Chapter 17

Patricia walks towards Curtis with an arrogant smile. Surprisingly, Curtis smile wasn't as cunning as last time. She sits in a chair in front of Curtis.

"What's wrong? You look as if you swallowed a bear"

"Ms. Callahan," Curtis looks around her. "About that plan on Phoebe-"

"That was a job well done Curtis," Patricia smiles winningly. "And don't worry about your raise, you'll get it"

"It's not about the raise," Curtis says urgently, "I think Vicki confess to Mr. Turner already about the envelope..."

Patricia's smile disappears and reappears in a shock face. "What Curtis, are you trying to put the blame on me, because I don't know what plan you are talking about"

"Are you... trying to put all the blame on me? Because if I'm going down, you're coming with me," Curtis said angrily.

Patricia's eyes could melt steel. "Are you threatening me? No one threatens me. You thought of this plan, you set Phoebe, you are the cost of all this problem. If you're going down, you're going alone, and if you'll excuse me," Patricia stood up, "I've better things to do, then sit and talk to a secretary like you."

Patricia went into Cole's office without knocking. Cole was standing in front of his window looking at the busy streets. Patricia slid her hands from behind and lean her head on his back. "Hi," she said huskily. "Want to come over to my place and have a drink?"

Patricia felt a trill of excitement when he put his hands on her link hands, but was disappointed when he push her hands from him. "What's wrong Cole?". She was shocked when he turn around and grip her shoulders and push her away from him. "Hey!"

He took 3 gulps of air before he could calm himself down to talk to her. "Patricia, I won't be renewing the contract made by Mantafor and Pedingtion, which ends tomorrow"

Patricia gaped at him. "What?!"

"You're causing a lot of trouble for me and my company ever since me and your father had a contract together. You come to my office every day as if you have a right to and you make agreements with MY employees that you'll give them a raise for no apparent reasons and for your own benefits"

Patricia gave a loud cry of outrage, "Cole, what are you talking about? I don't simply give raises to our-"

"Our?," Cole gave a loud laugh. "There is no OUR, this is MY employees, I'll give them raises if I want, not you, not our, Me. There is no us, Patricia"

"You don't mean it."

"Yes." He had to nudge her back so she'd stop rubbing against him. "I do."

"It's Phoebe isn't it. It's always because of her."

"Phoebe and me has nothing to do with you and me. There is no you- Hey! Cut it out." She grabbed the lamp and heaved it at him. The best he could do was block it so the base didn't rap him between the eyes.

The sound of the glass crashing on the floor snapped the already unsteady hold on his temper.

"Okay, that's it. get out. Get the hell out of my office and out of my building."

"You never cared. You never thought about my feelings. You never even gave me a chance."

"You're right, absolutely." He went for her as she made a beeline for his certificates hanging on the wall. "I didn't give a damn about you." He panted it out as he struggled to get her out without losing any of his own skin to her long, lethal nails. "I'm a pig, a creep, a son of a bitch."

She slam her heels on his leg and quickly ran to open his office door and screamed loudly. "I hate you!" She shrieked it. "I'm dumping you! You were never good enough for me! Do you hear me? I'm dumping you, loser!" And ran crying towards the elevator. Cole stared at her running back for a while and turn towards Christine.

"Call the security to make sure that she runs OUT of the building and remind them next time to bar her from coming into the building from now onwards." He turns towards Curtis. "Curtis, in my office now"

***

The whole place was blanketed with a fresh carpet of snow. Cole pulled to a stop in front of Phoebe's house and turned off the ignition of the car. The slow, treacherous drive across snow-covered roads had been the easy part; facing Phoebe was going to be the difficult part.

His knock was answered immediately by Paige who stood and blinked for a while then change to open animosity. "What the hell do you want."

"I want to see Phoebe-"

"She doesn't want to see you," she interrupted.

"I've come to see her," Cole stated implacably, "and if I have to walk over you to get to her, I will."

"I believe he means it, Paige," Piper said, stepping into the hallway, her finger in a closed book she had been reading.

For a long moment, Piper studied the lines of strain and tension etched deeply into Cole's features. "Paige," she said quietly, "why don't we give Cole five minutes with Phoebe to see if he can change her mind. She's in the living room," she added, inclining her head over her shoulder in the direction of the Christmas carols playing on the stereo.

"Five minutes, and that's all," Paige grumbled, following right on Cole's heels.

Cole turned to her. "Alone," he said determinedly.

Paige opened her mouth to argue, but Piper intervened. "Alone, Paige."

Cole took two steps forward and stopped, his heart hammering uncontrollably in his chest.

Phoebe was standing on a stepladder, hanging tinsel on the upper branches of a Christmas tree. She looked heartbreakingly young in her trim jeans and bright green sweater and poignantly, vulnerably beautiful with her hair tumbling in burnished waves over her shoulders and back.

He ached to pull her off the ladder and into his arms, to carry her over the sofa and lose himself in her, to kiss and hold and caress her, to heal her pain with his body and hands and mouth.

Stepping down off the ladder, Phoebe knelt to pull more tinsel from the box lying beside the gaily wrapped packages beneath the tree. From the corner of her eye she glimpsed a pair of gleaming brown men's loafers. "My, your timing is terrific," she teased softly. "I've already finished. Does the star look all right on the top, or should I go to the attic and bring down the angel?"

"Leave the star on top," said an achingly gentle, deep voice. "There's already one angel in the room."

Phoebe's head jerked around, her gaze riveted on the tall, solemn man standing a few feet away from her. The color drained from her face as her mind registered the determination carved into every masculine feature, from his straight dark brows to the tough jut of his chin and jaw. Every line of his well-remembered body was emanating wealth, power and the same forceful magnetism that she ran from in her dreams at night.

His features had been seared into her brain; she remembered him perfectly. She also remembered the last time she had seen him; she had been on her knees then too-weeping at his feet. Humiliation and fury sent her surging upright. "Get out of here!" she blazed, too blinded by her own torment to see the tortured regret, the sorrow that darkened his gray eyes.

Instead of leaving, he came towards her.

Phoebe backed away one step and then held her ground, her whole body shaking with exploding violence. He reached for her, and she swung, slapping him full on his face. "I said get out!," she hissed. When he didn't move Phoebe lifted her hand in an incensed threat, "Damn you! Get out!"

Cole's gaze shifted to her raised palm. "Go ahead," he said gently.

Trembling with thwarted rage, Phoebe jerked her hand down and wrapped her arms around her stomach, moving sideways to escape him, trying to sidle around the tree, away from him, out of the room.

"Phoebe, wait-" He stepped into her path and reached for her.

"Don't touch me!," Phoebe almost screamed, recoiling wildly from his hand. She moved sideways to take the remaining three steps that would enable her to circle past him and out of the room.

Cole was willing to let her do anything, anything to him, except to leave him. That he would not let her do, "Phoebe, please let me-"

"No!," she cried hysterically. "Stay away from me!"

She tried to run, and Cole caught her by the arms. She turned on him like a demented weeping wildcat, struggling wildly, striking out at him. "You bastard!," she screamed in hysterical, maddened pain, pounding on his chest, his shoulders. "You bastard! I begged you on my knees!"

it took all of Cole's strength to hold her until her fury was finally sent and she collapsed against him, her slim body racked with wrenching sobs. "You made me beg-," she wept brokenly in his arms "-you made me beg."

her tears tore at his heart, and her words slashed him like knives. He held her, staring blindly ahead, remembering the beautiful, laughing girl who had walked into his life and turned it upside down with her glowing smile.

His eyes stung with remorse and he closed them. "I'm sorry," he whispered hoarsely, "I'm sorry."

Phoebe heard the raw ache in his voice, and she felt the wall of icy numbness she'd built around herself begin to melt. She fought to blank out the exquisite beauty of being in his arms again, of being pressed against his big, strong body.

In the lonely weeks of sleepless nights and angry desolate days, she'd come to the quiet conclusion that Cole was incurably cynical and hard. His hands were moving up and down her back in a helpless comfort, spreading warmth wherever they touched her. Summoning the last vestiges of her self-control, Phoebe firmly pushed away from him. "I'm fine now. Really." She dragged her gaze to his fathomless eyes and said quietly, "I want you to leave now, Cole."

His jaw tightened and his whole body tensed at the calm deathly finality in her voice, but instead of leaving, he seemed to block her words from his mind, as if she had spoken in a language he didn't understand. With his eyes still holding hers, he reached into his jacket pocket and took out a flat box wrapped in silver paper. "I've brought you a present," he said.

Phoebe stared at him. "What?"

"Here," he said, lifting her hand and putting the box in it. "It's a Christmas present. It's for you-go ahead and open it."

"Open it now, Phoebe," he said. His face was carefully blank, but Phoebe saw the desperation in his eyes and the rigid tension in his powerful shoulders, and she knew that he expected her to reject his gift. And him.

She pulled her gaze from his and shakily removed the silver paper from the flat velvet box, which was discreetly embossed with the name of a famous jeweler. She opened the catch. On a bed of a white velvet was a spectacular ruby pendant in a shape of a key surrounded by a row of dazzling diamonds. She lifted quizzical eyes to him.

"It's a key into my heart. I want you to come in really badly"

Tears of tenderness filled Phoebe's eyes, and sweetness pierced her heart.

Her voice was hoarse and tight, as if the words were being wrenched from him. "Please," he whispered. "Please..." He jerked her into his arms, crushing her to his lean, hard length, burying his face in her hair. "Oh please darling..."

"Phoebe? I've brought the plastic you ask me to-"

Cole and Phoebe broke apart and Cole, with a surprise face, saw Keith standing at the hallway carrying a plastic bag.