Imminent Conquest (16 page)

"I won't ever tolerate you doing that to me again,” she whispered. Then she slapped his face so hard the sound rang throughout the room.

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"So what in the hell do you want?” Bryan asked as Colin flashed by him towards Michael's office.

Iceman didn't even bother acknowledging him. He threw the door to Michael's office open. “What the hell do you think you're trying to pull?"

Bryan waited, pretending to examine papers on the secretary's desk, knowing Colin would turn on him when he realised his brother wasn't in.

"Where the hell is he?"

"Who do you mean?” Bryan asked, still looking at the papers.

"My brother, you fool!"

Abruptly, Colin stomped over and Bryan suddenly found his neck in a vice grip. His feet dangled half a foot from the ground. Incongruously, he wondered what Libby would do if she saw Colin playing his bad power boy routine. Would she beat Colin over the head with her tiny handbag? “Put me down or I'll break your teeth."

"Yeah, right. You're like a sissy grandma on crutches and you're going to best me?"

"Don't put me down and give yourself a reason to find out.” Bryan had to think of something fast. Ratting on anyone, especially defenceless women like Nicole, wasn't his style.

"I'll put you down when I'm good and ready.” Colin's grey eyes almost bulged from their sockets.

"Then you're looking for more trouble than you've already got."

"What are you blabbing about?"

Bryan decided to play his cards. His windpipe was beginning to hurt. “I just bet you don't like the idea of Nicole and Michael screwing each other. I know how to stop it."

Something in Colin's normally dead eyes sparked to life. “How'd you know that?"

"Not hard to figure out. Isn't Nicole already screwing Brad?"

Colin set him on his feet, but didn't bother brushing Bryan off, not that he had expected it but it would have been nice. The transition from dangling meat to standing man wasn't gentle but that didn't concern him too much. At least Iceman wasn't holding him like a rag doll and threatening to dismember him.

"She's a two-timing bitch. All she wants my brother for is his money,” Colin said, his voice gruffer than usual.

"What makes you think that?"

"She's tried to get to him before. It didn't work. And it won't work now either if I've got anything to say about it."

"You won't let it, right?"

Colin grunted in the affirmative. He adjusted his black leather jacket and lifted the sleeve of his baby blue dress shirt to check his gold Rolex.

"Why did you call her a bitch?"

"She wants to set her teeth into Michael again, get him to marry her so she doesn't have to spend the rest of her snivelling life with a loser like Brad."

He made Nicole sound like a black widow. “Again,” Bryan prompted for information.

"Yeah. She squealed on him, that their fun wasn't consensual and had him slammed in the clapper for a few years."

Bryan couldn't see why this spat between Nicole and Michael was his own problem. He knew very little about Nicole and would have sworn the attraction was more on Michael's side than it was on Nicole's.

"She not only put him behind bars but she squeezed money out of him too. Why do you think she owns a fancy house up in the west end?"

"I didn't know that.” Bryan wondered at the animosity coming through, which wasn't unusual in Colin's attitude but this time there was more behind the anger in his eyes.

"You've got no reason to. She does everything on the sly."

Is that why Brad was so torched last night? Because he and Colin were disputing the merits of Nicole flirting with his brother again?

Colin's eyes turned hard. “Michael thinks he's in love with her, that she's worth something but she's got nothing. She's simply a piece of ass from the wrong side of town."

Bryan saw how Colin's pride shone through, the Carmichael macho attitude. The Carmichaels had been a force to reckon with back in Ashcroft but not now. Bryan shook himself. Michael was someone to reckon with in town now, powerful and compassionate without the ruthlessness that made self-made men tick. What the wrong side of town had to do with attraction was beyond Bryan though. Curious as to the answer he would receive, he asked, “So what are you going to do about it?"

"I've got my ways,” Colin replied slyly.

Libby made her way out of the restroom, strode past Colin without looking in his direction and seated herself behind her desk. She appeared composed and unflustered, quite a difference from the woman who had spoken about him earlier.

Colin slapped Bryan on the shoulder, almost bowling him over. “She needs to learn a lesson and I know just the person to teach her,” he said ominously. He shoved the double glass doors open and disappeared into the parking lot.

"Man, I'm always glad to see him go,” Libby breathed, setting her purse on the floor under the desk. “He gives me the willies but real bad."

"I can't put my finger on why he bugs the shit out of me either but you're right. There seems to be some history between the brothers."

"Brothers always have a history,” Libby commented. “But this goes far beyond what I would normally expect."

Bryan nodded. “I don't know if it's worth finding out what it is but keep your ears open. Never know what will crawl out of the hole."

"I doubt I'll find anything. I just don't want to see Michael hurt. Okay?"

"I understand,” Bryan said, already on his way back to work. “I don't want to see him hurt any more than you do.” Michael was a good man. And family. And blood was thicker than water.

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As the working day wound down, Bryan found himself thinking more about Michael and Nicole. Colin's revelation had shocked him. A fine man like Michael couldn't be a criminal. He wanted to know if Colin was telling the truth about why Michael had gone to prison. Or even if he had gone to prison. His service to the community and his employees’ favourable reaction to him belied Colin's statement. But it did make Bryan wonder why Colin and Michael had changed their last name from Carmichael to Karlisi.

Bryan was their cousin from their mother's side. Even now, thirty years later, he could remember as a four-year-old the tremendous energy his aunt, Laura Carmichael, had as she poured iced tea into tall glasses filled with cubes of ice, and set shaped cakes on the picnic table. The Carmichaels were a large family with cousins, nieces and nephews all over the world. When he had been young and his parents had been alive, Bryan had participated in the yearly family gathering. He knew that somewhere in his stash of boxes filled with memorabilia from his youthful years he might find photographs of Michael's mother and father. When exactly had the split occurred between the Carmichaels and the Karlisis? He couldn't be sure, since he had been with his parents at the Canadian Embassy in England for many years. For his part, once he couldn't actually meet with the Carmichaels, he had lost interest in them, although occasionally he remembered a pretty young woman with hair the colour of warm whisky and irrepressible vitality.

He quit work an hour early and went home, finding himself fighting exhaustion from lack of sleep the night before. The block in which he rented a small house was late afternoon, sleepy quiet. Nothing stirred. Darkness had fallen and bitter cold would soon blanket the earth. As he got out of his car, he glanced up at the sky where clouds wavered across a crescent moon. When he scanned the sky, stars dotted the expanse of black canopy. It would certainly be cold tonight.

A light in the kitchen caught his eye. Was he becoming forgetful and leaving the light on when he left for work? He unlocked the front door, scraped the snow off his boots and reminded himself to shovel the snow from the path leading to the house and off the sidewalk so the elderly pedestrians who frequented the neighbourhood wouldn't fall on the treacherous, icy paths.

He stepped inside. His stomach rumbled at the spicy smell of garlic, onions and tomatoes wafting through the living room. Stunned, he wondered one, who had broken into his house, and two, why was he so fortunate to come home to the smell of cooking. The loneliness he usually arrived at home with was replaced by curiosity.

All the lights in the kitchen had been turned on and the heat radiating from the oven considerably warmed the house. The scent of olive oil and piquant meat filled the air and made his mouth water. At the kitchen sink, he found the culprit who had broken into his house. She was washing dishes and humming loudly in time with the rock music blaring from the radio. Her waist-length hair, the colour of warm whisky, was plaited and cinched by a small polka-dotted ponytail holder. Large, gold hoop earrings dangled from her earlobes and swung with her energetic movements.

It wasn't as if his dreams to have a woman in his life and a family could come true in the middle of the day. Or could they? Fury made him shout, “What's the meaning of this?” He raced to the radio and shut it off as he ogled the woman's hourglass figure.

She whirled around. Eyes as green as spring grass growing on a mountainside met his. “No need to shout, Bryan."

"Cathy? Is that you?” When had he last seen her? Fifteen years ago? Then she had been an awkward but pretty teenager.

"I was washing dishes,” she said smoothly, returning to her task as if to say he was an unwelcome nuisance. Her black pants hugged her bottom. Glancing over her shoulder, she smiled. “I came to make your Christmas a holly jolly one."

"Oh?"

"Oh,” she repeated.

"And what do I owe the pleasure of your breaking and entering into my house to?"

She finished washing a frying pan, set it on the drainer and wiped her hands on a dishtowel. “I didn't do any such thing. I kept calling from the bus station, but you weren't here."

"Of course I wasn't. I was at work."

"I didn't break in. The door was wide open."

"Wide open?” He couldn't help his eyes straying down to her plump breasts under the fuzzy, white sweater. “I'm sure I didn't leave it that way."

"Yeah. I couldn't believe the mess in here. Drawers pulled out of the dresser and turned upside down, chaos with clothes and papers everywhere you could imagine. You live worse than a pig in a pigsty."

He scowled, scanning the kitchen in front and the living room behind him for any signs of chaos. Everything seemed to be in place, although a couple of miniature Christmas decorations seemed to have moved on the fireplace mantle. “What do you mean, you found drawers upside down?"

A finely plucked eyebrow arched up. “Your house looked like a tornado swept through it. I understand single men live like pigs, but I've never seen anything like this."

"I left it tidy this morning, and I locked the front door.” Or had he? He felt relatively certain he wouldn't forget a crucial detail like that, although last night had thrown him off his routine behaviour.

She was making the disorder all up to excuse her breaking in to his house. He didn't have many valuables or loose cash hanging around, so the thieves couldn't have found much to steal. He shook his head. “There's nothing sacred, is there?"

"What do you mean?” She stepped closer, and the scent of apple blossoms swirled around him. His senses reeled from her proximity. She was all soft female. She was also his cousin. No fooling around. “You're making it sound as if someone ransacked my house."

"Someone did.” She seemed to shrink into herself. “I walked right into it."

He didn't know whether to comfort her or to order her to leave. With only a moment's indecision, he took her into his arms, feeling the sudden vulnerability emanating from her. “It's okay. You must have chased them off."

"I did?” She looked into his face and he swore he saw more than a hint of bravery in the depths of her eyes. As a teenager, she had been a tomboy, a daredevil, always the first to try a new activity. She got the reputation for being brave and courageous—for a girl.

Man, this was going to be some kind of night, attempting to determine if someone really had broken into his house. As if that wasn't enough, he had a beautiful woman with big breasts that begged to be caressed, resting her head against his chest. Too damned bad she was his cousin.

She giggled and pushed away from him. “Here you had me thinking you were a lousy housekeeper,” she said, watching him.

"First appearances can be deceptive.” He figured she would be all right while he checked the house to spot if anything was missing. “I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere."

"I wasn't planning to,” he heard her murmur.

He strolled through the house, turning lights on in one room after another. Nothing seemed to be missing until he got to the spare bedroom where the closet door hung off its hinges as if a giant had grabbed the wood and knocked it off to get his jollies. Boxes of photographs and old letters had been on the highest shelf.

Bryan edged closer. The four boxes were gone, unless Cathy had done something with them. As far as he could tell, there was nothing else missing. He ran down the stairs and once again the scent of garlic and apple blossoms hit him full force.

"When you went upstairs in the room where the closet door is hanging off its hinges, did you find any boxes on the floor?"

Cathy wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. “What kind of boxes?"

He described the cardboard containers filled with disorganised photographs of his family and yellowing letters.

"No. That bedroom was pretty tidy compared to the rest of the house. I didn't have to clean up anything there.” She laughed nervously. “I'm not much of a repair person so I couldn't fix the hinges."

She raised questioning eyebrows. “Aren't you going to call the cops?” Her world-weary eyes twinkled.

He sat down resignedly. “I can't do much now that you cleaned the chaos up. Your fingerprints would be everywhere."

"What does that mean for the cops?"

"I don't think they'd have enough to go on, to make out someone else's fingerprints. At least that's what I learned on TV. Unless they're really lucky. And essentially, there's no one hurt and nothing is missing. So no big deal."