Bravo Unwrapped

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 miserable 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.”

In the lavish black-marble half bath across the main hall, B.J. washed her hands and fluffed her hair and dreaded going back out there and dealing with Buck. But it had to be done and somehow, she would manage it. She would be pleasant. And professional. She’d get the damn story and—at work, at least—things would be fine until the next crisis came along.

She joined the others in the oak room, sliding into the chair between Buck and L.T. with a determined smile on her face. Roderick came in and opened the wine. Colette, one of the maids, appeared and began serving the meal.

B.J. faked drinking her wine. She even managed to get a little food down. On the polite conversation front, she nodded and made interested noises and spoke when spoken to. And she scrupulously avoided looking directly at Buck. No point in going there, nosiree.

Colette had served the main course—rare venison, wilted greens and whipped sweet potatoes—when L.T. finally got down to business.

“Arnie called me this morning and told me the problem. The solution came to me instantly, as it so often does. I thought, Buck Bravo. And immediately after, Of course. Who else? So I gave Buck a call. And wouldn’t you know? Buck was amenable and told me he could make himself available.

“The December cover feature—” L.T. raised his glass of cabernet high and then paused to knock back a mouthful “—will be Buck.”

B.J., who had her own wineglass near her lips at that moment, set it down without even pretending to drink from it. “Buck’s the story?”

Her father laughed. “Yes, indeed. Buck Bravo. His life, his past, how he got where he is now.”

B.J. turned her full glass by the stem and admitted, “All right. It’s good….”

“Good?” crowed her father. “It’s a damn sight better than good. It’s perfect. Ideal. Terrific. Better than terrific.”

Buck cut in. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far…”

“I would,” L.T. insisted. “Any story the competition would do murder to get is, unequivocally, better than terrific. Right, B.J.?”

“Right,” B.J. gave out grudgingly. Buck was, in all honesty, the man of the hour. There was talk that he’d get a Pulitzer nomination for Black Gold. The tabloids couldn’t get enough of him. To read what they wrote about him, you’d think every unattached woman in America longed only to claim him for her own.

Every woman except B.J. She didn’t long to claim him. She only longed for him to go away.

And as soon as they got the details ironed out here, he would go away. He’d go off and write his story and leave her alone to come to grips with the fact that she was going to have his baby.

Argh.

Colette cleared off the plates and began serving brandy, dessert and coffee. L.T. lit up another corona and continued to rave—about how Buck’s hometown, a tiny mountain hamlet in the mountains of California, was named New Bethlehem Flat. “Bethlehem. Could it get any better? And the Bravo family history? Pure gold—scratch that. Platinum. Platinum all the way…”

Buck’s father, the notorious Blake Bravo, the “bad seed” of the Los Angeles Bravos, had faked his own death at the age of twenty-six. Once everyone believed the evil Blake dead, he went on to kidnap his own brother’s baby son for a king’s ransom in diamonds and to litter the American landscape with illegitimate children—Buck and his three brothers among them. Blake had died for real a few years ago and the whole story had at last come out. A day late and a few dollars short, as they say. Because Blake Bravo had managed to live on for thirty years after everyone believed him dead. He’d gone to his grave without answering for a single one of his many crimes.

L.T. announced, “So it’s ‘Buck Bravo: Unwrapped.’

Could there be a better holiday cover story?” B.J. silently agreed that there couldn’t.

And it was about time she got past her personal issues with Buck and took control of this discussion. “All right, L.T. I’m convinced. It’s a great story and we’ll go with it.”

“Great? It’s—”

“I know, I know. It’s better than great.” She turned her head in Buck’s direction and looked at him without actually meeting his eyes. “I’ll settle the details with your agent tomorrow, and you’ll get going on it right away.”

“Agreed.”

“I’ll need you to pull it together in two weeks, if you can manage that. There is some leeway—just not much.”

“I understand.”

“I’m thinking I can get Lupe to go with you to California for the pictures.” Lupe Martinez was their top contributing photographer. “Is there snow in the Sierras yet?” she pondered aloud. “There had better be. This is the Christmas feature, after all.”

Buck let out a low chuckle, one that sizzled annoyingly along every one of her nerve endings. “I’ll see what I can do about the weather.”

“Thank you.” B.J. realized it was time to be gracious—and grateful. “I’m…so pleased about this, I truly am.”

“Glad to help out.”

“I know you’ll write us a terrific Christmas feature. I can’t wait to read it.”

“But I’m not writing it.”

B.J. opened her mouth to lay on more compliments—and snapped it shut without speaking. Surely she hadn’t heard him right. “Excuse me?”

“I said, I’m not writing it. You are. You’re going with me. And you’re right. We should leave tomorrow. I’m guessing L.T. will provide one of his jets.”

“Happy to help out.” Her father beamed, an over-bearing Santa in a smoking jacket. “No problem. The jet is yours.”

Stunned and appalled at the mere idea of being thrown into constant contact with Buck for days running, B.J. gaped. Openly. Her head swiveled from her father to Buck and back to her father again—and she saw the truth right there in L.T.’s pewter-gray eyes. He had known this was coming. How could he do this to her—and not even give her a heads-up in advance?

A thousand volts of pure fury blazed through her. She was certain her hair must be standing on end. Her stomach clenched tight—and then rolled. She looked down at her coffee, at the creamy chocolate dessert with its topping of fresh whipped cream. The few bites of food she’d eaten lurched upward toward her throat.

She gulped—hard. “Excuse me,” she said quietly—and then she shoved back her chair and dashed for the bathroom.

“Is she sick or something?” asked the doe-eyed Jessica as B.J. raced toward the door to the entrance hall, pointed heels tap-tap-tapping.

“Yeah. Sick of me,” Buck replied with a grim smile. Things weren’t going exactly as he’d hoped. Uh-uh. Not as he’d hoped—but pretty much as he’d expected.

“Maybe it was the venison,” said L.T. philosophically. He shrugged and blew a few smoke rings. “Seemed fine to me, though.”

“She’s upset.” Jessica, distressed, stated the obvious. Both men turned to look at her. “Well, she is,” Jessica insisted in that breathy way of hers. “I’m sorry, Buck. But, you know, I don’t think she likes you.”

“No kidding?”

“And I don’t get it. Why would you want to make her write the story? You’re the one who writes.” Jessica’s smooth brow furrowed as if great thoughts troubled her. “Aren’t you?”

L.T. chuckled and puffed on his cigar and, for once, didn’t comment.

That left Buck to make a noncommittal noise in his throat and take a sip of the excellent brandy and wonder if he was biting off a big wad more than he would ever be able to chew.

Maybe so.

Should he back down, agree to head home to California with only a photographer for company? Write the damn story and turn it in and forget it—forget B.J.?

Hell. Probably.

But then there she came, tap-tap-tapping back to the table in her skinny little skirt and dangerous black shoes, shoulders back and head high. She looked sexy as all get-out—and also ready to start spitting nails.

Buck still wanted her. He wanted her bad. The past year or so he’d come to grips with the fact that maybe he always would.

Back down? Not this time. This time he was taking it all the way. And if she wanted her damn cover story, she could come and get it—his way.

“Are you all right, B.J.?” Jessica asked, doe eyes wider than ever.

B.J. slid into her seat again. “I have been better,” she informed L.T.’s girlfriend with a stately nod of her shining blond head. “Thank you for asking.” She turned on L.T. again, eyes stormy, mouth set. “In case you might have forgotten, I have a department to run. I can’t just go traipsing off to the wilds of California. And really. Where is the sense in this? That Buck’s got the byline is half of the story.” She threw up both hands. “Oh, this is all just too, too insane. He’s going to do a much better job of writing the damn thing than I ever could. That’s what he does—write.”

L.T. waved a hand, dismissing her objections.

“Don’t worry about the features department. Giles can handle things for a week or two. And the piece shouldn’t be a memoir. It needs an objective eye.”

B.J. looked at her father as if she’d like nothing better than to grab his cigar from between his fingers and put it out in his face. “Excuse me. An objective eye?”

Her father faced her right down. “That’s what I said.”

“Oh, please. It’s better with Buck’s name on the byline, don’t try to kid me it’s not.”

L.T. nodded. Regally. “Unfortunately, he’s not offering his name on the byline. And we have to work with what we can get.”

She whipped around to glare at Buck again. “Come on. Write it yourself.”

He only shook his head.

“You…” Evil epithets lurked right behind those lips he couldn’t wait to kiss again.

But she held them in. She sat back in her chair, regrouping. Buck could practically see her quick mind working. Cornered but still swinging, she tried again. “I can’t see any reason to pay you, if you’re not doing the writing.”

“Fine. Leave my agent out of it.”

“We will. And I’ll get someone else to write the piece. Someone really good. Mike Gallato should be available, now the Wise Brothers thing fell through. I can call him right now and we can—”

“No,” said L.T. “You’re going to write it. And you’ll do a fine job. It’ll be good for you. You need to get out in the field now and then, anyway.”

“Listen very carefully,” B.J. said in a voice that could have flash-frozen the testicles off a bull. “I’m not going to do this.” Her eyes were wild, her mouth a thin line. Two bright spots of color rode high on her cheekbones. Other than that, her face was much too pale.

Buck frowned. Had Jessica been right?

Was she sick?

He wanted to ask her for himself if she was okay. But he didn’t. B.J. absolutely refused to show weakness, anytime or anywhere. If he asked, he’d get nothing but a snarled denial. No point in going there.

She said, tightly, “Buck. Listen. I assure you. If you don’t want to write this yourself, it’s going to be no problem finding someone else, someone really…top-notch. Someone much better than I would be.”

Again, for a split second, he wavered. But not long enough that she could see it in his eyes. He was going for it. Going the whole way. And, whether she liked it or not, she was going with him.

True, at the moment, she was madder than a peeled rattler at him for roping her into this. But she’d get over it. He’d have as long as he could keep her in California to make her admit that the two of them were far from over. A big job, admittedly. But Buck Bravo was accustomed to life-and-death challenges.

“No,” Buck said. “I want you, B.J. You come with me to California and write the story. Or the whole thing is off.”

L.T. sipped his brandy and waved his cigar. “Sorry, B.J. But it looks like the decision’s been made for us.”

Three

Trapped and fully aware of the fact, B.J. stewed all the way home in the back of her father’s big, black limousine.

Looks like the decision’s been made for us, L.T. had said.

“Us,” B.J. muttered under her breath as the car hummed across the Henry Hudson Bridge. Us? She should have ripped that prize rhino head off the far wall when her father said that, just got up and ripped it off the wall and stabbed him to the heart with that big, fat horn.