Latte Trouble

Seventeen

The dawning sun streamed in with a blinding vengeance. I yawned and arched my back, wondering why I hadn’t drawn the drapes. Beside me Java trotted across the clean, white sheets and arched her back, too, then she butted her coffee-bean colored head against my arm in her usual demand for attention. As I petted the silky length of her, a Technicolor scene from Gone with the Wind flashed through my sleep-addled brain. I saw Scarlett awakening and stretching like a cream-fed feline the morning after Rhett carried her off to bed.

Now what brought that to mind? I innocently pondered. Then my hand stilled on Java’s fur.

Oh, god.

I sat up, the sheet fell down. I was naked.

“Good morning, sweetheart!”

A bare-chested Matteo strode through the master bedroom door as if we were still married. I snatched up the sheet to cover my naked breasts and realized with an appalling jolt that what had happened between us last night hadn’t been a dream.

Oh, no, I thought. No, no, no!

Matt wore gray sweats and nothing else. In his hands were two mugs of freshly brewed coffee. The aroma told me at once he’d broken into his special reserve Harrar for what he undoubtedly presumed was a “special” occasion.

He set the mugs on the rosewood nightstand, dropped onto the bed beside me, and immediately began to nuzzle my neck. “Mmmm, Clare, sweetheart…it’s been so long…”

“Y-yes.”

“You’ve changed, you know…”

“Changed?”

He pressed closer, the heat of his naked chest penetrating the thin layer of sheet between us. “You were so…different last night…”.

“Different?”

“Less inhibited…more open…passionate…” He continued to nuzzle my neck, my ear, moved to brush my lips. “You even taste different…like vanilla…”

I squirmed. “Must be the new shampoo and body wash. It comes in comfort food flavors. Strawberry ice cream, butter rum, gingerbread…”

“Mmmhmm…good to know…I like variety…”

I closed my eyes at that. Matt may have changed in some ways, but I knew he would never change in others. That’s always been our problem, Matt, I thought. You like variety a little too much. I touched his chest. As gently as I could, I pushed him away. “You made me your special reserve, didn’t you? I can smell it.”

He nodded, reached for one of the mugs and handed it over. As we sipped in silence, enjoying the incredible flavors, I tried not to panic.

Giving in to Matt had been a big mistake. Huge. And I should have known better. Notwithstanding the fact that our getting back together was something his mother had wanted for years—as well as our daughter—I had been through the mill too many times with my ex to want to risk getting my heart ground up again. Besides which, our relationship was changed now. We were business partners in the Blend, and I didn’t want that disturbed. Matteo was the best coffee buyer and broker in the business as far as I was concerned, and the Blend couldn’t lose that.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, I railed at myself. My resistance to Matt’s physical charms had failed only a few times since our divorce over a decade ago. Usually, I could rely on one of my memories of Matt’s extracurricular sexual romps to break “the mood” more effectively than an icy spike through my spine. But last night I couldn’t see Matt as a betrayer, only as a father and, shockingly, as a maturing man. He’d been hurting and open and unbelievably vulnerable. I wasn’t used to seeing him like that, his cockiness stripped away, his need so raw. It got to me…that and the fact that this mattress hadn’t seen any action for quite some time.

“Might as well enjoy the Harrar while you can,” Matt said, interrupting my thoughts. “Since my kiosks are a bust.”

“Oh, god, Matt. I’m so sorry—”

“It’s not your fault, Clare. My mother’s a stubborn old bird, and I obviously screwed up the presentation by going after Lebreaux—”

“No! Listen to me,” I told him. “The reason I’m sorry…I was waiting up to tell you, but then the whole thing with Joy at that nightclub happened, and then we…you and I…”

“Wait, back up,” said Matt. “What slipped your mind?”

“Your mother confided in me last night, while you were waiting on the taxi line. She thinks the future of the Blend is ours to decide, not hers. She understands what you’re doing and why. She’s not going to stand in your way.”

“Jesus, Clare. Why didn’t you tell me that last night!”

“Because at first I thought she should be the one to tell you, in her own words, but when I saw how hard you were taking it, I knew it was something you shouldn’t have to wait to hear—and then I…I got distracted. I’m sorry. But, Matt, I know she thinks your work in Ethiopia is phenomenal. And I do, too, by the way.”

His outraged tone softened. “She told you about the Harrar wet-processing?”

“Yes, and it’s just astonishing. You know, your mother will help hook you up with investors. She’s kept in touch with all of Pierre’s old contacts. You won’t have to go it alone or trust Tad to…”

My voice trailed off. The mention of Tad brought back all the things I’d witnessed on the Fortune the night before—not to mention my dream of Tucker drowning. And I realized with a sickening stab of guilt that while I was enjoying amazing coffee in the luxury of an elegant bedroom, my good friend was alone and afraid in a Riker’s Island jail cell.

I threw off the covers and got out of bed. I was totally naked, and I felt Matt’s eyes on me as I darted around the room, dressing for the day. But I didn’t care. I didn’t have time to.

“Listen to me, Matt,” I said as I pulled on a pair of panties and hooked on a bra. I told him all about Lottie Harmon’s business arrangement with Tad Benedict and Rena Garcia, and about the intimate moment they’d shared together on the dark deck—a moment I had secretly witnessed from the shadows.

“Sounds like they’re desperate to sell,” said Matt, scratching his chin as he leaned back against the four-poster’s headboard and continued to sip his coffee. “And I doubt Lottie is in a position to buy them out.”

“Yes, but she obviously has no idea they’re selling.”

“It doesn’t matter. Together, Tad and Rena control exactly half the business and they can sell fifty percent of the stock if they want to. It’s their right, Clare.”

“Yes, but I’m sure they were trying to sell even more. Tad didn’t even blink when Madame said she wanted thirty percent. Instead, he pressed me to buy some, too.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” said Matt. “Why sell more stock than you own? You’re bound to get caught.”

I thought it over as I zipped up my jeans. “Selling more stock than you own was a great scam in The Producers. Do you remember that Mel Brooks movie?”

“I thought it was a play.”

“Only lately. It was a movie first—”

“A movie first?” said Matt. “I thought they made movies out of plays and not the other way around.”

I waved my hand as I jerked open one of the deep drawers of the mahogany dresser and rifled through my sweaters. “You’ve been out of the country too often. With the exception of Chicago and Phantom, it’s often the other way around now, which is why Tucker is always bemoaning the state of the American musical.”

“Anyway—”

“Sorry. Anyway, in The Producers the two crooks sell shares in a Broadway musical to dozens of investors, figuring on a flop, so they can secretly keep the extra capital. It would have worked, too, except the show was a hit and they get stuck owing lots of people lots of money.”

“That’s a stretch.”

“No. That’s it!” I cried. “And Tad’s plan can only work if Lottie’s line is a flop. With Lottie dead, it’s game over—no wonder he tried to kill her.”

“Clare, you are really getting carried away here,” said Matt, watching me button on a pale yellow sweater, a suggestive little smile on his lips. “You would have to be pretty desperate to do something like that.”

“But that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” I said, striding back to the closet. “They both sounded desperate. Tad and Rena talked like they were in some kind of trouble and needed a lot of money fast.”

“What kind of trouble?”

I shook my head. “No clue.”

“Well, I have a different theory about Ricky Flatt’s poisoned latte—”

I gritted my teeth. “Not that stuff about Tucker being guilty again—”

“It’s Lebreaux.”

“Oh, Matt, come on. You’re just royally pissed at the guy.”

“No, listen. Lebreaux’s idea would be even more lucrative if he served both tea and coffee. And he has a vendetta against us, don’t forget. What if he hired someone to sabotage the Blend’s reputation by making it look as though our coffee was killing people?”

“I suppose you could be on to something,” I conceded. “But who did he hire—” I stopped dead in the middle of pulling on a low-heeled half-boot. “Violet Eyes,” I murmured.

“Who?” asked Matt.

“Violet Eyes,” I repeated. “There was an Asian girl with Lebreaux,” I explained. “She was tall and—”

“Had violet eyes. Long, straight, black hair, down to her hips. Legs that went on forever.”

I raised an eyebrow. Put a gorgeous girl in a room and Matteo Allegro would have her measurements calculated faster than an M.I.T. mathematics professor.

“She was at Lottie’s party,” I informed him as I finished pulling on my boots. “I greeted her at the door myself. And Esther and Moira said they saw her come up to the coffee bar in that critical window of time when Lottie’s latte must have been poisoned.”

“I’d call that pretty incriminating, Clare.”

“Unless it was just a coincidence. I mean…she and Lebreaux could have met for the first time tonight on the Fortune for all we know.”

“No,” said Matt. “She was with him the entire time in the yacht’s ‘backstage’ stateroom where all of us presenters were waiting to go on. She came with Eduardo Lebreaux, Clare. And she never said two words to anyone but him.”

“Okay, but I still say Tad is acting way too suspicious not to question.”

“I think you’re wrong.”

“I think I’m right.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Not me, Matt. It’s what you’re going to do.”

“Oh, please, Clare, don’t involve me again—”

“I just want you to set up a meeting with Tad downstairs. Invite Rena over for coffee, too.” I checked my watch. “Speaking of which, I have to get my butt down there and open.”

As I grabbed the thick set of keys from the top of the dresser, Matt crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“Why? Because we’re in the business of serving coffee and it’s time to open.”

Matt smirked at me. “Clare, why do you want me to set up a meeting with Tad Benedict and Rena Garcia?”

“Because,” I replied with a smirk of my own, “that Detective Starkey isn’t the only broad around here who can weasel a confession out of a suspect.”