The Daddy Deal. Kathleen O'Brien

“I’m going to get him,” he said, his voice sounding as if it had been scoured with sandpaper. “I don’t care what you think. I don’t care what anybody thinks. That boy is my nephew. My flesh and blood. And, by God, I’m going to take him back from that woman if it’s the last thing I do.”

      To his surprise, Charlie’s gaze was once again sympathetic, drifting from the scene on the playground to Taylor, then back to the crying boy again. Finally, he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll think of something.”

      “I already have,” Taylor said curtly, pulling his pen out of the breast pocket of his jacket. “Give me the woman’s address.”

      Charlie recoiled subtly, his eyes narrowing. “Why? I thought you didn’t want me to approach her. I thought you didn’t want me to let her know we were investigating.”

      “I don’t.” Taylor held out the pen and a slim black notebook, pointing them at Charlie’s chest like weapons. “Just give me her address.”

      The lawyer took the pen reluctantly. “What the devil are you planning?” He began, very slowly, to write, and Taylor waited silently while he scribbled a few words on the page.

      Sighing deeply, he handed the notebook to Taylor, who gave it only one short glance before flipping it shut. One glance was all he needed. 909 Parker Lane—he’d remember that address until the day he died.

      Turning his head away from Charlie’s disapproving frown, Taylor watched the little boy hobble off the playground, sobbing inconsolably into his mother’s skirt. He could feel Charlie standing behind him, his anxiety and annoyance almost as palpable as the heat around them.

      “I asked you a question,” Charlie said slowly. “What are you planning to do?”

      Taylor turned his head an inch. He could just see the other man out of the corner of his eye.

      “Whatever it takes,” he said grimly, sliding the notebook back into his breast pocket. “Whatever it takes.”

      

      Was it just that she was so tired, Brooke Davenport wondered, or was the Eberson Theater looking particularly surreal tonight?

      Ordinarily, Brooke loved the exotic old movie palace, which dated from the Roaring Twenties. The auditorium walls were covered with sculpted facades to suggest an open-air Mediterranean courtyard; its ceiling was painted violet, like a twilight sky, and dotted with electric “stars”.

      Tonight, though, as she followed Clarke Westover through the glittering throng of wealthy Floridians who had gathered to raise money for the theater’s ongoing restoration, Brooke suddenly found the atmosphere unnerving. She swept her tired gaze across the walls that climbed up toward the artificial twilight. Not one square inch had been left uncarved. Scrolls, vines, flowers, birds and cherubs all twisted together in nightmarish intimacies. It was almost suffocating.

      Or perhaps the auditorium was just too crowded. She took a deep breath of the stuffy, overconditioned air and tried to ignore the champagne that splashed over her knuckles as yet another tuxedo bumped into her. The seats had been removed—the latest phase of the renovation—and replaced for the evening with a temporary floor and small wrought-iron tables and chairs. Brooke looked longingly at every empty chair they passed. She was so tired—she had barely slept for the past week. If only Clarke had agreed to meet her in his office. This whole ordeal could have been over by now.

      Instead, it was just beginning. Climbing to the stage, the emcee tapped his microphone and announced that it was time to open the auction. An expectant murmur rode through the room like a wave, and the guests began gliding toward their seats, a psychedelic rainbow of silk swirling against a checkerboard of black-and-white tuxedos.

      Brooke was just barely able to keep up with Clarke’s broad, black-clad back—he was moving fast, more accustomed than she to maneuvering through elegant party crushes. Without warning, the room dimmed as someone turned down the stars, and for a frightening second Brooke wondered if she were fainting.

      “Clarke...”

      She clutched at his hand for balance, a moment of weakness she regretted when she saw his surprised smile broaden into self-satisfaction. Ahhh, that smile said—now he had her precisely where he wanted her. After almost two years of keeping a strained distance, she had finally come crawling back to him, just as he had always predicted she would.

      Except that it wasn’t true. When she had telephoned him this morning, she’d been scrupulously careful to explain that her call was strictly business. But she had known, from the minute he insisted on meeting her at this society function, that he was reading something more personal into it.

      What a mess! She tried to extricate her hand unobtrusively, but his cold grip was proprietary and unyielding. Finally, just as she began to feel slightly claustrophobic, Clarke found the table assigned to them and pulled out her chair with a flourish.

      She sat, her whole body sinking with relief, though the iron was stiff and unwelcoming. When Clarke draped his arm loosely around the back of her chair, Brooke pretended not to notice. She knew she had to tread very carefully. If she wounded his pride, he would find a way to make her pay.

      Exhausted tears suddenly stung behind Brooke’s eyes. How high would the price be? Would he refuse to help her, to talk to Mr. Alston for her? Or would he go even further? He knew that Alston, the millionaire builder whose legal affairs he handled, was the one man in Tampa who actually desired Brooke’s little bungalow enough to pay three times its appraised value. Could Clarke possibly be capable of advising Mr. Alston not to buy?

      “Seven hundred once, twice—” The gavel thumped, echoing in the microphone, and Brooke started slightly. “Sold to Mr. Westover, number twenty-three, for seven hundred dollars.”

      She looked up, stunned. She hadn’t even realized that Clarke was bidding on anything, hadn’t, in truth, even realized the auction was under way. Seven hundred dollars? Good Lord, what was he buying? She glanced over at him, and even in the dim light she could see the flush of triumph on his features.

      “Bastard thought he was going to take it away from me,” Clarke muttered to her out of the side of his mouth.

      “Who?” She was confused, as if he were speaking a foreign language. “Take what away?”

      “Number three-oh-four.” Clarke shifted his eyes subtly to the table on their immediate right, where a man sat, absently tapping his card on the arm of his chair while he chatted softly with a stunning brunette. “See him? Taylor Allen. Man’s a damn fool. It’s a good case of champagne, but not that good. It’s not worth more than six hundred.”

      Brooke wasn’t sure which of the two men had been proved the bigger fool—Taylor What’s-his-name, who had lost the opportunity to overpay for the case of champagne, or Clarke, who seemed so smugly pleased to have done so—but she knew better than to voice any such thoughts. Clarke had caught Taylor’s eye, and the other man raised his glass with a small smile, as if saluting Clarke’s acumen. Clarke returned the gesture, bowing slightly, and Brooke inwardly flinched. Was she the only one who saw the mockery in Taylor’s eyes?

      “Usher!” Clarke’s sudden whisper, spoken over his shoulder, was sharp and piercing. “We’ll have a bottle now.” The usher nodded and disappeared, and Clarke turned to Brooke. “To celebrate,” he said softly. “An important champagne for an important night.”

      “Clarke...” She leaned forward, suddenly desperate to straighten things out now, before they went too far. “Clarke, I hope you understand that I just wanted to ask you—”

      “Shhh...” The emcee had begun hawking a celebrity autograph. Clarke had returned his attention to the stage, though she could tell he was watching Taylor out of the corner of his eye, waiting to see whether the other man desired the item before he bid on it.

      Clarke needn’t have bothered. Taylor couldn’t have been more disinterested. His brunette, whose preferred method of communication seemed to be through her fingertips, was talking to him, and their heads were