Bravo Unwrapped Page 2

  The last time she’d seen Wyatt was the day four months ago when she’d told him she wouldn’t be seeing him anymore.

  Her hand began to shake. Cool milk and espresso sloshed on her wrist and stained her pink blouse.

  He wouldn’t.

  He couldn’t….

  Oh, but he had.

  You know her when you see her. She’s tall and she’s smart and she has great legs. Great legs and killer shoes on her narrow, perfect feet. You know the kind of shoes I mean. Shoes with fancy Italian names and price tags to match, shoes with high, pointed heels that have you dreaming of what it might be like if she wore them and took a walk on your chest.

  If you’re lucky, she might do just that.

  She makes the rules. And she makes sure you live by them. That is, until she’s through with you—which, believe me, will be sooner than you think.

  Okay, big guy. I know what you’re muttering right about now. No driven, focused, powerful steamroller career woman for you. You don’t go for that type.

  Let me tell you. You would. You could. In the dark heart of every man lies a yearning for a dangerous woman he cannot control. She is that woman. She could have you if she wanted you. One glance from those frosty gray-blue eyes and you are her slave.

  In bed, she—

  B.J. shut her—admittedly—gray-blue eyes. But shutting them didn’t do any good. When she opened them again, the damn article was still there—the article about her written by her sleazeball ex-boyfriend, Wyatt. Oh, she should have known better than ever to get involved with him.

  He’d seemed so…nice. So harmless. So sweet, really. At first, anyway. But then the niceness began to get on her nerves. The sweetness got cloying. She found herself doing what she always did with men she’d dated in the past six years: she compared him to—

  No. Not the B-word. She wasn’t thinking about B— No way. No more. Not today.

  And she really, truly had to face it: she was good at a lot of things. Especially her job. But men? Not her forte. Every time she tried with one—which wasn’t all that often, no matter what Wyatt Epperstall wanted every TopMale subscriber to think…whenever she tried with one, it always ended badly.

  Just like it had with Buck.

  Oh, God. Buck…

  And there. She’d done it. Thought his whole first name, again—twice—not thirty seconds after promising herself she wouldn’t.

  Note to self: Do not think of B.

  Second note to self: No. More. Boyfriends. Ever.

  And really, she should never have taken that big sip of latte. Because, for some reason, her swallowing mechanism seemed to be malfunctioning. Her stomach was rising.

  B.J. knocked over her chair as she stood. The latte went flying. It hit the floor and splattered—across the floor tiles, up the wall. She glanced frantically around.

  Oh, God. What she wouldn’t give right now for the corner office—the one her father never used, the one with its own damn bathroom, for pity’s sake.

  She spotted her wastebasket in the corner. What else could she do? Making hideous gagging noises, she staggered toward it….

  Good thing she had Giles. Once she was through ruining both her blouse and the wastebasket, she buzzed him and he came right in.

  He shut the door. “Darling, my God,” he said, wincing and wrinkling his patrician nose. Then he considered. “Ditch the blouse. Wear the blazer, buttoned up. It’s going to be fine. I’ll just crack the window…”

  He went out while she changed and came back with one of the maintenance people. She escaped to the ladies’ room. When she returned, her office smelled of floral air freshener. The wastebasket had been replaced and the splattered latte mopped up. She gave the maintenance guy a massive tip and he took the blouse, promising he’d have it back, good as new, in a day or two.

  “Alrighty.” She forced a grateful smile, thinking at the same time that if she never saw that blouse again, it would be more than alrighty with her. The janitor left her alone with her assistant.

  Giles looked at her and frowned. “Go home,” he said.

  “Not on your life—BTW, you are invaluable.”

  “I am, aren’t I?”

  “And it’s ten-fifty-five. Arnie awaits….”

  The meeting was not a success.

  They came up with zip. The alternative features simply wouldn’t do. Either the slant was wrong or the story wasn’t big enough for the cover. There was nothing in the works that could effectively be moved up. Fresh ideas were in short supply.

  Arnie told her to “work it out” and get back to him by the end of the day.

  After the meeting, there was lunch. B.J. took a pass on that. She ate more crackers from the box she’d stowed in her desk and drank some water and racked her exhausted brain for a solution to the cover-feature dilemma. Racking did nothing. Her brain refused to spit out a single viable idea.

  The afternoon brought more meetings. Tense ones. She made frequent trips to the restroom and avoided the eyes of her colleagues. When she wasn’t in a meeting or hugging the toilet bowl, she received sniggering and/or sympathetic calls from acquaintances and associates who had seen—one even went so far as to say she had devoured—the “Man-Eater” article.

  At four-thirty she met with Arnie again—to tell him she’d have something for him by the next day. Arnie was not pleased.

  At five, as she and Giles were brainstorming madly, her outside line, set on silent page, began flashing. She glanced at the display. Her father. So not the person she wanted to talk to right then. But also not someone she could ignore.

  “L.T.,” she said to Giles. Her father’s name was Langly Titus, but everyone, including B.J., called him L.T.

  Giles nodded, got up, and left her alone.

  She picked up. “Hello, L.T.”

  “We need to talk,” said her father, and then fell silent. L. T. Carlyle fully understood the power of silence. He would make pronouncements, then wait. And wait some more. First one to speak was the loser. L.T. never lost.

  B.J. allowed a full count of ten to elapse before prompting wearily, “About?”

  More silence. Then, at last, “First, and of minimal importance, that pissant, Wayne Epstein.”

  “Wyatt. Wyatt Epperstall,” she patiently corrected as her stomach gave a nasty little lurch. So. L.T. had read the “Man-Eater” article. She wasn’t surprised. Though he rarely left his world-famous mansion, Castle Carlyle, upstate, L.T. made it his business to know just about everything that was going on in the outside world. He subscribed to every newspaper and magazine known to man, TopMale included. And he could read two thousand words a minute.

  “Wyatt, schmyatt,” grumbled L.T. “A wimpy, whiny-assed piece of work if ever there was one. Didn’t I warn you about him?”

  “Yes,” she said carefully. “I believe that you did.”

  L.T. laughed his lusty laugh. “But I have to say, B.J.

  You make your old dad proud.”

  “Oh? How’s that?” she asked, though she knew she wouldn’t like the answer.

  She didn’t.

  He said, “‘Manhattan Man-Eater.’ That’s my girl. Tough, smart and always on top. Takes after her old man, and that is no lie.”

  “Gee, L.T. I never thought of it that way.”

  “Do I detect a note of sarcasm? Stand tall. Be proud. Let the Waldos of the world whine and whimper.”

  “Wyatt. The weasel’s name is Wyatt. And I’m sorry. But I don’t see it that way. That article just happens to be a total invasion of my privacy.”

  Her father swore. Eloquently. “B.J. You shame me. You’ve got to do something about that Puritanical streak.”

  That was way below the belt. B.J. was no Puritan, far from it. But she wasn’t an exhibitionist either. She wanted the details of her private life to remain exactly that: private.

  She said nothing. She told herself she was exercising the power of silence on L.T. for a change, though in reality she was simply too frustrated and miserabl
e at that moment to speak. Her head pounded and her stomach kept threatening to eject its contents all over her desk pad.

  She hated to admit it, but maybe she should have stayed home today, after all.

  L.T. moved right on to the next item on his agenda.

  “I heard about the Three Wise Men.” Again, no surprise. Arnie would have called him. “Too bad, so sad. And I’ve got it covered.”

  She sat a little straighter. “Meaning?”

  “I’m on top of the problem. I’ll tell you all about it. Tonight. Dinner at eight. Be here. We’ll put this situation to bed.”

  “A story?” She sounded ridiculously grateful—and she didn’t even care that she did. “You’ve got my Christmas feature story?”

  “I have. And it’s good. Very good. Puts those puny Wise Men to shame—if I do say so myself.”

  “The story. What is it?”

  “Tonight.”

  “L.T., I can’t. Not tonight. I’ll be here at the office until nine, at least. I have a mountain of work to…” She heard the click, right there in the middle of her sentence. Her father had hung up.

  During the limo ride upstate, B.J. tried to work. Her queasy stomach wasn’t going for it. She ended up staring out the window, tamping down her frustration and resentment that L.T. just had to step in, that he’d ordered her presence upstate and refused to listen when she tried to tell him she didn’t have time for the trip. The loss of the Wise Brothers was her problem, her challenge to handle as she saw fit.

  Or at least, it should have been.

  Then again…

  I’m a true professional, she reminded herself—which meant she’d take any help she could get. And as autocratic as he could be at times, her father was a genius when it came to knowing—and getting—what was needed for Alpha. So if L.T. said he had her cover story, he probably did.

  She shouldn’t be so put out with him—and she wasn’t, not really.

  Not any more than she was put out with her life in general in the past five days. Or maybe not so much put out as freaked out. Since the stick turned blue, as they say. Since the panel said pregnant.

  Six years since she called it quits with…B. She’d moved on. He’d moved on.

  And then, seven weeks ago, she’d run into him. Your classic Friday night at that great club in NoHo, the underground one with the incredible sound system. Fabulous music and one too many excellent Manhattans and they’d ended up at his place. She wasn’t careful—with B, that had always been her problem: a failure to be careful.

  Or one of her problems, anyway. To be painfully frank, there were several.

  So she’d slipped up, she’d reasoned, feeling like a drunk off the wagon, a junkie back on the stuff. Once in six years. That wasn’t so bad she kept telling herself. Oh, no. Not so bad. Not to worry. She wasn’t taking his calls. He was out of her life and she’d make absolutely certain that what had happened in September would never happen again…

  And then, just when she’d pretty much succeeded in convincing herself that one tiny slip-up did not a crisis make, she’d realized her period was late.

  Very late.

  Thus, the disastrous encounter with the pregnancy kit five mornings ago. Now, everything was all messed up all over again.

  And speaking of again, she was doing it. Again. Thinking about B, and what had happened with B and the result of what had happened with B—all of which was not to be thought about. Not tonight. Not…for a while.

  The limo rolled up to the iron gates that protected the Carlyle estate. The gates swung silently back. The stately car moved onward, up the long, curving drive that snaked its way through a forest of oak and locust trees, trees somewhat past their fall glory and soon to be winter-bare.

  At the crest of the hill, the trees gave ground and there it was: Castle Carlyle, a Gothic monstrosity of gray stone, a Norman conqueror’s wet dream of turrets and towers looming proudly against the night sky.

  Roderick opened the massive front door for her. Roderick was tall and gaunt and always wore a black suit with a starched white shirt and a bow tie. He’d run the castle since before her father had bought the estate from an eccentric Dutch-born millionaire twenty years back. L.T. liked to joke that Roderick came with the castle.

  “Ms. B.J. Lovely to see you,” Roderick said with a faint, slightly pained smile. He wasn’t very good at smiling. Loyalty and efficiency were his best qualities.

  “Roderick,” she said with a nod, as he relieved her of her bag and briefcase. “The oak room?” she asked. Roderick inclined his silver-gray head. She told him, “I’ll see myself in.”

  “As you wish.”

  Her heels echoing on the polished stone floor, B.J. proceeded beneath the series of arches down the length of the cavernous entry hall, past a dizzying array of animal heads mounted along the walls. For about a decade, back when B.J. was growing up, L.T. had amused himself hunting big game all over the world. Being neither a modest nor a subtle man, L.T. proudly displayed every trophy he took—whether it was a handsome buck with a giant rack, or one of an endless string of gorgeous girlfriends known in the press as his Alpha Girls.

  The oak room, named for the dark, heavily carved woodwork that adorned every wall, branched off toward the end of the entrance hall. The room boasted a long bar at one end, also ornately carved. L.T., wearing his favorite maroon satin smoking jacket over black slacks, sat in a leather wing chair near the bar, a Scotch at his elbow and one of his trademark Cuban cigars wedged between the fingers of his big, blunt-fingered right hand.

  His current Alpha Girl, Jessica, had found a perch on the arm of his chair. Jessica was, as usual, looking stunning. Tonight she wore red velvet, her plunging neckline ending just below the diamond sparkling in her navel. As B.J. entered, Jessica threw back her slim golden neck and trilled out a breathless laugh.

  L.T. and his Alpha Girl weren’t alone. On a brocade sofa across a Moorish-style coffee table from the pair sat the one person B.J. did not want to see.

  Buck Bravo, in the flesh.

  Two

  Jessica spotted B.J. first.

  “B.J.,” said the Alpha Girl breathlessly—Jessica did just about everything breathlessly. “How are you?”

  “About time,” said L.T., and puffed on his cigar. He tipped his steel-gray head in Buck’s direction. “As I recall, you two have met.”

  B.J. resisted the urge to say something scathing. L.T. knew very well that she and Buck had once been in love. He also knew that it had ended badly and that Buck was not, by any stretch of an active imagination, B.J.’s favorite person.

  Yes, okay. She’d had sex with the man last month. Or nearly two months ago, actually. Sometimes even a smart woman makes mistakes, especially when there are too many Manhattans involved. But no way would L.T. know that. Buck could be ten kinds of unmitigated SOB, but he wasn’t the type to go blabbing about subjects that were nobody’s business.

  “Hello, Buck,” she said and tried not to sneer.

  “B.J.” He looked at her through those sexy dark eyes of his and, in spite of her determination to remain unaffected, she felt the familiar thrill go pulsing through her.

  Dumb. Stupid. Never again.

  She ordered her mind off steamy images of her and Buck—in his bed, minus their clothes—and turned to her father. “I thought you ordered me up here to discuss my Christmas cover feature.”

  L.T. blew out a thick cloud of cigar smoke. “That is exactly what I did.”

  B.J. sent a sideways glance at the handsome hunk of aggravating temptation sprawled on the crimson sofa—and then spoke to L.T. again. “Buck has a story?”

  “Not a story,” said her father, gesturing grandly with his double corona. “The story.”

  Her pulse picked up—this time for purely professional reasons. Buck, after all, was your quintessential Alpha male. He was not only a gold miner, a cow-puncher, a wildcatter and a bull rider. He also just happened to be a top-notch journalist and a bestselling author. Black Gold,
his gritty exposé of life—and death—on a Texas oil rig, had hit the bookstores in June and quickly climbed all the major lists.

  If Buck had a story for her…

  Oh, yeah. Just his name on the byline would be a coup. She should have thought of him. And she probably would have—if they didn’t have a serious past. If she hadn’t been so busy ignoring his phone calls. If she didn’t just happen to be pregnant with his baby…

  She made herself look directly at him. “Okay. I’m listening.”

  Buck smiled that charming, infuriating, warm, slow smile of his. The one that had made her fall in love with him in the first place, back in that fateful February, when they were both slaving away in the boiler room of Alpha’s circulation department. Back then, B.J., fresh out of Brandeis, was in the early stages of learning her father’s company from the ground up. Buck? Straight off a West Texas oil rig, still shaking the red dust off his boots, getting his start in the big city, determined to be a writer, though he had no formal education beyond a high-school diploma.

  “Well?” she prompted, when Buck gave her nothing except that killer smile.

  Her father chuckled. “Patience, B.J. How about a drink?”

  “I’ll pass.”

  L.T. stubbed out his hundred-dollar cigar in the brass dish beside his glass of Scotch. Then he stood and held out his hand to Jessica. With a glowing smile, she took it. He kissed her slim fingers. “Then let’s sit down to dinner, shall we?” He gestured at the round table across the room. It was set for four, with a white cloth, gleaming crystal and china rimmed in gold. “Nothing like a good meal to get the creative juices flowing.”

  What a night. Face-to-face with Buck again. And now she’d be expected to eat. Her father loved nothing so much as a nice, big slab of rare red meat. Ugh. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to…freshen up a little.”