Shadows At Sunset - Anne Stuart [86]
Brenda didn’t bother to deny it. “You think he’s in love with her? I wasn’t quite sure about that. Oh, I know she loves him. Typical, when there have been any number of more respectable men available, that she’d fall for a con man, but I can’t say I blame her. He is gorgeous.”
“Harrumph.”
“Don’t be jealous, sweetie. I wouldn’t want him even if I could have him. I’m just enjoying the movie. Here we’ve got the gorgeous, tormented hero, determined to do the right thing, and then we have the feisty, wounded heroine, who’d much rather he do the wrong thing and stay with her. I think it’s more a romantic comedy than a weeper.”
“Most of those weepers were pretty funny,” Ted said wryly.
“Pig,” she said cheerfully. “So what are we going to do about these two? Let them screw up their lives? Walk away when they clearly belong together?”
“You’re such a romantic, honeybunch. What makes you think people belong together? Maybe if these two don’t hook up they’ll find someone else in a month or so who’ll be just as compatible.”
Brenda was silent for a long moment. “Don’t you believe in soul mates?” she asked.
“For the rare, lucky ones, I do. For you and me. I’m not convinced these people are worthy of the kind of eternal love you and I have.”
“Eternal love,” she said in a hollow voice. “Are you sure you believe it for us?”
He lifted her down off the dresser. She was a small woman, and he was a big man, and he lifted her as lightly as if she weighed nothing. Which she supposed was, in fact, true.
“I wouldn’t change a thing about us, darling,” he said. “We were meant to be.”
She wanted to believe him, oh, so desperately. But he didn’t know everything, and that knowledge ate away at her. She wasn’t ready to deal with it. “What about them?” she said. “What if they were meant to be?”
“Then they’d better get busy doing something about it. Come on, darling. It’s almost dawn. We need to settle down for our Sunday siesta. Let these poor fools work out their own future. We’ve interfered enough for one day.”
Brenda took one last look at the woman sleeping alone in her huge bed. She’d never shared that bed with anyone but Roofus, and Brenda knew better than anyone the pleasure that could be had in that bed.
Jilly deserved to share it with someone she loved. But Brenda knew all too well, you don’t always get what you deserve in this life.
Or the next.
20
“What the hell are you doing here?” Jackson demanded, his voice tight with fury.
“I work here, remember,” Coltrane said with deceptive ease.
“Not at four-thirty in the morning you don’t.” Jackson had his laptop open on his desk, and when Coltrane had strolled in he’d been so caught up in whatever he was doing that he hadn’t even heard him.
“Looks like the place has been burglarized,” Coltrane said, glancing at the chaos around him. Files were strewn all over the room, a credenza had been toppled, and Meyer was still furiously tapping away at the keyboard of his computer.
“Get the hell out of here, Coltrane. I’ve got enough on my plate without putting up with your bullshit. You were supposed to protect me. You were supposed to make sure no one could get to me. I’ve spent thirty-five years doing business with no one interfering, and your job was to see that continued. Now the Justice Department has me under investigation, my wife’s lawyers are getting ready to pounce, and someone’s been tampering with my private files. What the fuck is going on here?”
“Maybe your luck has run out, boss,” Coltrane said, taking one of the leather chairs opposite him and sitting down without waiting to be asked. He had a hell of a headache, his hand was throbbing, and yet he felt almost unnaturally calm. It was all falling into place, just as he’d planned. So why wasn’t he feeling more satisfied?
Meyer looked up from the computer screen. “What the hell happened to your head?” he said, frowning.
“I hit it when I passed out in the emergency room. The sight