Flash

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “I hear the campaign is in turmoil.”

  “No comment.”

  Crawford sipped champagne. “Just friendly curiosity.”

  “Friendly curiosity, my foot. If you want a story, call Lancaster’s headquarters.”

  “The story is hardly an exclusive at this point. It’s even been in the Banner-Journal, for chrissakes. I’m not interested unless there’s a new angle.”

  “There isn’t,” she assured him.

  His eyes glittered. “My instincts tell me there’s more going on here than what got into that Banner-Journal piece.”

  Whatever else you could say about Crawford, Olivia thought, you had to admire his instinct for a story. For a terrible moment she wondered if he had somehow learned about the full extent of Melwood Gill’s blackmail efforts.

  There was no telling what kind of mischief Crawford could stir up if he suspected that Dixon Haggard had not been Melwood’s only extortion victim.

  “Forget it, Crawford. There is no story except what was in the local papers. The only question remaining is whether or not the Lancaster campaign can survive the scandal. Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Crawford cocked his head in a considering fashion. “Eleanor Lancaster might just pull out of this. She’s a born fighter. She’s also got your brother to guide her. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.”

  “So, how’s tricks in L.A.?”

  Crawford’s smile was laced with satisfaction. “You may as well be among the first to know. I’ve been offered a regular spot on a network TV exposé series that will premiere in the spring. Not sure yet what it’ll be called, but the show will be hot. I’m seriously considering it.”

  “You’re going to leave print journalism?”

  “The new paradigm for the modern journalist is a multi-media career.”

  “I see. Congratulations, Crawford. You were born for television.”

  “Thanks.” He flicked a meaningful glance at Jasper, who was working his way back through the crowd. “Must have been a shock when you found out your uncle had left fifty-one percent of Glow to a stranger.”

  “No comment.”

  Crawford chuckled. “Just trying to make a little cocktail chatter.”

  “No, you aren’t. You’re fishing for information, as usual.” She smiled at Jasper as he came to a halt beside her. “Jasper, this is Crawford Lee Wilder. Crawford, Jasper Sloan.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Sloan.” Crawford put out his hand.

  Jasper looked pointedly down at his own hands. He had a small plate loaded with canapés balanced on each palm. He made no attempt to give one to Olivia so that he could shake Crawford’s hand.

  “I’ve heard of you,” Jasper said without inflection.

  Crawford shrugged with patently false modesty. “I get around a bit.”

  “Yeah. You’re the hotshot journalist whose career Olivia launched, aren’t you?”

  Crawford dropped his hand back to his side as if he had just touched a red-hot stove. His eyes glittered with annoyance. “Olivia didn’t exactly launch me.”

  “Sure she did.” Jasper gave him a suspiciously bland smile. “My secretary happened to mention that Olivia was the one who suggested you do that series on the motivational seminar company. She got the idea after the firm put on a series of motivation talks at Glow. Hell, I guess if it hadn’t been for Olivia, you’d never have gotten that Pulitzer prize.”

  Olivia cringed. “Now, Jasper, Crawford was the one who investigated and wrote the series.”

  Crawford scowled. “Damn right.”

  “But he got the idea from you.” Jasper’s smile turned dangerous. “The way I see it, Olivia pretty much made you what you are today, Wilder. It wasn’t real nice of you to repay her by putting her into that piece of fiction on Logan Dane that you wrote last year.”

  “Now just a goddamned minute,” Crawford began.

  “Come to think of it,” Jasper said a little too pleasantly, “you owe your two biggest stories to Olivia, don’t you? Tell me, have you ever come up with an original idea on your own?”

  “I’ve had just about enough out of you, Sloan,” Crawford said through set teeth.

  “Is that why you’re back here in Seattle?” Jasper’s eyes glinted. “Are you hoping that Olivia can give your career another shot in the arm?”

  Jasper was out of control. Olivia could do nothing but hold her breath. She could see the seething frustration in Crawford’s eyes. But she could also tell that he realized he was not going to win the undeclared war.

  He drew himself up and gave Jasper a fulminating look. Then he turned on his heel and stalked away without a word.

  Olivia released her breath very cautiously. She gazed intently at the nearest painting, afraid that if she was not extremely careful, she would laugh out loud.

  Silently, Jasper handed her one of the plates he had brought back from the buffet table. She accepted it, plucked a little bit of crab-stuffed pastry off the top, and took a bite.

  Beside her Jasper sampled a small, triangular-shaped sandwich that looked as though it was filled with an olive mixture. He chewed with evident satisfaction, and then he swallowed.

  “Actually,” Olivia said after a while, “you overlooked the one really important contribution I made to Crawford Lee Wilder’s career.”

  “No kidding? What was that?”

  “I’m the one who suggested he start using his middle name in his byline. Before me, he used to go by plain old Crawford Wilder.”

  Jasper thought about that. “Brilliant piece of advice. Doesn’t have the same ring without the Lee.”

  “Thank you. I was always rather proud of the idea. Did wonders for his career.”

  “I want you to promise me something,” he said after a while.

  She did not dare look at him. Very carefully she selected another cracker and took a bite. “What?”

  “Promise me that if you ever ask me to marry you, it won’t be because you think my career needs a boost.”

  29

  Eleanor Lancaster’s decision to throw in the towel broke the following evening on the six-thirty news. Jasper was with Olivia in her kitchen. He had just poured two glasses of zinfandel, and was anticipating a quiet, uninterrupted evening alone with Olivia, when the anchor launched into the lead-in.

  “We go live now to Lancaster campaign headquarters. Our sources tell us that Ms. Lancaster will make her announcement momentarily…”

  “Oh, no. I was afraid of this.” Olivia rushed out into the living room to watch the broadcast.

  Carrying the wine, Jasper followed at a more leisurely pace. He arrived in front of the television set in time to see Eleanor ascend the podium. She was dressed in a khaki-green silk suit that had a subtle military air. She was not crying, but her eyes looked ever so slightly moist.

  “Amazing how she can manage to look both tragic and heroic at the same time,” Jasper said.

  “Shush.” Olivia flapped her hand at him. “I’m trying to listen.”

  “—This is the most difficult decision I have ever made. My loyal staff has urged me to stay in the race. But it is incumbent on me to take a pragmatic view of the situation. The truth is, this campaign cannot regain the momentum that has been lost. Were I to continue, I would be wasting the money and energy of those who have worked so hard—”

  “Well, darn.” Olivia planted her hands on her hips and glowered at the television. “I guess this means the fund-raiser is off.”

  “Looks like it.”

  “You know, I’m surprised that Eleanor is ending the campaign.” Olivia shook her head thoughtfully. “I really thought she’d ride out the scandal.”

  “I know. Lancaster doesn’t seem like the type to give up so easily. But the money is probably drying up very fast. Nothing disappears quicker than donations to a troubled political campaign.”

  Alarm widened Olivia’s eyes. “You’re right. Money will be tight. I’d better fax my last bill to Lancaster campaign headqua
rters first thing in the morning.”

  “I have a hunch there will be a lot of bills being faxed to Lancaster headquarters tomorrow. Everyone who did business with the campaign will be scrambling to get paid.”

  “You can say that again.” Olivia took one of the glasses from his hand. “Poor Cousin Bolivar and Aunt Zara. They’re going to be crushed when they find out that their glowing flag won’t be on the evening news, after all.”

  “There must be another use for a twenty-foot-high lighted flag.”

  A speculative gleam appeared in Olivia’s eyes. “We could always unfurl it at the annual Glow picnic.”

  “Be my guest. Just don’t try sending me a bill. That flag was made with Glow technology and Glow products. Hell, I ought to charge you for it.”

  “Now, Jasper, I’ve explained my little arrangement with Glow, Inc. Light Fantastic events give you the best advertising you could possibly get.”

  “You keep telling me that.”

  “It’s true.” She started back toward the kitchen. “Come on, let’s get dinner on the table. I’m starving.”

  He watched her walk around the corner. Through the opening above the counter, he could see her moving a little too quickly between the refrigerator and the stove.

  There was a nervous quality about all of her movements today, he reflected. He could not attribute it to her caffeine intake. She appeared to have cut back on her coffee consumption lately.

  He thought that she had been acting a little strange ever since he had made that maybe not-so-subtle reference to marriage last night at the museum reception.

  Maybe his timing had been off again as it usually was in this kind of thing. Or maybe he hadn’t been quite so clever after all. He wondered if she was panicking, and if so, what he should do about it.

  The truth was, he had been as stunned as she was when he had heard himself make the crack about not marrying him to boost his career. But the instant the words were out of his mouth, he had realized that there was a deep truth imbedded in them.

  Now that truth lay between them, a white-hot incandescent lamp that neither of them dared to pick up and handle with bare hands.

  “How far did your staff get with the preparations for the Lancaster fund-raiser?” he asked, keeping his voice deliberately casual.

  “Bolivar’s team got the flag into position on the ceiling beam and completed the electrical connections this afternoon. They also installed the speakers and set up the sound equipment. Everything’s ready to go.” Olivia opened a drawer. “Just flip a switch, and you get the twenty feet of glowing flag unfurling to the glorious strains of a military marching band and chorus.”

  He lounged in the doorway. “Sounds impressive.”

  “It would have been.” She went to work slicing hothouse tomatoes. “Now it will all have to be taken down and stored someplace until I can talk someone else into using it. I wonder if the Stryker campaign would be interested.”

  Jasper raised one brow. “You could always rent a locker at Pri-Con Self-Storage.”

  “Bite your tongue.” She put down the knife and reached for the bottle of balsamic vinegar. “I never want to hear the word self-storage again as long as I live.”

  “How about the word marriage?” he asked quietly. “Do you think you might want to hear it again one of these days?”

  Her fingers clenched convulsively around the vinegar bottle. Very carefully she released it. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned marriage in the past twenty-four hours. Can I assume this is not a coincidence?”

  “I promised myself I wouldn’t bring it up again for at least another week, but I can’t seem to help it. You know me, I’ve got a thing about neatness and order. A place for everything and everything in its place.”

  “Things seem to be going along quite well the way they are.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “We could probably go on like this for a long time. But it feels—” He broke off, searching for the right word. He did not find it. “Like one of the file drawers in your office at Light Fantastic.”

  “Messy?”

  He smiled, pleased that she had grasped the point. “Yes. Messy.”

  “What makes you think marriage would be neater?”

  He met her eyes. “I think that in spite of our cluttered, untidy pasts, you and I both know how to make commitments and keep them.”

  “We’ve both made mistakes in the commitment department,” she reminded him.

  “I’ve thought about that. I’ve decided that our previous mistakes can be attributed to the fact that we made commitments to the wrong people. People who didn’t have the same understanding of the word commitment that we have.”

  “I see.” She looked down at the vinegar bottle as though it were a lit firecracker.

  “I figure that two people who have a mutual, shared definition of the concept of commitment have a much better chance of making a marriage work.”

  “You once said something about a marriage of convenience. If you’re under the impression that things might be simpler all the way around at Glow if we got married—”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Jasper said quickly. “I don’t think that a marriage between us would be all that convenient. I have a nasty feeling that there will be times when we drive each other crazy.”

  She smiled slowly. “We might make it if neither one of us brings any filing home.”

  The look in her eyes made him think that he ought to invest in a red cape and blue tights. He had the feeling he could leap over tall buildings and catch bullets in his teeth.

  “It’s a deal,” he said. “We leave the filing in the office.”

  Olivia opened her eyes and looked at the glowing numerals on the bedside clock. Two in the morning.

  She sat straight up in bed. “Good grief, Jasper, I just realized we can’t possibly get married.”

  Beside her, Jasper groaned into his pillow. He did not turn over.

  She looked at him. The city lights showed her that he was sprawled on his stomach. She could see his sleek, bare shoulders above the tide line of the sheet. His dark hair was rumpled from sleep.

  “Jasper? Did you hear me?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Say something.”

  There was a short pause before he finally mumbled more words into the pillow. “Okay. Why can’t we get married?”

  She frowned. “Everyone will think I’m marrying you because of Glow.”

  “You already own forty-nine percent of the company,” he muttered with what sounded like weary patience.

  “Forty-nine percent is not a controlling interest. People will naturally assume that I’m marrying you in order to exert more control over the company.”

  There was another brief silence, as if Jasper was trying to work through the logic of her statement.

  “By controlling me?” he finally asked on a yawn.

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  “Is that why you agreed to marry me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good.” He sounded as if he was about to slide back into sleep. “’Cause it would be kind of a bad idea.”

  That gave her pause.

  “Are you implying that, as your wife, I won’t be able to exert a little influence over you?” she asked very sweetly.

  “You’ll be able to exert all kinds of influence over me,” he mumbled. “I can’t wait to be influenced by you. I fantasize about being influenced by you. I yearn to be influenced by you. My secret goal since the day we met is to be influenced by you.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Can I go back to sleep now?”

  “You’re not taking this problem very seriously, are you?”

  “No,” he admitted into the pillow. “Probably because I don’t see a problem here.”

  “Spoken like a real CEO.”

  “Hey, that’s why I get the corner office and the big—”

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” She pounced, leaping astride his back and seizing his shoulders.
“If you say one more word about big offices, big bucks, or corner windows, I swear I will—”

  “Squeeze me a little tighter with your thighs?” he asked hopefully. “You could really exert a lot of influence if you did that.”

  She dissolved into helpless giggles.

  Jasper surged up off the bed, dislodging her and sending her tumbling back onto the pillows. He leaned over her, eyes gleaming in the shadows.

  “I thought you wanted to go back to sleep.”

  “For some reason,” he said as he lowered his head, “I’m wide awake now.”

  A last flicker of unease went through her. She braced her hands on his shoulders to hold him off for a moment while she made one last attempt to get him to see reason.

  “Jasper, we really should talk about how a marriage between us will affect the business side of things.”

  “Screw the business side of things.” He kissed her throat. “You know what your problem is?”

  She gasped when she felt his hand slide between her legs. “No. What is my problem?”

  “You lack a certain sense of spontaneity.”

  “Is that so?” She clenched her fingers in his hair. “Yeah, but don’t worry about it. I’ve got enough for both of us.”

  “Yes,” she whispered a moment later when he eased himself into her body. “You certainly do.”

  She woke up again at three-thirty. This time she did not rouse Jasper for a discussion of their future relationship. She had the impression he was not interested in another conversation on the subject so she conducted the argument silently in her own head.

  All that stuff about not being able to marry him because people would think you’re doing it to secure Glow’s future was garbage, wasn’t it?

  Yes.

  An excuse. Not the reason you just woke up in a cold sweat again.

  True.

  What’s the real issue here?

  I’m scared.

  Why? You said you didn’t want another marriage of convenience. Neither does Jasper. Both of you know what a marriage based on mutual business interests looks like from the inside. Whatever else this would be, it wouldn’t be the kind of relationship you had with Logan.

  So, why does Jasper want to get married?