"Here," was all Sebastian said to her in the morning.
After crying herself to sleep Claire had awoken to find her clothes cleaned and folded, waiting for her. She'd dressed and come down to breakfast, which to her shock Sebastian had cooked. For health food it was good, spiced egg white omelettes with vegetables, multi-grain toast with only a little butter.
He hadn't spoken but that one word as he set down a credit card and straightened his tie before leaving. Once more he was dressed in a suit, his hair brutally clubbed, his eyes refusing to meet hers and she couldn't say why.
Before she could ask what he wanted her to use the card for, he was gone. She busied herself with dishes and then set up in his office with her laptop, researching Morelli.
He was old man now, but in his youth sixty years ago he'd been a runner who worked his way up on the streets of Providence. When the Italians had moved into Boston he'd followed, made a name for himself. When too many murders and too much coke was connected to him, a rash of killings had taken down any and all who could testify as witnesses to the charges. His lawyer had gotten him sprung and he'd moved up to Toronto, assuming like most Americans that a low crime rate meant low rime, and therefore opportunity.
History was repeating itself. Once more he'd been arrested, indicted, and a trial was set, but witnesses were dropping like flies. Turned out Gigolo John was actually a gigolo, and had been scheduled to testify about Morelli's drug operation. The woman with him had just been a client.
All she could glean on the killer was that experts believed the one in Boston was different than the one in Toronto. The one in Toronto used a gun of a different caliber, and had no compunction about collateral damage. Great.
Maybe she wasn't so safe there. However, she had dropped her suitcase. If the hit man got it he had all her brochures, not a one leading to Chicago. Her fake identity would lead him nowhere. She could spend eleven more days there and leave with the money to start over somewhere safe. If she could handle Sebastian.
Last night had been so confusing, and the hot memories pulled her attention from her computer. The way he kissed and touched her...it was passionate, raw, full of need. But in the end he had taken nothing for himself. She had expected to be used and then he went and took nothing from her. What was his game?
One thing life had taught her was life was a chess game. People either played as pawns, thought themselves bishops, or were the chess masters. Sebastian was a chess master if ever she saw one. He had an end goal, but what was it? If it was revenge for leaving him, last night made no sense. Instead it had been...it had been what she fantasized in many ways, but in her fantasies on the plane ride back she had daydreamed about the feel of him inside her, filling her, their bodies pressed close together, his lips on her skin, her hands all over him as he surged and filled her until she was breathless and clinging to him.
Well, she had eleven days. Morelli's hitman would never find her, she was safe. At the end of that time she would have her money and the opportunity to go anywhere and start fresh again. Until then, two could play that game.
She grabbed his credit card and her purse, and found the number for his car service. She wasn't stupid, and wasn't about to go wandering alone, but for what she needed she had to go outside. When two chess masters met they could either agonize and strategize, or they could play something else.
She was going to change the game.
***
He couldn't concentrate at work. The implications of his feelings were too staggering. He was a man molded into a machine, Sebastian was thinking not feeling, cold and calculating. It was how he alone had tripled Kellner's profits in four years despite the economy stagnating. It was how he'd never been trapped into marriage with some gold digger.
And here he was, brought low by something out of the past. Someone.
Damn it, how could he feel this way? He didn't know her. The scared sixteen year old girl who had spent many nights talking to him about her desire to escape, then rashly acted on it, he knew that girl. Or, he'd thought he did. The strangely confident, poised young woman in his home now was beautiful and unreadable. She'd agreed so readily to his obscene terms, and why? Dare he hope she had any feelings for him?
More than that, what had she done in those three years? College and graduate school he knew, but after she'd walked off the planet. She was scared of something, running from something, and for a moment he pictured an angry husband.
Clenching his fist around the steering wheel Sebastian concentrated on the road, heading into the Kenwood neighborhood. He'd left the office an hour early unable to concentrate on the numbers, the endless meetings, and the car drove itself.
He was almost surprised to find him outside his uncle's house, and he parked but kept the engine running as he stared. Michael Kellner, his mother's brother, the closest thing he'd had to a father which was to say he had nothing of a father.
Michael had never forgiven Johanna for running off with some strange man and returning nine months later with Sebastian. Even as grandfather Ferdinand groomed Sebastian to grow up and head the company, Michael and Ferdinand had ridden Johanna hard. All his life she was mad. The psychiatrists put any fancy terms they wanted, but in that nine months that had netted his life her sanity had shredded. Any hope they had for her to run the company with Michael when Ferdinand died had been ruined, and so Sebastian had been forced to stay, to take her place.
Michael had always called him a bastard, had unwisely tried to force Sebastian out. The board had seen his side of the matter and it was Michael who was now sidelined. With his new wife he was banished from the company but today Sebastian wasn't here for the business, he was here for family.
There was no gated security and he walked up the steps and rang the doorbell. Dora, Michael's new wife, answered,, all bleached blonde hair and big colored-contact lens blue eyes. "Sebastian!"
"I need to see my uncle."
"He's not home."
"Bullshit! It's about Claire."
Something passed through her eyes like fear and she stepped back, half-closing the door as she schooled her expression. "She is dead to us. My husband has no care for a woman who was once briefly his step-daughter."
"What about her money, her trust fund?"
Dora would never win a hand at poker, her face gave everything away. Sebastian had been more guessing than lying when he told Claire her money was gone, and he knew he was right. He cursed viciously and the door slammed in his face.
This was his family, the same family that had tried to claim Claire. He knew why she had run, now the only mystery was why she had left him only to come back. He walked back to his car and mulled it over, but even as he got in and turned the engine Sebastian didn't know if this time he would keep her.
***
Claire was exhausted. Normally she hated shopping, but it hadn't been so bad knowing she didn't have to foot the bill. Ashe purchased a new suitcase and some basics for travel, new bath supplies, everything she'd need for the next week including clothes. There she had deviated some.
For the days beyond, when she left for a destination unknown, she bought jeans, t-shirts, cotton basics. For the time under Sebastian's roof she bought all the weapons she could use to upset the chessboard.
This time there would be no hard choices. On that long ago day when she walked out the door leaving him behind, she didn't have to go. He could have come with her, but he'd been scared. His mother was too far gone to help, and she knew this would happen if he stayed. The family would convert him, like some cult acolyte, and he would become a cold, calculating, moneymaking machine.
At some point she'd reasoned out the game. He was trying to make her feel something for him, and then break her heart, that explained the night before. Well, two could play that game. Once she had loved him, indeed with all her heart, and in those long ago nights they had held each other they had dreamed together and spoken of breaking free. But when it came time to come through on that promise of "us versus the world" Sebastian had been the one to turn tail.
So she was going to play his little game, but she was going to win. Maybe it would bring the closure she hadn't realized she'd needed until she looked into the face of the man and saw no trace of the boy, nothing of the hope she'd desired.
There was no going back, and going forward was going to be on her terms.
***
Sebastian walked in the door exhausted. After visiting Michael, or trying, he'd driven around. He preferred his car service but that day he'd left it for Claire. She'd had almost nothing when she came, Luisa said that one outfit, so he hoped she had bought what she needed. Given how fast that outfit last night had shredded his control he hoped she was wearing a ratty robe, curlers, and bunny slippers.
Instead she greeted him in the hall wearing a dress that clung to her curves, the same rich blue as her eyes. It was cut low enough to expose the sweet curve of her high, full breasts and floated along those impossibly long legs. She looked so damn good his dick was already hardening.
"Claire-"
She crossed on heels so thin they made a sharp clack on the marble and then grabbed him, pulling him down. Sebastian growled and dropped his briefcase, taking her in his arms. She instigated the kiss but he took control, refusing to let her hold it.
She tasted like wine and woman, sweet and delicate against him. Her body was soft enough to sink into and god, how he wanted to. She rubbed against him, nearly purring, rubbing his erection. He deepened the kiss and she merely sucked on his tongue. He was hard and aching and she pushed him further and further.
Sebastian wanted nothing more than to force her to wall, lift her, shred whatever panties she wore and slide into her, but he held back. Control, he needed control. On that thought he pushed away and she opened her eyes, blinking, looking dazed. At that moment he could have her, any way he desired, and he was shaking with need, but she would not have him this way. He would retain control.
"Nice dress," he said fliply and stepped back to retrieve his briefcase.
Claire pouted but followed him as he walked to the dining room. As usually the housekeeper had left dinner and he held out her chair. Awkwardly she sat, and he was happy she was disappointed. God help him this was a nice fantasy. Coming home from work to a hot meal and a beautiful, eager woman.
