He was absolutely serious. That was the scary part.
Forty-five minutes after avoiding a direct answer to Chess's question at the cemetery, Cookie perched on a stool at the counter separating her tiny living room from her tiny kitchen and eyed the man lodged in the center of her little floral print sofa.
With his arms spread and one knee crossed over the other, Chess resembled some ruling pasha. All that blurred the image was the way one of his large hands brushed up against a fern while the other hit an African violet. The conflict was unavoidable. Every flat surface of Cookie's apartment was covered with green living things.
"You have to get married." Chess's gaze was shrewd as he looked up at her. "It's the only way to get your hands on those shares."
"But why now?" Cookie continued to avoid a direct response, just as she'd been doing ever since they'd left the cemetery in Chess's black Porsche. "It's been a year."
Chess maintained pasha-like serenity. "Would you like me to explain?"
"Please." Warming her hands around a thick mug of coffee, Cookie reminded herself this was why she'd let him drive her home across the bay, why she'd gone so far as to invite the man inside her home. So he could explain. Because maybe once Chess explained, he would be willing to accept Cookie's answer.
She wanted him fully convinced of her refusal before he left this room. There should be an end to the dogged pursuit.
Chess rotated his foot half a turn. "Your father," he began, "owned one third of Scents Allure."
"Which I still don't understand," Cookie couldn't help interjecting. "That place belongs to you and your mother, Kate. My dad didn't even work there."
Chess shot her a pitying look. "He made a sizable 'investment' in the place when he married Kate. It was only reasonable to issue him shares."
Cookie pressed her lips together. He was making their parents' marriage sound like a business deal and not for love. Even at the age of fifteen, she'd known this wasn't so. "Fine. He owned shares." She couldn't deny it was the truth. "Why didn't he simply will them to Kate—or better yet, to you?"
Chess hesitated.
Cookie felt a brief, possibly petty, spurt of triumph. A year ago when the will had been read, Chess hadn't shown even this much reaction. Not a twinge. He'd appeared completely unaffected that his stepfather—and best friend—had passed him over as if he didn't exist.
Now he looked down at the African violet. The fingers of his left hand tilted up to tap a woolly leaf. "He willed those shares to you, Rebecca."
A year ago she hadn't been nearly as stone-faced as Chess. She had shown her shock and dismay. "But only on condition," Cookie said aloud.
Chess nodded. "You have to get married."
Cookie rolled her eyes and tossed back a stray lock of hair. "God, Daddy had to know how ridiculous that was." In truth, he probably hadn't, but Cookie made the statement flip, as though she simply wasn't the sort of woman who would want to settle down.
"Ridiculous or not, those are the terms of the will."
Her lock of hair fell forward again. Cookie curled it around one finger. "Thank goodness I don't want those shares." Even if she hadn't—finally—landed a part in a long-running play, Cookie wouldn't have wanted the shares. She wasn't a business sort like her father. Deep in her blood was the stage. "Not even a little bit," Cookie added.
Chess was unimpressed. "Those shares can't remain in limbo forever. You have to get married."
"You don't need them in order to run the business." When Chess hadn't proposed straight off, Cookie had figured out this much.
"You don't under—" Chess uncrossed his legs and took his arms off the back of the sofa. "It's not the capital I'm after. Just the shares."
There was a difference? Cookie wondered.
"You have to get married," Chess repeated, definite. "And if not to me, then to one of your boyfriends. It doesn't matter, just so long as the job gets done."
It sounded as though Chess wouldn't mind passing this duty off on someone else. With a strange pang of pique, Cookie queried, "Oh, and which one of them would you suggest?"
He closed his eyes. "Sheldon. Wasn't that the last one's name?"
Cookie raised an eyebrow. Odd. Chess had apparently been keeping track of her even after her father couldn't possibly have asked him to.
"Sheldon went back to his wife." It had been obvious that Sheldon still loved Norma. He'd only needed time and a shove in the right direction to figure that out. Cookie resisted a smug smile.
Chess looked at her. "Fine. But surely there's someone new by now."
Cookie nodded with warm affection. "Eric."
"Eric." Chess's expression tightened. "Well then, why not Eric?"
"Eric's gone to Africa."
"Africa?"
"He joined the Peace Corps." Eric had been so excited by the prospect, the first adventure in his over-protected life, that he'd barely called Cookie over the past month. He, like Sheldon, had healed. Once a man had healed, Cookie let him go. A man who wasn't wounded was a man she couldn't handle. Only the men she dated knew that Cookie never took up with a fellow who might want more than a platonic relationship.
Chess was not one of those men. "Great," he muttered. "The Peace Corps." Then he broke down and gave Cookie the Look. It was the look she'd been receiving all her life. Even before her body had turned traitor on her, giving her the curves of a Hollywood vamp, Cookie had been getting this look. Chess, however, was a master at it. His look told her she really was one fluffball bimbo, wasn't she?
Cookie was an expert at ignoring the look. She'd had all sorts of practice. "It's been a year," she argued again. "Why is this so suddenly urgent?"
Immediately, a wall clanged down behind Chess's eyes. There was an answer, but the fluffball wasn't about to receive it. Cookie watched as he searched for an alternative. "Kate and I are...having trouble agreeing."
Cookie halted with her coffee halfway to her mouth. The perfume business was the one place Chess and his mother did agree. They both worked hard and with an identical passion for what they did. "What's the disagreement?"
He lifted a shoulder. "Admittedly heavy-duty issues. Major company goals."
Cookie had to think a minute, staring at him, before she got it. Her brow cleared. Chess had been honest with her. This wasn't about the money. "It's the votes," she breathed. "You want to outvote Kate."
Chess simply looked at her, his eyes clear. He neither confirmed nor denied.
"Ah." Cookie got the picture now. It was a power struggle thing. And rather disheartening he was so certain he'd convince Cookie to side with himself rather than Kate in the disagreement over company goals.
She set down her cup. "Look. Think. "Whatever your disagreement with Kate is, surely it couldn't be worth marriage. Tell me you're any more interested in that state than I am."
Chess smiled. "It's never been a particular goal of mine, no. But our marriage would be purely business. And temporary. By January I could hand you a divorce."
"Oh."
"No later than that." Chess leaned his elbows on his knees, suddenly earnest. "If, with your shares, I haven't squared things away at the plant by then—" He stopped short. Then he leaned back. With deliberate leisure, he again spread his arms across the top of the sofa. "Obviously, I'd make the whole venture worth your while."
Cookie blinked. "Pardon?"
"If everything works out the way I've planned it, I can buy out your shares in January at two hundred percent their current value."
Cookie nearly fell off her stool. Twice their value! "Uh, that's rather a large gain to expect, isn't it?"
"If everything works out." Despite his casual posture, a muscle tensed in Chess's jaw.
It was a bribe, Cookie realized and felt bewildered. Chess never bribed. He always had ammunition. But here he was, offering a two hundred percent payback to marry him and vote her shares his way.
Carefully, she slid off her stool. There was something going on here. Danger, though she couldn't pin down what kind. It was definitely time to set him straight. "No," she said. "Thank you very much, but no."
Chess did not appear surprised by this answer. He simply watched her closely. "Don't make any decisions today, Rebecca."
"Why not? I've had a year to think it over."
Slowly, Chess stood, too. Though not a tall man, he towered over her. "Think about it, Rebecca. That's all I ask."
Privately, she gnashed her teeth. When had she not thought about marriage? About love and lifelong companionship, tenderness and the possibility of— Oh, marriage meant a thousand things she could never get or have. She made a living out of pretend, but she wouldn't pretend about this. And particularly not with Chess. "The whole idea is—cheating."
His brows dipped. "It's just a business deal."
"Exactly. And I'm not getting married for business reasons." Or for any other reasons, but she didn't need to get into that.
Frustration and anger chased each other across his face, but he suppressed them with a benign neutrality. "This isn't just you and me we're talking about here. Think of Alex. It's his inheritance, too, you know."
Cookie ground her teeth some more. Why had her half-brother been passed over for shares in the company in their mutual father's will? Why had David Thibideaux concentrated all of his control-from-the-grave on her? "I'm not getting married," she told Chess. "You'll have to work out your company business some other way."
Instead of listening, Chess smiled and dropped a big hand on her shoulder.
Cookie tensed. So he did have ammunition. She was steeling herself to fend off the attack when he simply lifted his hand from her shoulder.
"We'll discuss this more," he promised. "Later."
She was left swaying. He hadn't hit her with a thing. Chess was halfway to the door before she realized that, though unharmed, she had not accomplished her goal. He'd refused her answer. If she didn't watch out, this whole episode would repeat.
"No," Cookie exclaimed at the same time that his hand hit the doorknob. "Wait!"
He stopped, halted mid-motion, as though she'd thrown an electrical switch. Slowly, he turned around.
What Cookie saw then made her stop in her tracks. In Chess's opaque eyes, for the fleetest of moments, she saw hope.
Vulnerability.
"Yes?" He appeared to have difficulty containing his brief slip.
Cookie frowned. Chess vulnerable? Chess experiencing anything but the most supreme confidence? No. She had to have imagined the vision.
She let go of the stool she'd been clutching and stood straight. "My answer isn't going to change later, Chess. It's no now. It'll be no then."
Again something flickered in his eyes. But this time it was the exact opposite emotion from hope. Complete despair. Then a cool mask drew over his face. He became the same old Chess.
"Think about it," he commanded, as imperious as ever. With a jerk on the doorknob, he let himself out.
Frowning, Cookie stared at the closed door. Despair? The eminently capable Chess possibly vulnerable and in despair?
Not that his status mattered, of course. It didn't make the slightest dent in her decision. Cookie drew in a deep breath. She didn't owe Chess, didn't owe him a thing.
But she couldn't help but remember the last time she'd been so determined, so unbending and sure. That had been the last time she'd seen her father alive.
~~~
Chess let himself down the weathered wood stair of the old apartment building and strode down the walk to his Porsche. He knew perfectly well he had not accomplished his goal with Rebecca Thibideaux.
Rebecca? No: Cookie.
A fitting name for David's daughter, something suitably silly. The dress she'd been wearing when he'd come upon her at the cemetery had been designed to show every curve of her hourglass figure. At thirty-five years of age, the lady had used that body to go through more men than she could keep track of—yet she still managed to come off with this young and innocent lost puppy air. Cookie, all right.
Chess opened the door and got into his car. Well, not exactly his car. As of last week, it was his car and the bank's. He hadn't picked up much by refinancing the thing, but every cent counted.
Rebecca or Cookie or whatever you wanted to call her—she was the only way out of this.
Chess's jaw tightened as he pulled the car out into the street. He'd liked to wring his stepfather's neck for leaving things at such a pass. For the future of Scents Allure to rest on the whims of David's featherbrained daughter— It was too much to bear.
If only she'd had the decency to exhibit some simple mercenary behavior. But she'd barely blinked at his offer to buy her out at twice the value of her shares.
Chess shook his head at himself. He knew better. Money was not the motivator in that woman's life. All anyone had to do was take a look at her apartment to know that, and Chess knew a lot more. He knew the sort of jobs she'd taken over the years, the sort of privation she'd lived with, all to give herself the chance to be on stage. Her acting mattered more to her than any amount of money. Neither her father nor Chess had ever been able to change her mind about that.
Chess scowled darkly at the slow traffic as he moved toward the South San Francisco location of his perfume plant. Part of his frustration, he knew, wasn't with David or even with David's troublesome daughter, but with himself.
Why should he care?
The business was worth close to nothing at the moment. If it went under altogether, Chess could simply walk away. His mother was financially secure with David's money, and he himself had a reputation. He'd gotten plenty of offers over the years from the big fragrance designers. He was known as a "nose," someone with the unique ability to detect and design the subtlest of scents. So why was he hanging on? What was he trying to save?
Maybe he didn't want to save anything, he thought.
Maybe he simply didn't like getting cheated.
A heat that had become familiar filled him. He absolutely hated getting cheated.
Chess pulled into the asphalt parking lot by the side of the plant. He sat in the car a moment, willing down the anger and thirst for revenge that had been building for four months now—ever since he'd discovered the critical theft. Unfortunately, the key to his vengeance lay in Rebecca Thibideaux, and she was not proving cooperative.
With a sigh, he popped open his car door. But why should she? She didn't even like him. Perhaps his frequent role in her life as a ruling enforcer played a part in her attitude, but Chess suspected it was something more simple.
He was not a likable fellow.
He stalked from his car toward the combination factory/office building of Scents Allure. His earlier anger shifted into sorrow. He'd at least thought David had liked him. But apparently not.
At the heavy glass entry doors of the factory, Chess pushed his way inside and nodded to Ben, the security guard, before crossing the black-and-white tiled entryway and opening another door into the central processing area. The equipment in this large room rose up the four stories of the offices that lined it on two sides. Skylights lit the laboratory space.
"Chess!" A trim woman in a pearl-colored skirt suit raised her hand from her position along one side of the atrium. "I've been looking for you." In her other hand, she held a file folder. She hurried toward him in her low-heeled pumps.
"Diana." Automatically, Chess checked his watch. Had he had an appointment with his marketing VP? He found himself wishing he had. Diana Lorimar was logic and limits—the complete opposite of Rebecca Thibideaux. He could use the detox.
"No, we did not have an appointment." Laughing, Diana seemed to read his mind as she approached his position. Her blond hair was in a neat chignon, and her makeup was understated. "Really. Do you and I need appointments in order to see each other?" She tilted her head, still smiling. "I was hoping we could go over our plans for the launch of the new perfume. Where have you been?"
His whereabouts and dubious aim were best left undisclosed. "Ah, the launch..." There wasn't much more they could do to prepare for launching his new perfume on the market without an infusion of cash—in a word, a loan. A big one. And there was no getting a loan without a majority vote of the company's stockholders: both himself and his mother.
He sucked in his lips. "Uh...best to hold off on any more plans for the launch," he told Diana. "At least until I secure the financing."
A flash of anxiety crossed her face. As a fairly new employee, Diana was hardly privy to the company books, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to deduce they were going to need to do something to shore up their sagging sales.
"Oh," she said. "Right."
Silently, Chess gnashed his teeth. "I have an idea," he decided. "Let's go see my mother."
Diana lifted her brows. "Again?"
Chess had spent the past few months hammering away at his mother. Upon occasion, he'd brought Diana with him for additional firepower. Not that any of his attempts to persuade Kate had done any good. That's why two weeks ago he'd seized on the strategy of utter desperation: getting Cookie's votes.
But if those votes weren't in the picture—?
"Yes, again." Chess gave Diana an encouraging smile. "Let's go upstairs."
On the fourth floor, the door to Kate's office was closed. Chess frowned as he stopped in front of it. Kate never closed her door. He knocked.
"Oh, come in."
When Chess opened the door, he found Kate replacing her phone in its cradle. She brushed a hand across the perfectly coiffed wave of blond hair at her forehead. Chess could swear that hand was shaking. Then Kate saw who had walked through the door. She halted. All expression wiped clean from her face.
"Are you all right?" Despite himself, Chess felt a sudden pang of concern.
Kate's expression chilled. "Of course I'm all right." Her gaze flicked to Diana, who was following Chess through the door. "Oh, dear," she said. "Again?"
Chess ignored her lack of enthusiasm and motioned Diana to a chair. He tried to ignore his inner concern but with less success. It wasn't like Kate to lose her composure, not even for a moment. She was similar to her office: ultimate elegance in cool pastels and crisp textures.
His mother's unerring taste was a good part of how she'd been able to sustain the perfume company during the lean years when it hadn't had much else to sustain it. Since David's money had come in and Chess had joined the team, things had been different. Kate's aesthetic sense together with Chess's aromatic expertise made a powerful combination. For years they'd been careful to cultivate at least this side of their relationship, for the sake of the business. Until three months ago, when Chess had first brought up borrowing money for the launch of a new perfume.
Chess strolled toward the polished woodwork of her desk. "It isn't too late to change your mind. The ad company is still interested. I don't think you realize, Kate, what a unique opportunity this is."
Kate leaned back in her soft chair and removed her glasses. "I understand it is a tremendous financial risk."
Chess had to bite his tongue from the obvious retort. Scents Allure couldn't afford not to take risks. But he didn't want to admit as much with Diana in the room. "Coldwell Advertising is actually willing to joint venture with us on the project," he said instead. "That's unheard of, for an advertising company to put their own money on the line."
Kate gave him an icy look. "And I don't suppose your relationship with Ruth Coldwell has anything to do with that?"
Chess's lips curved into a small, ironic smile. "Why, Kate. I had no idea you kept such close tabs on my social life." Not that close, though, or she'd know that he and Ruth Coldwell had been nothing more than friends for the past two years.
His mother narrowed her green eyes at him. "I do if I think it's going to cost me money. Coldwell Advertising isn't risking nearly as much as we are—and will be first to get paid with any income." She shook her head. "I don't understand why we can't do what we've always done: trust the classics. Over the years, they have always been reliable."
The classics. Desire, Craving, Seduction. The perfumes for which the company was known and which had sold with comfortable dependability for decades. A sick and angry emotion attacked Chess. But as he lifted his gaze over Kate's head to regard the gray San Francisco sky visible through the factory sash window, he was careful to keep his expression neutral.
He could not tell his mother why the classic perfumes were not going to work this season. He wasn't going to tell anybody, not until he'd figured out what was really going on and who was behind it. Releasing a deep breath, he felt able to look down again.
In a bland voice, he remarked, "I think we need to do something now."
Kate picked up a slim, gold-tipped pen and held it between her fingers. "I have to admit the new scent you've developed is good." The praise seemed to require effort. "But you know as well as I do that two thirds of new launches fail."
Diana leaned forward in her seat. "Not the launches Coldwell Advertising has worked on. Their track record is significantly better."
Kate ignored Diana. She kept her eyes on Chess. Her gaze was unwavering, and it held the same cold wall it always did when she looked at her oldest son. "My vote stays the same. I'm against taking out a loan to finance an advertising launch for your new perfume."
As Chess regarded his mother, he wondered if he'd actually ever done anything to merit the cold dislike he saw in her eyes. Or was she seeing someone else? His father, perhaps, the man who'd gotten her pregnant and abandoned her. He must have been one lousy son-of-a-bitch.
Or perhaps Chess was simply missing something, whatever it took to gain her love.
"Well, Diana," he observed. "I guess Kate has made her views clear."
His mother picked up a pair of half-frame glasses and installed them over her nose. She turned her attention to a stack of payroll sheets. Chess was already forgotten.
She thought she could get rid of him that easily.
Irritation burned inside Chess, initiated perhaps by his earlier failure with Cookie. Dammit, he was going to make his mother care—at least about something. "Diana, would you wait for me outside?"
Hesitating only briefly, Diana gathered her pad and slipped from the room.
At the same time, Kate looked up, faintly frowning.
Chess waited until the door had fully closed after Diana. "I have some news for you, of a personal nature."
"Oh?" Something sparked briefly behind her eyes, but it was gone too quickly for Chess to assess its nature. Surely it could not have been interest, however. The last time Kate had shown personal interest in Chess must have been over twenty years ago, when they were deciding where he should go to college.
"What is it?" Kate asked.
Chess clasped his hands behind his back. "I'm thinking of getting married."
Kate's composed features froze. "Married?"
"People do that, you know. Even me."
Her eyes searched his face quickly, closely. "What kind of a game are you playing?"
He was baiting her, but it hurt just the same. He'd shown her nothing but loyalty all these years. Couldn't his own mother believe him capable of love?
Dimly, it occurred to Chess that if he did marry Rebecca Thibideaux, it wouldn't be for love.
"Oh, no," Kate said. Her expression thawed as she began to catch on. "Not Cookie."
Chess raised a shoulder. "Who else?"
Kate stared at him in horror. "You wouldn't. Not even you would—would—"
"Stoop so low?" Chess pursed his lips. "I don't know why not. After all, I have the shining example of my own mother to follow. Marrying in order to save the business didn't sit so poorly with you." You even got a son out of it, Chess nearly added. The son he couldn't be, the one she could love with a normal mother's love.
Kate lifted her chin. "Cookie would never agree to it."
Right on the money there, Chess silently conceded. Aloud, he claimed, "I'm handing her an offer she can't refuse."
Kate actually smiled at that. They both knew that with Cookie there was no such thing. Kate pushed her half glasses back up her nose, relaxed again. "You send me an invitation."
"I'll do that." Chess smiled while silently gnashing his teeth. His mother's complacency was well founded. It would be a bloody miracle if she ever got that invitation.
Diana was waiting outside the door. "So?"
Chess simply shook his head.
Stepping forward, Diana put a hand on his jacket sleeve. "It's maddening. Your new scent is...amazing."
Chess frowned at the pale hand on his dark wool sleeve while still steaming about his mother. "It's more the advertising than the actual scent that has to sell. And Kate is right: the vast majority of new fragrance launches fail. Ours could, too."
Brooding, he started toward the elevator.
Diana linked her hand around his arm and kept pace.
Her hand was around his arm. Too preoccupied to think much about it, Chess pressed the button for the elevator.
The doors opened, and the two of them walked into the cab. Chess pressed the button for the ground floor.
"It's hopeless, Chess," Diana sighed. "She'll never agree to the loan."
Chess closed his eyes. Diana was right. Kate never would agree with him solely on his own merits.
"Listen." Diana's voice was a little breathless. "It's after five. Why don't we take a break? Go—brainstorm."
The elevator doors opened.
"Mr. Bradshaw." Henry, the head lab tech, stood before them. His normally dour expression looked even more dour than usual.
Hastily, Diana lowered her hand from Chess's sleeve.
"What's up, Henry?" But Chess could feel his jaw tighten, already guessing what Henry was going to say. He stepped out of the elevator.
"It's about the production schedule," Henry groused. Though he wore a clean white lab coat, the older man managed to look hangdog. "It can't be right."
Chess didn't dare glance back toward Diana, still in the elevator cab. "We'll brainstorm later, Diana. Let me talk to Henry here."
"Oh." Diana paused and then added brightly, "Sure." She must have pressed the button for her own floor because Chess heard the elevator doors close.
"Production is way down," Henry complained.
"Temporary," Chess claimed.
Henry shot him a disbelieving look.
Another emotion added to the unpleasant mix already inside Chess. Guilt. More people than his immediate family would be hurt if Scents Allure went under.
"Production of the new perfume is going to be off the charts," Chess claimed. Taking a step forward, he opened the door into the central processing area where the last summer sun still beamed through the skylights far above.
"But when is that gonna start?" Henry followed Chess. "'Cause we're already slowing down on producing the regular formulas."
"Yes, yes. I just have to..." Convince an airhead goodtime girl to marry me. "...square away a few details. Then we'll start making perfume with a vengeance."
Henry's glum expression did not lighten. If anything, his suspicion deepened.
For a moment, Chess thought the lab tech was going to call him out on his wild exaggeration. For a moment, Chess wondered if he shouldn't come clean with Henry and give him the choice to stay or go find a different, more financially secure, job. He knew Henry was laboring to pay off a stiff home mortgage.
But he could not possibly find a lab tech of Henry's quality. If he did manage to get that loan, Chess was going to need the gifted technician.
With his eyes narrowed, Henry shook his head at Chess. "I hope so, Mr. Bradshaw. For all our sakes, I surely do hope you know what you're doing."
Chess hoped so, too. He let out a deep breath as Henry turned and shambled away.
Frowning, then, Chess turned and pushed open the glass door that led to his own office, a far more primitive laboratory than the one in the atrium. He made for the old easy chair behind his ancient desk. On the fourth floor, he had a showcase room where he met important people. But this was his real office, the thinking one.
From the desktop, Chess picked up a pencil and tapped it against his teeth. What to do? What to do? Diana, Henry—all of them. Yes, even Alex and Kate. They were all depending on him because he was the only one who knew the truth...
And his brain was stalled. Damn it, he'd tried everything.
Suppressing a groan, Chess closed his eyes.
Stop. Relax. Empty.
He must have really emptied his mind because the image that rose into it was that of Cookie Thibideaux—specifically her eyes. Soft and brown, they were the color of chocolate. He recalled the surprise he'd seen in them when she'd looked up at him from over David's grave.
Chess wondered if Kate even remembered it was the anniversary of her late husband's death.
Meanwhile, in his office deep in the heart of the perfume plant, Chess recalled what had happened next at the cemetery. She'd ended up in his arms.
He frowned and opened his eyes. It had been a strange moment. But nothing terribly unexpected given the venue and the occasion. After all, he'd orchestrated the whole thing, hadn't he, showing up there, knowing she'd be alone and vulnerable? But he'd still been shocked. Her coffee-colored hair, upswept, had been just under his nose. Her body had been as giving as sugar candy against his front. It had been like embracing a—a kitten, something soft and delicate. But the part that had been really difficult to take was that she'd sought comfort—from him, of all people.
A momentary lapse, Chess told himself, setting his pencil down with care. That's all it had been. Just a brief mistake. Cookie hadn't meant to ask him for comfort. If she'd been thinking straight she would have remembered that she didn't like Chess; nobody did. She would have kept her distance and he—well, he wouldn't be sitting here remembering the way she'd smelled, for God's sake.
Scattering the papers on his desk with a sudden gesture, Chess jumped to his feet. Enough! This woolgathering wasn't getting him anywhere. He paced the office and forced his mind back to essentials. The only way out of this was with Cookie's shares, and the only way to her shares was through her marriage.
There had to be a way to convince her to take the step. Ammunition. A key.
With his hand in a tight fist, he tapped softly on the top of his lab bench. Yes, there had to be a key.