Scheming Sweethearts

1 - you can't deep-freeze a red-hot momma

Wanda pushed back the doors of the library, and Jason followed her inside. 'Not here either,' she said, dissatisfied. 'Got to say, I'm pissed off. I let him know two days ago: what kind of welcome is this?'

Jason slid past her, took a look at a few dusty shelves and shrugged, settling himself in an overstuffed leather-backed chair. 'We could take advantage? Raid the liquor cabinet, check out the rare pornographic texts, phone around and have a house-party? If he doesn't show.'

Wanda just clicked her tongue at him. 'You think me and Pietro didn't do all that stuff at fifteen? Sad. You're a grad student now, Jase, not a fresher. Try to act like it. You'll be hitting thirty in five years, get ready for undergrads to snigger and offer you an arm crossing the road when you try to pick 'em up.'

Jase shifted in his chair and squinted, pulling at the fabric under his ass. 'It'll never happen. But maybe I'll borrow some of your step-dad's winter wardrobe, start giving off that old-codger vibe early.' He pulled a thick grey cardigan out from under him, fancy-stitched and heavy-collared. 'Serious?'

Wanda took it out of his hands and put it round her shoulders, shrugging it into a shawl. 'Yeah, that's Charles. Although he was dressing like this when he first moved in with Dad, and he must have been – Christ, I don't think even twenty-five then.'

'Explain it to me again,' Jason said, eyes glinting as he turned his head, and spotted a tumbler and glasses at the other end of the long polished table. 'It's long vacation. We're through with internships and summer classes. If you're hot to bond with family, why are we visiting your dad's ex-husband, instead of your dad? If they've been divorced – how long?'

'Thirteen years,' Wanda said softly, and sat down opposite him. 'Well, Dad's busy getting the European branch up and running again, after the last financial results. And anyway... I always come to Charles first. We're still his kids. Really he got us in the divorce. Unofficially, you know. Technically Dad had custody. It just didn't actually work out that way.'

She'd shut the library door behind them. But now it yawned open, and a beautiful, smooth faced redhead walked in gracefully, fixing her gaze on them both before speaking. 'Wanda. What a joy to see you again.'

Wanda was quite, quite still. 'Jean. Nice. You too.' She flicked her hair back and gave Jason a meaningful stare: quite pointless as she'd failed to give him any preparatory intel to work with.

Jean leaned one hand on the desk, cocked her head. Somehow the pose enhanced the already perfect curves of her body. 'Your friend?'

Wanda still stared at him instead of making further eye contact with Jean. 'Jason Wyngarde. Jase,' she said, jerking her head back at the other girl, 'this is Jean Grey. Daddy's research assistant.' If words were poisoned apples Jean would have choked there and then. 'Jean,' she asked, still gazing into the far, far distance, 'where's Daddy? I've been all over the house and got no joy with his cell.'

'Oh,' Jean said, mock-surprise painted all over her tone. 'Didn't anyone tell you? He's in hospital. Nothing major: another infection. He'll be out tomorrow.'

Jason felt some concern: going at that rate, Wand's eyes might just bulge out of her head.

She just breathed: one breath, two, three, four... 'No. No-one told me, Jean. No-one told me. Not Pietro either.'

'Didn't want to worry you, I imagine,' Jean said, sweet as butterscotch, one hundred per cent sucrose, sickening. 'You'll see him tomorrow. Visiting hours are over now, I believe. Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with, won't you?'

She swayed on out of the dusty, shaded hall, and you could feel the smile on her face from the line of her back, its curve and sway.

Wanda waited till she was out of there, the doors closed once more, before she got up and chose an old, large, heavy book from the shelves. She threw it at the door, carefully: and missed by a mile.

'Fucking bitch,' she expostulated.

Jason gave her five minutes to calm down: he was rather more interested in the nice aged Scotch and searching out the hypothesized pornography, in any case. But when she wasn't trembling and gripping her chair arms any more, and the flush on her cheeks had faded from fireapple red to a deep soft pink, he put a triple measure down in a tumbler in front of her, and leant a hip on the table by her side.

'Spill,' he invited. 'Not the Scotch,' he hurried to add. 'Make sure your hands are steady first. Come on, girlie, give – research assistant, forsooth.'

Wanda smirked grimly, and took a long swallow. 'You could call it that. That's shorthand for... well, I'll be a lady and leave it to your imagination. Let's say I have reason to think her relationship with Daddy is less than professional. Horrible gold-digger.'

Jason just nodded solemnly. 'I have to say I assumed they were fucking from your tone.'

Wanda took that as her cue to run out of the library with her hands over her ears.

xxx

'Pietro, you're no fucking use to me. What do you mean, you can't come home?' Wanda wailed down the landline. 'Daddy's ill, he's in hospital. What do a few world speed records matter in comparison to that. Don't you care?'

'He has a recurrent soft tissue infection as a result of being bloody careless with an ulcer he has, also as a result of being bloody careless. And he's out of hospital tomorrow, sis,' Pietro responded reasonably. 'What on earth are you expecting me to do?'

Wanda stood, and gripped the receiver, and fumed. 'I expect you to come home, you absolute bugger. And help to run a resumption of Operation Sabotage. Don't I? Of course. You already know that. What else would constitute an emergency?'

'Is this about Jean?' Pietro asked with interest. 'So he is having it away with her? I did rather wonder. Good for the old sod. Didn't know he still had it in him.'

'Oh, don't make me sick!' Wanda hissed. Pietro laughed with utter heartlessness in response.

'Wandie, we're not fifteen any more. And we're certainly not five. You – well, we, admittedly, up until I managed to get out from under your scary mind-control techniques – managed to keep him single for – Christ, poor bugger. Too long. But it can't go on forever, especially now we're grown and can't actually put baking soda in his boyfriend's coffee every morning, or lock his lady-friend's sexy, sexy handcuffs to the chaise-longue when the Vice-Chancellor comes to tea.'

'Face it, sis,' he continued, ignoring her groans and attempts at interruption, 'Charles is eventually going to settle down with someone who's a bit more than a casual hook-up. And it's not going to be Dad, again. That ship has sailed, sister. That horse you're flogging? It stinks. It's been rotting for years. Babe. It's never going to happen. Dad and Daddy are just never going to get re-married, face it.'

A couple of fast exhales, and there was something menacing in Wanda's reply. 'I will never, ever accept that, Petey. Our fathers are going to be at least engaged again, by the end of this year. You just wait and see.'