The Last Groom on Earth (3 page)

He nodded, remembering glancing into the room.

“Those are our telephone support lines. People who buy the games call to get help in using them. The support staff help customers if they’re having trouble setting up, and if they’re stuck, they’ll give them hints and ideas. The support lines are busy all day long. We’re grossing millions.”

Bryce looked faintly shocked. Angela supposed that from her mother’s explanation, he had expected Angela to have some little shoestring operation.

“How is the company set up?” he asked, scribbling on the pad.

“It’s a corporation. Tim and I started out as partners, but when it got bigger, we incorporated. Tim and I own nearly all the shares.”

“Kelly’s not a partner?”

“No. She’s bought some shares, and all our employees have gotten some shares as bonuses, but basically Tim and I own it. We began it. Later, we hired Kelly to do our accounting. Her job has grown as we have. Basically, now she oversees all operations except creating the games.”

“You and Tim do that?”

“Yes. I think up the stories and write out the plot line. Tim creates the software for them. We each have a few assistants now, but we still pretty much do all the Concordia games ourselves.” She shrugged. “It’s a lot more fun than overseeing the other stuff. I leave the simulation games alone. That’s Jeremy Coger’s field.”

She went on to explain how the games were packaged, marketed and distributed, and all the while Bryce scribbled across his pad. Angela looked at his. hand as it moved across the page. His skin was tanned, the back of his hand and his fingers lightly dotted with curling dark hairs. His fingers were long and strong, the nails short-clipped. It was a very masculine, no-nonsense sort of hand, but not stubby or rough. It wasn’t hard to imagine it moving with gentleness across a woman’s body.

Suddenly Angela’s thoughts flew to the bed beside them. She had hardly noticed it when she came in, but now it seemed to fill the room. She kept her eyes firmly away from it, sure that Bryce would somehow guess her thoughts if she so much as glanced at it. But,
of course, since she was determined not to look at it, looking at it became an almost impossible urge to resist. She jumped restlessly to her feet and began to pace.

There was a long moment of silence, and Angela pivoted to look at Bryce. He was watching her, his brow drawn into a frown. She frowned back.

“Well? Are we through?”

He started and looked disconcerted. “What? Oh. No, I…let’s see.” He turned back to his yellow pad. “What about the IRS? When did that start?”

“About three months ago. They called us in for a routine audit. We showed them our records, and I assumed that was the last of it. Then all of a sudden, they started asking more questions, nosing around. I don’t know what they saw that set them off. This one guy, McGuire, kept saying that we didn’t make enough profit—like it was some kind of crime or something. We didn’t make as much profit as the last few years. But we just had a lot more expenses. Things like that happen. Don’t they?”

“Sure. And the IRS could be off track. Unfortunately they usually manage to run something down.”

Angela sighed. “I’m beginning to feel paranoid.”

“The IRS can do that to you.”

“I tell myself that if we haven’t done anything wrong, we don’t have anything to worry about. But they’re making me jittery. I keep thinking that somewhere we must have made a mistake and I just can’t see it. That’s why I told Mother the other day. I shouldn’t have…I knew it would worry her.”

“I’m sure she was glad you told her. She wants to help you.”

“I know. And she always expects that she’ll have to. That’s what makes it so galling.” Angela grimaced. “I hate to screw up in front of her.”

Bryce looked amazed. “But Marina’s very patient and understanding about mistakes. That’s why she’s such a wonderful teacher.”

“Yeah, well, it’s probably different when you’re a student rather than her daughter. When I didn’t understand things in math, she acted like I was being purposely obstructive. She couldn’t believe that I didn’t get it. Finally she came to realize that I really didn’t understand these things that seemed so obvious to her. Then she’d get this—I don’t know,
distressed
sort of look in her eyes. And I’d know that I disappointed her. I think she was afraid that I was mentally impaired.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Bryce said gruffly.

Angela glared at him.
How could she have forgotten that she was talking to the man who thought Marina Hewitt could do no wrong?
“I wouldn’t have expected you to understand.”

“Your prejudice is appalling.” He got up and strode across the room to where she stood.

“I’m not prejudiced!” Angela retorted, stung.

“I’m sure you’re not about all the politically correct things, but you most definitely are about people who are logical or mathematical. You presume that if a person understands numbers, they don’t understand anything else, that they’re emotionless robots. Being logical doesn’t mean that you can’t understand feelings.”

“You, I’m sure, are in touch with your feelings.” It galled her for him to lecture her, as if she were still a child.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re too stiff and uptight to even know that you have feelings. Look at you…here it is…six o’clock, in your hotel room, and you’re still wearing a tie—knotted at the top! I’m surprised you even took off your suit jacket. You were the same when you were nineteen, too. Stiff, dry, logical. You looked at my friends and me playing in the pool like we were creatures from another planet. And when I played a joke on you, you never even got mad. Any normal person would have blown up, but you just got stiffer and quieter. No doubt it wasn’t logical to get mad.”

Bryce stared at her in disbelief. “What should I have done? Tell my hostess’s child what a spoiled brat she was? Of course I held my tongue. To have said anything would have been hurtful to Marina. No doubt you think it’s ridiculous to be courteous.”

“Of course not!” Red flamed in Angela’s cheeks. She felt foolish and embarrassed and oddly hurt by his opinion of her. “But you can be courteous and still be capable of human emotions. You don’t have to be a statue like you.”

Bryce knew that was how she saw him, as a bloodless, passionless person, more a wax figure than a man. The idea infuriated him, all the more so because right now his blood was thrumming through his veins and even as they fought he could not stop thinking how desirable she looked. Angela was thoroughly annoying, but some elemental instinct in him wanted her, and that fact was as irritating as she was.

Suddenly, surprising himself as much as her, Bryce reached out and grabbed her shoulders. Angela froze in astonishment, staring at him with wide, disbelieving
eyes as he pulled her to him and took her mouth in a long, searing kiss.

His lips were hot and demanding; his tongue slid along the seal of her lips, seeking entrance. Angela shivered, her knees amazingly weak, and opened her mouth to his seeking tongue. It was not a sweet kiss; it burned with anger and resentment…and passion. There was nothing emotionless or saintly about him now. His body curved around hers, his arms pressing her into his hard chest and thighs, and the heat was enveloping, enervating. His mouth possessed hers as if by right, his tongue exploring, challenging.

Angela sagged against him, and her fingers dug into his shirt in the back as she clung to him. His kiss made her tremble, made her forget who he was and what he was to her. She tasted the driving hunger that aroused her own, and she wanted more. Her tongue wound around his, stroking and seeking. She felt his breath shuddering out, hot upon her cheek, and his kiss gentled, no longer demanding, but coaxing and enticing her. His hand stroked up and down her back, pressing her into him. Angela wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself up to his kiss.

B
ryce’s lips moved over Angela’s, deliciously firm and warm. His hand slid down her body and onto her hip, then slowly back up. His thumb brushed against the side of her breast, sending a quiver of desire through her abdomen.

He lifted his mouth, but only to change the slant of his kiss. His kiss deepened; his tongue invaded her mouth. Angela answered eagerly, tasting the dark, silky pleasures of his mouth. She felt weak and strangely helpless, not like herself at all, but somehow the feeling was pleasurable as well as scary, as if she were about to step onto a wild ride at an amusement park or enter a new adventure. She wrapped her arms around Bryce’s neck, clinging to him.

For a long moment they were lost in intense pleasure, their mouths locked together, their bodies straining against each other. Then there was a knock
on the door, breaking into the enchantment, and a bored voice drawled, “Room Service.”

Angela jumped, startled, and her lip came into painful contact with Bryce’s teeth. She stepped back, one hand pressed to her smarting lip, and stared at Bryce dazedly.
This couldn’t be happening. Bryce Richards had just kissed her—and she had enjoyed it.

“Room service,” the disembodied voice repeated outside the door, and Bryce jerked into movement.

“Yes. Coming.” He started toward the door.

Angela cast a wild look around the room, then sank into a chair, pushing her hands back into her thick, curling hair. She tried to pull her thoughts back into some semblance of order while Bryce dealt with the hotel employee.

She had done some impulsive things in her life, but it occurred to her that this was probably the worst.
Bryce Richards disliked her; he hadn’t kissed her because he was attracted to her. He had done it because she had made him mad. He had done it to establish that he was in control, to prove her wrong. She had insulted him, more or less accused him of being without passion, and he, of course, had to show her that he was not.

And she, like an idiot, had responded to his kiss!
Angela couldn’t imagine what was wrong with her that she had acted that way. He was handsome, of course—
in a cold way,
she reminded herself—but he was all the things she disliked in a man: a staid workaholic with no sense of humor, a man who did things only because they made sense. She could not imagine Bryce Richards, skipping a day of work to go out and have a picnic. He was the sort of man who would bring a woman flowers because that was the accepted thing to
do, but he would never think of surprising her with some odd little present that had irresistibly reminded him of her. He would make plans for an evening and follow them to the letter. In short, he was the sort of man with whom she would be bored in an hour or two—no matter how much she might feel an utterly inexplicable physical attraction to him.

It also occurred to Angela that right now Bryce was probably regretting what he had just done just as much as she was. She looked up.

Bryce was shutting the door behind the waiter. He turned and gazed across the room at her, every line of his body screaming that he was uncomfortable. He cleared his throat. “Well…”

Angela popped to her feet. “I better be going now.”

“What? Oh, yes, I suppose so. Look, Angela, I’m sorry—”

She shook her head, putting on what she hoped was a cheery, nonchalant face. “Nonsense. Happens to me all the time. Men stop me on the street to kiss me. It’s my irresistible charm.”

She nodded and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Bryce stood still for a moment after she left, gazing blankly at the door. Finally he turned to the room service cart and absently lifted the covers. His earlier hunger had vanished, and he studied the food with uninterest.

Room service had come just in time, he thought.
Who knows what might have happened if they had not been interrupted?

Stifling a sigh, he sat down and began to eat.

Angela drove home in a fury. She parked her car in the single garage assigned to her condominium and stomped up the stairs to her condo, still seething over her encounter with Bryce Richards.

The condominium complex where she lived was small and secluded, surrounded by large, spreading oaks. It was an elegant place without being pretentious, and its occupants were by and large young professionals without children. Angela’s condo, toward the rear of the complex, was a small, utilitarian, down-to-earth place with little decoration. She didn’t spend much time here. Her real home was the lake house, and it was there that she had put in most of her effort of furnishing and decorating. This condo was simply a place to sleep during the week, and its primary advantages were that it was quiet and close to work.

The furniture was simple and comfortable; some of it she had had from the tiny first apartment she had shared with Kelly when their business was beginning. It looked old and well lived-in, and the stacks of books all around—in bookcases, on tables and in piles on the floor—added to the casual, cozy ambience. At odds with the furniture, however, were the array of electronic machines and gadgets around the place.

Angela had always been intrigued by gadgets and time-saving or energy-saving devices, and when the company had started making good money, she had allowed herself to indulge in the clever machines that caught her fancy. Though she was not fond of cooking, her kitchen was a treasure trove of bread machines, cappuccino makers, electric steamers, icecream machines and various sorts of food processors. The second bedroom, which served as her office at
home, was stocked with a fax machine, copier, two computers and an assortment of hand-held computerized games, translators, calculators and electronic novelties. Her favorite was the home theater setup at one end of her living room, where a large-screen TV and a multitude of speakers, VCRs, laser disc players, tuners, tape players, etc., provided sensational sound and view for any movie.

Tonight, however, she had no interest in popping any cassette into the VCR. Nor did cooking a dinner appeal to her. She was too restless, too agitated; her mind kept jumping from her tax troubles to Bryce Richards to her bizarre behavior in his hotel room. She rattled purposelessly around the condo for a few minutes and finally wound up on the small balcony in back.

The balcony was shielded from the sun and neighbors by large, sheltering oaks, but it had a clear view of the balcony next door. There a slim, curly-haired, middle-aged man fussed over a group of hanging plants, watering them and carefully breaking off dead leaves.

“Hi, Jim.” Angela leaned against the railing and smiled at the man, who turned and beamed at her. Jim had more or less adopted Angela when she first moved into her condo six years earlier, telling her she was the daughter he had never had, and they had weathered many an emotional storm with each other over the intervening years.

“Sweetheart!” He came over, the empty watering pot dangling from his hand. “My, aren’t you home early? What happened?”

Angela grimaced reflexively. “Trouble, probably.”

“Really?” His brows arched in amused curiosity. “Do tell. Is it interesting or some boring business thing?”

“It’s people, not business. Or maybe a combination of both.”

“Well, why don’t you come over and tell Daddy all about it? I have hot water on the stove and I’ll fix you a nice cup of herbal tea if you want.”

“Sure. That sounds great.” Angela turned and walked back through her condominium.

Jim opened the door for her just as she reached it and led her inside, chattering all the way as he walked back into the kitchen to fetch her tea.

His condo was a mirror image of hers structurally, But there would never be any mistaking the two. Jim’s place was done in the same campy, flamboyant style in which he spoke and acted. Having been around him in moments when he was quite serious, direct, and even practical, Angela had never been quite sure whether this flamboyance was real or merely something he assumed as befitting the owner of a trendy art gallery.

“So what happened?” he asked as he bustled back out of the kitchen, carrying a small tray on which sat two cups.

Angela, who had kicked off her shoes and leaned back in an ultramodern turquoise canvas chair, reached up and took the steaming cup gratefully. “Mmm…smells delicious.”

“Thank you. I had water heated because I was expecting Harbaugh, but, of course, he called about two minutes before you came and said he was going to be late again. Lawyers.” He made a face and took a sip of his tea. “But never mind that. Tell me about you.”

Angela sighed and began to relate the events of this afternoon, to Jim’s appreciative noises and comments. When she finished, she shrugged. “So there you have it. I dislike this guy, always have. He represents everything I don’t like about my family and that whole world they inhabit. And then all of a sudden, he kissed me! And I enjoyed it!”

“Sounds like not such a terrible problem to me,” Jim joked.

Angela answered with a derisive snort. “I’m serious. It’s a complication, a stupid, weird complication—as if I didn’t have enough with this IRS thing hanging over my head.”

“Well, you know, opposites attract and all that. I mean, look at Harbaugh and me—a lawyer, for pity’s sake! You know how serious he is. Sometimes I swear the man has no sense of humor. But we’ve been together almost four years now.”

“I know. With some people it probably works out. But you don’t know Bryce Richards. He’s not just serious or humorless, he’s also methodical and critical and analytical. I doubt that the man knows how to have fun. Everything has to have a reason. Besides, we don’t even like each other. He’s precisely the type of. man I don’t want, and I’m sure he still has some kind of grudge against me, considering all the awful twelve-year-old kind of practical jokes I played on him. I mean, just because I’ve grown up and suddenly there’s this physical thing between us, that doesn’t mean that we’re going to start liking each other. We’re still the same people, like night and day. It would be a mess…especially with us working together now. It’s going to be hard enough being in the same office with
him as it is. If we were having an affair, too, it would be impossible.”

“Sorry,” Jim said, retreating into the serious persona that he usually strove to keep hidden. “Just teasing—although it does sound like there’s an awful lot of free-floating emotions in this relationship. Well, frankly, Angie, it seems to me like the only solution is to avoid him.”

“How can I do that? He’ll be working right down the hall from me.”

“So? Go to work late and stay late. You already do that lots of times. Stay in your office while you’re there and don’t go wandering all over talking to everybody.”

“Exile myself from my own business?” Angela frowned. “I don’t want to do that.”

“Then get rid of him.”

“No. That wouldn’t be fair to Tim and Kelly. We need his help even if I don’t like him.” Angela sighed. “I guess you’re right. I’ll try to avoid him as much as I possibly can. I’ll hide out in my office till he’s through.” She smiled at him. “Thanks.”

“Ah, it was nothing.” Jim made a dismissive gesture with his hand.

“Of course it was. Herbal tea and advice—what more could a person ask for?”

Jim rolled his eyes comically. “Lots.”

“Well, it’s enough for tonight. I appreciate your listening to me. But let’s talk about something more interesting now. How’s your new show coming?”

“Oh, my dear!” Jim clasped his hand to his chest dramatically and proceeded to launch into a long description of his latest trials and tribulations with the
temperamental but talented artist whose work he was about to exhibit in his gallery.

Angela stuck to her decision to avoid Bryce at the office. She came to work late the next day and walked the long way around to her office door in order to avoid passing Kelly’s office, where Bryce was working. She kept her door resolutely closed all day, and she got their receptionist to buy her a sandwich and bring it up to her office on her lunch hour.

She felt foolish, as if she were a child playing hooky and hiding from authority. Worse than that, she found that she spent so much time listening for Bryce’s voice or footsteps in the hall and wondering whether he would come knock on her office door that she got almost no work done.

Late the next afternoon, when most of the employees had left, she started down to the kitchen to get a snack to sustain her, but when she opened her door, she spotted Kelly and Bryce walking along the hallway toward her, deep in conversation. Quickly she ducked back into her office and listened as they walked past. She waited several more minutes, then cautiously opened her door and peeked out. No one was in the hall. She walked quickly and quietly down the hallway to the stairs.

Downstairs, she peeked out the front door and saw that the black Mercedes sedan Bryce had parked there this morning was gone. With a sigh of relief, she went into the kitchen and began to rummage around for something to eat. In accordance with the casual way they did everything here at H & A Enterprises, most of the workers brought in food from time to time and, unless it was boldly labeled, whatever was there was
generally considered fair game. Tim usually kept them generously supplied with soft drinks, and Dorothy Fairfax, the receptionist, made such good desserts that Tim and Angela reimbursed her so that she would bring them regularly.

Angela checked the plastic-wrapped pan on the counter first and sighed with disappointment to find that Dorothy’s brownies had been demolished. She settled for a container of peach yogurt from the refrigerator and put a cup of water in the microwave to heat for tea. She sat at the table, absently spooning the yogurt into her mouth and gazing out at the quiet yard as the day drifted slowly into dusk. She wondered what Bryce had done that day.

There were familiar footsteps in the wooden hallway outside, and Angela turned, a smile already spreading across her face. “Hi, Kelly.”

“Oh, hi!” Kelly looked a little surprised. “I didn’t know you were here. I thought you left a long time ago. Your door was closed all afternoon.”