Bravo Unwrapped

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.