Leigh Michaels – A Convenient Affair (страница 7)

She picked up her still-full glass and with one smooth and efficient turn of her wrist threw the contents at him.

He saw it coming as if in slow motion, first a few droplets and then a tidal wave of red wine, and he closed his eyes against the onslaught. But she hadn’t aimed at his face; the liquid sloshed across the breadth of his chest instead, soaking his favorite tie, the front of his once-white shirt, the lapels of his charcoal suit.

“Excuse me,” Hannah said to the waiter, who had rushed forward, his tray of hors d’oeuvres still balanced, to fumble with a napkin. “I do hope I didn’t get any on the carpet.”

Then she walked away, head high, spine straight, with the Lover’s Box held firmly in both hands, leaving only silence in her wake.

The breeze had picked up, whipping through the canyons of downtown. But Hannah was steaming, too agitated to sit still, so instead of hailing a cab she walked all the way back downtown to Stephens & Webster.

Cooper Winston had deserved every last drop, she told herself. The moment when it was apparent he’d seen the deluge coming and knew he couldn’t do a thing to prevent it would be part of Hannah’s scrapbook of precious memories for the rest of her life. It was just too bad it had been only a glass of wine, and a small one at that; if he’d ordered the bottle, she’d have smashed it over his head.

Of course, she admitted, there was the little matter of effectively squashing any faint possibility that he might consider taking his legal business to Stephens & Webster. And if he were to complain about her conduct to Ken Stephens…

“He still deserved it,” Hannah muttered unrepentantly.

Besides, when she thought about it, she decided that he was unlikely to say anything to anybody about the incident. He’d look like a fool if he told that story—and if there was one thing she was certain of about Cooper, it was that he didn’t like looking silly. Experienced businessman that he was, he would never admit that he’d been outmaneuvered in a straightforward business proposition by a young woman whose law school diploma was practically still warm from the press, much less that Hannah’s final counteroffer had been a glass of wine.

No, his revenge would be of a different sort. And she was fairly sure there would be consequences of her actions—even though the whole thing had been his fault in the first place. If he hadn’t leaped to unwarranted assumptions about her, Hannah wouldn’t have lost her temper at all.

So what if Isobel hadn’t been any plaster saint? That wasn’t exactly a news flash, though Hannah still had a little trouble picturing her elderly cousin as a courtesan extraordinaire. Fluffy, agreeable, and charming weren’t words that sprang to mind where Isobel was concerned.

But then, what made Hannah assume that she knew the criteria for being a good mistress? Maybe fluffy, agreeable, and charming were precisely what men like Cooper’s grandfather weren’t looking for.

Still, whatever Isobel’s history, it didn’t mean that the inclination for extortion and blackmail ran through the rest of the family, as Cooper so clearly believed.

He’d been remembering his fifteen million dollars, of course. But though Hannah admitted that her timing could have been a lot more convenient, there had been nothing shady about her actions in the restaurant chain deal. She’d simply discovered, at the very last minute, a loophole that everyone else had overlooked altogether.

What really annoyed her about the Lovers’ Box was the fact that right up till the last minute she’d actually been feeling sympathetic. She’d been almost ready to wipe away a tear as she handed his treasure back to him. The last foolish question she’d asked had been prompted more by curiosity than anything else; she’d been not only wondering exactly how much the box was worth to him, but she’d been toying with the idea of how grateful he’d be when she told him he didn’t have to pay her anything at all…

Not far from the law office, on a sudden whim, she stopped to take a closer look at Cooper’s treasure.

In strong sunlight, the Lovers’ Box looked even less likely as an object of obsession. It was pretty enough, but on close inspection she could see a basic crudity about the carving and a certain lack of grace in the proportions of the box. One thing was certain; Cooper had been right when he said that no one else would pay as much for it as he was willing to do.

You probably should have grabbed the five hundred bucks and run, Hannah thought wryly. But no, she’d had to probe for the whole story. What on earth had she been thinking of?

And what was she going to do now?

Perhaps more important, what would Cooper do? He was momentarily stymied, but Hannah didn’t expect that state of affairs to last long. In fact, she wouldn’t be surprised if he’d thought out another plan by the time he’d changed his shirt.

But what would he try next? Persuasion? Threats? Outright burglary?

She’d have to deal with those things when and if they came up. In the meantime, she decided, there were a few basic measures she could take in the name of self-protection.

As soon as she’d stashed the Lovers’ Box in a hiding place that she hoped was safely out of Cooper’s reach, she dusted one problem from her hands. But there was still Brenton Bannister to consider. Brenton, and his promise of a very special evening. One, he had seemed to imply, which would change the rest of Hannah’s life.

The uneasy flutter she’d felt in the pit of her stomach when he’d issued the invitation came back again, even more strongly.

Hannah was in the law library, still poring over Jacob Jones’s files, when Brenton came in. “What’s keeping you?” he said. “I’ve been waiting.”

Hannah stopped fitting together the bits of an invoice which had crumbled with age. “You said you had clients all afternoon. I told your secretary I’d be here if you needed me.”

“Very discreet of you to put it that way.” He chuckled. “I always knew you had sense, Hannah. She said you were very bright-eyed when you came in, and that you looked as if you’d had quite a surprise.”

“I suppose you could put it that way.” Hannah fitted the last piece of the invoice into place, glanced at it, concluded that the information it contained carried no importance to the legal matter at hand, and put it in the finished stack.

“So tell me the good news. How did you and Ken Stephens get along? And when will Isobel’s estate all be wrapped up?”

“Oh, it’s pretty well finished already,” Hannah said dryly. “All but the dust settling.”

“I was right, wasn’t I?” Brenton pushed aside a stack of papers and sat down on the corner of the table. “She left you everything she owned.”

“Just about.”

“What did I tell you?” Satisfaction almost dripped from his voice. “You can give me all the details over a nice long dinner.”

Hannah brushed off her hands and stood up. As she fitted the lid back on the box, she said casually, “You were absolutely right, Brenton. The only trouble with your scenario is that Isobel cut it right down to the wire and died without a penny to her name. So I was right, too—because in fact she didn’t leave me anything at all.”

She’d taken two steps toward the door before she realized that Brenton hadn’t moved, except for his mouth dropping open.

That was pretty much the identical reaction she’d had, of course. Not inheriting hadn’t surprised her—but the fact that there was nothing to inherit had been a stunner.

“Nothing?” Brenton’s voice was almost a croak. “But…but she was a wealthy woman!”

“She appeared to be a wealthy woman,” Hannah corrected. “In fact, she was something of an expert at appearing to be well-off.” She succinctly repeated Ken Stephens’s rundown regarding Isobel’s condo, furniture, jewelry, china, silver, and furs.

She was just starting to tell Brenton about the odd little Lovers’ Box when she realized that would lead almost inevitably to telling him about the scene at Cicero’s.

Brenton seemed too shocked to notice that her story had abruptly broken off. “Nothing,” he repeated. “She left you nothing at all?”

Hannah’s eyes narrowed. “Exactly why is that so important?”

“Oh, I just…” His voice was little more than a whisper. “I was so certain. At least, she always seemed to indicate that you’d get everything she owned.”

“I did. She just didn’t own much of anything.”

“But it was like she told me that you would—” He broke off.

Hannah braced her hands on the table. “You seriously thought I was going to be rich, didn’t you?”

He didn’t answer, but his gaze shifted uneasily away.

And you were planning to end up with a good share of my supposed wealth, weren’t you? Now she understood. That was why Brenton had invited her out tonight, after months of casual friendliness. That was why he’d trotted out the line about getting to know her, and that was why he’d left it dangling instead of going on to tell her how special she was, and how important she’d become to him. He’d left it to Hannah to fill in the blank, and she’d done exactly as he’d expected she would.

Now she could see precisely how careful he’d been to say nothing that could be taken as a commitment. Nothing that he couldn’t escape. Even that invitation to dinner had been very carefully phrased….