Читать книгу Playing Dirty - Susan Andersen - Страница 10

I’m not sure if I just made a really savvy move—or the biggest blunder of my life.

Present day, the ninth of November

THE BASTARD was late. Ava Spencer cursed the man she was waiting on as she paced the front foyer of the Wolcott mansion, alternately hugging herself against the cold and trying to rub some warmth into her arms through her coat sleeves. The place had been closed up for several weeks, and between the wind currently buffeting the mullioned windows and the rainstorm that had blown through earlier, leaving a Seattle-centric damp-to-the-bone chill in its wake, she was freezing her ass off.

She would’ve turned on the heat, but there was little point. If the guy ever deigned to get here, she’d be showing him the mansion from attic to wine cellar. And while Jane kept the front parlor and hidden closet in Miss Agnes’s upstairs sitting room climate-controlled for the preservation of the Wolcott collections that weren’t currently sold or on loan to museums, it would take until noon tomorrow to warm up the rest. And although she had turned on every light in the house, the illusion of warmth from the yellow glow of the lamps and overheads didn’t come close to replacing the real thing.

A laugh that went a little wild escaped her. Like that was the crucial issue here. Because… It’s not some guy, Av. It’s Cade Calderwood Gallari.

Jeez Marie. She couldn’t believe she’d agreed to this. So, yes, she was concentrating on the minutiae for all she was worth to keep from thinking about him. Because it was too freaking late to second-guess herself now.

Wasn’t it?

She froze for an arrested second. Hell, no, it wasn’t! The heavy feeling in her stomach lightening, she snatched up her purse and started down the hallway to the kitchen. Its exterior door was the direct route to where she’d parked her Beemer. Cade was late? She was out of here.

Headlights swept the east wall across from the kitchen archway, stopping her dead. “Shit.”

Too late.

She did a little dance in place to shake off the tension that had her tighter than an over-wound watch, throwing in some yoga breathing for good measure. Exhaling a final gusty breath, she nodded to herself. “Okay. Time to pull on your big girl pants.”

She forced herself to shove down her irritation over Cade’s tardiness, over the fact that he breathed, and bury it deep. It’s been thirteen years, girl. He’s a footnote, someone who no longer matters. Who hasn’t mattered for a very long time. So it probably wouldn’t do to snap his head off first thing.

But, oh, boy. The temptation.

She watched him through the back-door window as he climbed the steps and stopped beneath the porch light, and her annoyance surged back with a vengeance. She fought it to a standstill once more, pushed out a final exhalation and reached out to unlock the door.

The knob turned before she could open it, and he blew into the kitchen, shaking himself like a wet dog and sending raindrops flying in all directions from his sun-streaked brown hair. Looking beyond him, Ava saw that it had begun to pour again.

“Man, it’s wet out there!” He flashed her his trademark Gallari smile, white teeth flashing and deep creases bracketing his mouth. Only she noticed that this time the blue, blue eyes glinting between dense, dark lashes held…something. Wariness maybe or…calculation? Something cooler and edgier than the smile that for years had haunted her dreams.

It just bugged the hell out of her that she felt his impact like a cattle prod to the breastbone. Why was it like this every damn time she laid eyes on him: this immediate, visceral one-two to the heart? It was identical to the reaction she’d had around teenaged Cade—and even after everything she knew about him, everything he’d done—seeing him gave her that same hot punch to the solar plexus.

Well, it would be a cold, cold day in hell before she felt the least bit tempted to act on it. She raised an eyebrow. “And you call yourself a Seattle native?”

“I forgot how fast the rain can soak a guy up here.”

She gave him a polite smile. “I suppose living in southern California will do that to a person.” She made a show of glancing at her watch. “Tell me why you think I should give you the time of day—let alone rent you the mansion for a documentary.”

“O-kay. No small talk.” His mouth developed an unyielding slant that somehow looked more at home on his chapped lips than his old smile. “Sorry I’m late. There was a wreck on I-5 and it took a while to get traffic moving again.”

She nodded her acceptance of his apology and watched as he looked around the kitchen. A small pucker of dismay appeared between his dark eyebrows. “It’s been modernized.”

When Ava looked him fully in the face this time, she found it less unsettling. “Surely you didn’t expect it to be the same as it was back in the eighties?”

“I guess I’d hoped it would be.”

“As soon as Poppy, Jane and I inherited it, we had the awful sunroom addition removed and, yes, modernized the place throughout. We were expecting to sell it, Slick, not rent it—and even that’s not a done deal.” She raised her brows. “Your pitch?”

“As my production assistant told you on the phone, I want to do a documentary on the Wolcott Suite mystery. But more than that, I want to feature Agnes Wolcott.”

She had, and Ava had to admit that was the reason she was standing here. But—“Why? I mean, sure, the Wolcott diamonds gained urban legend status locally, but I doubt the story surrounding it is nationally famous.”

“Maybe not, but I grew up in this town, and I’ve been fascinated by the mystery of it since I was a kid.” His blue eyes lit with enthusiasm. “It’s got everything, Ava—a cool old mansion, a fortune in diamonds that were never recovered, a murder…and a woman at the heart of it that I find more and more remarkable the deeper I dig.”

She really liked that last part. What she didn’t like was him. “And I should care about what you want, why?”

“Because I can do justice to a woman I know you cared for. And because I’ll give you and your friends thirty grand for six weeks’ use, pay all the peripheral expenses for the time Scorched Earth Productions is here and landscape the grounds back to the way they were in the eighties.”

Oh, low. The mansion had turned into an albatross around her and her friends’ necks in this economy, and he undoubtedly knew it. Desperately, she wanted to spit in his eye. But she thought of her friends. Poppy and Jane had never complained, but she knew this place was a drain on them, too. So, sucking up her ire, wondering if she was making the worst decision of her life, she gritted teeth and said through them, “Fine.”

“You’ll do it?”

“Yes.” What the hell. She wouldn’t have to see him. “Have your assistant call me for my lawyer’s number—you can send him the contracts—and if he finds it agreeable you’ve got a deal. Do you want a tour before you go? Since you seemed concerned about the work we had done, I’d be happy to show you. I think you’ll agree our crew did a wonderful job of preserving the spirit of the original design in their restoration.” She stepped back.

“One more thing,” he said, halting her. “I want to hire you as the production company’s concierge, as well.”

She laughed in his face. “No. Do you want that tour or not?”

“Forget the tour—”

“Works for me. Send your paperwork to my lawyer.” She turned to go.

“Look. I’ll pay you two grand a week plus a fifty thousand dollar bonus if the documentary comes in on time and on budget.”

“Which somehow won’t happen, right?”

“The bonus is a legitimate offer, Ava. I’ll email my own contracts for your attorney to look over while he’s going over yours, and you’ll see I have a lot more to lose than you.”

Doesn’t matter. Because it’s not going to happen. But damn him. Damn him, damn him, damn him! Not only had her trust fund taken a huge hit in the economic downturn, so had the finances of many of the clients who formed the foundation of her concierge business. And as one of the gazillion mortgage holders who’d been caught up in the subprime lending disaster, she was facing a huge balloon payment on her condo that was coming due in the not-nearly-future-enough future.

Well, too bad, so sad for her. She’d rather lose the place than spend six weeks in this bastard’s company.

Seriously? her hardscrabble practicality demanded. She had to admit that was pretty cut-your-nose-off-to-spite-your-face idiotic. This could actually be the answer to her prayers. And hell, it wasn’t as if she were worried about falling under his spell. Been there, done that.

“You’d be in place to make sure I do credit to your Miss Wolcott,” he said softly.

She blew out a defeated breath. “All right. Contingent on my attorney’s evaluation of the contracts, I’ll do it—to see you do justice to Miss A’s story.” And if she was also doing it for the money, he didn’t have to know. “Do you want that tour? We can start with the dining room across the hall.”

She turned, only to feel Cade wrap a hand around her forearm to halt her. Heat seeped through the cashmere of her coat sleeve beneath his light grasp, and she promptly swung back around, twisting her arm free.

“Do not,” she said with hard-fought calm, “touch me.”

Releasing her, he stepped back. “I just wanted to tell you, before we get started, how genuinely sorry I am for what happened back in high school. I was—”

“Forget it,” she interrupted. She so did not want to rehash the ugly details of the past with him. “I have.”

“Really?” An eloquent eyebrow rose, surprise flashing in the depths of his cobalt eyes.

She gave him a regal nod. She had cut him off at the knees the other times he’d sought her out over the years to apologize, but if acknowledging his regret would move him along to a place where they didn’t have to discuss the past, then, fine. She’d grant him his damn redemption.

“You forgive me then?”

No. Hell, no. That would be a snowboarding day in hell.

But she gave him a serene smile, knowing from this point on she had to be professional. “Let’s just agree to leave the past in the past, shall we?” Not awaiting a response, she led him to the dining room and got down to business. “As you can see, great care was taken in here to preserve the integrity of the era in which the Wolcott Mansion was built—”

SHE MET JANE AND POPPY at Sugar Rush, her favorite neighborhood coffee shop/bakery, the next afternoon. As they took their seats at a round table by the play area, she sucked in a quick inhale, then eased it out. “I did something last night I hope you’ll be okay with,” she said to her two best friends amid the clatter of crockery and conversations. She hesitated for a brief second, then blurted, “I agreed to rent the mansion to Cade Gallari.”

Okay, her ripping-off-the-Band-Aid delivery was clearly a little too abrupt, for Jane’s blue eyes went round with shock. Then her friend slapped both hands onto the tabletop, came half out of her seat to shove her face closer to Ava’s own and said, “You agreed to rent it to who?”

Ignoring the two women at the next table whose attention was drawn by Jane’s incredulous rising voice and aggressive stance—a look at odds with her neat, shiny brown hair and dark-hued clothing that always looked so conservative at first glance—Ava focused on her friends. She knew perfectly well she’d been heard. Nevertheless, she repeated evenly, “Cade Gallari.”

“Tell me you’re kidding.” Poppy’s voice might have been calmer than Jane’s, but as the curly haired blonde set her coffee cup down the expression in her topaz-brown eyes held identical disbelief. “Why would we let that douche anywhere near our inheritance?”

It was a fair question. Miss Agnes, the cool old lady who’d started having the three of them over to her mansion for monthly teas when they were twelve, who’d given them their first diaries and gotten them started on their lifelong journaling habit, had become a friend and a mentor. In Ava’s and Janie’s case, she’d been more parentlike than their own parents. And when she’d died a year and a half ago, she’d left a big hole.

Even in death, however, she’d been full of surprises, and Ava, Jane and Poppy had been astounded to learn she’d bequeathed them her estate. Miss A might well be rolling over in her grave at the thought of Cade in her home. God knows she’d played a large role in helping Ava pick up the pieces after his betrayal.

Feeling a little beleaguered, she stared at her friend. “It’s not as if I would’ve chosen to let him use the Wolcott mansion, either, Poppy, given any other option. But I’m fresh out of those. I said yes because the market for houses in our price range is stagnant and we’re paying through the nose for taxes, lights, utilities, yard maintenance and all the other crap that goes along with maintaining a place this size. He’ll pay very well for the privilege.”

She told them the terms. “And he’ll pay even more if we decide to rent him a few of Miss Agnes’s collections to use in his production—something I told him he’d have to discuss with you, Janie. You both know he produces documentaries about unsolved mysteries, right?”

The other women shifted guiltily, and she laughed, feeling tension she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying—in her neck, her shoulders, her spine—release its grip. “Relax, I don’t doubt your loyalty—you guys have boycotted all things Gallari forever. But we’d have to live in outer Mongolia not to have heard something about the name he’s making for himself.”

“Okay—I confess—I saw one of his films.” Poppy held her hands up in a Don’t shoot! gesture when both Ava and Jane gaped at her. “I didn’t pick it out—Jason ordered the damn thing from Netflix one night. He-who-shall-not-be-named is never mentioned in our house, so Jase had no way of putting the documentary maker together with the guy he saw upsetting you in that bar in Columbia City last year. Murphy’d just told him he had to see it.”

Focusing on the sign next to the kiddie play area, Ava did her best to wrestle her curiosity to a standstill. Unsupervised Kids Will Be Given An Espresso And A Free Puppy, she read. Usually that tickled her, but now the words simply bounced around in her head like Ping-Pong balls in a box—until finally, unable to help herself, she surrendered to her need to know. “All right, I give. Did it live up to all the hype?”

“Yeah.” Her friend grimaced. “I’m sorry, Av, but it did. I’ve never liked the dramatization-type documentaries because the acting is usually abysmal. But apparently Gallari’s gaining something of a cult rep as a star-maker. Several times now he’s chosen unknown talent that he’s gotten on the cheap from SAGIndie or university drama programs, who’ve then gone on to garner moderate-to-Ohmigawd-worthy success.”

“And you know this how?” Jane demanded. “Jeez, what are you, Gallari’s biggest fan now?”

“Seriously?” the blonde demanded right back. “Could you be any more insulting, Janie? Of course I’m not. Jase was so blown away by the documentary he insisted on watching the extras.”

“Good God,” Ava muttered. “The thing was that good?” As she watched Jane reach for Poppy’s hand and say, “Sorry, babe,” she wasn’t sure how she felt about Cade’s achievements. On the one hand, she would hardly cry a river if he tanked in every endeavor he touched.

On the other, his success might well help her and her friends’ finances.

“I’m afraid so.” Elbows on the table, Poppy skimmed back her cloud of curls with both hands. “He really does have an eye for talent. But he only used the reenactments in tiny doses. It was the interviews that really sold it. The whole thing was just so…compellingly presented.”

Then her slender brows drew together. “Still. Why the hell would he want to shoot one in the Wolcott mansion, which he had to know would be a hard sell, given it belongs to us now? Unless—?” Abruptly, she let go of her hair and snapped her spine erect.

“Ho-ly shitskis, Av. You said he’ll landscape the ground back to the way it was in the eighties?”

“Of course.” Jane, too, sat straighter. “The break-in where Miss Agnes’s guy was killed and the Wolcott diamonds disappeared.”

“That would be the unsolved mystery,” Ava agreed.

In 1985, during a remodel of Miss Agnes’s bed-and-sitting-room, her suite of diamond jewelry had been stolen. Late one night six months later, “her man, Henry,” as she always referred to him, heard a noise and came out of the office where he’d been working to find Mike Maperton, the head carpenter from the remodel, inside the mansion. Henry tripped the alarm, but Maperton killed him before help could arrive. It was assumed the construction worker had been retrieving the jewelry from where he’d hidden it, but if so, it was never recovered.

Jane smiled crookedly. “I always got the impression, whenever Miss A referred to Henry, that he was a lot more to her than just a factotum or man of business or whatever the heck he was supposed to be.”

Poppy shrugged. “We all did. What’s your point?”

“Damned if I know, except that I can see the story playing out in a documentary.” Jane hooked her hair behind her ears. “And I hate to admit it, but it would be nice to have the financial burden taken off our shoulders for a while. But Miss A was one of a kind—so, unless Gallari’s scored Streep to play her, I can’t imagine the actress who could do her justice.”

“I’d like to talk to you about something that’s related to the Miss A part, but first I should probably tell you—” okay, this is the tricky part “—that I, um, agreed to work for him next week, then for an additional six weeks during the actual production, which starts around the first of the year.”

“Are you out of your freaking mind?” Poppy kept her voice low to prevent two nearby little girls eating the frosting off their cupcakes from overhearing, but her tone held a fierce edge.

“Maybe.” Tough to take offense when she’d been asking herself the same thing way too frequently since walking away from Cade last night. “Probably, even. My first impulse when he approached me was the same ole, same ole—to either spit in his eye or gouge them both out.”

Straightening her shoulders, she looked from one friend’s face to the other. “But that’s just a knee-jerk reflex.”

“One that totally works for me,” Jane interjected in a dry tone.

Ava shook her head. “He’s old news, Janie. I am so over him. But you know how dicked up my finances have been the past year.” Her lips tilted wryly. “So when he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse as the production company’s personal concierge—I didn’t.”

Watching her with concern-filled eyes, neither Janie nor Poppy smiled back and Ava sighed. “What? You think I’m too fragile to handle it?”

“No, of course not,” Jane said. “But I don’t trust that bastard as far as I can throw him. We were there the last time he got up close and personal with you and had to watch you struggle to put yourself back together.”

“It was a piece-by-piece process,” Poppy agreed, “that took way too long and too much glue before it held together. And then you had to handle most of it on your own because of him screwing up our after-graduation plans—”

Yeah, getting shipped off to the fat farm didn’t help hasten the process, she thought wryly. Which, okay, was more her mother’s fault than Cade’s. But screw that—the truth was, if she hadn’t been so flattened by his betrayal, something her mother hadn’t even seemed to notice, she would have dug in until she’d won that battle. So, for all intents and purposes, it was his fault.

She tuned back in to hear Poppy continue, “So I suppose that I, at least, am a little afraid for you. You worked like a demon to build yourself back up, and I just don’t want to see all your hard work go down the drain because of Buttface Gallari.”

“Neither do I. And I won’t let it. I will never forgive him, Poppy—ever. But I’m through running away from him. Because you’re right, I did work too hard building myself back up to keep doing that. I’m not surprised you might have reservations about my ability to handle myself—”

“I don’t! You’ll go down in the I-am-woman-hear-me-roar annals for your counterattack on Gallari during the worst moment of your life. You more than proved you can handle yourself.”

“Since then, though, I’ve been more reactive than proactive whenever I’ve run into him. So maybe I feel I have something to prove—to myself, if no one else. It doesn’t help that I looked in the mirror this morning and had a ‘fat’ moment.”

“Dammit, Av,” Jane said. “When are you going to let those go? You’ve been a size twelve for twelve years.”

“Which you like to remind me would be a size fourteen if I’d buy my clothing at the less spendy stores where most women shop.” She knew her friend was only teasing when she said that, but she couldn’t honestly deny Jane was right.

“Please.” The brunette made a rude noise. “You know I only say that because I’m jealous you have big boobs. I wanna have big girl boobs some day.” She gestured at Ava’s emerald-green cashmere sweater and the black pencil skirt she’d tucked it into. “Look at you!”

She glanced down at herself. “I know. Does this make me look rotund?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Spencer, snap out of it!” Poppy gave her a get-over-yourself glare. “As Janie said, you’ve maintained your killer bod for pretty much your entire adult life. And you know men trip all over themselves when you walk by. It’s not because you’re fat, girlfriend.”

“Okay. Sorry.” She shook out her hands and picked up her coffee cup—then merely held it for a moment as she gave her friends a rueful smile. “I backslid for a minute there. Jeez. I’ve been down Insecurity Road so many times it likely has a butt-shaped rut etched in it. But I’m good now.”

“It’s that damn Gallari, showing up out of the blue and shaking you up.”

She shrugged. Seeing him again had contributed for sure, but it was really the telephone conversation she’d had with her mother earlier in which Jacqueline had made her usual crack about Ava’s weight. Why was her mom always so sure that she could do better, diet herself thinner? Never mind that she was a busty, hippy, big-boned girl who could starve herself into an early grave and still not die a sylphlike woman.

Well, she mostly knew her worth. She also knew she’d earned it for more than shedding thirty-nine pounds.

She knocked back a sip of coffee, set her cup on the table and, hands flat on either side of the mug, leaned into them in her intense need to make her friends understand why she’d agreed to do the last thing they’d expect from her. “Look, I’m not exactly raring to play personal concierge to Cade myself. But it’s work I can do with my eyes closed and he’ll pay me a weekly bundle for it, plus a huge bonus if the documentary comes in on time and on budget.”

“Even if he’s on the up-and-up, how on earth are you gonna deal with seeing him day in and day out?”

“By being the biggest professional you’ve ever seen. By reminding myself that if all goes well, I can finally pay off that frickin’ balloon payment that’s been hanging over my head.”

Remembering a discussion with Cade last night that she had almost enjoyed, she flashed her dimples at her friends. “One of the things I’m genuinely excited about is an agreement I made to talk with Cade and his scriptwriter about Miss A to get her part as authentic as possible. So tell me what you guys would like to see included about her.”

After an enthusiastic conversation about their mentor, Ava looked at her watch and pushed back from the table. “I know this is a bombshell and I’m sorry to drop it on your heads and run, but I’m meeting Cade again this evening at my lawyer’s to go over the fine points in my contract and discuss my job description in more detail. Until that’s taken care of, I don’t plan to sign anything.” Rising to her feet, she looked down at her two friends. “We good?”

“Of course we are.” Poppy stood as well and gave Ava a hard hug. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

“Not gonna happen,” she promised.

“Don’t forget dinner at Dev’s and my place next week,” Jane added as she, too, rose to give her a hug. “And you step carefully around that man, you hear?”

“I will,” she said, pulling on her plum-colored Steve Madden wool peacoat, flipping up the collar and picking up the plum, blue and green scarf Poppy’s mother had made her to wind around her neck. “Love you guys.”

She headed for the door, but paused to shoot her friends a cocky smile over her shoulder. “And don’t worry! I’m gonna kick some serious booty on this job.”