Sweet Nothings: A Karma Café Novella (9 page)

“But I don’t want to hear anything you have to say,” she told him, crossing her arms over her chest. The move pressed her breasts high against the black lace of her bra, making his mouth water.

Get a grip, he warned himself.

“Lynn White has filed to have you declared dead. I don’t know whether it’s because she’s tired of waiting to get her hands on the bulk of your father’s estate, or because she’s worried you might pop up to claim your trust next year. Either way, she’s planning to steal what’s yours.”

“She can have it,” Bianca said with a shrug that made her breasts bounce and his libido whimper.

Focus, dammit. Jacob clenched his fists to keep himself from reaching for her.

“You’d rather be declared dead than stand up for yourself?”

“The last time I tried to stand up for myself, she tried to kill me,” Bianca snapped. Her eyes spit fury, her stance so combative that Jacob had trouble believing that this woman had ever let anyone push her around. But her trembling lips told him she wasn’t exaggerating.

“Your client, my dear stepmother, was furious when I refused to go to boarding school in England where I’d be well out of her hair. She pushed me down the stairs, then stepped over my broken body on her way out to dinner.” Bianca sucked in a deep breath, as if trying to steady her shaking words. “The next day, because I’d had the nerve to tell the emergency room doctor the truth of what happened and force her to call me a liar, she locked me in my bedroom. It took me three days to find a way out.”

The fury drained, leaving her face devastated and her eyes filled with remembered pain.

“Do you know how hard it is to climb down a tree with a broken arm and sprained ankle? I did it, though. And then I ran.” Her eyes were huge, bruised and tired as she shook her head at him. “The last thing she said to me was that if I ever defied her again, she’d kill me.”

He’d always hated Lynn White.

Jacob’s jaw clenched with the effort to hold back his fury. The last thing Bianca needed, though, was him spewing the many ways he wanted to tear her stepmother apart.

Reason, he told himself, breathing deep. Use reason.

“But that was then. This is now. She’s already stolen part of your life, of your heritage. Are you going to let her steal your money, too? You’re very identity?”

Now she stepped closer.

So close, he could smell himself on her skin.

So close he could see the tiny silver sparks in her vivid blue eyes.

So close, he wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold tight, never letting go.

Then she jabbed him in the chest with one finger.

“I left that abusive, horrible house and that abusive nasty woman eight years ago for a very good reason. And that reason still stands. If I gave a single damn about the money, I would have gone back. But I don’t, and I won’t.” She emphasized her declaration with another poke to his chest, then grabbed her blouse out of his now slack fingers. “No matter how good you are in bed.”

“That’s not fair,” he snapped.

“No? And coming here, conning your way into renting an apartment I just happened to be working on, and not telling anyone what your purpose was? That’s fair?”

No.

But that was business.

He’d be damned if she was going to think he’d had sex with her for business, though.

“Look, I didn’t plan on sleeping with you,” he protested, throwing his hands in the air. “I came here to find you. To convince you to come back and claim your inheritance. What we did, it wasn’t planned. I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t use you, use sex. Not like that.”

Brow furrowed, feeling a little sick to his stomach, Jacob held his breath and waited.

Shoving her arms into her blouse, her glare slowly faded and she gave an infinitesimal wince. Lips pressed together, she shrugged as if to say whatever.

His frown shifted from self-loathing to confusion. Before he could say anything, though, she grabbed her purse and headed for the door.

“So that’s it? You’re just going to let her win?” he asked quietly.

Bianca paused, her hand frozen on the doorknob. But she didn’t look back.

Jacob continued anyway.

“Are you going to let her take your father’s money? Your inheritance? Allow her to keep everything? There’s nothing wrong with running when you’re defenseless, Bianca. But can you live with yourself if you run now? You’re an adult. A strong woman with a solid circle of people who would stand behind you. Beside you.” He shoved his fists in his pockets, feeling like an idiot, but unable to resist adding, “Or in my case, stand in front of you. I won’t let her hurt you.”

“Just the thought of her hurts me,” Bianca whispered.

“Then she’s won. And she’ll always win.”

This time Bianca did look back.

The look in her eyes almost floored him.

She looked like he’d broken her heart.

“I don’t care.”

Chapter Eight

The air was richly scented with the hearty aroma of soup on the stove, the spice of freshly sliced pastrami for the Paninis and the overlying sweet allure of cookies and cake fresh from the oven.

From the lush scents to the colorful variety of food cooling, prepping or waiting on the long stainless counters or the ladder-like bakery racks. Pre-lunch in the Karma Café kitchen was a bouquet of deliciousness.

Anja felt like throwing up.

She paced from one end of the kitchen to the next, trying to shake off her worry and stomp out the concern with her spiked heeled boots.

She peered around the kitchen door, tension loosening a little when she noted her mother busy with customers. A dozen or so people were vying for her attention, although none were asking for food. It was the Astrology Club’s monthly luncheon, which meant they’d had their usual fare at one and would likely stay another hour or two scooping up as much dessert, coffee and information as they could get.

Natalia thrived on these meetings. Interest in all things New Age waxed and waned, but astrology never seemed to go out of style. And nobody knew more about the subject, or shared that information with the same casual verve as Natalia Karminski.

Anja relaxed a little, assured that her mother would be busy for a while.

“Shouldn’t you be upstairs still?”

Anja glanced over at the tiny fairy of a woman rolling pie dough across the marble counter and cringed. Not at the question, since she did make a point to take a break after the lunch crowd dispersed. But at the idea of being upstairs.

Now.

While Bianca was getting her courage on.

Anja glanced at the wide moon-faced clock on the wall and grimaced.

And on. And, probably on again.

The tension that’d just eased swooped back in, knotting tight in Anja’s shoulders. She tried to breathe it away, but it wasn’t budging. Guilt was like that. It had a way of taking hold and gnawing at a person.

“I thought I’d stick around and help today,” she told her grandmother truthfully.

“Help, hmm?” Odette Karminski eyed her granddaughter, her rich dark eyes taking in everything before she tilted her head to one side so that her waist-length pewter braid swayed down her back. “You can help by preparing the fruit pie filling.”

Right. Pie filling.

Not only would it be a good use of her time, it’d give her a handy excuse in case her mother came in. Who would question a loving granddaughter helping her grandmamma bake pies? Anja smirked a little, proud of herself for falling into such a perfect excuse to avoid upstairs.

“What’d you do?” Odette asked, her words coming in the same quiet, smooth rhythm as her rolling pin. So smooth and quiet that it took Anja a second to realize she was busted.

“What makes you think I did something wrong?” she defended, giving her grandmother a wide-eyed look of injured innocence.

Odette’s arched brow told her the attempt hadn’t worked any better now than any other time Anja had attempted it.

“Who said you did anything wrong? I just asked what you did,” her grandmother murmured, sparing a telling look as she pinched piecrusts.

Anja huffed.

“I didn’t do anything uninvited, nor did I break any rules,” she defended with a jut of her chin. She was a careful witch, one raised to respect the craft and the weight of that power. She knew that her roots were steeped as much in the religion as the magic. And both had rules.

Rules, she thought as she bit her lip, that she followed meticulously. And if she did tiptoe dangerously close to the line of them every once in a while, she never actually crossed it. Did she?

“If you weren’t worried, you wouldn’t be down here washing peaches.” Odette looked up from her crusts, the wicked smile on her lips highlighting a face whose stunning beauty had settled into gentle age.

“Maybe I just wanted to spend time with you,” Anja said, offering a teasing smile in return.

“And maybe you just wanted to confide your worries and seek some words of wisdom.”

“Have any for me?” Anja asked.

“Darling, I’m wise in many areas. Why don’t you narrow it down a little.”

Setting the colander full of washed fruit on the butcher block, Anja bit her lip. She knew she was on the right side of the line. And she didn’t mind smudging it now and then, but not if someone else—especially an innocent like Bianca—might pay the price, too.

“If someone asks for a spell, and I’ve made clear that there is a price before casting it, why should I feel so conflicted? As if I should have talked her out of it instead of helping,” she asked quietly.

“To cast or not is your choice, darling. But to act or not is your friend’s.”

“I could have refused.”

“And if you’d refused, perhaps the issue would fade away, like smoke. Or perhaps your friend would have asked elsewhere, or acted without the spell.”

“I could have,” should have, “cast a shield spell instead.”

“No.” Odette smacked the rolling pin down with enough strength in those slender arms to make the marble groan. “Free will is vital, Anja. Choices are often all we have.”

“Then why does mother keep trying to mess with mine? First Paul, now Jacob in the apartment across from mine. Last month, she tried to sign me up for an online dating program,” Anja said, her teeth tight at the memory. “If one of our most basic tenets is free will, why is she always messing with mine?”

“Because she’s your mother, darling. And she’s afraid,” Odette said simply.

Anja frowned in confusion.

The words, quiet and commonplace, held all the more power because Natalia was the last woman to seem fearful. Within months of arriving in America, Anja’s father had walked out on his wife and infant daughter. He’d left behind five hundred dollars, Natalia—whose command of English included just about that many words—and Anja with a lifetime of trust issues with men.

“Afraid, why?”

“She thinks our power isn’t as strong as it was in the old country. Time, distance, belief. Or perhaps all those silly gadgets that suck up so much energy. Whatever the reason, your mother worries that we are weakening.” Odette shrugged, the move both fatalistic and dismissive.

Probably because she’d spent forty-five of her sixty-three years struggling in Post Prussian Germany and could call up the wind, make fire dance from her fingertips and cooked like an angel. Gramma had it going on.

And, of course, Odette had already fulfilled her Karmanski destiny. She was a powerful witch who’d given birth to a daughter, ensuring the continuation of the family legacy.

“What’s to be scared of? Momma is a gifted seer, and she’s met her family obligation,” Anja muttered, lifting both hands to indicate herself, right there. Obligation fulfilled.

“Our line is old, Anja. We, all of us, have responsibilities. To our heritage. To our power. You know that.”

“Do you really believe our power is diminishing?” Anja asked quietly. She couldn’t imagine life without magic. But neither could she imagine being blackmailed into marrying a stranger.