Call it Love

by Kress, Alyssa

  A year ago she hadn't been nearly as stone-faced as Chess. She had shown her shock and dismay. "But only on condition," Cookie said aloud.

  Chess nodded. "You have to get married."

  Cookie rolled her eyes and tossed back a stray lock of hair. "God, Daddy had to know how ridiculous that was." In truth, he probably hadn't, but Cookie made the statement flip, as though she simply wasn't the sort of woman who would want to settle down.

  "Ridiculous or not, those are the terms of the will."

  Her lock of hair fell forward again. Cookie curled it around one finger. "Thank goodness I don't want those shares." Even if she hadn't—finally—landed a part in a long-running play, Cookie wouldn't have wanted the shares. She wasn't a business sort like her father. Deep in her blood was the stage. "Not even a little bit," Cookie added.

  Chess was unimpressed. "Those shares can't remain in limbo forever. You have to get married."

  "You don't need them in order to run the business." When Chess hadn't proposed straight off, Cookie had figured out this much.

  "You don't under—" Chess uncrossed his legs and took his arms off the back of the sofa. "It's not the capital I'm after. Just the shares."

  There was a difference? Cookie wondered.

  "You have to get married," Chess repeated, definite. "And if not to me, then to one of your boyfriends. It doesn't matter, just so long as the job gets done."

  It sounded as though Chess wouldn't mind passing this duty off on someone else. With a strange pang of pique, Cookie queried, "Oh, and which one of them would you suggest?"

  He closed his eyes. "Sheldon. Wasn't that the last one's name?"

  Cookie raised an eyebrow. Odd. Chess had apparently been keeping track of her even after her father couldn't possibly have asked him to.

  "Sheldon went back to his wife." It had been obvious that Sheldon still loved Norma. He'd only needed time and a shove in the right direction to figure that out. Cookie resisted a smug smile.

  Chess looked at her. "Fine. But surely there's someone new by now."

  Cookie nodded with warm affection. "Eric."

  "Eric." Chess's expression tightened. "Well then, why not Eric?"

  "Eric's gone to Africa."

  "Africa?"

  "He joined the Peace Corps." Eric had been so excited by the prospect, the first adventure in his over-protected life, that he'd barely called Cookie over the past month. He, like Sheldon, had healed. Once a man had healed, Cookie let him go. A man who wasn't wounded was a man she couldn't handle. Only the men she dated knew that Cookie never took up with a fellow who might want more than a platonic relationship.

  Chess was not one of those men. "Great," he muttered. "The Peace Corps." Then he broke down and gave Cookie the Look. It was the look she'd been receiving all her life. Even before her body had turned traitor on her, giving her the curves of a Hollywood vamp, Cookie had been getting this look. Chess, however, was a master at it. His look told her she really was one fluffball bimbo, wasn't she?

  Cookie was an expert at ignoring the look. She'd had all sorts of practice. "It's been a year," she argued again. "Why is this so suddenly urgent?"

  Immediately, a wall clanged down behind Chess's eyes. There was an answer, but the fluffball wasn't about to receive it. Cookie watched as he searched for an alternative. "Kate and I are...having trouble agreeing."

  Cookie halted with her coffee halfway to her mouth. The perfume business was the one place Chess and his mother did agree. They both worked hard and with an identical passion for what they did. "What's the disagreement?"

  He lifted a shoulder. "Admittedly heavy-duty issues. Major company goals."

  Cookie had to think a minute, staring at him, before she got it. Her brow cleared. Chess had been honest with her. This wasn't about the money. "It's the votes," she breathed. "You want to outvote Kate."

  Chess simply looked at her, his eyes clear. He neither confirmed nor denied.

  "Ah." Cookie got the picture now. It was a power struggle thing. And rather disheartening he was so certain he'd convince Cookie to side with himself rather than Kate in the disagreement over company goals.

  She set down her cup. "Look. Think. "Whatever your disagreement with Kate is, surely it couldn't be worth marriage. Tell me you're any more interested in that state than I am."

  Chess smiled. "It's never been a particular goal of mine, no. But our marriage would be purely business. And temporary. By January I could hand you a divorce."

  "Oh."

  "No later than that." Chess leaned his elbows on his knees, suddenly earnest. "If, with your shares, I haven't squared things away at the plant by then—" He stopped short. Then he leaned back. With deliberate leisure, he again spread his arms across the top of the sofa. "Obviously, I'd make the whole venture worth your while."

  Cookie blinked. "Pardon?"

  "If everything works out the way I've planned it, I can buy out your shares in January at two hundred percent their current value."

  Cookie nearly fell off her stool. Twice their value! "Uh, that's rather a large gain to expect, isn't it?"

  "If everything works out." Despite his casual posture, a muscle tensed in Chess's jaw.

  It was a bribe, Cookie realized and felt bewildered. Chess never bribed. He always had ammunition. But here he was, offering a two hundred percent payback to marry him and vote her shares his way.

  Carefully, she slid off her stool. There was something going on here. Danger, though she couldn't pin down what kind. It was definitely time to set him straight. "No," she said. "Thank you very much, but no."

  Chess did not appear surprised by this answer. He simply watched her closely. "Don't make any decisions today, Rebecca."

  "Why not? I've had a year to think it over."

  Slowly, Chess stood, too. Though not a tall man, he towered over her. "Think about it, Rebecca. That's all I ask."

  Privately, she gnashed her teeth. When had she not thought about marriage? About love and lifelong companionship, tenderness and the possibility of— Oh, marriage meant a thousand things she could never get or have. She made a living out of pretend, but she wouldn't pretend about this. And particularly not with Chess. "The whole idea is—cheating."

  His brows dipped. "It's just a business deal."

  "Exactly. And I'm not getting married for business reasons." Or for any other reasons, but she didn't need to get into that.

  Frustration and anger chased each other across his face, but he suppressed them with a benign neutrality. "This isn't just you and me we're talking about here. Think of Alex. It's his inheritance, too, you know."

  Cookie ground her teeth some more. Why had her half-brother been passed over for shares in the company in their mutual father's will? Why had David Thibideaux concentrated all of his control-from-the-grave on her? "I'm not getting married," she told Chess. "You'll have to work out your company business some other way."

  Instead of listening, Chess smiled and dropped a big hand on her shoulder.

  Cookie tensed. So he did have ammunition. She was steeling herself to fend off the attack when he simply lifted his hand from her shoulder.

  "We'll discuss this more," he promised. "Later."

  She was left swaying. He hadn't hit her with a thing. Chess was halfway to the door before she realized that, though unharmed, she had not accomplished her goal. He'd refused her answer. If she didn't watch out, this whole episode would repeat.

  "No," Cookie exclaimed at the same time that his hand hit the doorknob. "Wait!"

  He stopped, halted mid-motion, as though she'd thrown an electrical switch. Slowly, he turned around.

  What Cookie saw then made her stop in her tracks. In Chess's opaque eyes, for the fleetest of moments, she saw hope.

  Vulnerability.

  "Yes?" He appeared to have difficulty containing his brief slip.

  Cookie frowned. Chess vulnerable? Chess experiencing anything but the most supreme confidence? No. She had to have imagined the vision.

/>   She let go of the stool she'd been clutching and stood straight. "My answer isn't going to change later, Chess. It's no now. It'll be no then."

  Again something flickered in his eyes. But this time it was the exact opposite emotion from hope. Complete despair. Then a cool mask drew over his face. He became the same old Chess.

  "Think about it," he commanded, as imperious as ever. With a jerk on the doorknob, he let himself out.

  Frowning, Cookie stared at the closed door. Despair? The eminently capable Chess possibly vulnerable and in despair?

  Not that his status mattered, of course. It didn't make the slightest dent in her decision. Cookie drew in a deep breath. She didn't owe Chess, didn't owe him a thing.

  But she couldn't help but remember the last time she'd been so determined, so unbending and sure. That had been the last time she'd seen her father alive.

  ~~~

  Chess let himself down the weathered wood stair of the old apartment building and strode down the walk to his Porsche. He knew perfectly well he had not accomplished his goal with Rebecca Thibideaux.

  Rebecca? No: Cookie.

  A fitting name for David's daughter, something suitably silly. The dress she'd been wearing when he'd come upon her at the cemetery had been designed to show every curve of her hourglass figure. At thirty-five years of age, the lady had used that body to go through more men than she could keep track of—yet she still managed to come off with this young and innocent lost puppy air. Cookie, all right.

  Chess opened the door and got into his car. Well, not exactly his car. As of last week, it was his car and the bank's. He hadn't picked up much by refinancing the thing, but every cent counted.

  Rebecca or Cookie or whatever you wanted to call her—she was the only way out of this.

  Chess's jaw tightened as he pulled the car out into the street. He'd liked to wring his stepfather's neck for leaving things at such a pass. For the future of Scents Allure to rest on the whims of David's featherbrained daughter— It was too much to bear.

  If only she'd had the decency to exhibit some simple mercenary behavior. But she'd barely blinked at his offer to buy her out at twice the value of her shares.

  Chess shook his head at himself. He knew better. Money was not the motivator in that woman's life. All anyone had to do was take a look at her apartment to know that, and Chess knew a lot more. He knew the sort of jobs she'd taken over the years, the sort of privation she'd lived with, all to give herself the chance to be on stage. Her acting mattered more to her than any amount of money. Neither her father nor Chess had ever been able to change her mind about that.

  Chess scowled darkly at the slow traffic as he moved toward the South San Francisco location of his perfume plant. Part of his frustration, he knew, wasn't with David or even with David's troublesome daughter, but with himself.

  Why should he care?

  The business was worth close to nothing at the moment. If it went under altogether, Chess could simply walk away. His mother was financially secure with David's money, and he himself had a reputation. He'd gotten plenty of offers over the years from the big fragrance designers. He was known as a "nose," someone with the unique ability to detect and design the subtlest of scents. So why was he hanging on? What was he trying to save?

  Maybe he didn't want to save anything, he thought.

  Maybe he simply didn't like getting cheated.

  A heat that had become familiar filled him. He absolutely hated getting cheated.

  Chess pulled into the asphalt parking lot by the side of the plant. He sat in the car a moment, willing down the anger and thirst for revenge that had been building for four months now—ever since he'd discovered the critical theft. Unfortunately, the key to his vengeance lay in Rebecca Thibideaux, and she was not proving cooperative.

  With a sigh, he popped open his car door. But why should she? She didn't even like him. Perhaps his frequent role in her life as a ruling enforcer played a part in her attitude, but Chess suspected it was something more simple.

  He was not a likable fellow.

  He stalked from his car toward the combination factory/office building of Scents Allure. His earlier anger shifted into sorrow. He'd at least thought David had liked him. But apparently not.

  At the heavy glass entry doors of the factory, Chess pushed his way inside and nodded to Ben, the security guard, before crossing the black-and-white tiled entryway and opening another door into the central processing area. The equipment in this large room rose up the four stories of the offices that lined it on two sides. Skylights lit the laboratory space.

  "Chess!" A trim woman in a pearl-colored skirt suit raised her hand from her position along one side of the atrium. "I've been looking for you." In her other hand, she held a file folder. She hurried toward him in her low-heeled pumps.

  "Diana." Automatically, Chess checked his watch. Had he had an appointment with his marketing VP? He found himself wishing he had. Diana Lorimar was logic and limits—the complete opposite of Rebecca Thibideaux. He could use the detox.

  "No, we did not have an appointment." Laughing, Diana seemed to read his mind as she approached his position. Her blond hair was in a neat chignon, and her makeup was understated. "Really. Do you and I need appointments in order to see each other?" She tilted her head, still smiling. "I was hoping we could go over our plans for the launch of the new perfume. Where have you been?"

  His whereabouts and dubious aim were best left undisclosed. "Ah, the launch..." There wasn't much more they could do to prepare for launching his new perfume on the market without an infusion of cash—in a word, a loan. A big one. And there was no getting a loan without a majority vote of the company's stockholders: both himself and his mother.

  He sucked in his lips. "Uh...best to hold off on any more plans for the launch," he told Diana. "At least until I secure the financing."

  A flash of anxiety crossed her face. As a fairly new employee, Diana was hardly privy to the company books, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to deduce they were going to need to do something to shore up their sagging sales.

  "Oh," she said. "Right."

  Silently, Chess gnashed his teeth. "I have an idea," he decided. "Let's go see my mother."

  Diana lifted her brows. "Again?"

  Chess had spent the past few months hammering away at his mother. Upon occasion, he'd brought Diana with him for additional firepower. Not that any of his attempts to persuade Kate had done any good. That's why two weeks ago he'd seized on the strategy of utter desperation: getting Cookie's votes.

  But if those votes weren't in the picture—?

  "Yes, again." Chess gave Diana an encouraging smile. "Let's go upstairs."

  On the fourth floor, the door to Kate's office was closed. Chess frowned as he stopped in front of it. Kate never closed her door. He knocked.

  "Oh, come in."

  When Chess opened the door, he found Kate replacing her phone in its cradle. She brushed a hand across the perfectly coiffed wave of blond hair at her forehead. Chess could swear that hand was shaking. Then Kate saw who had walked through the door. She halted. All expression wiped clean from her face.

  "Are you all right?" Despite himself, Chess felt a sudden pang of concern.

  Kate's expression chilled. "Of course I'm all right." Her gaze flicked to Diana, who was following Chess through the door. "Oh, dear," she said. "Again?"

  Chess ignored her lack of enthusiasm and motioned Diana to a chair. He tried to ignore his inner concern but with less success. It wasn't like Kate to lose her composure, not even for a moment. She was similar to her office: ultimate elegance in cool pastels and crisp textures.

  His mother's unerring taste was a good part of how she'd been able to sustain the perfume company during the lean years when it hadn't had much else to sustain it. Since David's money had come in and Chess had joined the team, things had been different. Kate's aesthetic sense together with Chess's aromatic expertise made a powerful combination. For years they'd been
careful to cultivate at least this side of their relationship, for the sake of the business. Until three months ago, when Chess had first brought up borrowing money for the launch of a new perfume.

  Chess strolled toward the polished woodwork of her desk. "It isn't too late to change your mind. The ad company is still interested. I don't think you realize, Kate, what a unique opportunity this is."

  Kate leaned back in her soft chair and removed her glasses. "I understand it is a tremendous financial risk."

  Chess had to bite his tongue from the obvious retort. Scents Allure couldn't afford not to take risks. But he didn't want to admit as much with Diana in the room. "Coldwell Advertising is actually willing to joint venture with us on the project," he said instead. "That's unheard of, for an advertising company to put their own money on the line."

  Kate gave him an icy look. "And I don't suppose your relationship with Ruth Coldwell has anything to do with that?"

  Chess's lips curved into a small, ironic smile. "Why, Kate. I had no idea you kept such close tabs on my social life." Not that close, though, or she'd know that he and Ruth Coldwell had been nothing more than friends for the past two years.

  His mother narrowed her green eyes at him. "I do if I think it's going to cost me money. Coldwell Advertising isn't risking nearly as much as we are—and will be first to get paid with any income." She shook her head. "I don't understand why we can't do what we've always done: trust the classics. Over the years, they have always been reliable."

  The classics. Desire, Craving, Seduction. The perfumes for which the company was known and which had sold with comfortable dependability for decades. A sick and angry emotion attacked Chess. But as he lifted his gaze over Kate's head to regard the gray San Francisco sky visible through the factory sash window, he was careful to keep his expression neutral.

  He could not tell his mother why the classic perfumes were not going to work this season. He wasn't going to tell anybody, not until he'd figured out what was really going on and who was behind it. Releasing a deep breath, he felt able to look down again.