Eight
They left the Folley in the hard morning light the day after Christmas. Sun glared off snow, melting it at the edges and forming icicles down branches and eaves. It was a postcard with biting wind.
After a short tussle they'd agreed that Pandora would drive into the city and Michael would drive back. He pushed his seat back to the limit and managed to stretch out his legs. She maneuvered carefully down the slushy mountain road that led from the Folley. They didn't speak until she'd reached clear highway.
"What if they don't let us in?"
"Why shouldn't they?" Preferring driving to sitting, Michael shifted in his seat. For the first time he was impatient with the miles of road between the Folley and New York.
"Isn't that like counting your chickens?" Pandora turned the heat down a notch and loosened the buttons of her coat. "We don't own the place yet."
"Just a technicality."
"Always cocky."
"You always look at the negative angles." .
"Someone has to."
"Look..." He started to toss back something critical, then noticed how tightly she gripped the wheel. All nerves, he mused. Though the scenery was a print by Currier and Ives, it wasn't entirely possible to pretend they were off on a holiday jaunt. He was running on nerves himself, and they didn't all have to do with doctored champagne. How would he have guessed he'd wake up beside her in the cool light of dawn and feel so involved? So responsible. So hungry.
He took a deep breath and watched the scenery for another moment. "Look," he began again in a lighter tone. "We may not own the lab or anything else at the moment, but we're still Jolley's family. Why should a lab technician refuse to do a little analysis?"
"I suppose we'll find out when we get there." She drove another ten miles in silence. "Michael, what difference is an analysis going to make?"
"I have this odd sort of curiosity. I like to know if someone's tried to poison me."
"So we'll know if, and we'll know why. We still won't know who."
"That's the next step." He glanced over. "We can invite them all to Folley for New Year's and take turns grilling them."
"Now you're making fun of me."
"No, actually, I'd thought of it. I just figure the time's not quite right." He waited a few minutes. In thin leather gloves, her fingers curled and uncurled on the wheel. "Pandora, why don't you tell me what's really bothering you?"
"Nothing is." Everything was. She hadn't been able to think straight for twenty-four hours.
"Nothing?"
"Nothing other than wondering if someone wants to kill me." She tossed it off arrogantly. "Isn't that enough?"
He heard the edge under the sarcasm. "Is that why you hid in your room all day yesterday."
"I wasn't hiding." She had enough pride to sound brittle. "I was tending to Bruno. And I was tired."
"You hardly ate any of that enormous goose Sweeney slaved over."
"I'm not terribly fond of goose."
"I've had Christmas dinner with you before," he corrected. "You eat like a horse."
"How gallant of you to point it out." For no particular reason, she switched lanes, pumped the gas and passed another car. "Let's just say I wasn't in the mood."
"How did you manage to talk yourself into disliking what happened between us so quickly?" It hurt. He felt the hurt, but it didn't mean he had to let it show. His voice, as hers had been, was cool and hard.
"I haven't. That's absurd." Dislike? She hadn't been able to think of anything else, feel anything else. It scared her to death. "We slept together." She managed to toss it off with a shrug. "I suppose we both knew we would sooner or later."
He'd told himself precisely the same thing. He'd lost count of the number of times. He'd yet to figure out when he'd stopped believing. For himself. "And that's it?"
The question was deadly calm, but she was too preoccupied with her own nerves to notice. "What else?" She had to stop dwelling on a moment of impulse. Didn't she? She couldn't go on letting her common sense be overrun by an attraction that would lead nowhere. Could she? "Michael, there's no use blowing what happened out of proportion."
"Just what is that proportion?"
The car felt stuffy and close. Pandora' switched off the heat and concentrated on the road. "We're two adults," she began, but had to swallow twice.
"And?"
"Dammit, Michael, I don't have to spell it out."
"Yes, you do."
"We're two adults," she said again, but with temper replacing nerves. "We have normal adult needs. We slept together and satisfied them."
"How practical."
"I am practical." Abruptly, and very badly, she wanted to weep. "Much too practical to weave fantasies about a man who likes his women in six packs. Too practical," she went on, voice rising, "to picture myself emotionally involved with a man I spent one night with. And too practical to romanticize what was no more than an exchange of normal and basic lust."
"Pull over."
"I will not."
"Pull over to the shoulder, Pandora, or I'll do it for you."
She gritted her teeth and debated calling his bluff. There was just enough traffic on the road to force her hand. With only a slight squeal of tires, Pandora pulled off to the side of the road. Michael turned off the key then grabbed her by the lapels and pulled her half into his seat. Before she could struggle away, he closed his mouth over hers.
Heat, anger, passion. They seemed to twist together into one emotion. He held her there as cars whizzed by, shaking the windows. She infuriated him, she aroused him, she hurt him. In Michael's opinion, it was too much for one man to take from one woman. As abruptly as he'd grabbed her, he released her.
"Make something practical out of that," he challenged.
Breathless, Pandora struggled back into her own seat. In a furious gesture, she turned the key, gunning the motor. "Idiot."
"Yeah." He sat back as she pulled back onto the highway. "We finally agree on something."
It was a long ride into the city. Longer still when you sat in a car in tense silence. Once they entered Manhattan, Pandora was forced to follow Michael's directions to the lab.
"How do you know where it is?" she demanded after they left the car in a parking garage. The sidewalk was mobbed with people hurrying to exchange what had been brightly boxed and wrapped the day before. As they walked, Pandora held her coat closed against the wind.
"I looked the address up in Jolley's files yesterday." Michael walked the half block hatless, his coat flapping open, clutching the box with the champagne under one arm. He wasn't immune to the cold but found it a relief after the hot tension of the drive. With a brisk gesture to Pandora, he pushed through revolving doors and entered the lobby of a steel-and-glass building. "He owned the whole place."
Pandora looked across the marble floor. It sloped upward and widened into a crowded, bustling area with men and women carrying briefcases. "This whole place?"
"All seventy-two floors."
It hit her again just how complicated the estate was. How many companies operated in the building? How many people worked there? How could she possibly crowd her life with this kind of responsibility? If she could get her hands on Uncle Jolley—Pandora broke off, almost amused. How he must be enjoying this, she thought.
"What am I supposed to do with seventy-two floors in midtown?"
"There are plenty of people to do it for you." Michael gave their names to the guard at the elevators. With no delay, they were riding to the fortieth floor.
"So there are people to do it for us. Who keeps track of them?"
''Accountants, lawyers, managers. It's a matter of hiring people to look after people you hire."
"That certainly clears that up."
"If you're worried, think about Jolley. Having a fortune didn't seem to keep him from enjoying himself. For the most part, he looked at the whole business as a kind of hobby."
Pandora watched the numbers above the door. "A hobby."
"Everyone should have a hobby."
"Tennis is a hobby," she muttered.
"The trick is to keep the ball moving. Jolley tossed it in our court, Pandora."
She folded her arms. "I'm not ready to be grateful for that."
"Look at it this way then." He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly. "You don't have to know how to build a car to own one. You just have to drive steady and follow the signs. If Jolley didn't think we could follow the signs, he wouldn't have given us the keys."
It helped to look at it that way. Still it was odd to consider she was riding on an elevator she would own when the six months were up. "Do we know whom to go to?" Pandora glanced at the box Michael held, which contained the bottle of champagne.
"A man named Silas Lockworth seems to be in charge."
"You did your homework."
"Let's hope it pays off."
When the elevator slopped, they walked into the reception area for Sanfield Laboratories. The carpet was pale rose, the walls lacquered in cream. Two huge split-leaf philodendrons flanked the wide glass doors that slid open at their approach. A woman behind a gleaming desk folded her hands and smiled.
"Good morning. May I help you?"
Michael glanced at the computer terminal resting on an extension of her desk. Top of the line. "We'd like to see Mr. Lockworth."
"Mr. Lockworth's in a meeting. If I could have your names, perhaps his assistant can help you,"
"I'm Michael Donahue. This is Pandora McVie."
"McVie?"
Pandora saw the receptionist's eyebrows raise. "Yes, Maximillian McVie was our uncle."
Already polite and efficient, the receptionist became gracious. "I'm sure Mr. Lockworth would have greeted you himself if we'd known you were coming. Please have a seat. I'll ring through."
It took under five minutes.
The man who strode out into reception didn't look like Pandora's conception of a technician or scientist. He was six-three, lean as a gymnast with blond hair brushed back from a tanned, lanternjawed face. He looked, Pandora thought, more like a man who'd be at home on the range than in a lab with test tubes.
"Ms. McVie." He walked with an easy rolling gait, hand outstretched. "Mr. Donahue. I'm Silas Lock-worth. Your uncle was a good friend."
"Thank you." Michael accepted the handshake. "I apologize for dropping in unannounced."
"No need for that." Lockworth1 s smile seemed to mean it. "We never knew when Jolley was going to drop in on us. Let's go back to my office."
He led them down the corridor. Lockworth's office was the next surprise. It was plush enough, with curvy chairs and clever lithographs, to make you think of a corporate executive. The desk was piled high with enough files and papers to make you think of a harried clerk. It carried the scent from the dozens of leather-bound books on a floor-to-ceiling shelf. Built into one wall was a round aquarium teeming with exotic fish.
"Would you like coffee? I can guarantee it's hot and strong."
"No." Pandora was .already twisting her gloves in her hands. "Thank you. We don't want to take too much of your time."
"It's my pleasure," Lockworth assured her. "Jolley certainly spoke often of both of you," Lockworth went on as he gestured to chairs. "There was never a doubt you were his favorites."
"And he was ours," Pandora returned. "Still you didn't come to pass the time." Lockworth leaned back on his desk. "What can I do for you?"
"We have something we'd like analyzed," Michael began. "Quickly and quietly."
"I see." Silas stopped there, brow raised. Lockworth was a man who picked up impressions of people right away. In Pandora he saw nerves under a sheen of politeness. In Michael he saw violence, not so much buried as thinly coated. He thought he detected a bond between them though they hadn't so much as looked at each other since entering the room.
Lockworth could have refused. His staff was slimmed down during the holidays, and work was backlogged. He was under no obligation to either of them yet. But he never forgot his obligation to Jolley McVie. "We'll try to accommodate you."
In silence, Michael opened the box and drew out the bottle of champagne. "We need a report on the contents of this bottle. A confidential report. Today."
Lockworth took it and examined the label. His lips curved slightly. "Seventy-two. A good year. Were you thinking of starting a vineyard?"1
"We need to know what's in there other than champagne."
Rather than showing surprise, Lockworth leaned back on the desk again. "You've reason to think there is?"
Michael met the look. "We wouldn't be here otherwise."
Lockworth only inclined his head. "All right. I'll run it through the lab myself."
With a quick scowl for Michael's manners, Pandora rose and offered her hand. "We appreciate the trouble, Mr. Lockworth. I'm sure you have a great many other things to do, but the results are important to Michael and me."
"No problem." He decided he'd find out why it was important after he'd analyzed the wine. "There's a coffee shop for the staff. I'll show you where it is. You can wait for me there."
"There was absolutely no reason to be rude." Pandora settled herself at a table and looked at a surprisingly varied menu.
"I wasn't rude."
"Of course you were. Mr. Lockworth was going out of his way to be friendly, and you had a chip on your shoulder. I think I'm going to have the shrimp salad."
"I don't have a chip on my shoulder. I was being cautious. Or maybe you think we should spill everything to a total stranger."
Pandora folded her hands and smiled at the waitress. "I'd like the shrimp salad and coffee."
"Two coffees," Michael muttered. "And the turkey platter."
"I've no intention of spilling, as you put it, everything to a total stranger." Pandora picked up her napkin. "However, if we weren't going to trust Lockworth, we'd have been better off to buy a chemistry set and try to handle it ourselves."
"Drink your coffee," Michael muttered, and picked up his own the moment the waitress served it.
Pandora frowned as she added cream. "How long do you think it'll take?"
"I don't know. I'm not a scientist."
"He didn't look like one, either, did he?"
"Bronc rider." Michael sipped his black coffee and found it as strong as Lockworth had promised.
"What?"
"Looks like a bronc rider. I wonder if Carlson or any of the others have any interest in this building."
Pandora set her coffee down before she tasted it. "I hadn't thought of that."
"As I remember, Jolley turned over Tristar Corporation to Monroe about twenty-five years ago. I remember my parents talking about it."
"Tristar. Which one is that?"
"Plastics. I know he gave little pieces of the pie out here and there. He told me once he wanted to give all his relatives a chance before he crossed them off the list."
After a moment's thought, she shrugged and picked up her coffee again. "Well, if he did give a few shares of Sanfield to one of them, what difference does it make?"
"I don't know how much we should trust Lock-worth."
"You'd have felt better if he'd been bald and short with Coke-bottle glasses and a faint German accent."
"Maybe."
"See?" Pandora smiled. "You're just jealous because he has great shoulders." She fluttered her lashes. "Here's your turkey."
They ate slowly, drank more coffee, then passed more time with pie. After an hour and a half, both of them were restless and edgy. When Lockworth came in, Pandora forgot to be nervous about the results.
"Thank God, here he comes."
After maneuvering around chairs and employees on lunch break, Lockworth set a computer printout on the table and handed the box back to Michael. "I thought you'd want a copy." He took a seat and signaled for coffee. "Though it's technical."
Pandora frowned down at the long, chemical terms printed out on the paper. It meant little more than nothing to her, but she doubted trichloroethanol or any of the other multisyllabic words belonged in French champagne. "What does it mean?"
"I wondered that myself." Lockworth reached in his pocket and drew out a pack of cigarettes. Michael looked at it for a moment with longing. "I wondered why anyone would put rose dust in vintage champagne."
"Rose dust?" Michael repeated. "Pesticide. So it was poisoned."
"Technically, yes. Though there wasn't enough in the wine to do any more than make you miserably ill for a day or two. I take it neither one of you had any?"
"No." Pandora looked up from the report. "My puppy did," she explained. "When we opened the bottle, some spilled and he lapped it up. Before we'd gotten around to drinking it, he was ill."
"Luckily for you, though I find it curious that you'd jumped to the conclusion that the champagne had been poisoned because a puppy was sick."
"Luckily for us, we did." Michael folded the report and slipped it into his pocket.
"You'll have to pardon my cousin," Pandora said. "He has no manners. We appreciate you taking time out to do this for us, Mr. Lockworth. I'm afraid it isn't possible to fully explain ourselves at this point, but I can tell you that we had good reason to suspect the wine."
Lockworth nodded. As a scientist he knew how to theorize. "If you find you need a more comprehensive report, let me know. Jolley was an important person in my life. We'll call it a favor to him."
As he rose, Michael stood with him. "I'll apologize for myself this time." He held out a hand.
"I'd be a bit edgy myself if someone gave me pesticide disguised as Moët et Chandon. Let me know if I can do anything else."
"Well," Pandora began when they were alone. "What next?"
"A little trip to the liquor store. We've some presents to buy."
They sent, first-class, a bottle of the same to each of Jolley's erstwhile heirs. Michael signed the cards simply, "One good turn deserves another." After it was done and they walked outside in the frigid wind, Pandora huffed and pulled on her gloves.
"An expensive gesture."
"Look at it as an investment," Michael suggested.
It wasn't the money, she thought, but the sudden futility she felt. "What good will it do really?"
"Several bottles'll be wondered over, then appreciated. But one," Michael said with relish. "One makes a statement, even a threat."
"An empty threat," Pandora returned. "It's not as if we'll be there when everyone gets one to gauge reactions."
"You're thinking like an amateur."
Michael was halfway across the street when Pandora grabbed his arm. "Just what does that mean?"
"When an amateur plays a practical joke, he thinks he has to be in on the kill."
Ignoring the people who brushed by them, Pandora held her ground. "Since when is pesticide poisoning a practical joke?"
"Revenge follows the same principle."
"Oh, I see. And you're an expert."
The light changed. Cars started for them, horns blaring. Gritting his teeth, Michael grabbed her arm and pulled her to the curb. "Maybe I am. It's enough for me to know someone's going to look at the bottle and be very nervous. Someone's going to look at it and know we intend to give as good as we get. Your trouble is you don't like to let your emotions loose long enough to appreciate revenge."
"Leave my emotions alone."
"That's the plan," he said evenly, and started walking again.
In three strides she'd caught up with him. Her face was pink from the wind, the anger in her voice came out in thin wisps. "You're not annoyed with Lockworth or about the champagne or over differing views on revenge. You're mad because I defined our relationship in practical terms."
He stared at her as her phrasing worked on both his temper and his humor. "Okay," he declared, turning to walk on. Patience straining, he turned back when Pandora grabbed his arm. "You want to hash this out right here?"
"I won't let you make me feel inadequate just because I broke things off before you had a chance to."
"Before I had a chance to?" He took her by the coat. With the added height from the heels on her boots, she looked straight into his eyes. Another time, another place, he might have considered her magnificent. "I barely had the chance to recover from what happened before you were shoving me out. I wanted you. Dammit, I still want you. God knows why."
"Well, I want you, too, and I don't like it, either."
"Looks like that puts us in the same fix, doesn't it?"
"So what're we going to do about it?"
He looked at her and saw the anger. But he looked closely enough to see confusion, as well. One of them had to make the first move. He decided it was going to be him. Taking her hand, he dragged her across the street.
"Where are we going?"
"The Plaza."
"The Plaza Hotel? Why?"
"We're going to get a room, put the chain on the door and make love for the next twenty-four hours. After that, we'll decide how we want to handle it."
There were times, Pandora decided, when it was best to go along for the ride. "We don't have any luggage."
"Yeah. My reputation's about to be shattered."
She made a sound that might have been a laugh.
When they walked into the elegant lobby, the heat warmed her skin and stirred up her nerves. It was all impulse, she told herself. She knew better than to make any important decision on impulse. He could change everything. That was something she hadn't wanted to admit but had known for years. When she started to draw away, his hand locked on her arm.
"Coward," he murmured. He couldn't have said anything more perfectly designed to make her march forward.
"Good afternoon." Michael smiled at the desk clerk. Pandora wondered briefly if the smile would have been so charming if the clerk had been a man. "Checking in."
"You have a reservation?"
"Donahue. Michael Donahue."
The clerk punched some buttons and stared at her computer screen. "I'm afraid I don't show anything under Donahue for the twenty-sixth."
"Katie," Michael said on a breath of impatience. He sent Pandora a long suffering look. "I should never have trusted her to handle this."
Catching the drift, Pandora patted his hand. "You're going to have to let her go, Michael. I know she's worked for your family for forty years, but when a person gets into their seventies..." She trailed off and let Michael take the ball.
"We'll decide when we get home." He turned back to the desk clerk. "Apparently there's been a mix-up between my secretary and the hotel. We'll only be in town overnight. Is anything available?"
The clerk went back to her buttons. Most people in her experience raised the roof when there was a mix-up in reservations. Michael's quiet request touched her sympathies. "You understand there's a problem because of the holiday." She punched more buttons, wanting to help. "We do have a suite available."
"Fine." Michael took the registration form and filled it out. With the key in his hand, he sent the clerk another smile. "I appreciate the trouble." Noting the bellhop hovering at his elbow, he handed him a bill. "We'll handle it, thanks."
The clerk looked at the twenty in his palm and the lack of luggage. "Yes, sir!"
"He thinks we're having an illicit affair," Pandora murmured as they stepped onto the elevator.
"We are." Before the doors had closed again, Michael grabbed her to him and locked her in a kiss that lasted twelve floors. "We don't know each other," he told her as they stepped into the hallway. "We've just met. We don't have mutual childhood memories or share the same family." He put the key in the lock. "We don't give a damn what the other does for a living nor do we have any long-standing opinions about each other."
"Is that supposed to simplify things?"
Michael drew her inside. "Let's find out."
He didn't give her a chance to wonder, a chance to debate. The moment the door was shut behind them, he had her in his arms. He took questions away. He took choice away. For once, she wanted him to. In a fury of passions, of hungers, of cravings, they came together. Each fought to draw more, still more out of the other, to touch faster, to possess more quickly. They forgot what they knew, what they thought and reveled in what they felt.
Coats, still chill from the wind, were pushed to the floor. Sweaters and shirts followed. Hardly more than a foot inside the door, they slid to the carpet.
"Damn winter," Michael muttered as he fought with her boots.
Laughing, Pandora struggled with his, then moaned when he pressed his lips to her breast.
It was a race, part warring, part loving. Neither gave the other respite. When their clothes were shed, they sprinted ahead, hands reaching, lips arousing. There was none of the dreamy déjà vu they'd experienced the first time. This was new. The fingers tracing her skin had never been felt before. The lips, hot and searing, had never been tasted. Fresh, erotically fresh, their mouths met and clung.
Her heart had never beat so fast. She was sure of it. Her body had never ached and pulsed so desperately. She'd never wanted it to. Now she wanted more, everything. Him. She rolled so that she could press quick, hungry kisses over his face, his neck, his chest. Everywhere.
His mind was teeming with her, with every part of her that he could touch or taste or smell. She was wild in a way he'd never imagined. She was demanding in a way any man would desire. His body seemed to fascinate her, every curve, every angle. She exploited it until he was half mad, then he groped for her.
She'd never known a man could give so much. Racked with sensations, she arched under him. Hot and ready, she offered. But he was far from through. The taste of her thighs was subtle, luring him toward the heat. He found her, drove her and kept her helplessly trapped in passion. Helplessly. The sensation shivered over her. She'd never known what it had meant to be truly vulnerable to another. He could have taken anything from her then, asked anything and she couldn't have refused. But he didn't ask, he gave.
She crested wave after wave. Between heights and depths she pinwheeled, delighting in the spin. On the rug with the afternoon light streaming through the windows, she was locked in blinding darkness without any wish to see. Make me feel, her mind seemed to shout. More. Again. Still.
And he was inside her, joined, melded. She found there was more. Impossibly more.
They stayed where they were, sprawled on scattered clothes. Gradually Pandora found her mind swimming back to reality. She could see the pastel walls, the sunlight. She could smell the body heat that was a mix of hers and his. She could feel Michael's hair brushing over her cheek, the beat of his heart, still fast, against her breast.
It happened so fast, she thought. Or had it taken hours? All she was certain of was that she'd never experienced anything like it. Never permitted herself to, she amended. Strange things could happen to a woman who lifted the lid from her passion. Other things could sneak in before the top closed again. Things like affection, understanding. Even love.
She caught herself stroking Michael's hair and let her hand fall to the carpet. She couldn't let love in, not even briefly. Love took as well as gave. That she'd always known. And it didn't always give and take in equal shares. Michael wasn't a man a woman could love practically, and certainly not wisely. That she understood. He wouldn't follow the rules.
She'd be his lover, but she wouldn't love him. Though there would be no pretending they could live with each other for the next three months platonically, she wouldn't risk her heart. For an instant Pandora thought she felt it break, just a little. Foolishness, she told herself. Her heart was strong and unimpaired. What she and Michael had together was a very basic, very uncomplicated arrangement. Arrangement, she thought, sounded so much more practical than romance.
But her sigh was quiet, and a little wistful.
"Figure it all out?" He shifted a little as he spoke, just enough so that he could brush his lips down her throat.
"What do you mean?"
"Have you figured out the guidelines for our relationship?" Lifting his head, he looked down at her. He wasn't smiling, but Pandora thought he was amused.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I can almost hear the wheels turning. Pandora, I can see just what's going on in your head."
Annoyed that he probably could, she lifted a brow. "I thought we'd just met."
"I'm psychic. You're thinking...." He trailed off to nibble at her lips. "That there should be a way to keep our...relationship on a practical level. You're wondering how you'll keep an emotional distance when we're sleeping together. You've decided that there'll be absolutely no romantic overtones to any arrangement between us."
"All right." He made her feel foolish. Then he ran a hand over her hip and made her tremble. "Since you're so smart, you'll see that I've only been using common sense."
"I like it better when your skin gets hot, and you haven't any sense at all. But—" he kissed her before she could answer "—we can't stay in bed all the time. I don't believe in practical affairs, Pandora. I don't believe in emotional distance between lovers."
"You've had a great deal of experience there."
"That's right." He sat up, drawing her with him. "And I'll tell you this. You can wall up your emotions all you want. You can call whatever we have here by any practical term you can dream up. You can turn up your nose at candlelight dinners and quiet music. It's not going to make any difference." He gathered her hair in his hand and pulled her head back. "I'm going to get to you, cousin. I'm going to get to you until you can't think of anything, anyone but me. If you wake up in the middle of the night and I'm not there, you'll wish I were. And when I touch you, any time I touch you, you're going to want me."
She had to fight the shudder. She knew, as well as she'd ever known anything, that he was right. And she knew, perhaps they both did, that she'd fight it right down to the end. "You're arrogant, egocentric and simpleminded."
"True enough. And you're stubborn, willful and perverse. The only thing we can be sure of at this point is that one of us is going to win."
Sitting on the pile of discarded clothes, they studied each other. "Another game?" Pandora murmured.
"Maybe. Maybe it's the only game." With that, he stood and lifted her into his arms.
"Michael, I don't need to be carried."
"Yes, you do."
He walked across the suite toward the bedroom. Pandora started to struggle, then subsided. Maybe just this once, she decided, and relaxed in his arms.