Page 32 of Omega

“Harris is being modest. Not ‘something like that’, butexactlythat,” I said.

None of us had much to say after that, but I noticed Layla giving Harris a speculative look. Either I’d just scared her off of Harris, or intrigued her all the more.

I wasn’t sure which.

7

PERIMETER BREACH; THE BONFIRE

“I have a surprise for you,” Roth said, after dinner the next night.

I glanced at him. “What’s that, babe?”

He checked his watch and, as if that was a cue, I heard the distant buzz of an approaching airplane. “Here they are.”

“They?” I asked.

“Harris and Layla…and your surprise.”

Harris and Layla had left together in the seaplane the night before, and I hadn’t gotten an explanation as to why. I’d assumed, at first, that maybe it was just a quick trip, a chance for Layla to practice her newfound love of flying. But then when they hadn’t returned that night or the next day, I realized it hadn’t just been a quick trip. I’d asked Roth, but he’d just shrugged and changed the subject, via the effective but unfair method of cunnilingus.

And now here they came, nearly twenty-four hours later, with a “surprise” for me.

I couldn’t begin to imagine what Roth had planned; he was far too adept at surprising me.

I went out to the beach, holding Roth’s hand, watching the evening sun glint golden on the wings of the approaching seaplane. The wings wobbled side to side, and the aircraft lowered itself toward the water with something less than Harris’s usual perfect economy of motion, making me wonder if in fact it was Layla attempting a landing.

Foot by foot, the pale blue twin-prop seaplane went lower and lower until the floats sliced through the water, sending spray up into the air to catch the setting sun like droplets of liquid gold. A bounce off the water, a wobble of the wings, and then another bounce, and then it touched water once more and this time stayed down, sending water sluicing away in arcs to either side. Then the noise of the propellers slacked off and the nose was settling forward and the airplane was gliding across the surface of the water toward us, cutting to the side at the last minute. The maneuver toward the dock was sharp and efficient, which meant it was likely Harris bringing it in the rest of the way.

“That was an ugly landing,” Roth muttered.

“I think it was Layla,” I said.

“Oh. I didn’t know she flew.”

“She doesn’t. Harris is teaching her.”

Roth glanced at me in shock. “Holy shit. Really?”

“Really. She took off when we all went to St. Thomas. You didn’t notice?”

He made a face. “No, I didn’t. I was following an auction of one of my companies. Robert was sending me the updates via email.”

“I thought you seemed preoccupied.”

He kissed my temple. “I have been, haven’t I? I’m sorry. Dismantling an international, multi-billion-dollar corporation with dozens of subsidiaries isn’t exactly a quick or easy process. I should be there, in person, handling it all. But I can’t be, so…” He shrugged. “I do what I can. The process is almost done, though. The new corporation is in place, and we’re down to the last few odds and ends. Hopefully by this time next week, VRI will be history, and St. Claire, Incorporated will be up and running.”

“I wish you could have been there, too,” I told him.

“This is good practice,” he said, as we moved toward the dock, where the floatplane’s props were slowing to a halt. “The new setup allows me to operate remotely one hundred percent of the time. It puts a lot on Robert’s plate, but then, I’ve given him a rather enormous raise to compensate. And he’s more than capable. He’s the only person other than Harris and you that I trust implicitly.”

“Does Harris have security on him?” I asked.

Roth laughed. “So much that it’s driving Robert batty. Harris has more security on him than the president, I’m pretty sure.”

“Yet we have just Harris?”

“Just Harris?” Roth said, eyebrows raised. “Are we talking about the same guy?”