True Bliss (3 page)

She was frightened, but she wouldn't change a thing about what she was determined to do.

The clock on the dash was fast. Bliss always set it ten minutes ahead so she wouldn't be late. The clock showed 9:15 when it was only 9:05.

Silly habits.

Conforming was a habit. Not that she was ever likely to be wild.

And running away to get married without her parents' knowledge wasn't wild?

It was wild. Wonderfully wild. Bliss leaned her head against the rest and closed her eyes. As soon as school was out she and Sebastian had known they couldn't wait. As long as there'd been at least their daily meetings to look forward, they could bear the hours in between. With summer ahead and the threat of long separations, they'd decided to go to Reno.

"Excuse me, miss."

Bliss jumped so hard she banged her elbow on the door. She stared into the dusk-shadowed face of a motorcycle policeman.

He raised his helmet visor. "Something wrong, miss?"

"No! I mean, no. I'm waiting to pick someone up."

"You're sure? You've been here a long time."

She glanced at the clock again. Sebastian was twenty minutes late. But he had to rely on buses from his parents' home in Ballard. He'd chosen this spot for its anonymity and because they both knew exactly where it was. "I'm sure, officer," Bliss said, smiling. "It's okay, isn't it? To park here?"

"Yes, miss. Just making sure everything was okay. Good night, then."

"Good night." Bliss watched him start his cycle and make a slow U-turn to join another officer on the opposite side of the street. The two men looked toward her and she aimed her eyes straight ahead.

Sebastian wasn't close to his parents. He didn't say much, but he had told her that. And he was adopted, grateful for having been adopted, but not grateful that he'd never lived up to his father's expectations. He had a sister, Maryan, to whom he seemed close. Maryan was two years older, and the biological child of the Platos, who'd been unable to have more children after she was born. Sebastian had been selected to be the son they couldn't have.

He should be here by now.

A transient shuffled along the sidewalk. Swathed in a ragged plaid blanket, his sandy hair matted, he swayed for a moment, nearly lost his balance, then staggered against the side of Bliss's car.

She sat very still, praying he couldn't see her in the swiftly thickening darkness.

Tapping on the passenger window sent her heart flying. She leaned across the seat to open the door for Sebastian—and looked into the vacant, slow-blinking eyes of the man in the blanket.

Bliss pressed her fingers to her mouth, trapped a scream in her throat. She was jumpy, stupid. The poor thing couldn't open a locked door. And he was obviously too drunk to know what he was doing anyway. She pressed her head back again and squeezed her eyes shut

With her right hand, she covered her left and felt the coolness of the gold band, the shapes of the diamonds. Sebastian had sold his beloved truck to buy the ring, and then spent the rest of the school year catching buses.

When she opened her eyes again, the man was gone .. . And it was 9:45. Darkness had fallen completely. Streetlights cast a pale glow over the road and the park. Lights inside Angelica's cafe illuminated diners, and customers laughing in the bar.

Bliss wiped her palms on her jeans. She was shaking.

Where was Sebastian?

"Are you Bliss?"

She jumped again, this time at the sound of a woman's voice whispering her name urgently. Bliss glanced out of her window at a young woman with short, brown hair brushed forward in spikes around an angular face and said, "I'm Bliss. Who are you?"

The woman rubbed at the space between thin, arched brows. "Sebastian asked me to come."

Bliss's stomach fell sickeningly. "Who are you?" she repeated.

"Maryan Plato. Sebastian's sister. I've got to talk to you."

The shaking in Bliss's hands spread over her body. "Get in," she said, watching the other woman's loose-limbed walk as she went immediately to the passenger door. Bliss let her in and watched while she settled herself in the seat. "Has something happened to Sebastian?"

Maryan Plato leaned forward and gripped the dashboard with large hands. "I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find you. I promised Sebastian, see."

Bliss could scarcely breathe. "Is he sick?"

Maryan shook her head.

"What then? Tell me where he is. I'll go to him."

Maryan shook her head again.

"Tell me!" Bliss couldn't stop her voice from scaling upward.

"He had to get out of town."

"Out—" Bliss couldn't clear her brain enough to understand.

She almost blurted out that she knew Sebastian was leaving town, with her. "What do you mean?"

"He asked me to tell you he was sorry, but you've got to forget him."

"No," Bliss whispered. "I don't believe you. He didn't tell anyone about us. Neither of us did."

"Something happened."

"What?" Bliss almost screamed. "Please. You're frightening me.

"He . . . He's in trouble. He had to get out quickly."

"Without telling me? He wouldn't do that. I would have helped him."

Maryan turned to Bliss. "You can't help him. He's got to help himself now—and her. He's got to make it right."

Bliss shook her head. "Stop it! Stop it, do you hear me?"

"Listen to me." Maryan's big hands gripped Bliss's arms. "Calm down and listen. I can't change what's happened and neither can you."

"We're going to be married," Bliss said brokenly.

Maryan stared.

"He's coming to meet me and we're going to leave Seattle and get married."

"Jesus," Maryan said, half-under her breath. "He didn't tell me you thought that. I was supposed to say he couldn't make the date. Are you sure about the—"

"Of course I'm sure." Bliss held up her left hand. "We're engaged. We've been engaged for more than a month."

"Damn." Releasing Bliss, Maryan made fists and pounded her jean-clad thighs. "How could he have been so stupid? No wonder he did everything he could to get out of it."

Every mouthful of air Bliss swallowed made a choking sound.

"Okay." Maryan took a visibly deep breath and held it. "Okay, I'm just going to say it and we're both going to get on with our lives. Sebastian's in trouble."

"But—"

"He had to leave town in a hurry or face prosecution."

"Sebastian never did anything—"

"He left with a girl called Crystal Moore."

She was going to be sick. "He couldn't have. How do I know you're Sebastian's sister?"

The other woman turned dark eyes on her. "How many people knew you were coming here to meet him tonight?"

"Just Sebastian."

"Uh-huh." She switched on the dome light, reached into her pocket and took out a thin wallet. Opening it, she showed Bliss a picture of herself on a driver's license and pointed to the name, "Plato, Maryan, M. Is that good enough?"

"Why would Sebastian leave town with Crystal Moore? He hated her."

Maryan snorted. "Evidently he didn't hate everything about her. Her father's some sort of religious fanatic. Either she had to get out of town, too, or her dear, pious father was going to kill her."

"But, I don't . . . Oh, please tell me this is a joke."

"Some joke. At least Sebastian had the decency to do the right thing. He took her away to keep her safe from her crazy father. She's pregnant."

"He wouldn't do this to me."

"Oh, wise up. He told me about your cute little after-lunch meetings. He's a big boy. What do you think he did with all his nights."

Her throat felt squeezed and twisted. "He's good. He's not the way the others think he is."

"He's a red-blooded man. And he got a girl pregnant."

"No!"

"Yes. And now he's trying to make it right. Go home to Mommy and Daddy."

"No! I want Sebastian."

"You can't have him. He's finally done something right. He's left Seattle with the girl he raped."

"When I was growing up, this was a one-horse town populated with tight-asses." Sebastian Plato looked down from his new thirty-second floor offices onto the sun-drenched streets of Bellevue. Bumper-to-bumper midday traffic wound sluggishly between sleek glass buildings in shades of blue, rose, gunmetal gray. "It's still populated with tight-asses. Probably tighter. Doesn't anyone own anything but a Mercedes or a Lexus here? Or at least a car that didn't just come off the lot?"

"You can't tell the makes of cars from this height, Sebby."

He crooked a finger at Zoya, a still spectacular ex-supermodel who kept Raptor Vision, the modeling and talent-agency division of Raptor Enterprises, where he wanted it—on top. "I know the cars they're driving down there," Sebastian told her. "Come here and look at this place."

"I've already seen it. We should be deciding how you'll deal with Maryan when she gets here."

"Leave Maryan to me."

"She's due, Sebby."

"Don't sweat it. Get over here."

Zoya was almost as tall as Sebastian, with her waist-length black hair slicked severely back and arranged in a mass of braided loops. Her face was all sharply boned, exotic flamboyance. She stood beside him and said, "You don't drive a Merc or a Lexus."

"I'm not from Bellevue," he reminded her in a tone that warned her not to raise the worn-out topic of his less-than-

traditional taste in personal vehicles. He pointed beyond the buildings of Bellevue, to the breadth of bordering Lake Washington and the soaring glass and concrete towers of downtown Seattle in the distance. "When I was a kid we stayed over there. Wouldn't come to the eastside on a bet. We called this place the burbs, and laughed at people who lived here."

"Childish." Zoya never tempered her opinions with tact.

Unperturbed, Sebastian said, "As I told you, we were children then. Children are childish."

"But you're still disdainful of Bellevue."

He shrugged. "Why would you live here when you can live in the middle of things?"

"A good question," Zoya remarked. "One wonders why Sebastian Plato, big city dweller, would choose to buy a house here."

"I was speaking in generalities. I want to be close to the office."

"Next question," Zoya said. Her thick lashes lowered over eyes almost as black as her hair. "Why would this man choose to open a branch of Vision here, rather than in Seattle?"

"Statement," Sebastian said curtly. "I have my reasons." And he didn't intend to study them too closely.

"Maryan still doesn't—"

"Maryan will have to accept my decision in this. I know she still doesn't think we should have started operations in the Seattle area. The subject isn't open for discussion. It's a natural step. Natural, and overdue." And the first expansion that had filled him with enough confusion to mess with his sleep.

"I can't disagree with that," Zoya said. "Too bad we've got this other business to contend with."

Sebastian turned from the window and prowled his office. Didn't have his stamp on it yet. Probably never would since he didn't expect to be here long.

Or did he?

Damn, he hadn't been this unsure of himself in ten years—not since he'd founded his fledgling Raptor Enterprises on swagger, bullshit, and other men's money.

He sat on his rosewood desk and planted his feet on the burgundy leather chair. Those men had taken smart flyers on him. They'd made back their investments several times over.

Zoya's soft, white silk dress swished as she swept up a press release. "Will you meet with this O'Leary woman?"

"No."

"No?" She leaned over the back of the chair and swung the paper between finger and thumb. "Of course you'll meet her. She and her group are accusing us of luring kids into sin and death. Big seller topics. We'll get media coverage. It'll be great for us. Best PR money didn't buy."

"I don't like burgundy. This chair can go. And the rugs."

"Fuck the rugs," Zoya said succinctly. "And the chair. Dammit, Sebastian, this is business. And it's not like you to be coy."

He reached to whip the paper from her fingers, and tossed it on the desk. "Leave it to me. I'll deal with it."

"Maryan's plane is probably getting in from Chicago as we speak. She'll wonder why you aren't snapping up this opportunity."

"No, she won't," Sebastian said shortly.

"Your sister never passed up a promotional opportunity."

"Maryan won't question passing up this one." They couldn't afford too much publicity here. Not unless he wanted his past spread all over the papers.

"But—"

"Drop it, there's a love."

One of Zoya's many skills was a nose for the right moment to switch topics. She returned to the windows that wrapped around three sides of Sebastian's office. "Wait till Maryan finds out you've bought that house in— What's the place called?"

"Medina."

"Yes, Medina. We all thought you only intended to come out here for the opening."

"You presumed. I may move my headquarters here."

Stunned summed up Zoya's expression nicely.

"New York's great," Sebastian said. "It'll be a great place to visit frequently."

"You aren't telling me you intend to live in— Medina permanently."

"More successful men than I am do." Sebastian stuck his hands in his trouser pockets. "The suburbs are good places for families."

"You don't have a family," she pointed out.

"At my age it's time to think about settling down."

Zoya laughed her deep, smoky-toned laugh. "Thirty-five? Just. True, you are approaching dotage, my love. But you are joking, aren't you? You don't really plan to be here longer than it takes to make sure we overcome the current little unpleasantness, do you?"

He ignored the question.

"This is me. Zoya. I'm on your side forever, remember? I don't know much about your pre-Raptor days, but aren't you the man who left Seattle right out of high school, the man who said he was never, coming back?"

"Things change." And some things didn't change nearly enough—or soon enough.

"How many years ago was that? Sixteen? Seventeen?"

"Fifteen. I sat out a year."