Earth Angel (16 page)

After that first painful conversation a few days ago, they had had several more congenial ones. He’d hung in there, courting her slowly. But not once had she mentioned this dress!

She smiled innocently as she tucked her oversized evening bag under her arm. “It’s a gown, Miles. You know what they are. Ankle-length dress, lots of material, very dramatic.”

“It looks like a shortfall of material to me,” he said. He should have known disaster was looming when she’d been late arriving. He pulled her off to the side of the foyer, far away from lecherous eyes. “I should have approved your clothes for tonight.”

She eyed him. “Don’t even think it, Miles.”

He took a deep breath. He had a big job to do here, both of them did. They ought to be talking about that, not about a dress that made him sigh in pleasure and growl in possession. But he couldn’t let it go. “You’re not going in like that.”

She blinked. “Miles,
you
wanted me to look my best. This is my best.”

“Damn straight it is,” he muttered. “I don’t like it.”

“You don’t get a vote.” She whirled on her peacock-blue heels and walked into the reception.

He followed behind her, frowning darkly. He should have picked her up at her house, and he should have made damn sure she never left it. Jealously, pure and simple, was what he was suffering from. The experience was new.

Everything about Catherine was new—including the shock from their past. She
was
punishing him. That small piece of youthful impulse had cost him dearly. Now he would have to earn her back. Unfortunately, he had no idea how.

Inside the ballroom, a string orchestra played energetic music, and voices and laughter swelled above the violins. He caught up with Catherine.

“Now, Catherine—” he began.

She interrupted. “Miles, I don’t want to hear it, okay?”

“And I don’t want men seeing you, wanting you …” Why couldn’t she see the point he was making? “That dress is … Oh, hell, you look fabulous and I hate it.”

Her mouth gaped open in astonishment. He felt stupid, like a young teenager with his first girl.

“Hi, are we having fun yet?” Catherine’s aunt Sylvia asked, coming up at precisely the wrong moment.

Miles forced himself to smile at her. “We’re jumping with joy. Everybody looks jovial, though.”

“So far,” Sylvia said, pleased. “The media is eating and drinking up everything in sight. I hope full stomachs put them in a contented mood.”

“It looks more like they’re vultures circling the carcass,” Catherine said wryly.

“Byrne will make it that way,” Miles said absent-mindedly, noticing two men staring at Catherine. He glared at them until they looked away.

“Byrne is a walking disaster,” Sylvia said, looking worried.

It’s showtime, Miles thought.

“Well,” he began expansively, doing another Ronald Reagan imitation. “I hope all this comes off the way it should. The bank consortium is not pleased with the way Byrne has handled the corporation’s public image. They want changes.”

Sylvia’s frown of worry deepened. “We’ve got some big loans with them right now, too.”

Miles smiled. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Catherine’s lips thin into a grim line. She might not like it, but it had to be done. “Yes,” he answered Sylvia. “If this keeps up, they are not going to be happy … or cooperative.”

“Excuse me,” Catherine said. “I see some people I should talk to.”

Miles smothered a grimace when she walked away. He had a feeling she would be doing that the entire evening. It was more of an advantage, though, to talk to Sylvia alone.

“And if it does keep up, Miles?” Sylvia asked.

She reminded him of Catherine in some ways, he mused. She was as straightforward. “They’re going to ask for some management changes. Some board changes, to be honest. And if you can’t make the balloon payment coming up, they won’t have to ask. They’ll be the ones doing it.”

The older woman swallowed. “Will they negotiate an extension?”

“I won’t recommend that to them,” he said flatly. “Not with the nonsense Byrne is pulling. Byrne is not his father. The change Wagner Oil needs is at the top.”

Sylvia took a deep breath. “I know.”

Miles looked toward Catherine. “Catherine is young … but she makes a lot of sense.”

“I know.” Sylvia smiled.

Miles smiled back. His message was received.

“Wagner Oil is not responding completely to these accusations from the Earth Angel. By the way, that’s a gorgeous gown.”

Catherine smiled at Mariana Tolliver. Channel Five’s beautiful investigative reporter was on the attack tonight. “We are repairing the leaks and cleaning up those drums, Mariana. And we’re correcting all our procedures to ensure such problems never happen again. The dress is a Sidney Marshall.”

Catherine hid a smile, remembering Mile’s reaction to the dress. She half felt she’d picked it just to provoke his response. And she was half pleased that he had acted a bit possessive.

“I knew it,” Mariana said, grinning. “She’s a wonderful designer. I kill for her stuff. How do you explain how those ‘problems’ happened in the first place?”

“You’ve got a Mike Wallace—Coco Chanel technique,” Catherine said, chuckling. “You’ve had the company’s official statement concerning the problems. As an officer of the corporation, I stand by it.”

“And I so liked your dress.” The woman sighed. “Come on, Catherine, don’t you evade too.”

“How about if I take you on a plant tour?” Catherine suggested. The more open she was, the more the reporter would assume there was no nasty hidden story to be had. And at least it took her mind off Miles, Catherine thought. She had been evading him for the past hour, only to realize he was with one of her relatives after another, “doing business.” It still hurt.

“Can I poke anywhere I want?” Mariana asked.

“As long as it’s not an EPA restricted zone,” Catherine answered. “We’ve been fined enough.”

Mariana laughed. “I suppose I can agree to that.”

“I’m eternally grateful.”

Mariana took a bite of her crab pastry. “You people are going all out in this congenial bribe.”

“And you people are certainly eating it up,” Catherine replied with an easy laugh.

She suddenly felt a presence close behind her. She didn’t have to see the sudden interest in Mariana’s gaze to know who it was. An instant internal matching was going on inside her body, and there was only one man she matched so instantly with. Miles.

“Mr. Kitteridge,” Mariana said, her smile sickeningly sweet. “Wagner Oil has outdone itself tonight. I’ve been talking with Catherine here about what the company is doing to improve its image.”

“Catherine is certainly the one to answer that,” Miles said smoothly. “She is an expert on environmental safety procedures, and she’s been instrumental in the changes you’ve been witnessing tonight.”

Catherine nearly choked. He hit a little too close to home with that one.

Mariana asked the same questions of Miles that she had of Catherine. She glanced at him as he answered, and the questions that had been bothering her lately resurfaced. Was she punishing him for before? She didn’t think so. Had he changed? He fed her cold remedies galore, apologized, even got arrested for her. He asked her to come back. At the same time, he was the moving force behind a brewing board fight to put her into the chairmanship of Wagner Oil. And not once had he said he loved her.

“… and she’s taking me on a tour of the refinery. No doors barred.”

The words brought Catherine’s attention back to the conversation, and she held her breath, waiting for Miles’s answer. He wouldn’t like this, she was sure.

“Great,” he said, without even a blink. “As a matter of fact, Wagner will be getting into the environmental cleanup business. The company intends to lead the way in this field. Could I steal Catherine away from you?”

“But … but …” Mariana sputtered.

Catherine found herself dragged away by Miles’s firm grip on her arm before the woman could protest. She couldn’t get a protest in anywhere, either—not without giving Mariana something to investigate. The wild delight she felt at his hand on her bare flesh only added to her confusion.

“Since when did we get into the cleanup business?” she asked.

“Since I found out how lucrative it’s becoming,”
he replied. “It’ll be one of the first things you institute when you’re chairperson.”

She narrowed her eyes. It wasn’t his company, but clearly he thought it was going to be. “What else will
I
be instituting?”

He grinned. “Whatever will make money. Responsibly, of course.”

She didn’t like the sound of this. “Where are we going?”

“I want to talk to you alone.” He grimaced. “And I’m damn sick and tired of the men here ogling you. Can you stuff a napkin in there or something?”

She looked heavenward. “No.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.” He maneuvered them into a quiet corner. As he gazed down at her, her breath caught. Suddenly she wished she did have that napkin. She braced herself for him to touch her, but all he said was, “I’ve talked to the other board members, and they’re all disturbed by Byrne.”

“And you gave them the consortium pressure, I’m sure,” she said, her conflicting emotions hardening her voice.

“You’re being prickly again.” He smiled. “We’ve got to use all the tools we can. I want you to talk to them about some of those safety procedures you mentioned before—”

She interrupted. “I’m going to talk to them about saving the Utah land.”

“The Utah land? Oh. From the codicil. I forgot. They may just be ripe for that, especially if you point out how it will be a show of our good environmental faith.”

He was amazing, she thought. And
very
full of
plans on her behalf. What had been bothering her in this board fight beyond the family ties became crystal clear. She was going to be a puppet chairperson, with Miles running the works behind the scenes.

“Catherine,” he said seriously, abruptly changing the subject, “being apart isn’t solving anything. Come home with me tonight. We need to talk … about us.”

His words rang harshly in her head. Of course, she realized suddenly. He had never asked her to stay or to come back until after he had thought up this plan for a Wagner board shake-up.
After
. She was being used.

The room squeezed in on her, tilting and fading to near black.

“Catherine?” His voice came from far away.

He touched her arm. It was like a slap of icy water. She wouldn’t let the pain show, she thought. Two could play his game.

“Not tonight,” she said, her voice sounding remarkably normal. “It wouldn’t be good for us to be seen together too much. Everyone thinks we’re lovers now, but it’s better to confuse them. Keep them off balance. You work the crowd your way, and I’ll work them mine, okay?”

“But—”

She patted his cheek. “We’ll talk later. I have to arrange Mariana’s tour.”

With that, she walked away.

It was Earth Angel’s swan song.

Very carefully, Catherine set the jar of sludge on the buffet table. For the past half hour the table
had been swamped by a steady stream of media people, until she’d thought she would go crazy with the waiting. She had nearly left, so distraught by Miles’s manipulations. Nearly. Finally the feeding frenzy had slowed, and she had casually wandered over.

The jar wasn’t big, just a quart-size mayonnaise one that had fit in her velvet bag. The sludge was straight from Wagner’s refinery drain, and the jar was clearly marked and signed by the lab that had tested it.

She had debated over whether or not to do this. It would be extremely risky, but the opportunity was too good to resist. A final mission, a most dramatic one—and one that would tweak a certain nose or two. She hadn’t been able to resist that, either.

She stood in front of the jar and glanced around to see if anyone was watching her. No one paid any attention.

Perfect.

She strolled away.

Miles heard the commotion by the buffet table before he saw it. People were looking and pointing and buzzing—and laughing in satisfied amusement.

“What’s going on?” the state senator Miles was talking to asked.

Miles shrugged, slightly annoyed to have his chat with the man interrupted. “I don’t know.”

The laughter rose. He and the senator wandered over. He couldn’t get close enough to see anything
at first, then the crowd shifted enough for him to spy an innocent looking jar of brown mud.

“The Earth Angel!” somebody said.

“Let me through!” Byrne shouted. “Turn off those cameras! Let me through!”

Instead, the reporters crowded around him, all of them babbling questions. “Help!” Byrne squawked. “Get away, get away!”

Miles turned on his heel and strode across the vast ballroom. His aim was unerring. That damn dress was hard to miss.

So was Catherine’s completely innocent expression when he reached her.

“Welcome home, sweetheart,” he said, before she could say a word.

He took her by the arm and hauled her out of the reception.

“I’m not going to your house again.”

Catherine instantly wanted to take back the words at the look Miles gave her.

“You will,” he said tersely, pushing her past several guests leaving the reception and into the elevator. It was an express. He jabbed the button that closed the doors, saying to the others, “Sorry. It’s full.”

The people stared open-mouthed. The doors slid shut.

Catherine had never seen him so angry before. Maybe, she mused, she might have gone a little too far this time.

“Miles—”

“Catherine, don’t,” he said, his voice so cold it could have refrozen the arctic.

She swallowed hard. If she would ever know when to keep quiet rather than fight, this was definitely the moment.

The elevator ride was made in deadly silence. So was the wait for his Corvette to be brought
around. Catherine shivered in the cool September air. She thought of her evening coat back in the cloakroom and decided it wasn’t worth mentioning.

Without a word, Miles shed his tuxedo jacket and dropped it around her shoulders like a sack of potatoes.