A Fortune's Children's Wedding (15 page)

“Then what are you asking for?” It was a real effort to sound blasé, and she didn't think she'd pulled it off.

A group of student nurses sat down at the table next to them, laughing and talking. Flynt glanced from the girls to Angelica. “I'll tell you later. Right now I'd like to talk privately with you—about your father.”

She was not about to let anyone eavesdrop on a conversation about Brandon Fortune. Angelica gave a quick nod. “We can use my office. My next patient isn't
scheduled until an hour from now,” she said, getting up and heading for the door.

When they reached the office suite, it was completely deserted because everybody was on their lunch break. They could've talked in the brightly wallpapered waiting room, but Angelica automatically led Flynt into her small private office.

It was where she talked with patients and their labor and delivery coaches, but was barely big enough for her desk and the two comfortable armchairs across from it.

“Sit down,” she invited, feeling nervous as Flynt closed the door. It suddenly occurred to her how completely alone they were.

“I was going to suggest that you do the same,” said Flynt. “Because I have some news you probably ought to be sitting down for.” He placed his hands on her shoulders. “Just hear me out and don't launch into a Romina-esque attack of hysteria.”

“I never get hysterical.” The pressure of his hands made her sink into the armchair.

“That's good to hear.” Flynt took the chair next to her.

“All right, what is it?” she demanded. Anxiety swept through her like wildfire on a prairie. “What has Brandon done now?”

“Nothing, it's what I've done,” Flynt said, visibly bracing himself for her reaction. “I reported last night's extortion threat to the police.”

Angelica waited for some kind of feeling—rage? fear?—to strike. But she felt…nothing. Even her anxiety was dissipating. Instead of jumping to her feet in out
rage, she settled back in the chair. “I bet that was an exercise in futility.”

“True,” Flynt said ruefully. “At my insistence, they filed a report. End of concern, end of incident. It was frustrating.”

“That can't have come as a surprise. After all, there hasn't even been a crime committed,” she reminded him.

“You're as nonchalant as the police and Brandon and Romina are about the threat.” Flynt was exasperated. “Aren't you remotely curious as to why I decided to go to the police?”

“Maybe you miss the good old days in law enforcement and wanted to experience the atmosphere of a station house again?”

Flynt ignored her sarcasm. “There is a troubling discrepancy in Brandon's story about the note, Angelica. He told me he found it in his room, shoved under the door. He told his mother—and the hotel staff confirmed—that a bellhop delivered a note to his room. When I arrived at your mother's house last night, something seemed…odd. I felt Romina and Brandon knew something about the new note, but when I tried to question them, they both clammed up. Claimed no knowledge and refused to discuss it at all.”

He shook his head and grimaced wryly. “No wonder the police didn't take me seriously. I have nothing but a hunch that something is fishy.”

“Fishy, huh?” Angelica chuckled. “Did they write that down on the police report?”

“Go ahead and laugh. If you weren't involved, I prob
ably wouldn't give it a second thought, either. But since you're the focus of the threats…”

Flynt reached over and took her hand. “I am not going to let anything happen to you, Angelica.”

Angelica's heart seemed to come to a complete stop, then began racing at warp speed. She felt him tug lightly on her hand and knew what he wanted her to do.

She was on the verge of doing it, too. Of sliding over onto his lap and picking up where they'd left off
twice
last night, in the booth at Swank and the Rydells' kitchen….

A
ngelica jumped to her feet and half stumbled to the door and flung it open.

“We can't, Flynt. We've got to keep our hands off each other. We can't keep grabbing each other like over-sexed, hormone-crazed adolescents every time we're alone,” she heard herself breathlessly blurt out.

She leaned against the door, horrified by her candor. She waited for Flynt to say something appropriately cutting that would make her cringe at the memory for the rest of her life.

“You're right, of course.” Flynt heaved a deep sigh. “It's murder on the nerves, on every system in the body. This has never happened to me before,” he added, his brow furrowing in perplexity.

He looked as off guard and off balance as she felt. Which greatly heartened her. And with the threat of ver
bal humiliation removed, Angelica relaxed a bit. “Not to me, either. I—I'm usually very controlled.”

“I have a will of steel.” Flynt stared at the floor. “Except around you. It's damn disturbing, physically, mentally, in every way. I slept approximately an hour and a half last night. The rest of the time I thrashed around…” His voice trailed off.

Angelica, who'd spent a similar night but wouldn't dare admit it, felt allied with him in a whole new way. “I wonder why this is happening?”

“You have no idea?” Flynt rubbed the back of his neck.

Angelica assumed the muscles there were tense and restrained herself from massaging them. She was quite good with relaxation massage techniques, an elective course she'd taken while pursuing her midwifery certification.

Not that she intended to touch him
or
answer his provocative question. She remained still and silent.

Flynt sighed again. “Well, I have a theory. Since I was awake most of last night, I had plenty of time to think.”

“What is it? And don't say because of
love at first sight
or something insipid like that,” she warned.

“I wouldn't dream of insulting your intelligence that way. No, I think what's happened to us is that we're both caught in an emotional maelstrom. This—case, for lack of a better term—has stirred a lot of feelings that we don't normally access.” Flynt laughed without mirth. “Listen to me, I sound like one of the agents at the Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico.”

“Aren't they the ones who do the criminal profiling?
Are you going to profile our behavior?” Angelica asked incredulously. Embarrassment hovered uncomfortably close.

“It's easy enough to do. Look, Angelica, the, er, situation we're in has undoubtedly unleashed feelings we've actively suppressed for years. Plus, we're attracted to each other. Normally, we would have no trouble handling that attraction. As two careful, mature adults, we could ignore it. Certainly resist it.”

“So why aren't we doing that now?”

“Because of the unique set of circumstances. Aroused emotions, released energy, adrenaline. Now throw in sexual attraction. A dynamite combination.”

“You mean we're kind of—sexually imploding?” She gaped at him.

“Yes.”

Angelica was dubious. His theory of random sexual implosion struck her as unlikely, even insulting to their powers of discretion. She was absolutely certain that if, say, TJ Gibson had brought her father into her life, she would not have sexually imploded at all.

But Flynt's theory was a shade more realistic than the foolish one she couldn't accept yet couldn't seem to get out of her head—that old cliché of
love at first sight.

“Well, what do you think?” he pressed.

“It's a theory,” she conceded cautiously.

Flynt took that for agreement. “Exactly. Consider what we're dealing with, Angelica. For you, it's your father and all the emotional baggage that goes with that territory, including the assorted men who've passed through your mother's life. Tell me that doesn't send you into the emotional spin cycle.”

She visualized herself spinning and trapped by forces from the past. It seemed an apt image. “What about you? Why are you affected by Brandon meeting me?”

“It's not you and Brandon, per se. It's the whole issue of lost and found. Of people missing and then recovered.”

She stared at him, comprehension dawning. “Was your own father—”

“Not my father, my brother,” Flynt corrected quietly. “My little brother Mark. He was six years old when he disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Angelica felt her heart clench. “How? When?” She dropped back into the chair beside him.

“Twenty-six years ago. I was ten and Mark was six, and we were at the school playground with a bunch of other kids one summer afternoon in late August,” Flynt said, reciting the facts, staring straight ahead.

Angelica watched him intently. His voice, his expression gave nothing away, but she picked up clues of the terrible tension underlying his dispassionate delivery. She saw the muscle twitching in his jaw, saw him tighten his left hand into a fist, so tight that his knuckles turned white. She leaned closer.

“Go on,” she urged softly.

“It was a hot day and Mark got thirsty and wanted to go home to get something to drink. We were playing ball and I didn't want to leave in the middle of the game. I told Mark to wait awhile but he didn't, he started home.” Flynt swallowed hard. “And never made it.”

“Oh, Flynt!” Angelica impulsively reached for his hand and clutched it tight. “Was he kidnapped?”

She knew how much effort he was exerting to maintain his steely self-control. Holding his hand, she could feel the emotions churning within him. She wished he would let himself express those emotions with her but understood why he didn't. She knew all about building walls to keep feelings in and other people out. She and Flynt were a lot alike, though she had never had a tragedy of such magnitude in her own life.

“We never knew what happened to Mark,” Flynt replied tonelessly. “When I came home for dinner that day, my mother asked me where Mark was. He wasn't at the house, and she started calling around, looking for him. But nobody had seen him since he'd left the school-yard.”

Angelica found it hard to breathe. “What a nightmare!” His hand was icy cold. Instinctively she pressed it to her cheek to warm it and offer him what comfort she could.

“It's been a never-ending nightmare, Angelica.” When he said her name, the careful flatness in his tone changed to one of undisguised pain.

His eyes met hers and for one searing moment, she saw what he was feeling mirrored in his bleak gaze. She gripped his hand as if she would never let it go.

Flynt lowered his eyes, and she felt his withdrawal viscerally, yet knew that for him it was necessary. He had already let his mask slip and now he had to get it back into place. Her heart ached for him.

“You've read about similar stories about missing children in the news many times, unfortunately.” Flynt attempted to resume his role of stoic agent.

But Angelica could feel his pulse beneath her fingers,
and it was racing, a tangible indication of his high stress level. She gently stroked the underside of his wrist.

Flynt intended to end the conversation here, which is what he usually did when circumstances required that he reveal the sad story of Mark. After all, this was where the case ended, with Mark's fate unknown. There was no need to go into detail about what had happened next, to himself and his family.

“Every time I read one of those stories I feel sick,” Angelica murmured. She used her other hand to brush a stray lock of hair off his forehead.

The tender gesture seemed to unleash Flynt's restraint. Once again, he swallowed so hard, the reflex was visible. “There was a massive search for Mark, but he had disappeared without a trace. There were never any leads, nothing. It was as if he'd dropped off the face of the earth. To this day, the case remains unsolved.”

“Oh, Flynt!” Angelica felt tears sting her eyes. “I'm so sorry.”

“When Gabe Devereax asked me to look into finding you, I agreed at once, though it's not the sort of case my company normally handles. We're in the business of corporate security, not locating lost relatives.”

Flynt played absently with her fingers, lacing them with his. “But the very idea of Brandon Fortune intrigued me, fascinated me actually. Here was someone who'd been taken as a child—and subsequently recovered and sent home to his family. How had all that played out? How had the lost years affected relationships? I leaped at the chance to observe firsthand.”

“And pictured your brother as an adult, coming back to your own family?” she asked quietly.

“I tried but I couldn't. To me Mark will always be six years old.” His eyes clouded like a dismal, rainy morning.

Angelica tried to imagine what it would be like to have a ghost sibling, frozen in time. It was awful beyond imagining. She felt like crying for him and had to hold back her tears. She instinctively knew that if she were to cry, Flynt would be quick to comfort her, he would even welcome assuming the familiar role of strong-male-in-charge. And this wasn't about her; this was Flynt's tragedy. She wanted to be the strong one for him. She wanted him to know he could lean on her.

“I seldom think about what happened anymore,” Flynt insisted gruffly. “I stopped dwelling on it years ago. I had to.” He set his mouth in a grim line.

His defenses were intact; he wasn't ready to let go of them. Angelica understood but wished it could be different. Maybe someday, it could?

She was both buoyed and surprised by that small hope. She never thought in terms of “someday” with a man.

“Did seeing Brandon with his family stir up all those powerful feelings again?” Angelica asked, reconsidering his emotional-maelstrom theory. Now it didn't seem as far-fetched, at least not from his perspective.

“I didn't think so at the time. But possibly it did…and then coming here and learning about Nancy Portland's underground and families broken apart and kids missing really struck a nerve.” His face was grim with disapproval.

Angelica shivered. “I can see where it would. I—I
understand your objections, though it's not the same as losing Mark. It really isn't, Flynt.”

“Just hearing you say Mark's name feels good.” Their eyes met and held fast. “No one in my family, or in my hometown, ever mentions him. It's been that way since a few months after his disappearance. People stopped talking about Mark, stopped saying his name. It's as if he never was—except his absence left this enormous crater in all our lives.”

“You and your parents must have been devastated.” Angelica gulped back a sob. What if Danny or Sarah or Casper had vanished at the age of six, never to be seen again?

“It tore our family apart,” Flynt said matter-of-factly. “My mother blamed me. I was the older brother. I should've walked Mark home. She never forgave me for not doing that, and I can't blame her.”

“Flynt, you were only a child yourself,” Angelica protested. “Both you and Mark might've been snatched, and then your parents would have lost both their sons.”

“That's what my dad used to say. He and I had always been close, but Mark was Mom's baby, her favorite…” Flynt shrugged resignedly. “Losing Mark, not knowing what happened to him, ruined my parents' marriage. They turned all their pain and anger against each other. They were either quarreling or not speaking a word.”

“And you didn't know what to do. To try to help smooth things over or to keep out of it.” Angelica nodded her understanding. Over the years she herself had wondered what role to take in the countless fights between Romina and her men.

“Mostly, I tried to stay away. My refuge was school and sports. I played on every team and joined every organization. Dad finally moved out when I was fifteen. I wanted to live with him, but Mom wouldn't hear of it, solely out of spite, I'm sure, because she and I didn't get along at all. A year later, Dad was killed in a car accident.”

“Flynt, I don't know what to say.” There were no words, so Angelica expressed herself physically. She leaned over and wrapped her arms around his waist in a hug. “It's so sad, it's such a tragedy.”

She tried to hold him tighter but their separate chairs kept her from being as close to him as she needed to be. It was the most natural thing in the world for her to move from her chair onto his lap.

“I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,” she whispered, stroking his cheek, his neck with her fingertips.

Flynt closed one hand around her throat and tilted her head. “It's all right,” he said softly, staring into her dark eyes that glistened with tears. “Bad as it was, I gained some invaluable lessons. I grew up fast, and I learned early on the difference between illusion and truth, which some people never do get straight.”

His lips twisted into a cynical smile. “The illusion is the vow that starry-eyed couples take to stick together for better or for worse, in good times and in bad. The truth is that when atrocious things happen—like losing a child—it's likely that the couple will split because they can't stand the sight of each other. Each reminds the other of the pain and all that lost promise.”

“That's what happened to your parents.” Angelica tried and failed to swallow a sob.

“Don't cry,” he murmured. “It happened so long ago, it's over now.”

It seemed incongruous that he was attempting to comfort her, but that was Flynt, determined and strong and controlled. She traced his lips with her thumb. “Flynt, you—you don't have to be brave around me, you can let the pain show.”

She wanted to share the hurt he'd felt, then and now; she didn't want to be protected from it. Instinctively she wound her arms around his neck.

Their lips met and they kissed with lingering tenderness that swiftly flared into something hotter, wilder and more demanding. The first kiss blended into a second, then a third, seamless and intimate.