Jennifer Crusie Bundle (36 page)

“I don't care what the law says,” Tess said, recovering from her shock at Park's sudden acuity. “I know Welch stole it and that's wrong. It belongs to Lanny. The least he could do is give Lanny credit. Lanny was wonderful.” She stood up. “And I'm going to tell Welch—”

“No!”
both men said again.

“Just wait,” Nick said. “Wait until Park and I can look into it.”

Park scowled. “Why? I just told you, legally there's no prob—”

“Well, there may be a problem morally,” Nick said. “Especially if a thousand enraged former hippies start writing op-ed pieces and faxing them from their Mercedes.”

“Oh, come on,” Park said. “All from one little Ohio commune?”

“He moved on,” Nick reminded him. “He stayed for a while and then moved on.” He turned to Tess. “How long was he with the commune?”

Tess shrugged, still simmering with anger. “Just for the summer. But then, who cares about Lanny? Let's protect the great Norbert Welch and all of his millions first.”

“Tess, concentrate,” Nick persisted. “About Lanny. Did other people hear the stories?”

“Of course,” Tess said. “There were a lot of us kids there. CinderTess was one of our bedtime stories that summer.”

Nick frowned. “Where did he go when he left? Did he move on to another commune?”

“I don't know. I don't even know where
we
went next. Pennsylvania, probably.”

“So he could have told this story across the country,” Nick said. “Thousands could have heard it.”

Tess smiled, triumphant at this new turn of events. “Yup. Just think of them all out there, waiting to pounce when this thing hits the bookstores.” She looked at the two men virtuously. “We have to confront Norbert Welch. For his own good.”

“No,” they said again, but the vehemence was gone from their voices, and Nick looked thoughtful. Park just looked annoyed.

“Can we sleep on this?” Park said finally. “Welch isn't publishing this damn thing tomorrow. Can we just wait awhile and give this some consideration first?”

“And then we'll confront him?” Tess demanded.

“Maybe,” Nick said. “Listen, we don't want to rush into anything here. There's a lot riding on this. My partnership, for one thing. If that book doesn't get published, I'm out in the cold.”

Tess looked at him in disgust. “I can't believe what a Yuppie scum you are. I should have known you weren't a prince.”

Park looked at him in equal disgust. “You had to bring her, didn't you? It had to be Tess.” He shook his head and walked out of the room.

Gina looked after him miserably, turned and looked at Tess in equal misery, and then followed Park.

Nick sighed. “It's not going to do us any good to go rushing around shouting ‘Plagiarism' at a crowded book reading. Give it a rest and let me think about it.”

“Until Monday,” Tess said. “I'll give you until Monday. Then I'm talking to Norbert Welch, and if he won't see reason, I'm going to the press.”

“You are one hell of a fun date,” Nick said.

“Well, I wouldn't worry about it, since I'm never going anywhere with you again.” With that Tess stomped out of the room.

“Give me that in writing,” Nick called to her retreating back. Then he leaned back in his chair and groaned.

T
ESS CONTENTED HERSELF
with being barely civil to Welch when she said her goodbyes as the afternoon ended. Nick, of course, was more than civil, even though Welch genially told him he needed more time to consider the contract.

“I'll call you next week, Jamieson,” he said, shaking hands with him and entirely ignoring a confused Park. “Maybe we can have dinner. Bring Tess. I like her.”

“We'd enjoy that, sir,” Nick said, wondering how he was going to talk Tess into a long business dinner when she had just vowed never to see him again.

Tess meanwhile was saying goodbye to the only man in the area she was still speaking to. “I really enjoyed watching you this weekend, Henderson,” she said, and then she stood on her toes and kissed the old man on the cheek. “You're a wonder.”

“Thank you, Miss Newhart,” Henderson said impassively.

When they were in the car, Nick grinned at her. “You're going to give that man ideas.”

“At least he doesn't steal them like his boss,” Tess said, and Nick gave up. She was hopeless. Sleeping with her had been great, well, more than great, and he did care about her, but she was going to be death on his career no matter what he did. As much as he wanted her, as much as he liked being with her, he was going to have to stop calling her.

Which was just as well, since she'd told him she was never going to speak to him again. The last time she'd told him that, it had taken him over a month to get her to talk to him. He didn't have that kind of time to waste on any woman, let alone one who was a career assassin.

After an hour passed without Tess saying anything, Nick stole a glance at her. She was frowning into the distance.

“What's wrong now?” he said.

“I need to do something about Lanny.” Tess sounded distracted. “I need to help Gina, too. You were right—she's leaving the road and trying to get a job at the Charles Theater. I don't know anyone there, so that's a problem. But first I need to go home and make some phone calls. I need to try to find Lanny or at least the manuscript, or nobody is ever going to listen to me about this.” She looked over at Nick and all the anger was gone from her eyes. “I know you hate this because of the partnership. I understand. I even understand that you can't do anything about this just on my word alone. I'm not telling you that I'm going to find that manuscript just to make you mad. I'm not even mad myself anymore. But I want you to know I'm going to find that manuscript. I have to. It's really important to me.”

“Why is it so important?” Nick asked. “What is this guy to you?” He tried to keep the jealousy out of his voice because it was ridiculous to be jealous of a guy that Tess had known when she was a kid, especially since he was never going to see her again.

“Because I loved him,” Tess said, and Nick felt his jealousy flare in spite of his good intentions.

“You were six—”

Tess interrupted him. “I was eight,” she said. “Not that it matters. At first I just adored him the way kids do movie stars. He was so big and so full of life and so…full of ideas and
stories.
Wonderful stories. And then after a while, he was a lot more. Like a big brother and a father and a mother and a best friend. He paid
attention
to me. And he listened to what I had to say, like it was important. He'd ask me questions and listen to the answers. And he made more sense than anybody else around me. He was always really gruff and acted like he was exasperated to be spending time on me, but he wasn't, and he taught me
useful
things. I mean, Daniel would tell me it was important to live a peaceful life in harmony with all things.”

“Daniel?”

“My father,” Tess said. “But the thing was, the gang of kids at the commune could be pretty nasty, and it's hard to live a peaceful life when you've got little Nazis pushing you around. And it wasn't so much that I was afraid to fight back but that I didn't know how. So I asked Lanny about it, and he said the key to fighting was never to fight unless the cause was so great that you couldn't bear not to defend it and the losses you were going to suffer were things you could afford to lose. And then he said, if I did decide to fight, the thing to remember was that I was going to get hurt, because that was what happened in a fight, so I might as well get myself reconciled to it in the beginning and then it wouldn't matter when it happened.”

“Great advice for a kid,” Nick said, trying not to sound as grumpy as he felt.

“It was great advice for anybody,” Tess said. “I actually ended up walking away from most fights because I didn't care that much about what they were hassling me about. And when I did fight back, I went in no-holds-barred because I knew I was going to get beat up, anyway. After a couple of times, the other kids pretty much left me alone. That was always the way it was with Lanny. He told you good stuff, true stuff that worked. Like the CinderTess story. No matter how many changes he made in it, it always ended with the real happily-ever-after coming from trying to make the world a better place. And that's what Welch made fun of. He made fun of Lanny. And when he did that, he made fun of everything I believe in.” Tess turned to face Nick again. “I have to fight this one. And I know I'm going to get hurt. I know Welch is tougher than I am and richer than I am and more powerful than I am. And I know you're going to help him, not me. But I can't walk away from Lanny. I can't walk away from everything I believe in.”

Nick was silent for a while. “Look,” he said finally. “If it's that important to you, I'll help.”

Tess blinked at him. “What about the contract?”

Nick shrugged. “I need to know everything I can about this damn book if I get the contract. And if he really has plagiarized, I need to know.” Nick stopped for a moment, trying to imagine the horror that a real plagiarism suit could turn out to be. Maybe he should be grateful to Tess for discovering this early, while he could handle it. “So here's the deal. I'll help you when you need help, and I'll stay out of your way the rest of the time so you can do this your way. Okay?”

She didn't say anything, and he stole a look at her. “Tess?”

“It's more than okay,” she said. “I keep forgetting you can be like this. I get so upset over the press-for-success part of you that I forget about this part.”

“That's me, a man of many parts,” Nick said.

“Thank you,” Tess said. “Thank you very much.”

“Sure,” Nick said. “Think of it as a goodbye gift.”

They finished the drive deep in their own thoughts, and Nick had almost reconciled himself to never being with her again. It was the only logical plan. In fact, it was so obviously logical, he wasn't sure why he was trying to find a hole in it.

By the time they were on the third flight of stairs to her apartment, he was convinced he was doing the right thing. Just drop off her stuff and escape. Just walk right on out.

“Listen, I can't stay…” he began, as they neared the top of the flight to her floor.

“You certainly can't,” Tess said as she reached the landing. “I'm grateful to you for offering to help, but we're never going to—”

He bumped into her from behind when she froze at the top of the stairs. Then he peered around her.

Her apartment door had been kicked in.

“O
h, no,” Tess said, and went to look through the remains of the door.

Nick grabbed her arm to stop her. “Let me go first.”

The neighbor across the hall opened his door, clutching his beer can with one hand and scratching the strip of belly his T-shirt couldn't stretch to cover with his other. “Your apartment got hit,” he said to Tess with a total lack of interest. “Last night. I called the police. You're supposed to call 'em.”

“Thank you very much.” Nick pushed past Tess to stand in the doorway. “That's very helpful.”

Tess said, “Thank you, Stanley,” a little dazedly, and then followed Nick to peer in behind him.

The place had been tossed and trashed. Drawers were upended, furniture overturned, and all the furniture cushions were slashed and bleeding stuffing on the floor.

“Oh, no,” Tess said again, her voice little more than a sigh.

“You have any enemies?” Nick asked.

Tess shook her head. “It's not personal. This has happened before to other people in the building. It's not me.”

“It's happened before and you didn't tell me?”

“We weren't speaking,” Tess flared. “And I was handling it. I reported the landlord.”

Nick surveyed the ruined door. “Oh, yeah, you were handling it.” He shook his head. “Well, from now on, I'm handling it.”

“Excuse me, I don't think so—” Tess began.

“They did the same thing to the apartment one floor down last week,” Stanley volunteered. “Just kids looking for cash.”

“Just kids,” Nick said. “Little rascals.” He turned to Tess. “Pack up anything you want to keep. You're coming home with me. No arguments.”

Tess set her jaw, prepared to fight. “I thought you couldn't wait to get rid of me.”

“Well, yes, but I meant out of
my
life, not out of life in general,” Nick said, ignoring her to peer through the door. “You are not staying here. If you'd rather stay with Gina, fine, but you're not staying here.”

“Gina has one room, an efficiency,” Tess said. “She couldn't squeeze Angela in, let alone me.” She stopped suddenly.

“Fine,” Nick said, oblivious to her silence. “Then you're staying at my place. There's a guest bedroom. Your virtue is safe.” He turned and saw her face, white with fear. “What's wrong?”

“Angela,” Tess said, and bit her lip. “I don't see Angela.”

Nick moved to put his arms around her, and she leaned against him gratefully. “Angela is not a stupid cat,” he said into her hair. “When the Brady Bunch showed up, she probably went out the window.” He tightened his arms around her and then said, “Come on. Let's get your stuff and go.”

Tess nodded, and Nick moved cautiously ahead of her into the apartment. He checked her bedroom before she could, to make sure Angela wasn't bleeding into the bedspread. Not only was there no Angela, there was no bedspread. The bedroom was as ransacked as the rest of the apartment. He turned back to Tess. “Pack.”

She opened her mouth to argue, and he overrode her. “Look, you want to find a new place tomorrow, no problem. But you can't stay here. Not ever again. I'd never sleep again waiting for these guys to come back and do to you what they did to the couch.”

“Okay,” Tess said. “All right.”

Nick watched her rescue what she could from the place, brushing off her mismatched sofa pillows and picking up odds and ends of God knew what. And while he watched, he tried a little deep breathing to calm the fear and rage that were making him insane. If he hadn't dragged her off to Kentucky, she could have been here, in this dump. Pure luck of the draw. The thought of losing her in any way made him cold, but losing her like this would have been—

“I'm all right,” Tess said, and he looked up to see her standing in the doorway with a laundry basket full of clothes. “I know you're upset, but I'm all right and I'm leaving with you and I'm not coming back. I promise.”

“Thank you,” Nick said. “Is there anything you want in the kitchen?”

“Yes,” Tess said. “But I don't suppose it's in one piece anymore. Did you look in there?”

“It's not good,” Nick said. “Come on. I'll help.”

They managed to rescue a few odd pieces of china and glassware.

“Was this stuff your mother's?” Nick asked, and Tess looked at him oddly.

“Elise doesn't have stuff,” she said. “This is just stuff I found in thrift stores that I liked.” She gazed at it sadly. “Maybe I liked it because it's the kind of stuff that mothers are supposed to give to their daughters. That's pathetic.” She stood up, leaving the china on the floor. “I don't want it. All I want is Angela.”

“I'll work on it,” Nick said. “Get your things together, and I'll take the first load down to the car.”

He took the laundry basket out on the landing and knocked on the door across the hall. The neighbor looked out. “Yeah?”

“You know that big black cat that belongs to Tess?” Nick said.

“Yeah?”

“I'll give you a hundred bucks if I can pick up that cat tomorrow.”

“How the hell am I supposed to get that cat back?” Stanley whined.

“Well, if I were you, I'd buy about ten cans of cat food and sit over there until the cat comes back,” Nick said.

“That could be hours.”

“That's what I'm paying for,” Nick said, handing over his business card. “Take it or leave it.”

Tess came to the door carrying her duffel bag and Nick's suitcase. “This is everything.”

“Great,” Nick said. “Let's go.”

T
ESS SAT LOST
in thought on the way to Nick's, grateful for the silence he gave her, trying to figure out why she felt so torn. It wasn't that she loved her apartment; she hated it. Nothing ever worked right, and the street was noisy, full of shouting and squealing brakes, and even now and then a gunshot. But it had been hers, and now she was going to Nick's, and she was pretty sure that wherever Nick's was, there wouldn't be screams or shots or cockroaches or broken anything. She was pretty sure it would be clean and safe and expensive and tempting as hell.

Then Nick turned off the road into his driveway, and it was worse than she suspected.

The house wasn't large, but it was beautiful, an architect's miniature masterpiece of white planes and angles bisected by gleaming glass that reflected the moonlight. She'd been prepared to resist clapboard colonial or petite plantation or even pseudo-cedar Frank Lloyd Wright, but this was such a work of art that only a person blinded by prejudice could find it anything but lovely.

“Do you like it?” Nick asked when he'd cut the engine.

“I've never seen anything so beautiful,” Tess said, and she felt him relax next to her. “When you brought me out here before it was finished, I never dreamed it would look like this. Who designed it? You?”

“Not exactly.” Nick eased down in his seat a little, surveying the house. “When I was in law school, a buddy of mine got in trouble. I helped him out, did all the legal legwork and saved his butt. He was a senior in architecture, and he took me out for a beer, and after a few, we started talking about the perfect house, and a month later he gave me the plans for this. So I saved up and bought the land, then I saved some more and built the house. It took me a while.”

Tess watched his face as he looked at his house, seeing the pride and love there.

“The builders were the best,” he said, “and the irony is, my buddy's a big name now. Preston Delaney. People come by and photograph it because it's an early, pure Delaney. I've only been in it a couple of weeks, and somebody's already offered me twice what it cost to build it.”

Tess rolled her eyes. “Another investment.”

Nick shook his head. “Nope, it's more than that. Wait until you see inside. It's perfect. It was done a month after you left.” His grin faded. “That was one of the biggest disappointments about your dumping me. You never got to see it.” He turned to her in the moonlight. “I know we're finished with each other, but I'm glad you're here to see it.”

Tess bit her lip. “Thank you for inviting me to stay. I'll try not to get it dirty.”

Nick patted her knee and then got out to open the car door for her while she stared at the house with fear and longing.

The interior left her speechless. The ground floor was one big room bisected by black lacquered folding doors with a staircase winding up the middle of it. To her right, through partially opened doors, Tess could see a massive ebony Parsons dining table and black lacquered chairs. To the left, huge overstuffed couches faced each other across thick rya rugs, flanking a cavernous white brick fireplace on one wall and a built-in wide-screen TV on another. The back wall was all glass looking out on an angular pool that reflected the moonlight like marcasite.

Except for the dining-room furniture, every single thing in the place was white. Tess felt very small and very dingy. She moved to one of the couches, touching it and then jerking her hand away.

“What's the matter?” Nick asked.

“This couch is suede,” Tess said.

“I know.”

“Real suede?” Tess asked, knowing it was a dumb question. If it was Nick's, it was real.

“Of course it's real suede.”

“You have white suede couches,” Tess said and closed her eyes. “Do you live here? Does anybody live here?”

“Don't you like it?”

“It's incredible. But I am definitely going to get it dirty.”

“That's why a cleaning woman comes in twice a week,” Nick said.

“Well, that's a relief.” Tess turned to the stairs. “Bedroom up here?”

“Three,” Nick said. “Take your pick.”

“Which one are you in?”

“The one at the back. Big bed. Black satin spread. The guest room is at the front.”

“Black,” Tess said. “You know, I don't mean to criticize, but this place could use some color.”

“I like it this way. It looks expensive.” Nick started up the stairs with the duffel and the suitcase. “Where do you want this stuff?”

“Guest room.” Tess said, and followed him with the laundry basket.

T
ESS LAY AWAKE
that night, listening for the screams and the shouts that weren't there, trying not to worry about Angela and feeling guilty because she was so safe. The other tenants didn't have rich, depraved conservative lawyers to sweep them off into sinful luxury. And then there was Gina, looking at Park with puppy-dog eyes. And the Foundation kids, now that she'd shot herself in the foot with the Sigler woman. And Lanny. The other problems were more pressing, but Lanny was the one she owed the most. Lanny had been there for her when she was eight; now she was going to be there for him.

She tossed and turned for another hour, shuffling her worries like a deck of cards. When she finally couldn't stand it any longer, she slipped out of bed and tiptoed down the stairs, careful not to wake Nick, and went out to the pool. She stripped off her T-shirt and underpants, dove into the water and began to swim laps to exorcise her demons.

One lap for the apartment-house tenants and their unlocked doors.

One lap for Gina and her doomed love life and her job search.

One lap for the kids at the Foundation and their imperiled futures.

One lap for Lanny and his trashed vision.

One lap for Nick and his infuriating double personality.

Only one lap didn't do it. Once she started to think about Nick warm in that damn black bed upstairs, she swam faster, but it didn't help. All the images of him she'd ever tortured herself with came back—Nick laughing at her at the touch football game that had started it all, Nick's arms in that rag of a sweatshirt as he teased her about her laundry, Nick beautiful in evening clothes—but now she had new memories, memories of Nick hot and naked, his body moving over hers, and she got dizzy just thinking about it, so dizzy that at the end of the last lap, she clung to the edge of the pool and gasped for breath.

“You okay?” she heard Nick say, and she looked up to see him standing there, in black silk boxers, his hair tousled from his pillow.

He looked wonderful.

Tess groaned and let herself slip under the water.

She felt Nick's hand grab her arm and drag her ruthlessly to the surface.

“I know you're depressed, dummy,” Nick said, holding on to her. “But don't drown yourself in my pool. My insurance rates will go up. Not to mention I'll never get another date again if it gets out that being with me makes women suicidal.”

“I'm not suicidal,” Tess said, and then realized he was never going to make love to her again. “Well, maybe I am.”