Bonefire of the Vanities (28 page)

Shimmer’s mouth snapped shut. Contrary to everything I’d witnessed regarding Roscoe, he settled under the table without any fuss. Harold had either sedated the damn dog or lobotomized him.

At the first opportunity, I’d ask Harold about snaz-a-pooty. I was positive he’d invented the term. Then again, there were DNA tests available at local vet clinics to determine the different breeds mixed in a mutt. Had I guessed Roscoe’s lineage, though, I would have said imp-a-demon. It would not surprise me to learn Roscoe didn’t have a single fiber of canine DNA. I couldn’t wait to see how Harold would escape Heart’s Desire without Roscoe peeing on some paper.

I busied myself setting the table for Harold’s snack while he and Graf talked with great gusto about the stock market and what investments were doing well. Roger Addleson was nobody’s fool, and when he joined in, I saw Brandy was surreptitiously making investments notes on a small pad in her lap. Graf would never be questioned now. He was accepted as a high roller.

“Mr. Graf, what brings you to Heart’s Desire?” Marjorie asked.

“The same thing as everyone else,” Graf said. “I want to participate in developing a strategy to rule the world. We must stop the wars and the strife. One world, one rule. Greed for oil resources has defined the last forty years of global history.” He refilled his wineglass. “I have it on good authority that in the next decade, we’ll be fighting a foe far more advanced than the Middle East or each other.”

I held my breath.

“What foe?” Brandy asked.

“The extraterrestrials.” Graf didn’t blink. “They’re out there. Watching for the opportune moment. After we’ve depleted the water supply on this planet, we’ll be ripe for the plucking. They’ll make us their slaves.”

A profound silence settled over the room.

“You believe in aliens and a dog that picks stocks by peeing on them?” Roger Addleson shifted his seat away from Graf. Five minutes before, he’d hung on Graf’s every word. Now he questioned Graf’s sanity. It was a bravo performance by the man I loved.

“Indeed, I do. I received Sherry’s letter outlining the whole plan for building a consensus of wealth and intelligence to forge better governing power. That’s why I’m here.” He smiled at Brandy. “These two ladies who founded Heart’s Desire, with their connections to the plane of the departed, have insights to benefit the rest of us. Am I right, ladies?”

“Absolutely.” Brandy was monotone.

Graf ignored her lack of enthusiasm. “I do believe Mr. Erkwell needs to return to the bank and make these transfers. It takes time moving large amounts of money around. I want a substantial sum available for the work we’re engaged in here,” Graf said. “Tomorrow, I’ll invite Mr. Erkwell to return with Roscoe for a demonstration of his talents. Of course, there will be a fee involved. But right now, I require a nap and utter privacy. I don’t want to hear so much as a footfall outside my doorway, is that understood?”

At last, Graf had cleared the deck for our reunion.

*   *   *

“You’ve lost weight, Sarah Booth.” Graf’s hands grasped my waist. “I like a woman with a little meat on her bones.” We embraced at the foot of a king-sized bed in a room painted in shades of mocha and cream. Where the other rooms I’d visited were soft and feminine, this was a masculine room. Instead of sheers, the windows were covered with heavy damask, a paisley print that incorporated shades of espresso, latte, and café au lait.

“I don’t think I’ve had a decent meal since I’ve been here. Palk hates for the staff to eat, and the head chef doesn’t approve of snacks. Why is this called the Lotus Suite when the color scheme has to do with coffee? I could use a good strong cup of coffee.” I was babbling. Nerves. Imagine, I was nervous with my own fiancé.

“I can call for a tray of something.”

I captured his wrist and quickly spun his arm behind his back. “Not unless you want me to hurt you.” I couldn’t turn into some simpering, virginal girl. Graf loved me because I was tough and daring.

He laughed as he twisted free and scooped me up in his arms. In a moment, I was bouncing on the bed and he was on top of me. “We should talk,” he said. His expression was so serious, I did a double-take. Then I saw the devilment in his eyes.

“Talk, my foot. I don’t want to talk. I want to make love. For the rest of the day. I don’t want food or drink or anything except you.” My words came straight from my heart. “I want to wallow in our love.”

“Not exactly the sentiments for a sonnet.” Graf uttered a
tsk, tsk
. “I can see you need your rough edges smoothed out.”

“A nice metaphor for getting—”

He put a finger to my lips. “Sarah Booth, you shock me! Remember, men like to pursue a woman. The chase gets our blood up.”

“Seems to me you don’t have any trouble in the circulatory department right now. Unless you’re carrying a gun in your boxers.”

“Why, Sarah Booth! You make me blush.”

“Graf Milieu, I never dreamed of you as a coy tease. After your performance today as a mega-macho millionaire, I think you should do a Dos Equis commercial.” I adopted a sultry, Latin accent. “You are the most fascinating man in the world. You enter a room, other men wilt. Ah, but women, their panties spontaneously combust.”

Graf laughed, and I loved that he could find humor when I teased him about himself.

“Don’t pretend to be a shy, retiring John-Boy Walton–type.
I
make you blush? I daresay the scenes you filmed for your new movie will make me jealous.”

He tugged the waistband of my khakis and unbuckled my belt. Very carefully, with great attention to the art of seductive disrobing, he began to remove my clothes. “I hope so, Sarah Booth. I want you to be so jealous, you won’t let me out of your sight.”

The truth was, I didn’t want to see Graf in bed with another woman. It was only a movie and I trusted him completely. Still, I was only human, and I’d compare myself to the actress Natasha Crowley, a brunette nuclear reactor who was a decade younger than me. What a time to hear the loud ticking of my biological clock! Jitty would be impressed with the way she’d trained me. “How intense was the scene with Natasha?”

Graf’s answer was a crooked smile and a sliding gaze.

“How intense?” I tried to keep it light but failed miserably.

“You’re jealous.” Graf pulled off my slacks and set to work on the placket of my polo shirt.

His hands slid beneath the shirt and moved over my rib cage and then higher. The warmth of his palms against my bare skin made my breath grow faster. “Maybe a little.” I hated to admit it, but I refused to lie.

“I am thrilled.” He pulled the shirt over my head and kissed me hard. He gathered me into his arms and reminded me that nothing on earth compared to these intimate moments with him. “Knowing you’re jealous makes me love you more.”

Men. What a crazy species.

Graf’s kiss softened, and he gently eased me, a panting mess, onto the pillows. “Does she kiss better than I do?” I asked, hating my weakness. Where had this sudden jealousy come from? Up until this moment I hadn’t thought of Graf filming scenes with Natasha Crowley, and now I was letting some movie business make me unhappy and worried. As my aunt Loulane would say, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” I was feeling Graf’s career-induced pain. He was worried I’d be injured, and I was worried he’d found too much pleasure in the arms of an actress.

“Nobody kisses better than you, Sarah Booth. I think there should probably be a warning label on your kisses. ‘Sample this and lose your mind.’ I can’t think about anything but how much I want you. I’ve never known another woman who makes me feel what you do. You’re my drug of choice.”

Maybe being a little jealous wasn’t a bad thing. I was determined to please my man and let him know how much I’d missed him. My arms circled his neck and I caressed him with my lips and tongue. “I know how to bring you to your knees, Graf Milieu.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” he whispered as he nuzzled my ear, sending shivers all over me. “I know your weakness, Sarah Booth Delaney.”

His fingers found the ticklish spot on the inside of my hip bone and I squealed. “You are a devil man!” I tried to wriggle away from him, but he had me pinned. Struggle as I might, I couldn’t battle his superior strength. Truth be told, I didn’t struggle too hard. My body against his body—what was to struggle away from?

He caught my arms and pinned them above my head while he used his leg to hold my body on the bed. “Will you behave?” he asked.

“Behave?” I laughed out loud. “What 1950s male-dominance tract have you been reading? Women don’t
be-have
in this century.”

Graf’s lips trailed from my ear down my neck, inch by inch down to my collarbone, and farther south. He was driving me insane, and enjoying every second of it.

“I’ve been reading up on my Southern menfolk, and I believe Rhett should have used a firmer hand on Scarlett.” His breath teased my breast.

I had to fight to concentrate on the conversation. “Do I remind you of Scarlett?” No Southern girl in her right mind wouldn’t preen at a comparison to Scarlett O’Hara.

“Oh, you do. Headstrong, willful, uncompromising, incapable of recognizing the right choice even when it’s in front of her nose—”

Nobody was dissing my Scarlett! Not even a man who was driving me to distraction with his choreographed seduction. “Beautiful, strong, independent, brave—”

Graf countered with “Misguided—”

“Maligned—”

“Selfish.” Graf gave me another goose. I squealed and squirmed, but he wasn’t going to get the last word.

“Determined to save her heritage.”

“My god, Sarah Booth, you are magnificent! I’ve missed—” He ended his sentence with a strangled sound, bucking and jumping like Satan had possessed him. I hadn’t seen anything like it since I slipped into the back of a Holy Roller church service when I was in the fifth grade. Graf flailed as if in the throes of either conversion or exorcism.

“Graf?” What the hell happened? Was he having a heart attack? What was wrong?

“Knock it off me!” He flopped over onto his side on the bed, and then I saw the cat, clinging to Graf’s back with all four claws.

“Pluto!” I lurched for the feline, but he was having none of it. He jumped to the headboard of the four-poster and struck a Halloween pose. He was damn good with the frizzed-out tail and arched back. Maybe he could find gainful employment as a model for fright-night posters when I booted his ass out the window.

“What’s wrong with that cat?” Graf twisted to determine the damage to his back. Good thing he couldn’t see it. Pluto had left his mark. Instead of a
Z
for Zorro, there were eight long, bloody claw marks from eight little kitty toes. So far, Pluto was two-for-two with Chasley and Graf.

“I have no idea why Pluto attacked you, or how he got into the room.” The bedroom door was shut and locked. I went to retrieve soap and hot water from the bathroom and noticed the grille for the air-conditioning vent hanging by one screw. The cat was using the duct system to navigate the house.

I soaked a washcloth in cool water and tended to Graf’s back with tenderness—and a bit of victory. “I hope you don’t have any more bedroom shots with Natasha. These claw marks would look…” Like they’d enjoyed hot, wild sex.

“Ouch!” Graf flinched as I applied a bit more pressure than I meant to.

“Sorry.”

He shifted so he could eye Pluto. “Is Chasley right? Is the cat a danger? I mean, why shouldn’t animals be psychotic if people can be?”

Still sitting on the headboard, Pluto licked a front paw and purred. “I don’t think he’s dangerous. He’s only displayed aggression when Chasley tried to break into Marjorie’s suite and now. Maybe he suffers from multiple personalities.”

Another thought occurred to me. “Or maybe he thought you were hurting me. When you tickled me and I screamed. He had to be hiding in the AC vent.” I pointed it out to Graf. “He heard me yell, and he jumped right on your back. From his perspective, he might have thought you were brutalizing me.”

An expression crossed Graf’s face, and in it I saw trouble.

“Oh, no, we are not testing that theory!” I tried to grasp his wrist.

He grinned. “Just a tiny test.”

“How?”

I should never have asked. He grabbed me and I let out a startled whoop. Pluto cleared the space between the headboard and Graf in under a second. He sprang between us, arched his back, and growled.

“He’s your protector, Sarah Booth.” Graf gave the cat an appreciative nod. “He attacked me because he perceived me as a danger to you.”

“But he’s Marjorie’s cat.”

I wasn’t screaming, and Graf risked offering his hand to Pluto, who seemed to accept Graf meant me no harm. He rubbed his whiskers on Graf’s fingers. “He’s one smart kitty.”

“I never considered you might be a cat person, Graf.” My fiancé had taken to my horses and he loved Sweetie Pie as much as I did. My mother had adored cats, and we always had half a dozen at Dahlia House. By the time I went to college, they’d died of old age. Knowing I was moving to New York, I hadn’t gotten any more. Since I’d been home, I always figured a cat would find me when it was the right time. “We can adopt a cat if you’d like one. Dahlia House is a great place for felines to romp and roam.”

“I would. Growing up, I had a gray tabby. Stripes. He slept with me every night. I broke my leg tagging out a runner at home base when I was fourteen. I was the star catcher, and I had to sit out the last of the season. I was upset because I couldn’t participate in the play-offs. Stripes spent every day for the whole six weeks I was in a cast lounging across my lap, purring and making sure I stayed calm. He lived to be twenty-two.”

Graf had charmed me yet again. Christmas would be a snap this year. One gray tabby straight from the animal shelter. Maybe it also meant that Graf planned to spend more time in Sunflower County with his soon-to-be bride. We’d made it past the engagement, but we hadn’t started planning our wedding. My future as Mrs. Graf Milieu Delaney had hung by a thread days ago. Now, I couldn’t imagine any future that didn’t include Graf. And I meant to show him.