zoya sat in the chair Maryan had vacated in favor of the couch. "You know where he's going, don't you?" she said of Sebastian. Damn him. She'd get more of his attention if she was his dog.

Maryan dumped gin to the top of a highball glass, slopping booze on the table in the process. She made several stabs before zeroing in on the top of the ice bucket and lifting it off. It fell through her fingers.

"Ron," Zoya said, leaning forward. "Do something with her, will you? We've got to move our plans along or Sebastian baby's going to scuttle us."

"I thought we'd agreed that things were coming along quite nicely," Ron said. "Bliss Winters isn't going to be a problem for long."

"We need to move faster," Zoya said. "Much faster. And Sebastian's tacky private eye could turn into a handicap."

Maryan held Ron's attention. He said, "Maybe he's served his purpose for us. He's already done us a favor we didn't expect."

"We'll have to be very careful." Coming out of this clean, and smiling all the way to the bank, was the only scenario Zoya was prepared to consider.

Swaying, blinking in slow motion, Maryan chased ice cubes floating in water until she trapped one against the side of the bucket. She scooped it out and managed to hit her target. More gin splattered.

Ron sat beside her and massaged her neck.

If Maryan noticed, she gave no sign. Bending almost double, she captured her glass in both hands and raised it high enough to suck almost half the contents in one swallow.

"She's going to pass out," Zoya said, resigned, but angry. Without these two she'd manage Sebastian just fine. "Maryan, Sebastian's got to be diverted. Do you understand me? We've got to get him out of the way until we've finished what we've got to do."

"Diverted," Maryan said, pointing at Zoya with a long fingernail. "Sebastian's mine. I'll divert him."

Zoya frowned at Ron who shrugged. "Luvvy, Sebastian's gone to the Winters woman again."

"Y'don't know that," Maryan said. "He likes to drive when he's uptight. Moore upset him. Without that old bastard, Crystal wouldn't have cost us so much."

"We aren't here to discuss Crystal," Ron said, avoiding Zoya's eyes.

"Crystal was his wife, wasn't she?" Zoya asked

"We don't talk about that," Ron said "Maryan, love, concentrate. Remember I told you Zoya's as worried as we are about what could happen here in Seattle."

Maryan looked sideways at him. She raised a hand and slapped his cheek repeatedly, each time with more force, and she laughed.

Ronnie flinched, but he let her hit him.

"I'm the only one who deals with Sebastian's business," she said, punctuating her words with flat-handed blows. "Do you understand that, lover boy? You keep that bitch, Zoya, away from me. And keep her away from Sebastian. She wants inside his pants. She's washed up. If the Bellevue project goes down, she goes down with it."

Zoya pushed to her feet and paced. Maryan's attitude toward her fluctuated. "Shut her up." But she was right—only the Bellevue project wasn't going to fail. "We've got to move and we've got to be sure Bliss Winters can't do any damage we can't fix."

"When exactly did it become 'we'?" Ron asked, neatly shifting his allegiance back to his mistress. He had a great body

and, given what Zoya had already surmised about his predilections, Maryan's slaps had produced exactly the expected result. Ron was sexually excited.

"Do you want me to remind you about that now?" she asked Ron, tilting her head to study his crotch. "About how we became a partnership."

Ron glanced at Maryan.

"Doesn't look as if it would matter if we fucked on the coffee table, does it?" Zoya asked.

"For God's sake." Ron shot to his feet. "Watch your mouth."

"You watch my mouth," she said, and laughed, and ran her tongue over her lips. "Why don't I help you get poor Maryan into bed?"

"I don't need any help." He bent over Maryan who let the now empty glass fall through her fingers and clatter across the table. "Come on, sweets. Bedtime for us." He pulled her to her feet.

Zoya came to the woman's other side and put an arm around her, using the opportunity to squeeze Ron's very nice ass.

"Knock it off," he said, glaring at her over Maryan's head. "Go home. The show's over here."

"Uh-uh"—she pulled one of Maryan's arms around her neck—"show's only beginning, and it's going to be a doozie."

Maryan contrived to grab the gin bottle and bear it with her as they half-guided, half-dragged her toward the stairs.

"I can do this, I tell you," Ron hissed, reaching to try to push Zoya. "Our suite's in the basement. Go home."

She caught his hand and delivered a sharp bite to his palm.

He yowled, and jerked away. For seconds they stared at each other, then he looked ahead and started maneuvering Maryan down the two flights of steps that led to an airy basement.

"She's passing out," Zoya commented. "Take the bottle."

Ron took it as it began to slip from Maryan's hand. He swept her up and carried her the rest of the way to a large, starkly minimalist suite. Centrally placed, a huge brass, four-poster seemed cast adrift on a sea of blond oak flooring. Diaphanous

lengths of creamy muslin wound about the bedframe and floated gently in a breeze through white jalousies.

With Maryan deposited atop the impossibly high, eyelet-covered mattress and pillows, Ron swung to give Zoya his entire attention. "Get out," he said, baring his teeth. "Get out and don't think you can blackmail me with your little stories."

She walked slowly past him to the side of the bed and undid the belt on Maryan's robe.

"I told you to get out."

"Help me. And while you help me, listen. We sink or swim together. Do you understand me?"

"No, I don't understand you. Leave her alone."

Very deliberately, Zoya pulled the belt free of the robe and rolled it up.

"Bellevue's just one operation for us," Ron said. "It'll hurt if it loses money, but it won't be fatal—except to you."

She studied him sharply. "What exactly do you mean when you say that?"

He grinned, a grin that made him boyishly handsome—as long as you didn't look into his vapid eyes. "You talked Sebastian into letting you buy a big piece of the action for yourself."

"How do you know that?"

"Maryan found out. You gambled big, baby. Desperate move, we figured. All or nothing, right?"

"I decided it was time to own something I worked to make. If we encounter a fatal hitch, it'll sting—it won't finish me."

"Not what we heard." Ron shook a knowing finger. "Not what we heard at all. We heard you were in deep in a lot of pies and trying to dig your way out."

This was not the time to lose her nerve. "Then you heard wrong. And Maryan's been keeping you in the dark. She's the one who's scared to death." Zoya drew herself up. This boy wouldn't recognize the kind of gamble she was prepared to take if it smacked him flat. "She can't afford to have Sebastian bring another woman into his life—anymore than we can."

Ron wasn't saying anything.

"Okay. Play dumb. But help me get her undressed/'

"Shit, no!"

Zoya flipped open the robe. Mary an wore a beige lace teddy and cream hose. "Help me," Zoya repeated, reaching to pull the covers down beneath the other woman. "If you want to come out of this with something, do as I tell you. We need her on our side and she'll never agree unless she's got no out."

"You're mad."

"Maybe. You'd better hope not because we're in this together."

"I haven't agreed to anything."

"You don't have to. Either you do this my way and trust me to pull off a big win for you and me, or you lose. Simple as that."

He came toward her. "What if I throw you out on that sexy rear of yours?"

"Then I scream assault, call the cops, and turn you in."

"They'd never believe you."

"Wouldn't they?" She stripped off one of Maryan's stockings. "Sebastian hates your guts. He likes mine. All I've got to do is tell him you attacked me, and you're dead meat." Undressing a deadweight wasn't easy.

"You'd do it, wouldn't you?" Ron said.

She pulled the straps of the teddy from Maryan's shoulders. "You bet your life I would."

"What's in this for me?"

Zoya stopped and gave him her full attention. "We split everything."

"Split everything?"

"Everything Maryan will have to get her hands on to stop us from telling her brother exactly how sick she is. We know what she really wants. And we know Sebastian wouldn't keep her around if he knew what she wanted—or what's going to happen here tonight."

He came to her side slowly. "You really mean it."

Her answer was to pull Maryan's teddy to her waist and free her arms. "Sit her up."

"I don't like this."

"Sit her up."

A second later Maryan's head draped backward over Ron's arms. Her breasts were Playboy material, Zoya decided, big, with saucer-sized nipples. Watching Ron's face, she fingered them and laughed. He looked away.

"Some apples," she commented. "Mixing business and pleasure is going to be a real turn on."