Not For Sale (14 page)

Lucas meant nothing to her.

Oliver did.

Tomorrow was Sunday, but Lucas would be going to his office. He’d told her so, even sounded apologetic about it. Well, as soon as she knew he’d left, she’d go collect the cat. She hated leaving him alone at Lucas’s tonight.

Lucas wouldn’t turn him out, would he?

No. The man obviously had a block of ice where he was supposed to have a heart but even he wouldn’t do a thing like that.

Caroline reached for a towel, dried her face and hands.

It was time to make plans.

She’d get Oliver. And her things. Well, not all of them. Managing to carry a cat home on the subway would be difficult
enough, assuming you could take a cat on the subway. But a cat and a suitcase—a cat, a suitcase, her laptop computer, half a dozen boxes of files and books, and the fern, she wouldn’t abandon the fern.

But Oliver came first. He needed her. And she needed him. She loved him. She always would.

“You hear that, Oliver?” she said, as fiercely, as if he could hear her. “I love you. And I’ll always love you. Always, Lucas, no matter what, and—”

And, she meant Oliver, of course. The cat. Not Lucas. Not him. What was there to love? Why would she waste her tears on Lucas Vieira?

“Oh, God,” Caroline whispered.

She sank to the linoleum floor, brought her knees up to her chest, buried her face in her hands.

And wept.

Sunday morning dawned gray, rainy and ugly.

Mrs. Kennelly, who had Saturdays and Mondays off, arrived at her usual time. Lucas was waiting impatiently to be told his car had arrived.

“Morning, sir,” she said.

Lucas grunted a reply. She looked at him, raised an eyebrow.

“Would you like me to put on some coffee?”

Another grunt.

“Perhaps Ms. Hamilton would care for—”

“Ms. Hamilton no longer lives here,” Lucas said coldly. “And where in hell is my driver? ”

The house phone rang. His car had arrived.

“About time,” Lucas growled, and went down to the lobby.

His driver took one glance at him and didn’t even venture a
“good morning.” When he reached his office, his P.A. looked up from her computer, saw his face and averted her eyes.

What the hell was wrong with everybody? Lucas thought angrily, and strode past her.

Word went around. The big man had a look to him that said,
Screw with me and heads will roll.

Nobody was that dumb. They figured something had gone wrong with the French deal. Except, they’d seen things go wrong on other occasions and he’d never looked so—so.

“So closed off,” one of his assistants whispered.

Closed off. Yes. They all agreed that was the perfect description.

The good news was that nothing had gone wrong with the French deal because when Lucas met with his people, he told them the contract would be finalized today.

One of his men, younger and newer than the others, cleared his throat.

“Then, uh, then nothing’s wrong, sir?”

The look Lucas flashed made them all pull their necks lower into their shirts and shrink back in their seats around the big conference room table.

“Why would you think something was wrong?” he snarled.

No one was foolish enough to answer.

He made it through the meetings.

Made it through lunch with the Frenchman.

“Did everything work out with your lady yesterday?” the Frenchman said, over a glass of red wine.

The muscle in Lucas’s jaw flexed.

“Yes.”

That was all he said, but a look passed between the two men.

“Sometimes,” the Frenchman said quietly, “life is not quite what we expect.”

Gallic wisdom? Or the Bordeaux? Lucas wasn’t sure which. He simply nodded in agreement. They finished lunch, shook hands and that was that.

He got home after seven, tired, fighting a headache that had already defeated four aspirin tablets, and trying hard to concentrate on the deal he’d concluded. The Rostov contract had been important. This one would move Vieira Financial to a level all its own, something he’d been working to achieve for years.

And he thought,
So what?

There was a note from Mrs. Kennelly on the kitchen counter. She’d had to leave a bit early, she hoped he didn’t mind. And the phone was out, some sort of problem the storm had left behind. The phone company promised things would be back to normal within the next several hours.

Lucas showered. Put on jeans, a T-shirt, mocs. Started for the stairs and, instead, walked slowly down the hall, to the guest suite.

Caroline’s things were still there. Her scent, that soft vanilla fragrance, was in the air.

The ridiculous fern stood on a table near the window, but it didn’t look as pathetic anymore. The fronds were green, lacy, healthy. A little TLC had revived it.

That was the thing about tender, loving care. It could work wonders.

Lucas scowled, went downstairs to the kitchen, checked to be sure Oliver had food and water. He did. So did Lucas. There were a couple of bottles of Corona in the refrigerator and a pan of something on the counter.

Lucas opened a beer, heated the pan, dumped the contents on a plate and poked at it with his fork. Oliver came into the kitchen, tail up and crooked, looked at him and said,
“Meow?”

“Yeah,” Lucas said, “hello to you, too.” He stabbed at his dinner again. Looked at Oliver. “Wanna try some?”

The cat approached. Accepted a tidbit from Lucas’s fingers. Chewed, swallowed, but Lucas could see the cat was just being polite.

“Me, too,” he said, and dumped the rest into the trash. When he sat down again, the cat jumped into his lap.

“So,” Lucas said, “how was your day?”

“Mrrow.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear it. My day was fine, too.”

“Meow?”

“I concluded a deal. I’m excited about it.” About as excited as the cat had been over that mouthful of food. Lucas sighed, scooped Oliver into his arms and walked into his study, sank down on a burgundy leather love seat, the cat in his lap.

“About this deal…”

The cat shut its eyes. Lucas nodded.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t much give a damn, either. Crazy, isn’t it? Last month, last week, I’d have been doing handstands…”

Last month, last week, he had not yet met Caroline.

And he had not yet lost her.

He cleared his throat. “The thing is,” he said, “I know I should feel pleased about this French thing, but—”

But, he didn’t feel much of anything.

Except alone. And lost. And painfully, brutally lonely. For Caroline, and wasn’t that pathetic? Amazing, how good her masquerade had been, that he should think he missed her now.

He thought of those couple of days in the Hamptons. The joy she’d taken—the joy she’d seemed to take in the simple things they’d done. Walking the beach. Swimming in the pool. Strolling the streets of the village, hand in hand with him.

Watching the stars burn against the black silk of the night sky.

“Oh, how beautiful,” she’d said.

“Beautiful,” he’d agreed, but he’d been talking about her. Not just her face but her sweetness, that special quality that made her the woman she was.

The woman he’d thought she was.

Could he…Was there any possibility he’d been wrong? Heard what she’d said wrong? Misunderstood it? His throat constricted. Maybe. Maybe…

No. He’d heard the conversation. Her end of it, anyway, heard her say those things to Dani…

He gave himself a couple of seconds. Then he put Oliver on the love seat and went to his desk. He had to keep busy. That was what he always did, what he had done all his life. He’d make some notes about an investment that had caught his eye, some details he wanted researched.

What was that?

A small package sat on the edge of his desk, half-hidden by his appointment calendar. It was brightly wrapped, tied with a ribbon, festooned with a bow.

Puzzled, he tore open the wrapping paper. There was a small book inside.

A
Guide To The Stars
.

He felt a sudden tightness in his throat.

Slowly, carefully, he opened the book to the title page. And saw an inscription done in a delicate, feminine hand.

Lucas didn’t move. Didn’t blink. He just stared at the page. At what she’d written, what she’d said, how she’d signed her name. Not just “Caroline” but “Your Caroline.”

How many times had he thought of her just that way? As his. His Caroline. His loving, giving, innocent Caroline. Because she was all those things.

She was.

“God,” he whispered, “oh, God!”

What had he done?

To hell with what he’d overheard in that phone call. Everything he’d accused her of being, of doing, was a lie. His Caroline had never sold herself, never given herself to anyone or anything except with honesty and honor. He knew that as surely as he knew that the world was round.

Whatever he’d overheard in the phone conversation surely had a simple explanation.

Why hadn’t he asked? Better still, why had he let himself leap to such an ugly conclusion?

Because he was a coward. Because he’d been terrified of putting his heart in Caroline’s hands. Because he’d been afraid she’d break it.

Because it had been safer to drive her away.

He loved her.

He’d loved her from that first night when she’d dealt with him, with Leo Rostov, with Ilana Rostov, with all the unexpected nonsense he’d dumped on her, and never once flinched.

He’d loved her as soon as she’d gone into his arms, kissed him, responded to his passion with all the honesty in her heart, just as if they’d been waiting for each other all their lives.

And he had been. Waiting. For her. For his Caroline. For a love that was fearless and deep and true.

A love he had pushed away.

Could he get her back? Would she ever speak to him again, much less love him? Because she had loved him. She had loved him as he loved her until he’d said those terrible things…

“Mrrrow,”
Oliver said from the depths of the leather love seat.

He had to get her back, but he needed a plan. He never acted on anything without a plan.

“Mrrow,”
the cat said again.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He hadn’t planned any of what had happened with Caroline. That was how he’d won her. And how he’d lost her.

Lucas shot to his feet. Got a jacket. Five seconds later, he was gone.

Caroline stood on Fifth Avenue, Central Park behind her, Lucas’s condominium building directly opposite her on the other side of the street.

It was raining. Drizzling, really, but the stuff was cold and she’d left her apartment in such a mad rush that she’d neglected to take an umbrella or a rain jacket.

What now? she kept thinking, but she couldn’t come up with an answer.

She had come to get Oliver after a day of trying to reach Mrs. Kennelly with no success. She’d phoned first thing this morning but nobody answered. Voice mail didn’t pick up, either.

She’d tried again. And again. And again. The phone just kept ringing. Either nobody was home or nobody was answering the phone, and that left her with a problem.

The last thing she wanted was to go to Lucas’s building, take the elevator to his penthouse and have the bad luck of finding him there. Not that he meant anything to her. That was over. She just didn’t want any unpleasant run-ins, that was all.

And then there was another possibility. It was even worse.

Suppose she walked into the lobby and the doorman who’d
been so friendly, the concierge who’d been so nice, told her that Mr. Vieira had left instructions to deny her entrance to his apartment?

To his life.

She wasn’t sure she could have survived that.

So she’d kept phoning, pausing only long enough to take a call from Dani, who’d wanted to know if she was going to do the translating job or not.

“Not,” Caroline had said, and then she’d taken a long, deep breath because, by now, it was all coming together, Lucas’s fury when he found her accepting money from Dani, his fury when he’d overheard that phone call. Little things had finally added up, and she was entitled to some answers. “Dani?” she’d said. “How can you afford that townhouse? Those clothes? What, exactly, do you do for a living? ”

Dani had given a low, delighted laugh.

“You’re such a country mouse, Caroline! I thought you’d never figure it out. What I do for a living is just what you think I do.” The laughter had left her voice. “And don’t you dare sit in judgment on me!”

No, Caroline thought, she wouldn’t. Who was she to sit in judgment on anyone after these last few days?

Judging Lucas, though…That was different. That he could have thought she was—she was what Dani was. Or that she was with him for his money.

Never mind.

Right now, Oliver was her sole concern. She was sure he must be scared half to death, alone and lonely as he tried to stay out of Lucas’s way. She had to go and get the cat, no matter what happened in the process.

“You are not a coward,” she’d told herself grimly, only a couple of hours ago.

Wrong, she thought now. She
was
a coward. Standing here, in the cold drizzle, instead of going to get her cat, proved it.

That she’d let herself think she still loved Lucas proved it, too. She didn’t love him, of course. She knew that, now. She was a romantic fool, was all, and—

The light changed. Caroline took a deep breath, stepped off the curb and ran across the street. The lobby door opened.

“Ms. Hamilton,” the night doorman said, “what are you doing out on an evening like—”

A sudden gust of wind all but tore the heavy door from his hand. Caroline staggered forward. Her hair whipped across her face, obscuring her vision, and she stumbled against something hard and big and unyielding…

Not “something.”

Lucas.

She knew it even before he said, in a tones of disbelief, “Caroline?” She knew it because she knew the feel of him, the scent of him, and her heart began to thud.