Loe raamatut: «Betting on the Cowboy»

CHAPTER ONE

BRIANNA WRIGHT PULLED up to the Townsends’ elegant Boston Back Bay mansion under a starry black sky, handed her car over to the valet with a forced smile and rushed up the stairs breathlessly. Darn it, she was late. Really late. Ten o’clock. No, almost eleven—thank you so much, gridlocked airport traffic!

Now she’d missed three hours of her own party—well, the party her company, Breelie’s, had produced, anyhow—and Townsend’s fiftieth birthday bash was already in full swing. Music and laughter poured through the open, brilliantly lit windows.

Too much laughter, perhaps, so early? She frowned. The open bar must be getting a workout.

Oh, well. Townsend was a tire magnate, and his millions could cover the liquor tab no matter how high it went. At least it sounded as if the guests were having fun.

She didn’t know why that should surprise her—the parties planned by Breelie’s rarely flopped. But something about this event had always bugged her a little. Maybe it was just that the “harem” theme had never appealed to her. That didn’t matter, of course. Whatever the client wanted, he got. Or, in this case, whatever the client’s trophy wife, Iliana Townsend, wanted, she got.

Bree just hoped Charlie hadn’t gone overboard. Not that she thought he had. As her fiancée and her business partner, he deserved her complete trust. And he had it...of course he did. It was just that...

She’d been out of town for most of the planning, which obviously accounted for some of her discomfort. She trusted Charlie implicitly, of course, but...

She did wish he had answered his cell phone more often this week. When Charlie went dark, it usually meant he was spending more money than he felt like justifying over the phone. He trusted his ability to persuade anyone of anything, but only as long as they were within the target range of his surface-to-surface ballistic charm.

As she passed under a faux ogee arch and into the unrecognizable entry hall, she suddenly froze in place. She stared, openmouthed, at the glittering, jingling, splashing, sparkling madness before her.

For an instant, she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry.

This was the high-society party she had hoped would put her event-planning company on the Boston A-list? This...this...circus?

What in God’s name had Charlie been thinking? The room writhed with half-naked humanity. Belly dancers. Sword swallowers. Eunuchs. Champagne fountains, ruby-grape pyramids, peacock-feather fans and tables groaning with bacchanalian treats. Charlie had created an entire fake Persian seraglio, complete with a hundred over-the-hill sultans flirting with two hundred giggling harem “girls.”

Bree’s temples throbbed, and her airplane-food dinner suddenly turned poisonously acidic.

Damn it, Charlie! She’d told him a thousand times that, in the upscale Boston society event-planning business, reputation was more important than anything else. Anything. Even more important than the bottom line.

And, long before this, she’d had a niggling feeling they were getting a reputation for being...

Well, vulgar.

She set her jaw as a trio of belly dancers wriggled by with a tinkle of gold coins in the air and a skitter of gold flickers on the walls. A sword swallower followed behind, ogling the dancers’ hips. Behind him—a snake charmer with a real live snake slithering around his shoulders.

Oh, dear God. If vulgarity were an Olympic event, this pretentious absurdity would definitely take the gold.

Her hands tightened into fists at her sides. Charlie might be a genius at coaxing money out of rich women, but Bree was going to strangle him for this.

If she could just find him.

Instead, as she scanned the crowd, the only person she recognized was Bill Townsend, the guest of honor himself. But he didn’t look honored. He looked furious. His dark eyes and full lips glowered, and he moved like an angry bull, his bulky shoulders plowing a path through the guests as if they were so many inconveniently placed mannequins. His bushy mustache and eyebrows resembled Tom Selleck more than Yul Brynner, but the scimitar at his side suddenly seemed more lethal than any prop ever should.

Though he passed within two feet of Bree, he didn’t notice her any more than he noticed any of the others. He kept up his furious stride until he reached the burbling, three-tiered champagne fountain in the center of the ridiculous room.

Iliana, his forty-five-year-old trophy wife who always looked like a beautifully embalmed twenty-year-old, was nowhere in sight. Had the couple been fighting? Great. If the host and hostess ended up having a big row tonight, Bree’s party would be remembered for that, not the hours and hours of work she and Charlie had put into it.

An elderly, diffident sultan, whose headdress was bigger than his whole body, approached Townsend, hand outstretched, a “happy birthday” smile on his face. Townsend turned his back on the man rudely. He grabbed a silver chalice from a passing waiter, thrust it under the honey-colored stream, letting the bubbles spill all over his fingers, then knocked the champagne back in one harsh toss.

Bree groaned under her breath. This could get ugly. Where the heck was Charlie? He needed to find Iliana, who might be able to handle her drunk husband. The women were always Charlie’s responsibility. He was good with bored trophy wives. He could always pump out an extra squirt of charm and coax them into ever-higher displays of extravagance.

Unfortunately, at the moment, he seemed to be just as absent as the hostess. Bree shut her eyes, trying to swallow her fury. But really. Maybe strangling was too good for him.

“Ms. Wright?”

She opened her eyes. A tall “eunuch” stood in front of her, holding a tray of wineglasses. She eyed them carefully, wondering how many bottles they’d run through. If Townsend was already in a foul humor, he might balk at an astronomical liquor tab, after all.

“Everything okay, Ms. Wright?” The eunuch hesitated, looking nervous. Poor guy. She had a reputation, she knew, for being a stickler.

“No. I mean yes, everything’s fine.” It wasn’t this poor guy’s fault. He appeared as miserable as she felt. So she propped up her artificial smile, hearing her guardian’s voice in her head. Kitty Afton, the Boston divorcée who had taken Bree in after her mother’s murder, had believed that cheerfulness was next to godliness. Even in the early days, when surely she knew Bree was heartbroken and traumatized, Kitty had scolded her new protégée for letting her lips lose their pleasant feminine curve. “No one likes a sad sack, Brianna. You’ll catch more flies with honey.”

The waiter-eunuch nodded uneasily, then moved on. Bree checked Townsend again. He hadn’t budged from the fountain. He was refilling his chalice, though his eyes glittered, and a sparkling trail of champagne already trickled from his chin like golden spit.

She couldn’t wait for Charlie or Iliana. She’d have to try to handle Townsend herself. Reluctantly, Bree merged into the melee of guests, somehow keeping the smile on her lips.

“Mr. Townsend?”

He turned, the chalice halfway to his mouth, and glared at her over the rim. As he took in her simple slate-blue sheath, his eyes narrowed. “What are you supposed to be? Didn’t you get the memo? This is a costume party. You’ve got to look like an idiot or you don’t get in.”

She deepened her smile, as if he’d meant it as a joke. But the bitterness in his voice was unmistakable. The drinking was a symptom of a deeper problem...not the cause. She really needed to find Iliana and get things patched up.

“I’m not actually a guest,” she explained. “I’m Brianna Wright. My company, Breelie’s, is the one you hired to—”

“You’re...” He lowered the golden vessel, spilling liquid precariously close to her shoes, but ignoring it. “You are Brianna Wright?”

“I am,” she said. She’d met him twice, during the initial negotiations, but she wasn’t surprised that he didn’t remember. He’d spent most of both meetings pacing the hall outside her office, barking at someone on his cell phone.

He shook his head for a minute, and then let out a loud, seal-like honk of laughter. Now, that did surprise her. She had traveled in a very uncomfortable, very dressy getup, complete with three-inch heels and panty hose, just so that she would look professional when she arrived. She’d even denied herself the luxury of a nap, so that she wouldn’t muss the sleek French knot of blond hair at the nape of her neck.

“You seem amused,” she observed coolly, irritated in spite of her determination to remain calm.

“Oh, I am definitely amused, sweetheart.” He grinned, showing six very white front teeth surrounded by neighbors far less brilliant. “I really, really am.”

She frowned and opened her mouth to respond, but then, without warning, his large hand flicked out and grabbed hers.

“Hey!” She recoiled instinctively from his damp, sticky clutch and the aroma of stale champagne that wafted from his skin. But he had clamped on tightly and didn’t let go.

“Come with me, Brianna Wright,” he said, turning away from the fountain, tugging her along without so much as glancing back to see if she was willing, or whether she would have to be dragged. “There’s something I want to show you.”

People were staring at her now, which was saying something, since surely she was the least outlandish spectacle at this particular party. “Mr. Townsend, I really don’t think—”

He looked back at her over his shoulder, his eyes suddenly clear and sober. “Your company is in charge of this party, right? Well, there’s a problem, and I think you should know about it.”

She didn’t have much recourse after that, though she did manage eventually to extricate her hand and follow him with a little more dignity and at least the appearance of free will.

The guests seemed to part before them, as if they were just props operated by stagehands pulling levers behind the scenes. Maybe the people smelled danger radiating from their host. Bree certainly did.

When Townsend reached the big central staircase and began to climb, her internal sirens started to go off wildly. Why would he need to show her anything on the second floor? Kitchen, her problem. Buffet table, her problem. Decorations, liquor, security and even valet parking...all Breelie’s problems. But her company’s responsibilities didn’t extend beyond the first floor.

She hesitated, her hand on the polished onyx railing. He hadn’t climbed more than four steps when his sixth sense obviously told him he’d lost her. He turned again, and laughed.

“Really, Ms. Wright,” he said, his eyes glittering with some secret, inexplicable mirth. The effect was decidedly unwholesome, and a shiver ran down her spine. “I have a houseful of half-dressed concubines. You think I have designs on your icy virtue?”

“No,” she said. His tone was so dismissive she found herself flushing, which was ridiculous. She’d worked hard to cultivate “icy” and had always considered it a compliment when people described her that way. Better “icy” than half-mad with uncontrolled passions, as so many in her dysfunctional family tended to be. “Of course not.”

“Well, then?” He gestured impatiently.

Still, she hesitated. Something about the moment felt profoundly off. Why was he furious one instant, sardonic the next? And why on earth did he want to take her upstairs? Only the bedrooms were up there....

He laughed again, shook his head as if despairing at her naiveté, then abruptly leaned over the banister.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” His voice rose over the chatter, over the bubbling champagne fountain, even over the string quartet in the corner alcove. “Follow me! I have a surprise for you!”

All the faces tilted up toward him, though half the crowd was clearly too drunk to fully process his words and didn’t stir. But at least a dozen laughing sultans and belly dancers churned toward the staircase, ready for anything that sounded different and amusing.

Bree wanted to be relieved. Whatever he had in mind, at least it didn’t require privacy. That ruled out the most unpleasant scenarios, surely. So why, as the costumed guests surged up the stairs, creating a tidal wave that swept her along, did she have a sudden instinctive desire to turn around and flee?

She didn’t do it, of course. That really would have set the gossips buzzing. Instead, she trailed along as Townsend made his way down the wide hall, turning occasionally to put his forefinger theatrically against his lips to shush his followers.

With every step, though, she felt herself retreating deeper into the numb bubble that had protected her from painful situations in the past. In the sixteen years since her mother’s murder, she’d perfected the art of plunging her emotions into a frozen state, much like a medically induced coma, even while, on the outside, she appeared utterly serene and confident.

Icy, as she was always being told.

Finally, in front of the last door on the left, Townsend paused. He made one more “shh” gesture to his guests, then crooked his finger invitingly toward Bree, offering her the place of honor beside him. Unseen hands prodded her from behind, urging her toward her host, and before she could react, she was close enough to see the unholy gleam in his eyes.

“Mr. Townsend,” she tried again uneasily. But he put his finger against her lips and grinned down at her, like an evil mime. She felt her heart accelerate. Whatever lay behind this door evoked a strong emotion in him. She wished she knew him well enough to interpret that glitter. Was it anger? Or was it glee?

With an elaborate flourish, he reached out for the doorknob and turned it slowly, so slowly it didn’t make a sound. Neither did his guests, who obviously had caught the mystery fever and were craning forward in eager, hypnotized silence.

They pressed so fervently that when Townsend finally pushed the door open, Bree almost stumbled across the threshold.

Before her lay a beautiful room, decorated with a champagne-colored carpet and hunter-green bed linens and drapes. The overhead light was off, but a green-and-gold stained-glass dragonfly table lamp cast an amber circle onto the king-size bed, like a spotlight picking out the important actors on a stage.

In that amber circle, something palely pink and subtly obscene jerked and twisted, making rough, breathless, wordless sounds.

For a shell-shocked moment, Bree’s mind wouldn’t work. She somehow couldn’t identify what she was looking at. It wasn’t human, surely...that monstrous shape, with too many limbs, white-soled feet rising out of what looked like a tanned and muscled back...

Only when the people behind her began to gasp, and some to titter, did she finally jerk awake and understand. Two or three in the crowd laughed out loud; those more brazen, who had probably known from the start what the “surprise” would be.

With a cry of alarm, the monster on the bed separated into two parts. Charlie, who had been on top, leaped up, grabbing the green bedspread and awkwardly trying to cover himself with it in a pathetic display of selfishness that left his partner completely exposed.

Furiously, the woman on the bed, who was now recognizable as Iliana Townsend, yanked at the bedspread, too. Charlie, whose face was red and pop-eyed with terror, wouldn’t let go, and the momentary tug-of-war was such a farce that everyone in the doorway burst out laughing.

Everyone except Townsend himself, and Bree. She suddenly felt dizzy, almost blind with fury. Oddly, she was angrier with Townsend for setting up this humiliation than she was with Charlie for causing it.

She glanced at the man now, wondering how he’d react to the sight of his wife’s expensive breast implants bobbing about for everyone to ogle. Wondering if he would find Charlie’s egregious lack of chivalry as disgusting as she did.

To her surprise, Townsend was still grinning.

Catching her horrified gaze, he winked salaciously. “Now look at that. Isn’t that sweet? In honor of the occasion, my loving wife apparently decided to wear her birthday suit.”

More laughter. Scanning the glassy-eyed, half-clad partiers and their mocking host, Bree realized suddenly that she was way out of her depth here. Back home in Silverdell, Colorado, nobody laughed at adultery. Back home, nobody invited an audience to a cuckolding.

Of course, back home, when her father had discovered her mother’s infidelity, he had thrown her down the staircase and broken her neck. So maybe this decadent indifference was more civilized, in the end.

But even so, she couldn’t understand it. It shocked her, and made her feel slightly ill. Perhaps that meant that, in spite of all the years living here in Boston, all the college education and the designer clothes and the artificially icy poise, she would always be just a Colorado cowgirl at heart.

What a joke...what a long, ironic laugh fate must be having right now, watching her try to handle these Eastern sophisticates—and fail.

Finally the red-faced, guilty cats seemed to find their tongues.

“Bill,” Iliana wheedled. “It’s not what it looks like—”

“Bree,” Charlie called, trying to move toward her, but pinned in place by his lover’s death grip on her end of the bedspread. “Bree, give me a chance to explain. She wouldn’t take no for an answer—”

“Why, you lying bastard!” Iliana jerked so hard on the spread that Charlie lost his hold. The sudden full-frontal nudity, which cruelly offered everyone the measure of Charlie’s shriveled, terrified penis, sent another wave of laughter through the room.

Bree turned her back on the sight. She eyed the others, drawing on every icy ounce of disdain she could muster, and willed them to move away from the door. Slowly, as if repelled by cold waves emanating from her, they did.

Chin high, she walked out. She didn’t look back, though she heard Charlie’s plaintive call of “Bree! Bree!” behind her, as if he were some kind of frantic cat stuck in a tree he’d foolishly climbed on a whim and now couldn’t figure out how to descend.

She kept walking. Down the stairs, through the other guests, who had gone back to their own drinking and flirting, long ago having forgotten that something was unfolding upstairs. Past the champagne fountain, past the pyramids of grapes and the string quartet, still sawing out Mozart to the tone-deaf crowd.

Out to the valet, to whom she handed her ticket calmly. She tipped him a hundred dollars as she climbed into her car because she was so grateful to him for bringing the means to escape.

Protocol required him to feign indifference. She could have handed him a coupon for a fast-food cheeseburger instead of money, and he was supposed to pocket the paper without looking.

But obviously he knew how to sneak a peek surreptitiously. His eyes widened.

“Thank you,” he said, shocked into revealing that he’d checked the denomination. “I mean...thank you, Ms. Wright. I hope you had a nice time at the party.”

“Yes,” she said automatically. She remembered him now. Tim. Tim Murfin. He owned the valet service, and she’d used his company before. He was honest, and he was smart. “Yes, it was a very interesting party.”

In her rearview mirror, she saw Charlie racing toward the portico. He was dressed, mostly, though he was still stuffing his shirt into his waistband with rushed fingers. “Bree, wait!”

“Excuse me,” she said politely to Tim, and he stepped away from the door, glancing toward Charlie with a furrowed brow.

As soon as the valet was clear, she pulled the door shut and stepped on the gas. She had no intention of letting Charlie reach the car. She wouldn’t put it past him to climb onto the hood and splay himself there until she agreed to listen to his stupid excuses.

Nothing he could say could possibly make any difference at all. He’d be busy trying to convince her that he really loved her, that his dalliance had meant nothing. He might even be craven enough to say he’d done it for them, for Breelie’s, to keep a customer satisfied.

He would imagine that he’d broken her heart. He’d think, no doubt, that she was hurt by his betrayal, and mourning their lost relationship.

But he’d be wrong. She didn’t give a damn about any of that. The minute she’d seen him jump from that bed, ungallantly covering himself and leaving Iliana helplessly naked before all her friends, she’d understood what the real victim of the humiliating melodrama would be.

Not their relationship. Not her heart.

No. She realized at that moment that she’d probably never loved him, not real love, not with her whole soul.

The damage he’d done was even worse than that.

What Charlie had destroyed, by sleeping with their most prominent client, and making a spectacle before half of Boston society, was Brianna’s career.

He had destroyed Breelie’s.

And she would never, ever, ever forgive him for that.

* * *

THE FRONT DRAWING room of Harper House, where Grayson Harper stood waiting for his grandfather, held at least ten red-silk-upholstered seats. He had his choice of armchairs, straight-backed chairs, two divans and one chaise longue. All unoccupied. All antiques, all chosen for comfort as well as beauty.

And yet he stood.

Sitting was something you did when you wanted to make yourself at home. Sitting was relaxed. Unguarded. Sitting made you the patiently waiting beta child to the superior alpha adult who would come stalking in, militarily erect, sneering down at his uninvited visitor.

So, no, he’d stand, thanks anyhow. Gray Harper was no one’s beta—especially not his grandfather’s. After all this time, he intended to meet the old bastard eye to eye.

Two could play the power game, and obviously his grandfather had made the first move already, keeping Gray cooling his heels down here for as long as possible. He glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantel, which ticked in the deep silence like someone tsking sardonically. The housekeeper, a woman Gray had of course never met, since the old man was too irascible to keep employees for long, had led him into the drawing room at least half an hour ago.

“He’s dressing,” the woman had said when she returned from announcing Gray. “He says to wait here, and he’ll be down soon.”

Dressing? Gray smiled with tight lips. His grandfather could have had a new suit of clothes bought, tailored and delivered on foot from the haberdashery on Elk Avenue in that much time.

But patience. Patience. After ten years, what was another ten minutes? He had something to say, and he planned to say it, even if he had to wait all night.

He went to the window and, putting his hands in his pockets, gazed out at the beautifully landscaped view of terraced lawn sloping down to the little town of Silverdell below. The sunset gleamed pink against the thin white spire of the Episcopal church and on the blue-gray rim of mountains in the distance.

Instantly, the sight took Gray back to his youth.

His youth. Not a place he wanted to linger. He squinted, imagining he could see rain on the horizon, even absurdly sniffing a hint of wood smoke in the April air, though the fireplace was cold and still.

Maybe that was why his grandfather was keeping him waiting. Letting him simmer in this ghost-filled room long enough to render him weak.

Frowning, he turned around again.

His grandfather stood in the doorway.

Gray inhaled sharply, startled in spite of having known full well the old man would jockey for an advantage somehow.

“Sir,” he said, out of habit more than anything else. Certainly not out of respect.

One corner of his grandfather’s thin mouth tilted up slightly, as if he understood the distinction. “Gray.”

Another family might have made a drama out of the moment. After ten years of complete silence and absolute estrangement, most people probably would have considered a display of feelings relevant. Shock, recriminations, tears, joy...anything. After all, neither grandfather nor grandson had been completely sure, until today, that the other still lived.

But old Grayson Harper the First would have considered any emotional outburst to be a sign of weakness. And young Grayson Harper the Third simply didn’t give a damn anymore.

“I’m sorry I kept you waiting,” his grandfather lied. He hobbled into the room, using a silver-tipped cane that Gray had never seen before. He had done the calculations before he arrived, so he knew that his grandfather had just celebrated his eighty-fourth birthday. The old man’s hair had been thickly silver as long as Gray could remember, and his face lined, so other than the limp, nothing much had changed.