Bitter Spirits (24 page)

“Astrid Margaret Magnusson!” Greta chastised.

“Well, he did. And Aida's right. It's time for some changes.”

Aida smiled. “Good, it's settled then.”

“Anything else?” Greta said, her voice thick with annoyance.

Aida looked at Astrid. “You said you've never driven a car, not even once?”

She shook her head. “Winter won't allow it.”

“And this coupe just sits here collecting dust? Shame, don't you think?”

“It was my mother's.”

“It's lovely. Does it run?”

“All the cars run. Jonte takes them out around the block every Wednesday.”

Aida caressed the curve of the spare whitewalled wheel attached to the side of the car above the running board. “Someone taught me how to drive in Baltimore a few years ago. I think I still remember. Want to learn? My treat for everything you've done for me today.”

“Nej, nej!”
Greta protested. “He will be very angry.”

“Just around the block,” Aida assured her. “You can stand here and watch us.”

“Really?” Astrid said, suddenly swept up in the idea of it. “Bo showed me how to shift gears once. I think I could do it.”

“Of course you can. Duck soup. Easy as pie.”

Greta mumbled a string of Swedish words under her breath.

“Greta!” Astrid said with a grin.

The housekeeper's pink cheeks darkened. “I will not fetch the automobile key. If you are planning mutiny against your brother's rules, you can ask Jonte to help you.”

 • • • 

After dropping Velma off at Gris-Gris, Winter spent the day in his Embarcadero office making calls. When dinnertime rolled around, he asked Bo to take him to Russian Hill. He hated driving by the house he'd shared with Paulina; though it had been sold more than a year ago, the sight of it still filled him with guilt and gloom. But what brought him here this time didn't have anything to do with his past. It concerned
Aida's
past, and it had taken him all day and a shameful amount of money in long-distance calls and lawyer fees to find it.

Worth every goddamn penny.

The address he was hunting ended up being down the street from his old house, two blocks from Lombard. Small world. Winter asked Bo to park the Pierce-Arrow right in front of a three-story Spanish Colonial attached home. Well kept. Cypress trees flanking the crooked steps. Shiny white Duesenberg behind an elaborate metal gate in the driveway.

“I'll be right back. Shouldn't take long.” Winter buttoned his coat and marched up the steps to the entrance. A bored maid answered his knock and blanched at the sight of him.

He removed his hat. “Winter Magnusson to see Mr. Emmett Lane.”

“Oh . . . yes, well, Mr. and Mrs. Lane are entertaining clients for dinner right now.”

“This will only take a second.”

“Can I tell him what this is in regards to?”

“Yes, you may. You tell your boss that we can discuss the inheritance of his deceased brother's child alone or in front of his guests—his choice.”

The maid hesitated for a beat before opening the door wider. “Please come in, Mr. Magnusson. Drawing room is to your left. I'll bring him straight in.”

And to her credit, she did just that, for Winter only waited a handful of seconds before a tall man with gray hair and shrewd eyes sauntered into a slice of lamplight illuminating the front room. “Mr. Magnusson, is it?”

“It is.”

“State your business. I'm engaged with a dinner party.”

Winter removed a folded telegram from his suit pocket. “Have a look at this.”

Mr. Lane's scowl deflated as his eyes scanned the brief message.

“You'll note that was wired to my attorney two hours ago from Baltimore. See, when Miss Palmer told me the story about her foster parents dying, something stuck with me that I didn't quite understand. Why, I asked myself, would a well-to-do couple raise two children for ten years without ensuring the adoption paperwork was in order? After all, their will was thorough. Seems to me their lawyer would've made sure everything was up to snuff.”

“What business—”

“So I did some poking around. And as you see on that telegram there, the adoption was legal, and the state of Maryland is happy to provide a notarized letter stating that the documents are on file. The lawyer we're working with in Baltimore is taking care of that tomorrow.”

Mr. Lane's hand dropped. “It's been ten years.”

“Eleven.”

“There's no money left from that estate. It's long been sold, the gains lost in the stock market.”

“Not my concern that you can't manage money.”

“Whatever scam that girl's running on you, I can assure you that
my
lawyer will investigate every possible legal angle to prevent—”

Winter stepped closer and spoke in a lower voice. “Do you know who I am, Mr. Lane?”

The question hung between them for a moment. “Yes, I believe I do.”

“Then you know I don't really have a great deal of love for the law. I'm also an extremely impatient man. So we can either handle things with grace and dignity, and you can prove to me that you aren't the conniving prick I suspect you are, or I can come back later with my men and convince you in other ways.”

The man stared at him, nostrils flaring. “What do you want?”

“I want Sam Palmer's army footlocker. I know it was sent to you, so don't tell me it wasn't. The army still has a record of the shipment—military efficiency is a thing of beauty.”

Mr. Lane stared at him, mouth agape, then brushed away invisible crumbs from his suit lapels. “It's in storage. I'll have to dig it out.”

“I want it delivered to my place of business by Friday.” He handed Mr. Lane a business card and took back the telegram, folding it as he talked. “If it isn't delivered by five o'clock sharp in the afternoon, I will break a finger for every minute it's late. If I run out of fingers . . . I'll just have to get creative. Do we have an understanding?”

The man's face was puce with rage. “I don't know what you think you're going to find inside.”

“Not everything is profit fodder, Mr. Lane. It is simply of sentimental value to the boy's sister, and I want it.”

“Fine. Are we done?”

Winter's gaze fell upon a photograph on the mantel. The man's wife, he presumed. “One more thing. Your brother's estate in Baltimore was appraised at twenty thousand dollars.”

“Now, you look here—I have no way of getting my hands on that kind of money. The estate was sold off for far less than it was worth, and that was a decade ago.”

“I know exactly how much you're worth, Mr. Lane. I also know you have $5,607.02 in your account at Hibernia Savings and Loan. I want a check made out to Aida Palmer for that exact amount to be sent along with the footlocker.”

Sweat glistened across Mr. Lane's forehead.

Winter picked up the picture frame on the mantel, removed the photograph, and handed the frame to Mr. Lane. An idle threat, but the man was a piece of shit who deserved to squirm. “Five o'clock on Friday. Enjoy your dinner.”

 • • • 

Winter knew something was wrong when Bo pulled into the driveway. The gate was standing open, the day's last rays casting long shadows over the empty space where his mother's Packard should've been sitting. But it was his staff lined up on the side porch that made his heart rate shift from flustered to panicked.

“What's happened?” he said, slamming the car door behind him.

The maids fled, retreating through the screened door. Only Greta and Benita remained, and their dueling looks of worry versus titillation did nothing to calm his nerves.

“I warned her not to,” Greta said, shaking her head. “I told her you'd skin her alive.”

“What are—”

Excited shouting exploded from the street in front of the house. Bo was already jogging out front. By the time Winter raced to catch up with him, the source of the shouting revealed itself as Jonte. The reserved old bastard was running down the sidewalk, long arms akimbo as he signaled wildly to a car puttering down the street. Winter had never seen him so animated. What the devil was going on?

“Oh my God,” Bo muttered as he tore off his cap and stared at the spectacle.

Winter's mind finally grasped what was happening. Jonte was running alongside Winter's mother's car, which lurched fast, then slow, then fast again. “Brakes!” the old Swede shouted. “Use the brakes before you turn, not after!”

The blood all but drained from Winter's body when he spotted the Packard's driver. Astrid? Mother of God, it was. His sister was squealing with either terror or delight—he couldn't tell which—as she shifted gears and the car's transmission made a sound that no one should ever,
ever
hear their car make. And Aida was perched in the passenger seat, cheering her on.

“Shit,” he murmured. “
Shit, shit, shit.
”

He scanned the street and saw a couple of other cars pulled over to the side, their drivers probably in fear for their lives—and he didn't blame them. His sister was on a mad path of destruction that flattened a flower bed when she made a jerky, sharp turn into the driveway, veered erratically to the right, nearly smashing the car's mirrors against the open gate, then came to a screeching halt a mere inch away from plowing into the back of the Pierce-Arrow.

Jonte stopped in the middle of the driveway and bent over, clutching his heaving chest. Bo ran to check on him, but the man was only winded. Probably the most exercise he'd had in years. Winter breezed past them and made a beeline for the Packard.

Astrid saw him coming and flattened herself against Aida on the car's seat. “I only took it around the block a couple of times.”

His gaze skidded over the length of the Packard, looking for damage as he approached. He could hear the staff tittering on the porch behind him, all of them now back outside to witness Astrid's exhibition.

“I didn't hit anything!” she said, then something caught fire behind her eyes. “And guess what—I loved every second of it.”

A goddamn challenge. Wicked little girl . . . he wanted to . . . Christ alive, he didn't know what he wanted. He looked at Aida.

“Go on and be mad at me,” she said, just as defiant. “It was my idea, and I don't regret it. She did just fine. Might've scared a few of your neighbors, but some of them looked like they needed a little excitement.”

He counted breaths, staring down at them while the staff grew quiet.

For a moment, he didn't know what he was thinking or how he felt. A strange numbness took root inside his chest. Looking on the scene in front of him, he expected to be reminded of the accident . . . to feel the same fear he'd felt during the weeks after, every time Bo drove him somewhere, every time Astrid got in a car. Sometimes he'd wait outside for Jonte to return with her, making himself sick with worry while he remembered the sounds of the accident . . . remembered how he'd been pinned by the steering wheel, unable to move as he called out to Paulina and his parents and no one answered.

But forcing himself to think about those things was different than the memories coming without warning. And he
was
forcing it, wasn't he? As if he were testing himself.

He stared at his baby sister, trying to will his mother's face in place of hers, but all he saw was Astrid's rebellion. Behind her, Aida offered him a patient smile that made his insides quiver. He wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her; he wanted to scream at her. For God's sake, didn't she understand what he'd been through today? He'd been fighting for her—threatening people, pushing his lawyer, ordering up black magic from Velma to get revenge on the people who nearly killed her . . . ringing the house every few hours to check on her like a nervous mother bird.

He felt raw on the inside. Overwhelmed. Defeated.

“Did you see me?” Astrid asked Bo, a little breathless and puffed up with pride.

Winter cut a sharp look Bo's way. If he said
one
single word of encouragement to her, he'd pummel the boy's head into the pavement for pulling a Judas and siding with the girls. But his assistant just stuffed his hands into his pockets and rocked on his heels as he locked gazes with Astrid. He didn't give her a verbal approval, but he might as well have applauded—anyone could tell he was fighting back that damned smart grin of his.

“I wasn't great, but I think I'll manage it better next time,” Astrid said proudly.

“Not bad,” Aida agreed, poking his sister affectionately on her arm. “Not bad at all.”

Christ. They were all teamed up against him, and witnessing Astrid's burst of self-confidence, Winter had the sinking feeling he was on the wrong side of this argument. His own guilt and fear had prevented his sister from experiencing this moment of happiness.

And in one day, after losing everything she owned—after nearly being burned alive in her own bed—Aida had done what he was never able to do: she'd stepped into his home and swept away two years of melancholia hanging over the household.

Winter tried to say something, failed, and headed into his home.

AIDA GAVE WINTER SOME TIME TO CALM DOWN. QUIET FURY HAD
transformed his face into something she barely recognized. She'd overstepped and pushed him too far. God only knew what was going on in that mind of his right now. He might be thinking of the accident. She probably made the memory fresh for him again and could only imagine how painful it could be.

Maybe she was wrong to think his life could be changed with a simple push, and maybe this wasn't the right way to go about it. Too much at once. She should've thought it through instead of acting on impulse.

Night fell, and the temperature on the porch dropped as the fog began rolling off the bay. Leaving Astrid chatting with Bo, Aida struck out into the house to find Winter. He wasn't in the kitchen. Wasn't downstairs. Wasn't inside his study.

The mirrors.

God, she hoped the staff hadn't already seen to her request. Hopefully Greta had sense enough not to listen to her. She approached his bedroom door, heart hammering with dread. It was closed. She rapped lightly, and hearing no reply, almost walked away. But considering that she hadn't heard one word from him all day, if she didn't at least try to talk to him, she might be sleeping on the sofa in his study.

She opened the door. Winter was standing in his shirtsleeves on the opposite side of his bed, staring into the corner. The dressing mirror had been moved there. He wasn't looking in it, but rather looking
at
it. As if it were an alien enemy breeching the safety of his room.

Aida closed the door behind her. “That was my doing, too, I'm afraid. I didn't do it to hurt you. I just . . .”

He didn't turn around to look at her. “You just what?”

“I just wanted you to see yourself as I did.”

“And how is that, Aida?” He sounded weary or sad. Maybe angry. She wasn't sure which.

She stood behind him, catching both their reflections in the long mirror. The planes and contours of his long face were changed by shadows, his eyes downcast, feelings shrouded. “I see someone strong and resilient. Someone who pushes himself hard and expects others to do the same. Someone smart and fair. Decisive. Protective. I see a good man.”

“You see a mirage.”

“Better to use my sight for hope than remain blinded by guilt.” She put a hand on his arm. “And if you're a mirage, how is it that you feel solid to me?”

His head turned. He looked down at her hand as if he could will it away. She gripped him harder. When his eyes met hers, she saw nothing but cold outrage and a barely checked rancor that made goose bumps swell across her arms. It was as though he was daring her—just
daring
her to look away.

She dared him right back.

An explosion of fire leapt behind all that coldness. His big arm shot out, snagged her around the waist, and lifted her right off the floor.

 • • • 

He meant to punish her, but she met him halfway, wrapping her legs around his waist and digging her nails into the back of his neck.

How do you punish someone who wants to be punished?

The kiss was angry. Aggressive. Searing. His cock hardened immediately. Christ, she felt good, and he was starved for her. Had it been two days since he'd had her? It seemed like years. He pulled her hips against him and slid his tongue into her mouth, teasing a tortured moan out of her. Yes, that's the sound he'd been missing. Her capitulation. Her pleasure.

She wrenched herself away from the kiss, gasping for breath, breasts heaving. “We were supposed to be lovers, nothing more.” She was practically shouting in his face. “That was the agreement. You didn't want anything permanent—that's what you said.”

“Nothing's changed.” A lie. The biggest lie in the world.

She slid down his body until she was on her feet again. Fingers fumbled at his fly, freeing his cock, heavy and aching for her. His balls tightened while she gazed at it, watching it bob between them.

And she dropped to her knees.

One warm hand wrapped around his cock—the sensation of her soft skin on him nearly enough to rocket him through the roof—as she gave the head a few tentative kisses that sent a dark shudder through him. Big, brown eyes looked to him for approval. He urged her on with a hand on the back of her fine, straight hair. Soft kisses gave way to a testing lick, then another—
oh please, oh please, oh please
—then she took him inside her mouth.

He nearly died with pleasure.

Were they fighting? He forgot instantly. Forgot everything but her mouth, wet and warm and doing her best to take as much of him as she could. He made desperate, uncontrollable noises, completely at her mercy. Unable to reason out the
why
behind what she was doing, only astonished and grateful that she was. Gaining confidence, she took him in deeper, another inch, cheeks becoming concave as she suckled.

He glanced to the side and saw her from a different angle . . . their reflection in the dressing mirror.
Mother of God.
Aida on her knees servicing him. He'd never seen a more beautiful sight.

Was this on purpose? Damn her, and damn her again.

His hips bucked. Her fingernails dug into his legs. She pulled back to get a breath, continuing to pump at him with one hand, then gave him a smile, an exhaled single delirious laugh of joy, before going at him again.
She's enjoying it
, he thought madly as he looked in the mirror. But why wouldn't she? He enjoyed burying his tongue between her thighs.

This was something more, though. She was angry . . . wanting control—of him, or of her dismantled life? Of the unseen bond that pulled them together? If she wanted him to admit defeat, he would shout it across the city. She defeated him with far less than this.

After a few more pulls from her warm mouth, he felt an unmistakable pressure at the base of his cock, the urge to thrust. He wouldn't last much longer if she kept this pace.

“Enough, enough.” He hooked his hands around her shoulders and pulled her up. “Christ, Aida, I want to be inside you. Help me.”

He made quick work of her clothes: dress lifted over head, chemise yanked down over hips. The stockings could stay. Why was she insistent on unbuttoning his shirt? Keyed up and anxious, he slung his arms around her waist and lifted her off the floor, excited by her protest, and threw her on the bed.

His brain was barely working. He was in a singular savage mode, racing against his own drive to have her, and couldn't process anything besides the basic mechanics it would take for his monstrous body to align with her petite one in the simplest way possible. He dropped his suspenders over both shoulders so he could shove his pants lower, struggled with the tin of Merry Widows in the bedside table drawer—nearly dropping it in his haste—and prepared to flip her onto her hands and knees, so he could take her while standing at the edge of the mattress.

“No.” She pressed the heel of one palm between her legs, as if to quench an ache—possibly the single most arousing sight he'd ever seen. “Like the postcard,” she demanded.

He tore his gaze from her hand. It took a moment for his dull brain to catch up.
The postcard
. She wanted to be on top—there was that damned control of hers. Hell, did she think he'd stop her?

“Yes, yes,” he murmured. “Fine idea. Let's do that. Come here.”

He sat up on the bed, his back against the headboard, and helped her as she crawled to straddle his lap. Damp curls brushed across his balls, making his cock jump. He slipped fingers between her legs. Unbelievably wet. Warm. Swollen with need. Ready for him. He guided her down, and when she impaled herself on him, taking as much of his length as she could in one fierce movement, gasping loudly, he nearly lost his mind.

“Aida, Aida,” he said, a fervent prayer. A devotion.

She chased a frenetic rhythm, hands gripping his shoulders hard enough to leave bruises. It only made him harder. He helped himself to her body, rolling her nipples between his finger and thumb, tasting the sensitive skin beneath her jaw, memorizing the curve where her hips flared from her waist . . . brailling over her raised scars with his palms.

His eyes lingered over rose-adorned garters biting into her thighs, then followed the lines at the back of her stockings to the lightly scuffed soles of new shoes. Every so often, he slipped a thumb down where their bodies were joined and rubbed her stiff bud until she moaned and clenched around him so tightly he had to stop for fear he'd come before she did.

“That's it, take me,” he praised. “Punish me.”

She gritted her teeth and cried out in frustration and he loved it. She was a goddess above him, hell-bent on conquering, making him pay with each rocking stroke of her beautiful body. He adored every bit of her: the gleam of sweat on her brow, the sounds of pleasure she was making, the scent of her sex.

It was far better than anything his debauched brain had ever imagined.

Her breath became ragged. Flesh smacked. Freckled breasts quivered and bounced hypnotically. The moment she faltered, thighs shaking with effort, he angled himself farther down on the cushion beneath her and took over, vigorously pounding up into her as she arched over him.

His mind emptied. He was nothing but a body serving to meet her pleasure. And when that pleasure finally gathered strength and crested, her eyes locked with his. The look on her face was so vulnerable and open, and God help him, somewhere in the back of his barbaric, dull mind, he thought:
This one. Her. Only her. No one else.

Her eyes closed. A long, soulful wail broke from her mouth. She came so intensely, so ferociously, he was almost jealous. The absurdity of this thought was washed away by his own brutal need. His turn, now—thank God.

She was boneless, weightless, ready to collapse. “Not yet,” he said. “Hold on.” He lifted her up and down on his cock in time with the pumping of his hips, reviving her. She shuddered and squeezed around him again, another orgasm taking them both by surprise. And as she bucked in his arms, sobbing, every muscle in his body tensed in anticipation.

His pleasure crashed through him, surging forward. He held her hips down and came into her endlessly, a glorious, blinding moment of complete surrender that he felt in the base of his spine, the pads of his toes, the tips of his fingers.

When it faded, he was gasping for breath below her, muttering broken Swedish that he knew she couldn't understand, but damned if he could reach for the words in English. Funny that his mind had trouble making the switch, when it was usually second nature.

Her head lolled against his neck. He stroked her hair as their hearts slowed, finally finding the right words in the right language, which he whispered against her cheek. “Everything I have is yours. My home, my body, my protection . . . my heart. All of me.”

One salty tear slid down her cheek. He captured it with a swipe of his tongue, and this started an avalanche of great, convulsive sobs. He didn't ask why. Just folded his arms around her, pulling her into the rocky cave of his body, and waited for the crying to stop. And when it did, he held her until she fell asleep in his arms. Somewhere inside his blackened heart, he knew it would be the last time.