Behind The Boardroom Door: Savas' Defiant Mistress / Much More Than a Mistress / Innocent 'til Proven Otherwise

CHAPTER SIX

“IS SHE gone?”

The voice on the phone was Max’s. It was midmorning on Sunday and Neely had just come back from taking Harm to the dog park to run with his buddies for an hour.

“From my place or from the state?” Neely replied, not having to ask who he was talking about.

“The state.”

“Nope. Not for a couple of weeks. But she’s not here if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not worried,” Max said gruffly. “Thought I’d drop off the specs for Blake-Carmody, but not if she was there. Want to go sailing after?”

“I can’t. I’m meeting with Stephen Blake tomorrow morning. I need to get all the designs in order. Mom’s out on Vashon staying with a friend. Why don’t you take her sailing?”

“Don’t make me laugh.”

When Max showed up an hour later he still wasn’t laughing. In fact he was edgy and kept glancing around, as if he expected a jack-in-the-box to pop out of a cupboard, rather like she was whenever Sebastian was around.

Only it was more amusing to witness someone else’s agitation rather than feel her own.

“Why isn’t she staying with you?” Max asked without preamble. Again Neely didn’t have to ask who.

“Who would she sleep with? Sebastian?”

Max, who had been prowling the living room, jerked and spun to stare at her.

“Kidding,” Neely said lightly.

Max’s face cleared and he managed a grin. “Very funny.” He gave himself a little shake. “Sure you don’t want to come?” he nodded in the direction of the harbor where his new sailboat was moored.

Neely shook her head and picked up the portfolio she was working on. “Duty calls.”

“Carry on, then,” Max said, and left as quickly as he’d come.

In the silence he left behind, for the first time Neely actually did get some work done. Heaven knew there was plenty to do, and she’d been distracted all week. Now she didn’t sit around waiting for the other shoe to drop—or Sebastian to walk in the front door.

So she was deep in a sketch of one of the condos’ living spaces when the sound of the doorbell jolted her and sent her pencil skittering across the pad.

“Drat,” she muttered under her breath, but got up to answer it, nudging Harm out of the way so he didn’t launch himself enthusiastically at the kid selling cookie dough or magazine subscriptions or at Cody’s mother, come to ask if she could borrow a cup of sugar.

Mentally she prepared to say no to the cookie dough and magazines and yes to the sugar, provided they had any. But when she opened the door there was a young woman standing there looking as surprised to see her as Neely was.

She was probably close to Neely’s age, maybe a bit younger, certainly curvier, which her shorts and halter top all too clearly revealed. She was tall and tanned and had the most gorgeous honey-and-sunlight-colored windblown mass of hair Neely had ever seen.

They stared at each other in silence.

Then Harm, whom Neely held by the collar, said, “Woooof!” in his big deep bloodhound voice, and the other woman’s gaze jerked down to see him and her eyes got even wider.

“I must have the wrong houseboat,” she said, rapidly starting to back away. “I’m looking for Sebastian Savas. But I’ve obviously got it wrong. Excuse me. I—”

It took Neely this long to get her own tongue untangled. “No,” she said, “you don’t. This is…I mean, he lives here.”

And obviously had enough time for at least one gorgeous woman.

“He does?” The woman’s voice almost squeaked. “With you? I mean…I didn’t know he…well, heavens.”

Which was not quite what Neely was thinking, but close.

“He’s not here now though,” she went on, telling herself she was very glad to have met Sebastian’s girlfriend. She could stop thinking about him at all now. Could stop wishing…

“Oh.” The other woman managed a sort of smile.

“I don’t know when he’ll be back,” Neely said. “He’s out of town. But I can tell him you came by.”

“Er, I’m not sure you should,” the woman said. “He’ll probably go ballistic.”

As opposed to being The Iceman? Neely thought. Though it was quite some time since she’d considered him icy in the least. Rather she thought he smouldered. And that was conceivably worse.

“He didn’t tell me where he lived,” the woman confided. “And now I know why.” This time she took her time as her gaze swept over Neely appraisingly.

Oh, dear. “I’m not—I mean, we’re not—I think you’re misunderstanding,” she said quickly, not wanting Sebastian’s girlfriend to get the wrong idea. The last thing she wanted was Sebastian blaming her for the bust-up of whatever sort of relationship he had with this woman. “He’s not my boyfriend,” she assured the woman. “You don’t have to worry.”

The woman laughed. It was a real laugh, too. “I think you’re misunderstanding, too. He’s not my boyfriend, either. He’s my brother.”

Neely goggled. “Your—”

“Brother. Well, half brother, really. The best one in the world,” she said firmly. “For all that he’s a little, um, secretive, at times. He never mentioned you. Do you…live with him?”

“Yes, but—”

“That sod! He’s living with a woman? After he told me NEVER to live with Garrett before we got married—”

“Oh, you’re the bride?” Neely felt oddly as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

Sebastian’s sister nodded. “I’m Evangeline. Everybody calls me Vangie. Who are you?”

“Neely Robson. I work with your brother.”

Vangie looked as if she was sure that wasn’t all Neely did with her brother. But she didn’t argue. She just knelt and put her arms around Harm. “And you two even have a dog! We never had pets.”

“Er, well, Harm is mine, really,” Neely said.

“But you share him,” Vangie decided. “Seb always wanted a dog. But my mother didn’t want to be bothered. And then Matt’s mother didn’t. Or the triplets’ or—”

“What?” Neely stared at her.

Vangie shrugged. “I’m glad he has a dog now,” she said simply. “He’s finally getting what he deserves.”

Neely wasn’t sure at all about that. But then again, she wasn’t sure what Sebastian Savas deserved.

His sister, however, gave Harm a fierce hug and looked up at Neely with her luminous green eyes suddenly awash with tears. “I just hope I do,” she said, and the tears started rolling down her cheeks.

Good grief. Not given to drop-of-the-hat emotional displays herself, Neely stared, nonplussed for several seconds before she said, “Are you all right?” which was a stupid question because who burst into tears if she was?

Vangie gulped and blinking rapidly stood up again. “I’m f-fine. I just…wanted to talk to Seb. He gets me through everything. Always has. And I know he wouldn’t expect me to show up here, but I thought he would understand…and help and…” She broke off and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand.

“Do you want to come in?” Neely asked because somehow she didn’t feel she could just shut the door on Sebastian’s sister, especially when she was crying.

Vangie gulped, then brightened visibly. “Would it…be okay? I mean, you don’t know me. But you do know Seb,” she added a bit more cheerfully. “You live with Seb, and—”

“Not the way you’re using the term,” Neely said again.

But Vangie had apparently decided that, yes, she did want to come in because she stepped past Neely into the hallway, then followed a tail-wagging Harm into the living area beyond.

“Ohhh,” she exclaimed, looking around avidly. “I love it! It’s so much nicer than Seb’s penthouse.”

“It is?” Neely blinked.

“Well, you know what I mean—friendlier, homier.” Her eyes went straight to the guinea pig and the rabbits. Then one of the kittens who was on the back of the sofa launched himself at her and she gave a little shriek as she caught him in her hands.

Her gaze turned to meet Neely’s, “It’s a miracle.”

“What’s a miracle?”

“You…them—” she waved the kitten around as if encompassing the whole room “—this. And Seb. Unbelievable.”

“The dog isn’t his. Neither are the kittens. Or anything else—except the computer,” Neely said stiffly.

“I’m sooo happy for you. And him.”

Obviously his sister didn’t listen any better than Sebastian did. For the moment Neely gave up.

“Can I get you some iced tea? A soda?”

“Iced tea would be lovely.” She had better manners than her brother at least.

While Neely poured two glasses, she watched as Vangie explored, as politely as possible—definitely not like her brother—the downstairs living area. She ran appreciative fingers along the tops of the waist-high bookcases, studied the books on the bookshelves, all the while cuddling the kitten who’d leaped at her. Then scooping up another one, she went to kneel on the window seat and look out at the deck and the lake beyond.

“Here we are, then,” Neely said, coming up behind her and holding out the glass.

“Oh, thank you.” Vangie turned, blinking, and Neely could see more tear tracks on her face.

“Oh, dear,” Neely said involuntarily. “You’re not all right.”

Vangie blinked rapidly and set down a kitten to take the glass. “I am,” she said, managing a watery smile. “It’s just…I don’t know what to do! Seb always tells me and—”

“I can believe that.”

Vangie looked startled. “Oh, I don’t mean he’s bossy,” she said quickly.

“I do,” Neely muttered, but then she smiled. “I’m sure he’s not so bossy to you.”

“Not often. He’s so kind. And he listens!”

“Does he?” How unusual, Neely thought. Obviously there were bits to Sebastian that she had missed. Or that he had never allowed her to see.

“He’s the only one who’s been here for me through all the wedding preparations.”

“Ah, yes. He mentioned your wedding.” And the little colored boxes. But Neely didn’t bring that up.

Vangie nodded and sipped her tea. “I know it’s been hard for him, me calling him up at all hours, bothering him at work. It’s not like he cares about any of it,” she confided, which Neely found both astute and surprising.

“But he cares about me. He cares about all of us,” Vangie went on. “And I know, if anyone can make Daddy come to my wedding, it’s Sebastian!”

Her green eyes were wide and bright, an equal combination of eager and desperate.

“Are you sure?” Neely asked cautiously. Because while she didn’t know much about Sebastian and his father, the one thing she did know was that, on Sebastian’s side at least, there seemed to be no love lost at all. She didn’t get the feeling he had much to do with his father.

Vangie bobbed her head. “Oh, yes. And he has to! Garrett’s family think it’s all a bit strange that Daddy hasn’t turned up yet. And I keep saying he’s a very busy man, that he’ll be here for the wedding. But—” she gulped “—I don’t know if he will!”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“He doesn’t answer his phone. He doesn’t answer e-mails. I don’t even know if he gets them. He’s in Hong Kong or Timbuktu or someplace like that. That’s what I told Garrett. But well, it’s a little odd—if you don’t know Daddy. And Garrett’s parents are—” the tears threatened again and Neely offered her a tissue “—wondering what sort of family he’s marrying into.”

“He’s not marrying them,” Neely said firmly. “He’s marrying you.”

“But they’re asking!” Vangie wiped her eyes, then strangled the tissue. “And Garrett would like to meet him, too! He never has. And…and it’s not normal to have a father who doesn’t even show up at your wedding! For once in my life—just once—on my wedding day I’d like to be normal.” Vangie said fiercely. “You understand, don’t you?”

Actually, Neely did. All those years in the commune had made her long for a normal family life. It had mattered a lot to her when she didn’t have a father to speak of. And the one she’d had once her mother married John was every bit what she’d thought it would be. And hadn’t she come out to Seattle to try to establish a relationship with Max?

So who was she to say Vangie was wrong. She gave Sebastian’s sister a gentle smile and patted her hand. “I understand.”

Vangie swallowed and managed a smile. “I knew you would. You’ll ask him for me, won’t you?”

“What?” Neely started. “Me? Ask your father to come to your wedding?”

“No,” Vangie gave a strangled laugh. “Not Daddy. Sebastian! To ask Daddy.” She was nodding her head eagerly now.

“Don’t be silly,” Neely said. “Your brother doesn’t listen to me.”

“Of course he does,” Vangie said. “He lives with you.”

“Not the way you think.”

“He cares about you.”

Now it was Neely’s turn to blink. “What?”

“Well, he must or he would have thrown you out. And he let you keep all your animals and—”

“It’s a free country and I have a lease.”

“That wouldn’t matter to Sebastian,” Vangie said confidently.

“He won’t listen,” Neely insisted.

Vangie set down her glass and reached out to grasp Neely’s hands in hers, imploring her, “Try. Please just say you’ll try.”

“It won’t help. It might hurt.” He doesn’t like me, she wanted to say. But she couldn’t say that with confidence anymore. Truth be told, she didn’t know how Sebastian felt about her. Only that he liked kissing her—and if she weren’t careful he would do it again.

But saying that would not convince Vangie that Neely had no influence on her brother. Wordlessly she shook her head.

But Vangie didn’t let go. She just clung to Neely’s hands. “Please.”

“I’ll tell him you came by.” Neely relented at last. “I’ll tell him what you wanted. I can’t promise any more than that.”

Vangie looked at her with her heart in her eyes. Then, she pressed her lips together and her eyes shut. She squeezed Neely’s hands between hers, and Neely got the worrisome sense that there was some praying going on and she was somehow involved in it.

Then Vangie opened her eyes again and smiled a beatific smile. “Thank you! You’re a dear!” And she lunged forward to give Neely a fierce hug. Then almost before Neely could get a breath, Sebastian’s sister bounced off the window seat, bent to give Harm a hug, too, then started for the door.

It opened just seconds before she reached it.

“Seb!” And she launched herself into his unsuspecting arms.

“What the—!” Sebastian dropped his suitcase and caught his sister with what were clearly the reflexes of long practice, hugging her to him with an obvious fierce affection at the same time glaring over her head at Neely.

“What’s she doing here?” he demanded as if she had orchestrated the whole thing.

“You’re asking me?”

He eased Vangie away from him to look down into her eyes. “What’s going on?” he said, and Neely was once more caught by the mixture of love and exasperation in his voice.

“I need you to talk to Daddy,” Vangie said plaintively. “Please!”

Sebastian’s face hardened. He opened his mouth, but then his gaze went to Neely and grimly he shut it again.

“I think I’ll just take Harm for a run,” she said briskly, grabbing the leash. “You two have things to discuss.”

“Oh, but you can stay and—” Vangie began.

But Neely was already brushing past them. “Lovely to meet you,” she said to Sebastian’s sister and, giving both Vangie and Sebastian a bright smile, she chivvied Harm out the door.

He was back.

Right when she least expected him, of course.

And maybe she was “running scared” as Max had accused her, because the very sight of him in the doorway sent her heart kicking over double time. And seeing him with his sister didn’t help.

It was far easier to think of Sebastian as a coldhearted, cold-blooded iceman. And far harder to resist him when she knew how very hot-blooded he was—and how warmhearted his sister, at least, considered him.

“Which does not make him a good man to get involved with,” she reminded herself more than once as she and Harm walked mile after mile, determined to stay away as long as possible. He was kind to his sister, yes. He was—though he might deny it—a family man.

But he didn’t want a relationship. He was adamant about that.

And Neely didn’t want anything less.

“Remember that,” she said out loud, making Harm look back at her quizzically as if it were a command he didn’t quite understand.

It was. But not for him.

She felt relieved, then, to open the front door and find the houseboat completely quiet. The only light was the one above the stove that she could see down the hall. Sebastian must have left again. Probably with his sister.

Despite the tears, Neely was sure that the two of them would have come to an agreement. And she had no doubt that Vangie had convinced him to contact their father.

Neely unclipped Harm’s leash and shrugged out of her windbreaker, then padded out to the darkened living area. It was one big room, really, just carved into a living room space over by the deck, an office space, where she stood now, and a kitchen, where she should go feed her grumbling stomach.

But she wasn’t hungry—or not for food. Her soul seemed restless still for something more sustaining. And so, almost automatically, she clambered up onto the cabinet where she could reach onto the top shelf of the bookcase. She’d done it so often now that she could take the violin and bow down in the dark.

The truth was, she’d played it a lot this week. The music soothed her restlessness, calmed her and focused her. And if Sebastian was going to come back tonight, she’d need to be calm and focused.

She resined the bow, tuned the violin and began to play.

She played her Mozart etudes and her Bach minuets. Harm never started to howl until she got to the Vivaldi. And she told herself he wasn’t really protesting, he was moved and was singing along.

She could see him silhouetted against the lights from Queen Anne Hill that shone across the water, his head lifted as he warbled while she played, when all of a sudden a voice said, “Cut that out!”

The bow screeched across the strings and stopped abruptly. Harm’s accompaniment lasted a couple of seconds longer.

Then another silhouette rose, this one from the far side of the sofa where he’d obviously been lying in the shadows. And Sebastian turned her way and said, “Not you. The dog.”

Horrified, Neely stared at him, her fingers strangling the bow. They suddenly felt so clammy she was afraid she might drop it or, worse, the violin. “I thought you were gone!”

“Think again.” Sebastian came around the sofa and crossed the room toward her. Neely set the violin down on the cabinet top as carefully as she could and backed toward the kitchen. A stupid move, if she’d thought about it, as there was only one way out.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly.

“Why?”

“I shouldn’t have played it. I—”

“It was meant to be played. That’s what it’s for.” He was much closer now. Practically looming over her, and there was nowhere to go.

“Yes, but you don’t play it,” she protested.

“Because I can’t,” he said simply.

“What?” She stared at him, astonished.

He shrugged. “I never learned. It’s my grandfather’s violin. He played it. Almost as well as you,” he added after a moment, a corner of his mouth tipping up, his tone reflective.

Neely swallowed, still wary, but beginning to realize he wasn’t angry. “Thank you. But I still…should have asked.”

“When? You were never here when I was.” He was sort of smiling now, teasing a little.

She didn’t want to be teased, didn’t want to smile back. Wanted to hang on to her sanity. Definitely needed to resist.

But Sebastian said, “You can play it whenever you want. However much you want. You’re very good.”

“Not very,” Neely said. “You have low standards.”

He shook his head. “I don’t, you know.” He was quite firm about it. And he was barely a foot from her now, definitely looming. Also smiling.

Neely, feeling the force of the smile, sensing the electricity that always seemed in danger of sizzling between them, felt herself melting. She raised her palms, then discovered that the only place to put them was on his shirtfront.

Quickly she let them fall to her sides again, cleared her throat, tried to look for a way to duck around him.

“If you think you ought to give me some recompense, though, I’d understand,” Sebastian went on, his voice almost a soft purr.

“You mean pay for the privilege? I could do that,” Neely said. “It’s a terrific violin. I’ve never played one that good. How much do you want?”

“How about a kiss?”

She jerked back so hard she hit her elbow against the countertop edge behind her and winced. “Ow!”

“Or I could kiss it and make it better,” Sebastian said, reaching for her arm and lifting it, then pressing his lips to her elbow before she even had time to think.

The tingle of the touch of his mouth against her skin sent a shiver all the way up her arm and her spine to the back of her neck.

“For heaven’s sake!” she protested, trying—and failing—to tug her arm away.

But Seb hung on, bending his head over it, giving her more tiny kisses, making her tremble as he worked his way up her arm to her shoulder, her neck, her ear, her jaw.

She made a helpless noise somewhere in the back of her throat—telling herself that she didn’t want this. But every part of her, body and mind was telling her she wanted it very very much indeed. She just didn’t want to pay the price. The price of having her heart broken.

Her body sank back against the line of cupboards below the countertop. And instinctively she braced her other elbow on it while trying to keep her knees from buckling from the effect he was having on her.

The kisses nibbled their way along her jawline as soft strands of his hair brushed against her cheeks, her lips. She breathed in the scent of him—woodsy shampoo with a hint of the sea mixing with something simply Sebastian. If she lived to be a hundred, Neely knew she would never forget it.

And then his lips reached her chin, touched her mouth. His tongue teased its way over her lips, parting them, tasting them—tasting her.

She sighed, reached for him. Clung. And kissed him back, because she was powerless not to. She kept remembering Vangie’s desperation, her words of praise for her brother, her steadfast belief that no matter what the problem, Sebastian would make it right.

And she saw how much he cared for his family.

If he were, through and through, the blackguard she’d first imagined, if he were as icy and indifferent as he’d tried to be, she thought she might have been able to hold out.

But she couldn’t. He even let her play his grandfather’s violin.

She opened her lips to his and hung on and, for the moment at least, let herself enjoy the ride.

One thing Sebastian Savas was extremely good at, one thing at which he positively excelled, was kissing.

Neely couldn’t imagine why she’d ever thought he was cold. Certainly there was nothing cold in the feel of his mouth on hers, nothing icy in the touch of his hands as they slid around her waist and lifted her onto the countertop so he could step up between her knees. And there was absolutely nothing frigid about the way he made her feel.

It was a long kiss, a hungry desperate kiss, and it wreaked havoc with all her earlier determination to resist him.

He wasn’t good for her. He didn’t want what she wanted. But even knowing it, she couldn’t seem to pull away. She could only hang on and savor what was happening between them.