A Convenient Affair

“What’s to like? He’s ugly, overweight, and ill-tempered.”

“Being ugly isn’t his fault,” Hannah said crisply. “All pugs are. And if you were locked up all day, every day, in Mrs. Patterson’s teeny little apartment, you’d probably be—” She bit her tongue, but it was already too late.

Cooper’s voice was silky. “Overweight, too? And even more ill-tempered than I already am?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What a nice compliment you’ve paid Mrs. Patterson. She’s quite a powerful woman, if merely being in her company could have such a destructive effect.”

“Wait a minute! If you think I was saying that Mrs. Patterson is—” Hannah sputtered to a stop. He’d done it again, she admitted, irritated. Without even trying, he’d put her squarely in the wrong—and it wasn’t much comfort to know that this time she’d handed him the opportunity.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t dream of saying anything against Mrs. Patterson, Ms. Lowe. At least not where she might hear about it.”

Hannah bristled. “I simply meant that her arthritis keeps her from taking Brutus for walks, so of course he’s fat and irritable and not well-conditioned.”

“But you’ve been exercising him for weeks now,” Cooper pointed out, “and though he does seem to have slimmed down and stopped wheezing like a hippo, he’s still in a bad mood all the time. What does that say about your company, Ms. Lowe?”

She smiled up at him. “Are you ever going to forgive me for interfering with your agreement to sell that restaurant chain, Mr. Winston? After all, I was only looking after my client’s best interests. And the sale did eventually go through as you’d arranged, even though the terms were slightly altered.”

“That’s what you call slightly altered? Ms. Lowe, I’ll forgive you about the same time I forget the fifteen million bucks your interference cost me.”

Hannah feigned a sigh of relief. “Then, since fifteen million is pocket change to a man like you, I must be well on the way to rehabilitation.”

“Fifteen million,” he mused, “and all because you batted your eyelashes like an ingenue and asked a last-minute, breathless, innocent-sounding question.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“You mean it wasn’t as innocent as it sounded? I’m glad you’re at least admitting to being cold and calculating.” He didn’t give her an opportunity to answer, but strode across the lobby toward the street.

Just as well, Hannah thought. Brutus had only growled at him, as usual; Hannah herself would have been tempted to bite the man if he’d kept it up.

On the fifth floor, she delivered Brutus to his owner and with regret refused a cup of coffee. Then, rather than wait for the elevator again and risk the chance that instead of leaving for the day Cooper had only been going to the convenience shop down the street for a newspaper, Hannah took the fire stairs up two flights and walked down the hall to Isobel’s condo.

Isobel’s condo. Even though Hannah had lived there for nearly three months now, she still didn’t call it home.

She paused just inside the door, bracing herself to face the silence. The rooms had never been quiet like this when Isobel was alive. But it had been almost exactly a month since Isobel had gone to a friend’s house in Windsor Heights one afternoon to play bridge—and never came back.

It seemed to Hannah that the condo which had been Isobel’s home for so many years was waiting for her to return. The sofa cushions were still crushed as if she had stood up just moments ago. The magazine she’d been reading lay facedown on the fainting couch in her silk-draped bedroom. The satin and lace peignoir she’d taken off when she’d dressed for her bridge party that last afternoon still lay across the foot of her bed. Bath powder still dusted the glass top of her mirrored dressing table.

Even the musky scent of Isobel’s perfume had hardly faded; it seemed to be embedded in everything she’d owned, and every time Hannah opened a drawer or a closet she released a new cloud of fragrance.

It might have been a little easier to make the transition, Hannah thought, if she herself had lived there for more than a couple of months before Isobel died. But she’d still felt pretty much like a guest on the day Isobel’s heart had abruptly given out—cautious of every action and every word, trying her best not to get in her elderly hostess’s way or upset Isobel’s longstanding routines. Now, living alone in Isobel’s condo, Hannah felt like an intruder.

She’d intended to move out immediately, but that was more easily said than done, considering the shortage of apartments in the city just now and the prices they commanded.

Besides, when she’d mentioned the move to her boss at the law firm, Brenton Bannister had simply shaken his head. “It isn’t as if you don’t have a right to be there till the estate is settled,” he’d said. “Your aunt was one of our clients, and I’m sure Ken Stephens would prefer to have the condo occupied—especially by someone he can trust—than to leave all of Isobel’s treasures there unprotected while he deals with the paperwork and gets everything in order.”

“She wasn’t my aunt, she was a distant cousin,” Hannah had reminded him. “And Barron’s Court is the most exclusive condo complex in the city. It’s not exactly a high-crime district.”

But Brenton had only smiled at her as if she’d said something terribly witty, and the next day he assured her that he’d spoken to the senior partner who had been Isobel’s attorney and gotten approval for Hannah to stay on.

So Hannah had stayed, but her discomfort hadn’t lessened as the weeks went by. Every time she touched one of Isobel’s possessions—even if she was only moving it out of her way—she had to fight off a superstitious shiver. And it might take months to sort out Isobel’s estate; there appeared to be no end to the things the woman had owned.

Regardless of what Brenton thought about her rights, Hannah decided, it was past time to find another place to live.

Of course, she’d never find anything as nice or as convenient to the office as Barron’s Court was, even if she could afford the price such a place would cost. But even if she ended up living in a cracker box, at least she wouldn’t be running into Cooper Winston all the time. That would be the biggest benefit of all.

Wherever Cooper had gone that morning, it wasn’t far enough for Hannah’s taste—because when she pushed open the lobby door, her nemesis was standing under the portico, obviously waiting for his car to be brought around from the garage at the back of the complex.

She almost drew back in order to avoid him, knowing that the parking valets wouldn’t keep him waiting long. But Brenton would be along any minute to pick her up for the short ride to work, and he wasn’t known for patience any more than Cooper was. So Hannah gritted her teeth and went out into the crisp autumn air.

The portico wasn’t very large, so Hannah found herself standing uncomfortably close to Cooper.

His gaze slid slowly over her emerald green suit, the best-quality item her wardrobe boasted. “I must say I like that fashion ensemble better than the one which includes the dog. I realize it isn’t saying much, but—”

“You know,” Hannah mused, “your grandfather would have done us all a favor, when he remodeled this building into condos, if he’d provided separate front entrances.”

A sleek red sports car pulled up in the fire lane and Brenton Bannister lowered the passenger-side window and leaned across the seat. “Good morning, Winston. Can I offer you a lift?”

Hannah wondered for an instant if he seriously expected Cooper Winston to fold himself into the sports car’s tiny rear seat, or if Brenton had forgotten about her altogether.

“They’re bringing my car around now,” Cooper said. “But thank you.”

“You don’t carry any hard feelings over that last little deal, I hope,” Brenton probed.

“Not where you’re concerned.” Cooper opened the passenger door of Brenton’s car with a flourish and held out a hand as if to help Hannah get in.

Or to push me into the street, Hannah thought. She avoided his touch, though she thanked him with elaborate politeness.

As the car pulled away from the curb, Brenton said, “He’s mellowing. I thought he would, given a little time. He’s a businessman, and he knows you can’t always win on every point.”

Hannah stared at him in disbelief. Hadn’t he heard the irony in Cooper’s voice? “Mellowing? I suppose you think Mount Rushmore is made of blue cheese, too.”

“Hannah, you’ll never get Winston’s business with that attitude.”

“Stephens & Webster will never get his business at all.”

“Why not?”

“After all the money we cost him last time around—”

“Fifteen million is peanuts to Cooper Winston,” Brenton said comfortably. “Anyway, that’s precisely my point. As soon as he cools off, he’ll want us on his team because we’re demonstrably better than the firm he was using. They never anticipated that little loophole.”

Hannah bit her tongue. It wasn’t her job to try to break through Brenton’s delusions.

“And just think, Hannah—that deal was a very small one, relatively speaking. There will be more. When Winston’s monolith swallowed up its rival in that merger deal, they got all kinds of side businesses that they won’t want to keep. The restaurant chain our client bought was only a fraction of the package. There’s a shipping firm and the aircraft refitters and a string of nursing homes—” He was practically drooling at the thought.

“I think it’s a little early to start looking for buyers,” Hannah said dryly. “He said good morning, he didn’t offer us a retainer.”