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“But that help came with a time limit. I remember this part. Go to Hollywood, Jolie, fall flat on your face—but eat well while you’re doing it—and then come home at the end of one year and marry me. You ought to think about a career in the diplomatic corps. Especially since, last I heard, she’s still out there and you’re still here, kicking yourself in the backside.”
“I’m done kicking myself for that one, Court. I’ve done something else since that fiasco. The dumbest damn thing I’ve ever done.”
“Dumber than the day you pinned a pillowcase to your shoulders and flew off the garage roof?”
Sam smiled at the memory, rubbing the arm he had broken in the fall into some saving shrub. “I was seven. I had an excuse. I don’t have an excuse for this one. I know a few people out there in La-La Land and I… I bought Jolie’s way into the worst movie ever released straight to video.”
“Porn?”
“Very funny. No, Court, a horror flick. You know, kids out for a night of necking in the woods, the obligatory masked madman running through those woods, chopping up teenagers with a souped-up Cuisinart or something. She had a few lines and then got some pretty good close-ups where she had to look scared and scream a lot.”
“All right, I think I’m beginning to follow this,” Court said, commandeering a bowl of peanuts from the bartender. When you own the hotel, someone is always watching, ready to supply anything you want. “The film bombs, Jolie bombs, and she gives up, comes home to pick out china patterns. So? Tell me about the flaw in this master plan, because obviously there was one.”
Sam ran a hand through his already mussed dark blond hair. “So this big Hollywood type saw her, said he’d never seen anyone the camera loved more since Julia Roberts, and signed her to a three-picture deal. The first one isn’t out for another month or so, but according to the grapevine, she’s brilliant in it.”
“Ah, hoist with your petard,” Court said, toasting Sam’s debacle with bottled water. “Or something like that. Now what?”
“Now I face the fact that I’ve lost and I’ve got to learn to live without her, that’s now what. Now I keep doing what I’ve been doing.”
“Burying yourself in work,” Court said, thinking of Sam’s legacy separate from the Becket family inheritance, a large import/export antiques empire that had its beginnings nearly two hundred years ago and, in the past few years, a steady increase in high-end retail antique stores. Court had leased him a large area inside this same hotel and many of his hotels around the world. “How’s that going for you?”
Sam held up his glass. “How does it look like it’s going? But enough of me crying in my gin and tonic. How are things with you? I know you just flew in from somewhere. Where was it this time? London? Paris?”
“Rome. You’ll be happy to know that your share of our latest acquisition to the Becket family portfolio includes an owner’s suite overlooking Vatican City. It’s yours to use whenever you want.”
“Sweet,” Sam said, clinking glasses with Court. “I propose a toast. To Ainsley Becket and his entrepreneurial spirit. Shipbuilding, land, thoroughbred horses, banks, developing industries. He was a man ahead of his time.”
“He was a privateer and a pirate, chased out of his own country before he could be hanged,” Court said, smiling. “Come to think of it, so are we. Pirates, that is. We just play more within the rules than he did two centuries ago.”
“Good, because I don’t think getting hanged from some yardarm is on my to-do list for the New Year. How about you? Court? I said, how about you?”
“Hmm?” Court had turned on his bar stool, his interest caught and held by the woman just entering the bar. He watched her steady progress toward him, everyone else in the crowded room fading away as if a spotlight was on her, moving with her.
She was stunning, from her unbelievably long legs to the artlessly piled honey-brown hair that made him itch to find the pins that held it in place and slide them out one by one, all those warm-looking curls cascading down over her bared breasts. The clear mental image surprised him. “A couple of days after the fact, but better late than never. Thank you, Santa Claus.”
“Santa Claus? What the hell are you talking—Oh, damn it all to hell. What’s she doing here?”
“You know the lady?” Court asked, dragging his gaze away from the woman who was heading for a bar stool two down from him. A good thing he was civilized, or he’d push the guy next to him to the floor so she could sit beside him. “Talk to me, cousin. If I’m going to propose marriage to the woman, I probably should know something about her.”
Sam kept his head down, a hand raised to shield his profile. “That’s Jade Sunshine. Jolie’s older sister. She works with Teddy at the Sunshine Detective Agency. She’s a PI, Court. And you’d have about as much luck trying to tackle a porcupine. Maybe more luck with the porcupine, come to think of it. Trust me. You don’t want any part of that.”
Court was silent for a full three beats. “Really. She’s a private detective? Do you think she’s here on a job or something? At least she isn’t a high-class call girl, which would have ruined every-thing. You know, thinking ahead, for when one of our kids asks how I met their mother.”
“Which one of us was drinking tonight? Look, Court, give me your elevator key. I don’t think I should drive tonight, so I’ll crash with you.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I may have plans for that suite. Believe me, cousin, they don’t include you as a roommate.”
“You’re casting Jade in that role?” Sam peeked out from behind his hand to grin at his cousin. “I’ve got fifty bucks here that says it doesn’t happen.”
“Just go to the front desk and tell them I want you set up in a room, all right? Now, if you’re not going to introduce us, just go away. If you two don’t like each other, you won’t be any help, anyway.”
Sam slid off the stool, his head still averted. “It’s not a question of dislike. It’s just that I hurt Jolie, or at least that’s how Jade sees it. Stick to first names,” he advised quietly. “She hears Becket, and you can kiss any ideas you’ve got goodbye.”
But Court was barely listening, as he was already tuning in to the conversation going on between the middle-aged man next to him and Jade Sunshine.
“And you’re sure I can’t buy you a drink, honey?” the guy was saying, his back to Court. “Something real. Who comes to a bar to drink ginger ale?”
Jade stirred her soda with the plastic swizzle stick, the ice clinking. “I like to start slow and then build from there. In my business, a clear head is a part of the service.”
Court liked her voice. A little bit low, slightly husky. Definitely sexy. And he was pretty sure she knew it. The guy next to him was nearly drooling.
“And what is your business, honey?” the guy asked her.
Jade kept her right hand on the swizzle stick as she gracefully swiveled on the bar stool and carefully crossed those long legs beneath the short, black sheath. Court swore he could hear the silk of her stockings whisper with the movement.
She reached out with her other hand and stroked a finger down the guy’s tie. “I thought I told you, handsome. Service. You see, honey, I serve people. Should I serve you? I’d really like to serve you. What’s your name, honey?”
Court lowered his head and let his breath out slowly, wondering why the ice cubes in his own glass, and in every glass in the bar, hadn’t melted yet.
“I… I’m Harvey,” the poor sap stuttered. “If… if, uh, we’re going to get to know each other, um, better, maybe you should tell me your name?”
“Sure thing, honey,” Jade said, her hand leaving the man’s shirtfront to slide down his thigh and then onto her own knee. “I’m Lucy. Lucy Lawless.”
“But isn’t that the name of that actress who… Oh. Oh, right. I guess, in your line of, uh, work, names aren’t real. I should have thought of that. But I am Harvey. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, Harvey, honey,” Jade soothed, inching up the already short skirt of her dress. Her other hand had left the swizzle stick and now rested on Harvey’s jacket lapel. “It’s a great name, Harvey. What goes with it?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Court saw the bartender moving down the bar, probably to eject the obvious hooker. Court shook his head slightly, warning the guy away.
Harvey’s eyes were all but glued to Jade’s leg as she slid two fingers beneath her hem and slowly headed North. “Hubbard. I’m… I’m Harvey Hubbard. Should you be doing that here? I’ve got a room upstairs and…”
Court caught a mind-blowing glimpse of black lace garter as the blue-cover-clad tri-fold appeared from beneath Jade’s hemline. At the same time, her other hand grabbed at and pulled on Harvey’s jacket front, and an instant later the obvious summons was in his inside jacket pocket.
“Harvey Hubbard—honey—you can now consider yourself served,” Jade said, getting to her feet as she let go of him.
Harvey wasn’t too quick on the uptake, at least in Court’s opinion, but he certainly reacted pretty quickly to what had just happened.
“You bitch, I’ll kill you,” Harvey muttered murderously as Jade turned to walk away. He flew off his bar stool and clapped a hand on Jade’s shoulder a split second before Court was off his own stool and reaching for him.
Court shouldn’t have bothered. He’d already had a front row seat for the show from where he’d been sitting. In fact, he almost got his nose in the way as Jade rounded neatly on Harvey, her left arm—fingers together, palm rigid—cutting through the air like a whip. Well, like some sort of efficient judo move, anyway, but who needed particulars?
Harvey sure didn’t. He simply went down like a felled tree. It was, Court had told Sam later, a thing of real beauty to watch. Poetry in motion.
Court raised his left hand slightly and pointed toward the crumpled Harvey, and two bartenders quickly hauled the man up by his underarms and half carried him out of the dimly lit bar. Most of the patrons, intent on living their own lives, hadn’t even noticed anything unusual.
Leaving Court and Jade facing each other. She tipped her head to one side, blinked and then just stared at him as he stared right back at her. She had to feel it. The attraction, the pure, physical pull between them. But she didn’t flinch, didn’t run away. She just lifted her chin slightly and continued looking at him.
She was tall, but he was taller. Their bodies would fit together like a song, a symphony. Did she hear the same music?
Her eyes sparkled. She was very obviously on a natural high after serving Harvey—or maybe it was taking the guy down that had gotten her blood flowing hot in her veins. She probably needed an outlet for all that pent-up energy, and Court felt it only his duty as a good host to help her out there.
“Hello,” he said at last, pushing back the bar stool recently occupied by Harvey. “I’m Court Becket, the owner of this hotel.”
Her chest was still rising and falling fairly rapidly from her recent exertion. “Good for you. And you want me to leave your hotel.”
“No, I’m pretty sure I want to marry you. Which means we probably should get to know each other a little better. We could do that here, or up in my suite. There’s a fantastic view of the city skyline, including City Hall. Billy Penn’s wearing a Santa hat. You should see it.”
“That’s sacrilege—on all counts—and he is not.”
“How do you know? You haven’t looked As for the first part, yes, I am. Going to marry you, that is. Would you like me to go down on one knee? I mean, I’m game if you are.”
She didn’t move. She also didn’t look away from him. He imagined she had learned every inch of him and committed it all to memory.
“I saw Sam trying to avoid me. I’ll assume you’re related to him.”
Court took a single step forward, not quite invading her space, but close enough to smell her perfume. “His cousin. And you’re Jolie’s sister. Consider us destined, if you want. You. Me. This time. This place. Not Harvey, though.” He lost his smile. Whatever works for you, Jade Sunshine.”
Something moved through her magnificent sherry-colored eyes. A decision made? A bridge crossed?
Her voice took on a new huskiness. Low and intimate. “This isn’t a good idea, Court Becket.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Nothing’s going to happen, you know.”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do,” he said, holding out his arm to her.
She slipped her arm through his. “You saw me take Harvey down.”
“I’ll consider myself warned,” Court said before they walked out of the bar in silence, toward the last elevator on the right side of the lobby, the one that served only the penthouse.
The first hairpin dropped to the carpeted floor of the elevator almost before the doors had whispered shut….
SUNDAY, 11:42 P.M.
“WHAT’S WRONG? Court? Court blinked, then rubbed his eyes. “Excuse me?”
“You… I think you groaned,” Jade said, looking at him. “Is it something in that file?”
“No,” he said, looking adorably confused, or at least as confused as an intelligent man could look. “I was just…my mind was wandering, that’s all. Sorry.”
“And you tell me I need sleep?” Jade took the file that was still closed on his lap and frowned at it. “This is the Vanishing Bride case. It’s already solved.”
“Really? I guess I didn’t notice.”
Jade looked at him again, and she was surprised she could resist putting a hand to his brow to check him for a fever. “You’ve been sitting here for nearly forty-five minutes looking at a solved case?” She put the file on the coffee table and stood up. “Come on, let’s go.”
Court got to his feet. “To bed? Would it be too tacky to say that your wish is my command?”
“Yes, and we’re not going to bed. You’re coming to the kitchen with me. I think you need food.”
“Sustenance of some sort would probably be helpful, yes,” he said as she led the way into the large kitchen. “What are you going to cook for me?”
“Cook for you? Are you crazy? It’s nearly midnight,” Jade said, her head half inside the large refrigerator. “You’ll get whatever I can find in here and like it.” She heard her own words and bit her lips together, turned to look at him. “Sorry. I just had a flashback, I think. Suddenly you were Jess or Jolie, demanding to be fed long after I’d cleaned up the kitchen for the night. I had to keep reminding them that I wasn’t their servant.”
“Did it work?” Court had sat himself on one of the stools at the large granite island.
“Not in my memory, no,” Jade said, making a face. “They always asked, and I always gave in. For one, Jolie was too skinny, anyway. And Jess? She’d just look at me with those big puppy dog eyes, and I’d melt.”
“You’re their sister. You sound like their mother. Where was your childhood, Jade?”
She turned back to the refrigerator. “PB and J on white bread,” she said, avoiding his question. “Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it. And I’m sorry if I’m opening an old wound here. But you never talk about what it was like for you after your mother left. I spoke with Jessica about it the other day, and she had what she called a small epiphany. It’s her conclusion now—besides the notion that your parents never should have married in the first place—that she and Jolie were spoiled brats and that you got a raw deal. I’m betting you don’t feel that way.”
“Don’t count on it. There were times I hated them all, even as I played Frankenstein to their monsters.” Jade opened cabinet doors until she found the jar of peanut butter and set about making them each a sandwich. “Looking back from where I am now, I’d say that I played the cards I was dealt the best I knew how at the time, that we all did. Pretend I’m a teenager again, however, and that changes. At times I felt like running away and leaving them to realize how they’d be lost without me—but that would make me just like our mother, so it wasn’t an option.”
“Much better to emulate your father? Did you ever wish you’d been born a son, instead of a daughter?”
“I’ll ignore that.”
“That’s probably good. Go on.”
“I will, since you started this. At other times, I liked being the one in charge of everything and wouldn’t have it any other way. And I was in charge, Court, at least in the beginning. Teddy… poor Teddy just fell apart when he finally understood that our mother wasn’t coming back this time. I had to stick close.”
“Our mother? As in, to all four of you? You know, to an outsider, it could almost look as if you raised all three of them, Teddy included. But eventually Jolie and Jessica went to college, and Teddy managed to get his act back together. And yet still you stayed home.”
“So? I have an associates degree and my PI license,” Jade said, knowing she sounded defensive. Which was probably because she felt defensive. “I wanted to work with Teddy, so I didn’t need anything else. Jess and Jolie did.” She slid one of the plates across the granite. “Here. Eat.”
“So you didn’t have any idea of what to do differently with your life once the others were established? You always wanted to work with Teddy?”
“Who said I wanted to work with… What is this, Court? An interrogation? Exactly what was Jess saying to you when you two had your little talk? And for the record, I don’t appreciate being the topic of conversations going on behind my back.”
“I’m sensing that, yes. Good sandwich, but it’s missing something.” Court walked around the island to take a carton of milk from the refrigerator. He poured a glass for each of them and placed one in front of Jade before returning to the other side of the island. “Nothing better than ice-cold milk with your PB and J. Drink up, and as long as you’re angry with me, anyway, let’s do a hypothetical, all right?”
“I don’t deal in hypotheticals,” Jade told him nervously. “I deal in facts, evidence.”
“Tell that to someone who isn’t working these cases with you,” Court told her as he put down his glass. “We’re working with about forty percent hypothetical, and another forty percent hunch. Leaving not a lot of room for facts, if you’re adding up numbers on your fingers.”
“You have a milk mustache,” Jade told him, wishing he’d leave her alone. Leave her alone, or take her in his arms and run off with her, the way she’d sometimes wanted to run away from all her teenage responsibility. “All right. A hypothetical. One, and then it’s back to the files.”
Court wiped his mouth carefully, as if mentally forming his question, the single one she’d allowed him. “All right,” he said, putting down the napkin, “here goes. If—if—your mother hadn’t left, how would your life be different? In other words, and still the same single question, would you still have joined Teddy in his private-investigator business or would you have pursued another dream?”
Jade felt a stab of regret, then quickly pushed it aside. “Sure, Court, there was something else I wanted to do. I wanted to go out West and be a cowgirl. Right after I was the first female astronaut to step on the moon. One small step for woman, one giant leap for womankind. Come on, let’s get back to work.”
“Stay where you are,” he said, and something in his voice told her he wasn’t going to let her get away without giving him a straight answer.
“Why, Court?” she asked him, nearly pleaded with him. “Why this question and why now? What I want, wanted, has nothing to do with what happened then or with what’s happening now.”
