The Last Groom on Earth

by Kristin James

  “I don’t get that impression from them. I think they’re rather proud of you and your success, actually.”

  Angela stared. “Are you sure you’re talking about my parents? Everett and Marina Hewitt?”

  A faint smile touched Bryce’s lips. “Yes, I believe those are the ones.”

  “I think you’re mistaken.”

  “No. I imagine I know them a lot better than you. They may not understand you or what you do—”

  Angela let out a dry chuckle. “That’s the understatement of all time.”

  “—but they love you and are very proud of you. That’s why they’re concerned about this problem with the IRS.”

  “Yes. My little problem.” Angela made a disgusted face and turned away to gaze out the window again.

  When it appeared that she was going to say nothing else, Bryce prompted, “How did you find me?”

  “I called Mother. She told me you always stayed here when you were in Raleigh, and she said you planned to spend the night because you had a presentation to CompCon in the morning. They’re a good company, by the way, but you have to handle Jason Willard with kid gloves.”

  He gave her a stiff little bow of his head. “Thank you for the advice.”

  “You’re welcome,” Angela replied, ignoring the note of sarcasm in his voice. She crossed her arms and looked at him.

  Standing outside Bryce’s door, her stomach had been jittery with nerves. But now, seeing the mulish expression on his face, Angela felt, perversely, more relaxed. Bryce obviously did not like her being here. That fact made it easier for her to admit that she needed his help.

  “Anyway,” she said, sitting down and crossing her legs, “I’m sorry. I thought about what you’d said, and Tim and Kelly and I talked it over. I decided I had been wrong to turn down your offer.” She gazed up at him a little defiantly, more as if she were being scolded than admitting that she had made a mistake. Bryce found it strangely appealing.

  “I came to ask you if your offer still held,” she said. “Are you willing to find our problem?”

  Angela could see from his face that he would have liked to turn her down, but she was counting on his promise to her mother to keep him from doing what he wanted.

  Finally, grudgingly, he said, “Yes. I suppose I am—though, God knows, I’ll probably regret it. I can imagine what your records are like. You probably keep all your invoices in a shoe box.”

  Angela grinned impishly. “I’d love to tell you that they were, just to see the smoke come out of your ears, but I can’t malign Kelly. She keeps excellent records. She’s not at all like me.”

  “Obviously.”

  Angela made a face at him. She watched him, more relaxed now that she had choked out her apology. She wondered why she had not remembered how handsome he was. Even if he had filled out, surely the bare bones of his good looks had been there: the firm, well-cut lips, the strong bones of his face, the dark-lashed gray eyes.

  Bryce walked over to the table and sat down across from her. Angela could see the wary look on his face, and she wondered what he thought she was going to do. She decided not to help him out. She gazed back at him with wide eyes, swinging her foot and waiting for him to make the first move.

  “All right,” he said, taking out a yellow pad and pencil and settling down to take notes. “Let’s get some basics. I need to know about your business.”

  “Mother didn’t tell you?”

  “She said only that you made computer games.”

  “That’s right. Fantasy sort of games, mostly, some flight and road simulation sort of things. We’re beginning to move into the CD-Rom area. Our mainstay and what we started out with are the Concordia games and others like them.”

  “Concordia games?” Bryce raised his eyebrows.

  “You’ve never heard of them?”

  “I don’t play computer games. I use my computer for work.”

  “Of course. How silly of me.” Angela’s smile flashed, creating a dimple in her cheek.

  There was something definitely sexy, Angela thought, about Bryce’s serious, intense gaze. The silvery gray eyes seemed to go right through her. She wondered if he brought the same single-minded intensity to his lovemaking as he did to his work. The thought sent a shiver through her.

  She glanced away from him quickly. She couldn’t believe that she was thinking about Bryce this way. Bryce Richards, of all people! It was crazy; they could hardly manage to string together three or four civil sentences to each other. The thought of ever going to bed with him was sheer insanity. He was not her type, and she felt sure that Bryce would run as fast as he could the other way if he thought that she was interested in him. He had made it very clear what he thought of her.

  “The Concordia games are quest games,” she said quickly to get her mind off her strange thoughts. “They are set in a fictional kingdom, Concordia, in some past time, vaguely medieval. There’s a king and queen and their beautiful daughter, Princess Alicia. Their enemy is an evil sorceress, Maladora.”

  “Ah!” Bryce’s brows flew up in a look of enlightenment. “That’s who you were dressed as this afternoon.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh. For Tim’s party…it’s a week from Friday. A big charity costume party he throws every year for this children’s charity he’s involved with.”

  “Oh.” His face cleared. “Okay. So what does this Maladora do?”

  “Anyway, Maladora is very powerful, and though, of course, she’s defeated in each game, she always finds some way of coming back. In a weird way, people are probably more attached to her than to the princess or even Sir Leopold. He’s the knight from another country who came to Concordia and released the royal family from the enchantment that Maladora had put them under. That was our first game, Concordia. Our second was Concordia: Maladora Returns and the third was Concordia: Alicia’s Escape, and so on. Right now I’m working on the seventh. I’m going to introduce a new villain and have Maladora on the same side as the royal family for once. The games are humorous, particularly the contemporary series. We always put in little tongue-in-cheek things. They’re not the violent ones where you kick and stab and shoot your way to the end—you win by figuring out clues and collecting things along the way, then using them at the right time.”

  “I see.”

  From the expression on his face, Angela doubted that he did, but she let it pass. Bryce, she suspected, simply didn’t understand games; they were beyond his scope. That was the way her parents were. Numbers made sense; fantasies and entertainment did not.

  “And these games are successful?”

  “Very.” Angela bit back a smile at the faint tone of amazement in his voice. “People love them. They’re interesting and complex—you can work on them for days. One gets fun and a sense of accomplishment out of them. That big open room downstairs in our office, the one that has all the little cubicles with people with headsets?”

  He nodded, remembering glancing into the room.

  “Those are our telephone support lines. People who buy the games call to get help in using them. The support staff help customers if they’re having trouble setting up, and if they’re stuck, they’ll give them hints and ideas. The support lines are busy all day long. We’re grossing millions.”

  Bryce looked faintly shocked. Angela supposed that from her mother’s explanation, he had expected Angela to have some little shoestring operation.

  “How is the company set up?” he asked, scribbling on the pad.

  “It’s a corporation. Tim and I started out as partners, but when it got bigger, we incorporated. Tim and I own nearly all the shares.”

  “Kelly’s not a partner?”

  “No. She’s bought some shares, and all our employees have gotten some shares as bonuses, but basically Tim and I own it. We began it. Later, we hired Kelly to do our accounting. Her job has grown as we have. Basically, now she oversees all operations except creating the games.”

  �
��You and Tim do that?”

  “Yes. I think up the stories and write out the plot line. Tim creates the software for them. We each have a few assistants now, but we still pretty much do all the Concordia games ourselves.” She shrugged. “It’s a lot more fun than overseeing the other stuff. I leave the simulation games alone. That’s Jeremy Coger’s field.”

  She went on to explain how the games were packaged, marketed and distributed, and all the while Bryce scribbled across his pad. Angela looked at his. hand as it moved across the page. His skin was tanned, the back of his hand and his fingers lightly dotted with curling dark hairs. His fingers were long and strong, the nails short-clipped. It was a very masculine, no-nonsense sort of hand, but not stubby or rough. It wasn’t hard to imagine it moving with gentleness across a woman’s body.

  Suddenly Angela’s thoughts flew to the bed beside them. She had hardly noticed it when she came in, but now it seemed to fill the room. She kept her eyes firmly away from it, sure that Bryce would somehow guess her thoughts if she so much as glanced at it. But, of course, since she was determined not to look at it, looking at it became an almost impossible urge to resist. She jumped restlessly to her feet and began to pace.

  There was a long moment of silence, and Angela pivoted to look at Bryce. He was watching her, his brow drawn into a frown. She frowned back.

  “Well? Are we through?”

  He started and looked disconcerted. “What? Oh. No, I…let’s see.” He turned back to his yellow pad. “What about the IRS? When did that start?”

  “About three months ago. They called us in for a routine audit. We showed them our records, and I assumed that was the last of it. Then all of a sudden, they started asking more questions, nosing around. I don’t know what they saw that set them off. This one guy, McGuire, kept saying that we didn’t make enough profit—like it was some kind of crime or something. We didn’t make as much profit as the last few years. But we just had a lot more expenses. Things like that happen. Don’t they?”

  “Sure. And the IRS could be off track. Unfortunately they usually manage to run something down.”

  Angela sighed. “I’m beginning to feel paranoid.”

  “The IRS can do that to you.”

  “I tell myself that if we haven’t done anything wrong, we don’t have anything to worry about. But they’re making me jittery. I keep thinking that somewhere we must have made a mistake and I just can’t see it. That’s why I told Mother the other day. I shouldn’t have…I knew it would worry her.”

  “I’m sure she was glad you told her. She wants to help you.”

  “I know. And she always expects that she’ll have to. That’s what makes it so galling.” Angela grimaced. “I hate to screw up in front of her.”

  Bryce looked amazed. “But Marina’s very patient and understanding about mistakes. That’s why she’s such a wonderful teacher.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s probably different when you’re a student rather than her daughter. When I didn’t understand things in math, she acted like I was being purposely obstructive. She couldn’t believe that I didn’t get it. Finally she came to realize that I really didn’t understand these things that seemed so obvious to her. Then she’d get this—I don’t know, distressed sort of look in her eyes. And I’d know that I disappointed her. I think she was afraid that I was mentally impaired.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Bryce said gruffly.

  Angela glared at him. How could she have forgotten that she was talking to the man who thought Marina Hewitt could do no wrong? “I wouldn’t have expected you to understand.”

  “Your prejudice is appalling.” He got up and strode across the room to where she stood.

  “I’m not prejudiced!” Angela retorted, stung.

  “I’m sure you’re not about all the politically correct things, but you most definitely are about people who are logical or mathematical. You presume that if a person understands numbers, they don’t understand anything else, that they’re emotionless robots. Being logical doesn’t mean that you can’t understand feelings.”

  “You, I’m sure, are in touch with your feelings.” It galled her for him to lecture her, as if she were still a child.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you’re too stiff and uptight to even know that you have feelings. Look at you…here it is…six o’clock, in your hotel room, and you’re still wearing a tie—knotted at the top! I’m surprised you even took off your suit jacket. You were the same when you were nineteen, too. Stiff, dry, logical. You looked at my friends and me playing in the pool like we were creatures from another planet. And when I played a joke on you, you never even got mad. Any normal person would have blown up, but you just got stiffer and quieter. No doubt it wasn’t logical to get mad.”

  Bryce stared at her in disbelief. “What should I have done? Tell my hostess’s child what a spoiled brat she was? Of course I held my tongue. To have said anything would have been hurtful to Marina. No doubt you think it’s ridiculous to be courteous.”

  “Of course not!” Red flamed in Angela’s cheeks. She felt foolish and embarrassed and oddly hurt by his opinion of her. “But you can be courteous and still be capable of human emotions. You don’t have to be a statue like you.”

  Bryce knew that was how she saw him, as a bloodless, passionless person, more a wax figure than a man. The idea infuriated him, all the more so because right now his blood was thrumming through his veins and even as they fought he could not stop thinking how desirable she looked. Angela was thoroughly annoying, but some elemental instinct in him wanted her, and that fact was as irritating as she was.

  Suddenly, surprising himself as much as her, Bryce reached out and grabbed her shoulders. Angela froze in astonishment, staring at him with wide, disbelieving eyes as he pulled her to him and took her mouth in a long, searing kiss.

  His lips were hot and demanding; his tongue slid along the seal of her lips, seeking entrance. Angela shivered, her knees amazingly weak, and opened her mouth to his seeking tongue. It was not a sweet kiss; it burned with anger and resentment…and passion. There was nothing emotionless or saintly about him now. His body curved around hers, his arms pressing her into his hard chest and thighs, and the heat was enveloping, enervating. His mouth possessed hers as if by right, his tongue exploring, challenging.

  Angela sagged against him, and her fingers dug into his shirt in the back as she clung to him. His kiss made her tremble, made her forget who he was and what he was to her. She tasted the driving hunger that aroused her own, and she wanted more. Her tongue wound around his, stroking and seeking. She felt his breath shuddering out, hot upon her cheek, and his kiss gentled, no longer demanding, but coaxing and enticing her. His hand stroked up and down her back, pressing her into him. Angela wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself up to his kiss.

  Three

  Bryce’s lips moved over Angela’s, deliciously firm and warm. His hand slid down her body and onto her hip, then slowly back up. His thumb brushed against the side of her breast, sending a quiver of desire through her abdomen.

  He lifted his mouth, but only to change the slant of his kiss. His kiss deepened; his tongue invaded her mouth. Angela answered eagerly, tasting the dark, silky pleasures of his mouth. She felt weak and strangely helpless, not like herself at all, but somehow the feeling was pleasurable as well as scary, as if she were about to step onto a wild ride at an amusement park or enter a new adventure. She wrapped her arms around Bryce’s neck, clinging to him.

  For a long moment they were lost in intense pleasure, their mouths locked together, their bodies straining against each other. Then there was a knock on the door, breaking into the enchantment, and a bored voice drawled, “Room Service.”

  Angela jumped, startled, and her lip came into painful contact with Bryce’s teeth. She stepped back, one hand pressed to her smarting lip, and stared at Bryce dazedly. This couldn’t be happening. Bryce Richards had just kissed her—and she had enjoyed
it.

  “Room service,” the disembodied voice repeated outside the door, and Bryce jerked into movement.

  “Yes. Coming.” He started toward the door.

  Angela cast a wild look around the room, then sank into a chair, pushing her hands back into her thick, curling hair. She tried to pull her thoughts back into some semblance of order while Bryce dealt with the hotel employee.

  She had done some impulsive things in her life, but it occurred to her that this was probably the worst. Bryce Richards disliked her; he hadn’t kissed her because he was attracted to her. He had done it because she had made him mad. He had done it to establish that he was in control, to prove her wrong. She had insulted him, more or less accused him of being without passion, and he, of course, had to show her that he was not.

  And she, like an idiot, had responded to his kiss! Angela couldn’t imagine what was wrong with her that she had acted that way. He was handsome, of course—in a cold way, she reminded herself—but he was all the things she disliked in a man: a staid workaholic with no sense of humor, a man who did things only because they made sense. She could not imagine Bryce Richards, skipping a day of work to go out and have a picnic. He was the sort of man who would bring a woman flowers because that was the accepted thing to do, but he would never think of surprising her with some odd little present that had irresistibly reminded him of her. He would make plans for an evening and follow them to the letter. In short, he was the sort of man with whom she would be bored in an hour or two—no matter how much she might feel an utterly inexplicable physical attraction to him.

  It also occurred to Angela that right now Bryce was probably regretting what he had just done just as much as she was. She looked up.

  Bryce was shutting the door behind the waiter. He turned and gazed across the room at her, every line of his body screaming that he was uncomfortable. He cleared his throat. “Well…”