by Lisa Hendrix
Angus was well into his bourbon and branch when a man walked by carrying the afternoon paper. A black and red drawing of what looked like Mason Alexander caught Angus’s eye.
“Excuse me,” he said, reaching out to stop the man. “Can I see that?”
The fellow looked annoyed, but he held out the paper. “Sure.”
“Holy…” Angus stared at the photo. It was Mason, all right, on some kind of banner, floating above the head of that landscape designer he’d met at the Alexander house. He scanned the caption, which referred him to a story on page five. It would appear that Miss Hobart was up to something besides landscape designing.
“Ahem.”
“Sorry. Thanks.” He handed the paper back to the man and went straight out to the rack of papers in the lobby of the clubhouse. He had the Times open to page five by the time he got back to the table where Tucker waited patiently.
“What was that about?”
Angus pulled the outside sheet off and handed it to Tucker. “Front page center.”
“Jesus.”
“Looks like the boy’s got his butt in a sling on this one,” said Angus.
“Yeah, I’d say.” Tucker shook his head, then tapped the picture with a forefinger. “Isn’t that the girl he brought to the Wilmott dance the other night?”
Angus folded his paper and laid it down. “Say what?”
“I could swear it’s the same girl,” muttered Tucker. “I don’t remember those freckles, but—” He blocked off the mop of blonde hair on the photo with his hands. “Yes, that’s definitely her. Alexander must be fit to be tied.”
“I’d say so,” said Angus. Hog-tied and horsewhipped, the little upper-crust sonofabitch. If he thought he could two-time Caroline whenever she left town, he had a lesson to learn.
He tossed back the last of his drink. “Lyle, I hate to say goodbye, but I have a few things to take care of. Have your people call mine and we’ll see if we can’t make this deal go.”
They shook hands, and Angus headed for his car. As soon as he locked the doors, he pulled his cell phone out and dialed the international operator.
“Singapore, please, darlin’,” he said to the voice that answered. “Raffles Hotel.”
*
Raine was wrong. He wasn’t running on pure emotion. He wasn’t feeling anything at all.
There was just a hollowness, like the sound the car door made slamming in his face. Mason knew it well. He’d run on it for years after Elizabeth. It made decisions incredibly easy, because he could base them on facts, with nothing in the way. It was a good way to work.
So he worked, diving with relish into the reports and the minutiae of running a corporation. The notes on the morning production meeting arrived from Greg’s office just before five, and he went over them and got enough ideas to generate a dozen memos. He was still at work on them at seven P.M. when Miranda walked into his office unannounced.
“I sent Chris home,” she said when he looked up.
“I need her for another hour.”
“No, you don’t.” She crossed to the desk and perched on one corner. “I saw the news.”
Mason hit a button to save his work on the computer and leaned back in his chair. “How bad was it?”
“Oh, about like this.” She pulled the late edition of the Times out from behind her back and tossed it on his desk.
He hadn’t seen any photos yet, and it was probably just as well. His face, or an approximation thereof, snarled out from the front page just above Raine’s frizzy blonde head. The rest of the banner was an abomination of gore and hyperbole.
“Why didn’t you call us?” Miranda asked. “We had to find out from Kate McMullen when she picked Sam up.”
“Did Samantha see this grotesquerie?”
“No. And I warned Kate to keep her away from it. She’s spending the night with Adeline.”
“Good. And thank you.”
“I don’t think I’m the one you want to thank.” Miranda wandered behind him and looked out the window over downtown. “Have you talked to Raine?”
“I bailed her out. Or rather, I went down and dropped the charges. We spoke briefly.”
“Did she give you any excuses? Explanations?”
“She claims she didn’t know about the banner.”
“You don’t believe her.”
“She’s head of that outfit.”
“Why would she lie?” Miranda walked around the other side of the desk and headed for the couch.
“The same reason she lied to me for the past week and a half, whatever that was.” He pulled the Times off the desk and tipped it into the wastebasket by his feet. “That’s one thing I don’t understand. She had me as a captive audience for all that time, and she never tried to take advantage of it. She never said one word about Canal Place
or feng shui or any of it.”
“Yes, she did,” said Miranda. “One of those first nights at dinner, when I asked her about what she did besides landscaping. She specifically mentioned feng shui. Tish and I even talked about it the next day.”
“All right, once,” conceded Mason. “But you would have thought she’d try to win me over or something.”
“How could she?”
“Simple conversation.”
“Talking to you about things out of the mainstream is never simple, Mason. You get snappish when someone mentions what you define as nonsense.” Miranda kicked off her shoes and curled her feet up on the couch. “She probably figured that much out when you blew up at Tish for daring to bring up witchcraft at the table, then decided it wasn’t worth losing her head.”
“I’m not that bad.”
“Yes, you are. I’m used to it and you still startle me sometimes.”
“Nothing startles you.” Mason rose and walked around the desk to join his sister on the couch. “Speaking of witchcraft, the good news for you and Mother is that you don’t have to worry about reversing the love potion anymore.”
Miranda went beet red and started spluttering. “What are you talking about?”
“Stop it, Miranda. I knew from the beginning. The iced tea tasted like the bottom of your cauldron. That first kiss on the terrace was a spur-of-the-moment attempt to get you and Mother to stop screwing around with my life. When it didn’t work, I looked up Miss Hobart and hired her to date me, to teach you and Mother a lesson. I offered her five thousand dollars, although she didn’t take it, as it turned out. At any rate, it was all a ruse.”
“No, it wasn’t. I watched you two. That potion worked. You were in love with her. And now you’re not, because of the counterspells Tish and I worked the last two nights.”
“We were acting. It was a con. And the only reason we’re not still acting is because Miss Hobart was conning me at the same time and got caught. It has nothing to do with spells or counterspells. Your witchcraft does not work.”
“I’m not going to argue with you. But I know you, big brother, and you sure as hell didn’t sleep with that girl as part of some con.”
“No. I’ll admit there was a certain level of physical attraction that we followed through on.” And the reaction of his body at the thought told him that, given half a chance, he’d follow through on it again, despite what Raine had done to him.
“That’s all you think it was? Chemistry?”
“Of course. Although it was exceptionally poor judgment to act on it, as it turns out. Do you suppose she’d have a case for sexual harassment?” he asked dryly. “Or is sex presumed to fit in the job description of paid love interest?”
Miranda took his hand. “She really hurt you, didn’t she? I’m so sorry, Mason.”
“I’m fine. You’re much more disturbed by this than I am.”
“I know,” she said. “And that makes me worry for you.”
“Don’t concern yourself. I’m fine. The game is over, that’s all. Caroline will be back next week, and after I explain all this to her, we will continue down the merry path to joint venture and
marriage. But let me warn you, if you and Mother so much as think about a love potion again, I will personally burn you at the stake before I move out of the house and out of your lives. Do you understand me?”
Miranda nodded. “Perfectly. And now, since you don’t appear to need me, I will go off and waste another evening on my whirlwind social life. Should I tell Tish to expect you anytime soon?”
“I’m not sure. My mind is exceptionally clear and focused right now. I think I’ll take advantage of it.” He brushed a piece of lint off the back of the couch. “Would you mind leaving your car and having Paul take you home? That way I can take him off the clock.”
“Sure. I parked on Level A.” She handed him her car keys, then leaned over and kissed him before she got up. “Don’t let your heart get too hard, Mason. You’ll miss out on the good things.”
“I’ll phone down and have Paul meet you out front. Good night, Miranda.”
“Good night.”
She let herself out, pulling the door shut behind her with a firm click that left Mason to his memos and his empty, silent office.
*
She understood perfectly, all right.
Miranda waited downstairs until Paul pulled up, then met him at the curb.
He opened the door. “Good evening, miss.”
So he was back to calling her Miss instead of Miranda. Why not? She’d avoided him since Saturday, not knowing what to say. She sighed.
“Is there something wrong?” he asked.
“Oh, no. My brother’s heart is broken and it’s my fault, but no, there’s nothing wrong. At least not if you ask Mason.”
“Miss Alexander, I’m his driver. It’s not appropriate—”
“Paul, do you like my brother?”
“I like him and respect him, very much.”
“Then screw appropriate. He needs help, and I need advice, and you’re the only one who knows enough about what’s going on to give me straight answers. At least the only one I trust to work in Mason’s best interests.”
Paul hesitated a long moment, then nodded. “All right. But may I suggest we take the conversation somewhere other than the sidewalk in front of his offices?”
“Make a suggestion.”
He pulled the door wider, and she got in. “Just sit back. I know the perfect spot.”
Miranda let her mind wander as they drove, and they were at the Highlands gate before she realized where he was taking her.
“I’m not really interested in having my mother in on this conversation.”
“She won’t be.”
Miranda raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
A few minutes later, Paul drove past the main house and down to the carriage house. After parking, he let her out, then reached back into the driver’s compartment to retrieve a computer case before he started for the stairs at the side of the building.
“Your quarters?” she asked.
“Privacy, convenience, and all the comforts of home,” he said. “Do you mind?”
“Oh, why not. My reputation could use a little spicing up.” She shook her head and followed him upstairs. Expectation fluttered through her nerves, and she had to remind herself that nothing was going to happen.
He took a moment to pull the computer out of the case and set it on a desk covered with books and stacks of papers.
“I need to charge up,” he explained as he unwrapped the cord and plugged it into a power strip. He pulled off his uniform jacket and hung it over the back of the chair, then pulled off his tie and rolled his sleeves up. “I have green tea, black tea, and orange juice.”
“Black tea is fine.”
“I’ll put the water on.” While he tended to that, she looked around the apartment. She’d been up here many times as a child: her father’s old driver, Dawson, had been married to a woman who made the most outrageous chocolate chip cookies and had no compunctions about overstuffing the boss’s daughter.
Things had changed, though—probably several times over. The walls, for instance, were a mellow sage color instead of the eggshell white they’d always been. She recognized a couple of pieces of furniture from her mother’s flirtation with Japonica. They seemed more at home here than they had in the conservatory. Intrigued, Miranda looked around. Paul appeared to have his own collection of Oriental art, including a handsome trio of terra-cotta Chinese scholars on the bookshelf. She padded over and picked up one as she read the titles on his shelf.
“That’s fifteen hundred years old. Please be careful.”
Miranda spun around guiltily. “Caught red-handed. Now I’ll never convince you I’m not an inveterate snoop.”
“You won’t anyway. I’ve watched you for six years. It runs in the family.”
“Oops. Time for a new driver.” She nodded toward the books as she set the statue back. “Most of these sound pretty arcane.”
“Interesting choice of words, considering you’re a witch. It’s research material. Dissertations have to be arcane these days. There are way too many of us in the world.”
“I think there might be too many witches in the world, as well. By at least two.”
“What have you and your mother been up to?”
Good. He was disapproving, but not shocked. She could work with that. Miranda went to sit on the old leather couch that occupied one side of the living room. “We cast a spell on Mason. On both him and Raine, actually.”
She explained the whole thing, from the decision to dose Caro with the potion to the second attempt to reverse the spell on Mason, which had taken place in the glen just last night despite her qualms. She even told him why Mason needed to marry Caroline, although discussing family finances with the staff went way over the line of propriety. Somewhere in the middle, the teakettle whistled from the stove and Paul excused himself and came back with big mugs of tea. Otherwise, he gave her his full attention and refrained from laughing aloud.
“You probably think I’m terrible,” Miranda said when she had finished.
“Misguided, perhaps. Not terrible. A terrible person wouldn’t be so concerned about the repercussions of what she’d done. But I’m curious, why did you repeat the counterspell last night, when you’re not certain about what you’re doing?”
“I figured we needed to get things back to where they were before we started. And then Raine went and pulled this stunt this morning and now Mason claims he never was under the spell to begin with. But he’s hurt, Paul. He’s hurt so deeply that he’s not letting himself feel anything at all, not even anger. He should be furious at her, but he’s joking about it. What am I going to do?”
Paul got up and walked across the room to look out the window. “You’re going to do what’s right.”
“But what is that? I don’t know anymore.”
“Yes, you do.”
“We need the Wickersham money. Saving the company is everything to Mason. It’s what he wants.”
“Probably.” He turned and looked at her. “But what does he need?”
She closed her eyes and called up all the times she’d seen Mason look at Caroline, and all the times he’d looked at Raine, and there was no comparison. It all came down to his face the night of the Wilmott Foundation dance and again the other evening on the terrace when he was watching Raine with Sam. He needed to look like that all the time. Tears leaked out the corners of Miranda’s eyes as she swallowed at the lump in her throat.
“Oh, God, Paul, he needs Raine and I’ve just spent the last two nights doing my best to make sure he doesn’t have her. What am I going to do?” she sobbed.
He came back to the couch and sat beside her and quietly put one arm around her shoulder to pull her close. The unexpected tenderness made her sob harder.
“You’re going to fix it,” he said. “And since I contributed to the situation, I’m going to help you. Miss Hobart’s friend told me some things this morning that I think you might find very enlightening.”
*
There was nothing like a lively busi
ness meeting to keep one’s interest engaged, and the meeting in the AI board room on Thursday afternoon was nothing if not lively.
The main topic of discussion was, of course, the FUSE protest and its possible repercussions, the board’s guests being the chairmen of the various companies that had committed to move into Canal Place
. Mason, Jake Kreutzmiller, and Scott Johnson spent the best part of an hour reassuring all concerned that, as yet, there was no significant fallout that would delay start of construction.
Scott was into the six or seventh recounting of his conversation with a member of the planning commission when the door opened and Caroline walked in.
“Surprise, I’m home.”
“Caroline.” Mason stood automatically, and the others followed his lead.
“Oh, gentlemen, sit down, please,” said Caroline as she strolled the length of the conference room, working it as though it were a runway in Paris. “Except you, of course, darling. I missed you.”
She walked straight into Mason’s arms and kissed him without preliminaries.
She’d never been so public in her affections before, and it was such an obvious claim to possession that Mason went from stunned to irritated in a heartbeat. He put his hands on her waist and disengaged her. “It’s good to see you, Caro, but I am in a meeting.”
“Oh, no, I got lipstick on you.” She pulled the handkerchief out of his breast pocket and dabbed at the corner of his mouth, then artfully tucked it back in his pocket and fluffed the corners. “I’m sure these gentlemen don’t mind a quick kiss. And anyway, they might as well get used to it. There’s no telling when I’ll pop in, once we’re married.”
“Married?” boomed Kreutzmiller. “Mason, you dog. You never said a word.”
Handshakes and congratulations were forthcoming. Mason accepted them mechanically, wondering why he didn’t feel some sense of relief or triumph. He’d been waiting for Caroline to say yes; now she had. There should be an “Hooray” in there somewhere.
