Wolf In Waiting

This time the emotion that narrowed his eyes was amusement. For the first time, he seemed almost, well, to say human would be an insult, but you know what I mean. He seemed almost like the person I had always imagined him to be.

He murmured, “Yes, I can see that.”

Then the brief humor that had momentarily softened his demeanor was gone, and he said briskly, “From this point on, Ms. St. Clare, please remember that you have a great deal to lose. We all do.

“I came here because of the graphic you sent me,” he went on without pausing to give me a chance to respond. He plucked off his leather gloves and tossed them on the painted étagère by the door and strode into my living area without invitation. “You could have saved me a trip through the snow if you had been at the office where you belonged instead of chatting on the phone with humans.”

I gaped at him. The man didn’t seem to be able to open his mouth without infuriating me. “I left at five o’clock!”

He glared back at me. “When you work for me, you don’t leave until the job is done.”

“I don’t have a job. At least nothing that I could determine from that so-very-informative meeting this afternoon!”

I had him there. After seating eight high-powered executives in folding chairs and giving them portfolios on Moonsong to balance on their knees, he’d spent forty-five minutes briefing them on absolutely nothing. I’ve got to admit, I’ve never witnessed such a remarkable facility for making utter nonsense sound like the most important, interesting and vital message one has ever heard, and I admired him for it. It takes real talent to make certain people leave a meeting more confused than when they entered, and I could well imagine, even now, a bevy of werewolves tossing down Chivas at the local fern bar and trying to figure out what in the world the new boss had said at that meeting this afternoon.

He had introduced me as his personal assistant, which raised a few eyebrows, mostly because no one was quite certain what that was. He’d then gone on to extol the remarkable characteristics of Moonsong without ever quite describing them, and explaining that he would be personally overseeing the security on the project and that everything concerning the campaign must first be cleared through him, although he never quite got around to explaining what “everything” was. Oh, yes, those ferns at the local bar would be rattling tonight.

He dismissed me to my luxurious new office—which did have furniture, by the way—with absolutely no instructions whatsoever. So what am I, a mind reader? I played with the computer, helped myself to tropical-flavored mineral water and macadamia nuts from Stillman’s private collection, and watched an American talk show on television. At five o’clock, which coincidentally was the time the talk show was over, I went home.

It’s not my fault the man doesn’t know how to handle his employees.

His eyes narrowed again, briefly, and I could see him trying to mentally rearrange his approach to dealing with me. I was glad to know I could keep him off-balance.

He said, quite calmly, “All right. Now I know why you destroyed the graphic. It was a clever joke. But not nearly as clever as the design itself. I hope you kept a copy, because I want you to present it to the account execs at the staff meeting tomorrow morning.”

Fortunately, there was a chair at my back. I sank into it. My self-congratulation at keeping him off-balance disappeared in a puff of smoke. I couldn’t even answer. I just stared at him like a tongue-tied child.

He glanced around the apartment curiously, and I could detect a faint aura of self-satisfaction in his stance now. “Is there anything to drink?” he inquired. “No, don’t get up. I’m perfectly capable of serving myself.”

I ignored the hint of sarcasm and got up, anyway. The activity helped to clear my head. “I, um, think I have some wine. And some cherry brandy someone gave me for Christmas.”

He wrinkled his nose at that. “Wine.”

He followed me into the kitchen. It was a big, old-fashioned room with a weathered brickwork island and copper pots hanging from a rack. There was a bay window filled with African violets and geraniums. I have good luck with flowers; I don’t know why. While I rummaged around in a cabinet for the bottle of burgundy someone had brought to dinner once and never opened, Noel looked around appreciatively.

“This is a nice place,” he said. “How did you find it?”

My apartment was actually one-third of a renovated warehouse—Phillipe had the second-floor space and the ground floor belonged to a female artist with two Dobermans. It wasn’t just nice; it was spectacular. The walls were ancient brick, the arches that led from room to room were part of the original space; the floors were gleaming hardwood. Every room had a fireplace, although the one in the kitchen didn’t work. The huge, arched windows in the living room looked out over the water, and I rarely bothered to draw the curtains. Perhaps its most enchanting feature, however, was the garden bathing room, featuring a cedar whirlpool, a separate sauna and a glass roof. One could sink into a haven of warm, frothing bubbles and count the stars at night.