Four
Wes drank in the sight from his car. The house facing him was a testament to what happened when someone with questionable yet extravagant taste could afford precisely the home they wanted. According to her inopportune obituary, Dot Voline had married a childless industrialist twenty years her senior, a patron of the arts and a fervent supporter of his wife’s literary career until his death a decade later. Cattier profiles added that Allan Portson’s fortune had dwarfed Voline’s ample royalty money.
The grandiose wedding cake of a house was small compared to the properties on either side, but what it lacked in size, it made up for in visual impact. If Versailles had vomited up a bijou mansion that a Versace would consider excessive, it was Dot Voline’s home. Gleaming gold-painted gates were topped with panes of stained glass lilies. They blocked him from seeing much apart from a fountain sitting in the center of the circular driveway where Botticelli’s Venus spewed water out of her mouth. The entire place hurt his eyes, and he could tell Voline was a decorative lamp person rather than a functional overhead light person.
Climbing out of the car, Wes reviewed his plan of attack. He’d decided against calling for an interview since Voline was famously averse to granting them. He hadn’t wanted to blow his chance to talk by putting her on alert by contacting her publisher.
That left the old-fashioned way—knocking on the door or, in this case, the gate. He pressed his face against the bars to confirm the swans floating in the fountain were fake and to note a very real hot-pink Bentley gleaming in the driveway.
“Wes? Wes Chen?”
A woman’s sharp voice cut through the sound-dampening layers of old leafy trees and thick grassy lawn. Wes instantly knew who it was. Steeling himself, he turned around to greet his foe.
“Hello, Nadine.”
***
This was unbelievable. Nadine couldn’t speak. Wait, yes, she could. “What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.
Wes Chen. She’d known him for a decade, the weasel. He’d been a sliver under her skin since he’d stolen her dream internship right out of university. Then she’d snagged the job he’d applied to at an online news agency, and that had set them off. It seemed every time she had wind of a good story, Wes was already on it. At least she’d managed to scoop him on the lobbyist thing last year. After accepting her Canadian Journalism award, she’d been filled with satisfaction at the sight of his sour face. It made up for the year before, when the opposite had happened. She knew he kept track of the awards each of them won. She did too.
Wes didn’t answer, instead turning to the intercom and pushing the button. No matter. She knew why he was in the Bridle Path: to show Nadine up in some unknown way.
“Get away from my source,” she snapped.
“Your source?” He stared straight ahead, which meant Nadine was forced to address his very striking profile. She might dislike him, but there was no denying Wes had a nice nose. And cheekbones. Lips. Too bad when they were moving, it was usually to irritate her. “Sorry, I’m here because I wanted to meet the only woman to have been resurrected from the dead.”
That was a low blow, but to be expected from him. “Doing a story about her interior decorating?” she asked sweetly. “Or a roundup of which of her books to pair with what snacks?”
Instead of answering, he pressed the button again, this time so hard his finger bent and turned white.
To Nadine’s astonishment and apparently Wes’s from the way he leapt back as if the intercom was electrified, a voice boomed out. “What do you want?”
Wes recovered himself first. “Dot Voline?”
“Who wants to know, handsome?” The voice dropped to a breathy but gravelly purr that might have emanated from a tiger trapped in a cement mixer.
“Uh.” Wes stared wide-eyed at the intercom.
Nadine saw her chance and took a step forward, forcing Wes away from the speaker. “Ms. Voline, this is Nadine Barbault of the Herald .”
“That old rag? I don’t know what was worse, hearing I was dead or having to read through the stilted prose that made me wish I was. Three-quarters of it was a dismal summary of my own books that lacked insight or context and bored even me.”
She supposed that confirmed the speaker. Wes’s delighted smile lit up his face, and she glared at him before turning back to the intercom.
“About that.” Nadine had barely started her apology—which she had written out and memorized—when Wes rudely interrupted, moving a half step in front of her.
“Wes Chen, of the Spear .”
Nadine took a page from his playbook and tried to slide ahead of him. Wes anticipated the move and thwarted her, stepping around and forward with a snakelike motion. They ended up jostling each other like sunburned tourists at an all-inclusive resort competing for the last slice of bacon until Wes came out triumphant, getting so close to the intercom Nadine thought he could lick it.
“The Spear ? Never heard of it,” said Voline.
Nadine laughed. Wes shot her a look as she debated whether hip checking him out of the way would be considered assault or self-defense.
“It’s a digital news—”
“I also don’t care,” said Voline. “What do you two lovebirds want?”
“Lovebirds?” gasped Wes. He reeled back as if he’d rather get into that cement mixer with the tiger than have anything to do with her. What a drama queen.
Nadine wedged herself in the space Wes had left to the intercom. “I’d like to ask—”
“No.”
“No?” she repeated.
No answer.
Nadine refused to look at Wes, the monster who had ruined her chance to get an interview. He and Irina must be in a competition on who could wreck her day in the most annoying way possible. If so, Wes was the current standout champion.
“Ms. Voline?” he asked. “Ma’am?”
Silence.
Nadine looked through the gate as if Voline would be waiting at the steps ready to sweep down in a flurry of feathers and silk like a modern Gloria Swanson to berate them in person. “Dot?” she said loudly.
The intercom crackled back on. “That’s Ms. Voline, you ambulance chaser.”
“Doesn’t that refer to lawyers?” Nadine whispered to Wes.
“Go ahead and correct her,” he said. “She’ll love that.”
Dot Voline continued talking. “You’ve done enough damage. I’ve had vultures circling around me. My bank refused my allowance because they said I was dead. I had to go there in person and give the president what for.”
Nadine felt Wes’s eyes travel the same path as hers, to that pink car near the fountain. She indulged in a brief fantasy of Voline driving it—no, getting driven—downtown and leaving it idling on Bay Street while she waltzed past a sea of flustered executive assistants into a fiftieth-floor boardroom to harangue some poor CEO about her cash. “I’m very—”
“As for you, handsome, I don’t need another bottom-feeding schmuck trying to get into my house or my pants. Too old for that kind of thing. Now, take a hike, the two of you.”
Wes whispering, “Bottom-feeding schmuck,” in a tone of utter disbelief was enough to send Nadine into gales of laughter.
He glared at her. “You didn’t fare any better.”
“Well, she didn’t accuse me of wanting to sleep with her, so I consider that a win.”
“I said scram!” The intercom made them jump, and Nadine heard the tail end of her muttering. “Didn’t even bring a thing. Manners these days.”
“Nice going,” Wes muttered.
She shoved her face into the gate to get a better view of the property. “Like your Z-game charm offensive was getting us anywhere.” She twisted her head to see more. “Are those real swans?”
“No.”
Pity. “She seems more like a peacock person anyway,” Nadine said, stepping away before Voline accused her of trespassing.
Wes laughed. “She does.” Then, face blanched in horror that he’d had a positive reaction to her, he headed for his car.
It was the same one he’d been driving when they were in school, she noted as she trailed after him. As always, he was dressed to perfection, with a collared shirt under a thin black sweater with the sleeves rolled to the elbows and black jeans. Wes must not feel heat, because while she was sweating in her linen dress, he looked cool and unbothered. It was aggravating, and she couldn’t help but feel this gave him an obscure advantage.
Wes pointed his frowning face back at her. “What are you doing?”
“My car is parked behind yours. I thought I would drive home if that’s okay with you. Also, you didn’t answer my question,” she said. “Why are you here?”
He opened his car door with a god-awful screech of metal on metal.
“Wes, don’t you think of leaving without telling me what you’re up to.”
He slammed the door shut.
“You can’t do this,” she yelled at the closed door, instantly cursing herself for losing her cool. It was excusable though. Wes Chen would try the patience of a King’s Guard.
He started the car, ignoring her as he waited for the engine to catch in a fitful cough. Nadine bent down to stare at him, fists balled up on her hips so she didn’t slam her hands through the window to grab him by the neck. Wes Chen brought out the worst in her and always had. She wanted to mess up that perfect hair. Snag those tidy sweaters. Scuff those polished leather shoes.
Should she stand in front of the car? Nadine debated before deciding not to risk it. Wes would have no qualms about running her over and leaving her bleeding in the middle of the street. They probably wouldn’t bother to get an ambulance in this neighborhood. They’d call a street cleaner to dump her body in whatever pit they put dead squirrels in.
Wes put the car in drive without looking at her, as if he was the one with a right to be here and she was the interloper. His utter disregard of her presence was vastly more infuriating than if he’d done something obnoxious like waving at her with his familiar suck-it grin.
“Ahughah.” The sound she made was inelegant but liberating. After all, it wasn’t like anyone was around to hear it. Wes’s car had driven out of sight—not out of her life, but a woman could hope—and Voline had made it clear there would be no more intercom-mediated conversations today.
She leaned against the side of her car. This trip was a failure, made worse because Wes had been there to witness it. She couldn’t say she was surprised. After what Nadine had done, it was a big ask for Voline to be gracious and invite her in for tea or gin. If only she’d been able to get out the exquisitely crafted apology that the author in Voline couldn’t help but admire. She would have if Wes hadn’t been there trying to horn in.
She kicked her car’s wheel gently with her sandaled foot. She’d worn them specially because of the gold and beading, which she felt would appeal to Voline. Why was he here really? With Wes, anything was possible. Apart from a brief stint doing investigations, he’d been writing Lifestyle for the last couple of years. She wouldn’t put it past him to try to get an interview with Voline about the singular experience of reading the summary of her life before she’d finished living it.
What if she was wrong though? What if he heard about the controversy as well? Nadine knew how good Wes was.
Well, she was better.
She thought back over the conversation. No manners , Voline had grumbled. No gifts. Then Nadine nodded.
She had a plan of attack. She would have felt bad for Wes if she wasn’t looking forward to destroying his chances of getting to Dot Voline.
He never should have interfered with her at the gate. Wes was doomed.