by Janzen, Tara
“Thank you,” she said, somewhat mollified. Then she realized her mistake. “I mean . . . uh no, thank you. Not that I’m not . . . uh—” Oh, hell, she didn’t know what she meant.
* * *
Riding home, she was still embarrassed, but she knew she had only herself to blame. Her last question had been foolish, unconsciously designed to humiliate herself—and it had absolutely changed her relationship with Cooper Daniels.
Once a man has turned down the equivalent of two hundred and fifty dollars for a woman and told her, it was damn hard to keep everything on a professional level.
What a day, she thought, and thank goodness they were finally heading home.
“Is this your exit coming up?” he asked, directing her attention to the freeway sign up ahead.
“Yes,” she said, and spent the next quarter hour giving him directions through suburbia. Shortly before dark, they pulled up in front of a two-story house nearly overrun by a lush forest of trees interspersed with shrubbery, flowering plants, and ground cover.
And just about anything else a person could name, Cooper thought. There didn’t seem to be a single species of flora missing from the mélange. A dry creek bed wound its way through gently sloping man-made hills, doing its best to anchor the profusion of green and growing things. A beautifully carved bridge straddled the creek on a brick path leading to the front door.
His first impression was of a jungle experiment that had gone haywire or been overdosed with fertilizer and California sunshine. As he looked longer, though, he began to see the hints of a design underlying the arrangement. The plants were also exceptionally well tended. Compared with most other yards, hers looked like a botanical health club.
“My brother is a landscape architect,” she said, “working on what he likes to call a modified chaos theory. He’s trying to find the bifurcation points of competing indigenous flora in an optimal but natural environment.”
“I think they all won,” Cooper said dryly, hazarding a guess about what she was talking about.
“That’s what Paul is hoping will happen.”
“Paul is your brother?” He turned to find her watching him, something she did a lot, though mostly when she thought he wouldn’t notice.
“My next to youngest,” she said, shifting her gaze back to the yard.
Her awareness of him lingered in the confines of the car, filling the space between them. He’d felt her gaze upon him many times during their long day of travel and even more so since the fiasco in his office. But then, as now, she was always careful to look away quickly. He hoped it wasn’t because she saw too much. Her appeal to him wasn’t something he could afford to explore, but it was strong, intriguing, and had damn near gotten him killed when he’d grabbed Chow Sheng. Rash didn’t begin to cover what he’d done.
Reminding himself one more time to forget having a personal relationship with her, he shrugged off the recriminations for misplaced gallantry and opened the driver’s door.
He knew they needed more than a week to accomplish his goal, even with Baolian already starting to cry uncle—the offer she’d sent via Chow proved that—and he was counting on Jessica staying on after her contract was fulfilled. He needed help, and he hadn’t overstated her attributes. He was paying himself into bankruptcy to get those attributes.
He heard her door open as he pulled her suitcase and carry-on out of the trunk, then he heard her sigh. The soft sound drew his gaze, despite his better judgment and his common sense.
She was balancing against the car door, lifting each foot in turn to remove her high heels. Her auburn hair had been finger-combed into disarray in the front, while the longer strands in back fell forward across her shoulders, skimming the delicate line of her jaw and emphasizing the fairness of her skin. Her blouse was partially untucked from her black skirt, making a white wing against the darker material. She was lovely, supple, and female, and her mere presence touched him.
Watching her, he was glad he’d stopped Chow from caressing her face, from feeling the skin he’d admired. She might be more stranger than friend, but Cooper felt a connection with her, one he was thankful he hadn’t allowed to be sullied.
A part of him wanted to put her far away from the mess he was in. He’d requested a highly specialized accountant from Elise Grubb, a person versed in finance and the Far East, and she’d sent him someone he was thinking of more as a woman, as a mother, a human being. It was damned distracting. He’d wanted everything cut-and-dried, and all business. He didn’t want any personal involvement. A robot who could think like a woman would have suited him fine.
“This is his house, Paul’s,” she said, looking over her shoulder at him and continuing her thoughts. “The kids and I share it with him and another of our brothers.”
“Tony is your brother too?” he asked, wondering what idiocy had made him assume differently about her ménage à trois. Jealousy, probably, and that was hardly a comforting thought.
“The youngest,” she said. “I have two more who are older than me.”
He didn’t know whether to be relieved or resigned.
His life would have been easier if she’d been seeing someone else, or two someone elses. He didn’t want her to be available. His best bet was to get her suitcase to the door and make a quick escape.
“Hey, Jessie!” A deep voice called to her from somewhere in the jungle of the yard.
Cooper turned toward the sound, feeling a distinct but strangely displaced sense of recognition. When a young man broke through the foliage, Cooper froze. For an instant sunlight and shadow played tricks with the man’s broad grin and the impish gleam in his dark eyes. For an instant Cooper thought he saw someone else.
“Jessie!” the young man hollered. He bounded down a hill to scoop her up into his arms and swing her around, making her squeal. A white daisy dangled precariously over one of his ears, held in place by straight dark hair that added to the painful illusion of familiarity.
“Tony Signorelli, you put me down.” Jessica laughed and bopped her not-so-little brother on the shoulder with her shoe. “And what’s this?” She reached for his flower. “Don’t tell me you’re playing—”
“Jessie,” he warned, threatening to drop her.
“Tarzan and Jane.” She squealed again as he let her fall a foot before he caught her.
Cooper was damned surprised at the playfulness of his Ms. MBA assistant, but it was the man who held his unwavering attention. Tony Signorelli was all energy and enthusiasm, and he was teasing his sister with a smile Cooper had last seen in the South China Sea.
It was Jackson’s smile, an uncanny duplication of an expression Cooper had coaxed out of childish tantrums and endured through adolescent arrogance. He’d seen Jackson’s smile quell dangerous men and seduce temperate women. Once, the woman had been Cooper’s, or so he’d thought until Jackson had shown up and lured her away with his easy charm.
The reunion at the edge of the jungle was interrupted by the appearance of “Jane,” a petite young woman with generous curves, short blond hair, and a warm smile. Her face had an elfin quality despite her plumpness.
“Hi,” she said to Jessica, then lifted her hand in a wave to include Cooper where he stood by the car. “Hi.”
Tony released Jessica and stepped aside to put his arm around the other woman in a gesture of obvious affection. His smile and his resemblance to Jackson faded into a more serious expression. “I’d like you to meet Alaina Fairchild. Alaina, this is my sister, Jessie.”
“Nice to meet you,” Alaina said. “Tony has told me a lot about you.”
“Nice meeting you too,” Jessica replied. With a lift of her hand, she also included Cooper. “This is my boss, Cooper Daniels. Mr. Daniels, my brother Tony Signorelli, and his friend Alaina Fairchild.”
Cooper stepped forward and shook hands all around.
“Alaina is an accounting senior at Berkeley,” Tony explained. “So I’ve told her a lot about you, Jess. Nice to meet you, Mr. Daniels
.”
Cooper nodded, silently agreeing that it was damn nice to meet everyone.
“Here, let me help you with those,” Tony said, reaching for his sister’s luggage. “We’re all just sitting down to supper. You ought to stay, Mr. Daniels. I’m sous chef at Balay, and I cooked, so it’s not like you have to eat that stuff Jessie comes up with, and Alaina made dessert.”
Cooper opened his mouth to decline the invitation, even though he knew Balay was a good restaurant, but before the words could get out of his mouth, another scream filled the air.
“Mom!” A young girl, all legs and flying dark hair, launched herself at his assistant, along with a smaller but sturdier-looking bundle of boy. Cooper reached out a hand to steady Jessica and found himself accidentally tangled up in the melee of hugs. It unnerved the hell out of him.
“Jessie!” yet another voice hollered, and Cooper started feeling like he’d brought home the Holy Grail. The newcomer had to be Paul, of course. There wasn’t anyone else left. At least he didn’t think so.
“Lime cheesecake with raspberry sauce. It’s one of her specialties,” Tony was explaining to Jessica even as she hugged her other brother.
“Mr. Daniels,” a small voice spoke to him from about waist height.
Cooper looked down to see an equally small hand extended. He shook it. He didn’t know what else to do.
“I’m Eric Langston.”
“Hello, Eric.”
“You’re not my father.”
“I know.” Cooper felt like he’d just landed on an unexplored planet.
“I’m Christina,” another voice addressed him.
Cooper turned and shook a slightly larger, but infinitely more delicate hand. “Cooper Daniels,” he said. Christina Langston looked like her mother, all wide cinnamon-colored eyes and pale skin with a dusting of freckles across her cheeks.
He turned hack to Jessica to say good-bye and to ask her to do a little work for him over the weekend, but he got waylaid by another introduction to yet another tall, dark-haired man, her brother Paul, who shook his hand, but then didn’t quite let it go. The dinner invitation was repeated a bit more firmly. Paul said something about wanting to get to know his sister’s boss better, especially since the boss was showing a tendency to whisk her off to faraway places.
Cooper got the impression he was being sized up and analyzed by a man about ten years his junior, and a gardener no less. He would have laughed, if laughter had been at all appropriate. The strength of the younger man’s handshake told him it wasn’t. Cooper Daniels was invited to dinner.
He could have declined. He wasn’t a stranger to power plays, winning through intimidation, or outright rudeness, and he wasn’t averse to using whatever method met his needs. But the Signorelli brothers were trying to be nice, and they were doing it out of concern for their sister. Cooper could do worse than to ease their worries about him. He knew he’d have to put on his best face and work at being sociable. It would be an imposition on his naturally antisocial—even surly—inclinations. But he could do it. Prove to them he was a good guy, and maybe they would influence their sister to stay on the job until the job was done.
Charm and affability. He hadn’t used either in so long, he should have a ready supply.
Six
“He’s not what I expected,” Paul said, handing Jessica another double shot of espresso for her to mix with hot milk. Everyone else was lingering over Alaina’s dessert on the back patio, leaving the two of them in the kitchen with a second round of coffee duty.
“Who?” she asked, though she knew perfectly well who he meant. She couldn’t believe Cooper had allowed himself to be coerced into a dinner-with-interrogation by her brother. She knew for a fact that he had enough arrogance to have delivered a flat refusal without a shred of guilt. She wished he had. Instead, he’d turned on more charm than she’d thought he possessed.
All she’d wanted to do was have a snack, be with her children, and go to bed. Instead, Tony had pulled out all the stops. Coupled with Christina and Eric’s loving and excitement, she’d gotten an unwelcome second wind. She probably wouldn’t fall asleep until four in the morning.
“The guy on his second piece of cheesecake,” her brother replied, giving her a wry look. “The guy who sent you overseas with less than a day’s notice. The man who made you miss Christina’s piano recital. The one I haven’t been real impressed with so far.”
“Oh. You mean the one who fired me five minutes after meeting me and is now practically blackmailing me into staying?” She grinned.
Paul grinned back at her. “Yeah. That one.”
“He’s not so bad, really.”
“I know,” her brother said. “That’s why he’s not what I expected. He’s been pretty high-handed with you. I guess I thought he’d be a real stuffed shirt.”
“He’s had a hard time of it lately.” She poured the last of the hot milk into the espresso cups, yawning. Maybe her second wind was winding down. She could only hope. Because of the guy on his second piece of cheesecake, she’d had a hard time of it lately too.
She had not had a private moment to tell her brother what she’d learned in London about her boss’s financial situation and recent family history, but had decided the news could wait until morning. She didn’t want to take a chance of Cooper hearing her talking about his murdered brother again. The awfulness of it still had her shaken.
“Nice guy or not,” Paul said, “you don’t need somebody else to take care of, a wounded dove.”
“He’s not a dove, he’s a dragon,” she said perfectly deadpan.
Her brother gave her a look of pure skepticism, and she rephrased her answer.
“Believe me, Paul. Cooper Daniels can take care of himself.” And me, she silently added. George had been right to tell her to get out while the getting was good, but he’d been wrong about Cooper’s inclinations to take care of her. Those were up and running in full working order.
“Maybe,” her brother answered, still looking doubtful. “But he sure spends a lot of time looking at you as if he’d like you to take care of him, if you know what I mean.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said, turning aside as much to put the filled latte cups on a tray as to hide her sudden blush. “He’s been nothing except rude and demanding. Hardly the actions of a man trying to impress a woman.”
Paul shrugged. “I know a guy on the make when I see one, little sister, and your boss couldn’t keep his eyes off you all through dinner.”
“You’re overprotective.”
“I’m realistic.”
“You’re barely kicking thirty in the back, and I’m over the hill. Therefore I am not your little sister,” she said, reminding him of her four-year age advantage.
He only grinned down at her from his seven-inch height advantage and said, “Oh, yeah?”
* * *
It was time for him to leave. It had been time for him to leave an hour ago, but Cooper still hadn’t managed to extricate himself from the Langstons, the Signorellis, and Alaina Fairchild. At dusk, Paul had turned on the lights hidden in the trees and along the paths leading through the yard. The effect was exotic, reminding Cooper of the finer places he’d been to in Southeast Asia, places where the very air evoked mystery and sensuality.
His gaze drifted to Jessica. She wasn’t what she was supposed to have been, and the disparities were going to be his undoing. She’d made a quick change of clothes before supper, doing away with her business suit in favor of a long blouse and leggings with a blue-and-white seashell pattern. She’d worked her hair up again, which was becoming his favorite style for her. It exposed the exquisite nape of her neck, a place he wanted very much to put his mouth to and taste with his tongue.
He felt a tightening in his groin and swore silently as he shifted in his chair. She was going to be the death of him. In four days of working for him, she hadn’t made a false move—except for shaking his concentration and somehow making him care, making him want her.
He forced his attention back to his wineglass, lifting it to drain its contents. He knew better than to do what he was considering but he didn’t think that was going to be enough to stop him.
“More wine, Mr. Daniels?” Tony asked.
Cooper looked over at the younger man and shook his head. “No, thank you.”
Jessica’s brother was a nice kid, nothing at all like Jackson, except in his smile, his exuberance, and his appreciation of the gentler sex. Alaina Fairchild was glowing under all his attention. Tony’s basic body build and the darkness of his hair were the same as Jackson’s, but without the smile to transform them, the resemblance was purely superficial. Thank God.
After dessert had been served, Paul had turned off the brighter patio lights, leaving Cooper with a sense of being cocooned in a rainforest night filled with stars. The lush landscaping extended along both sides of the house and overwhelmed the backyard with the same undiminished vigor it displayed in the front yard. The smells were wonderful, rich and earthy with a hint of flowers.
His own home smelled of the sea—and of emptiness. He knew that was another reason he’d allowed himself to linger. He had hardly been home in two months, and he still wasn’t ready to face the emptiness. Cooper had friends, but they were all mourning Jackson, and his guilt didn’t allow him that luxury. It was safer to be with strangers, and he wanted to be with Jessica.
When Tony left to walk Alaina to her car, Paul gave Cooper an undisguised signal to leave. “I guess it’s time we all called it an evening,” the younger man said, rising to his feet. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Daniels. Christina, Eric, this is it. Bedtime. Let’s go.”
The children stood up with their uncle, and Jessica followed suit.
“I’ll see you out,” she said to Cooper, then turned to her children and gave them both big hugs. “I’ll be up in a minute, sweetie pies. We’ll read a story together.”
Rather than going through the house, she literally led him down the garden path. Cooper could have told her it wasn’t necessary. He could have seen himself out. She was tired, and he’d already taken up too much of her time. But he wasn’t ready to let her go. His quick escape had died with the invasion of her family, and he’d resigned himself to breaking a cardinal rule.
