Tender Triumph

by Judith McNaught

  No real or imagined flaw in her face, figure, pos­ture or personality escaped his notice or went unre­marked. "Pleated skirts make your hips look even broader," he observed impersonally. Katie protest­ed that she didn't have broad hips, but she enrolled in an exercise class just to be sure. "If you cut your hair short, your chin wouldn't seem so prominent." Katie protested that her chin wasn't prominent, but she had her hair cut. "If you tightened up your knees, your rear end wouldn't wiggle so much when you walk." Katie tightened up her knees and won­dered if she was still "wiggling."

  His eyes were never still, they followed her every­where until Katie became so self-conscious she could hardly cross the room without bumping into a table or banging into a chair. That too, did not escape his notice. Neither did the meal she burned, nor the clothes she forgot to take to the cleaners, nor the dust she overlooked on the bookshelf. "Some women can handle a career and run a house," David observed one night while she was polishing furni­ture. "Obviously you aren't one of them. You're going to have to give up your job."

  Looking back, Katie could not believe how easily he had manipulated her. For two weeks, David "worked late at the office." When he was home, he shut her out completely. When he spoke to her at all, it was with cold ridicule or polite sarcasm. Katie tried repeatedly to patch their quarrel in every way she could think of, but David viewed her obvious ef­forts with freezing contempt. In two short weeks, he managed to reduce her to a piteous bundle of teary tension, and had her believing that she was clumsy, stupid and inept. But she had been only twenty-one then, and fresh out of college, while David was nine years older, very sophisticated and authoritative.

  The thought of giving up her job broke her con­trol. "But I love my job," she had said, tears streak­ing down her cheeks.

  "I thought you 'loved' your husband," David had retorted coldly. He looked at her hands fever­ishly polishing the table. "I'm very fond of that Steuben bowl," he drawled insolently. "Move it, before you knock it over."

  "I'm not going to knock it over," Katie burst out, rounding on him in a tearful fury and knocking the valuable glass bowl off the table. It hit the floor with a sickening crash and broke. Katie was as broken as the bowl. She flung herself into David's arms and burst into racking sobs. "I love you, David—I don't know what's wrong with me, lately. I'm so sorry. I'll give up my job, and I'll—"

  David was avenged. All was forgiven. He patted her consolingly, told her that as long as she loved him that was all that mattered, and of course she didn't have to give up her job. The sun beamed down upon her marriage again, and David was his thoughtful, considerate, charming self once more.

  Four months later, Katie left her office early intending to surprise David with a special dinner to celebrate their six-month anniversary. She surprised him. He was in bed with the wife of his law firm's senior partner, leaning back against the headboard casually smoking a cigarette, with the naked woman cradled in his free arm. Deadly calm washed over Katie, even though her stomach was twisting. "Since you've obviously finished," she said quietly in the doorway, "I'd appreciate it if you'd get out of here. Both of you."

  She walked into the kitchen in a daze, took mush­rooms out of the grocery bag and began slicing them for dinner. She sliced her finger twice without notic­ing the blood. Minutes later, David's low, savage voice hissed behind her, "You little bitch, before tonight is over you're going to learn some manners. Sylvia Conners' husband happens to be my boss. Now get out there and apologize to her."

  "Go to hell," Katie said in a voice strangled with pain and humiliation.

  His hands dug viciously into her hair, snapping her head back. "I'm warning you, do as I say or it will only go harder on you when she leaves."

  Tears of tormented anguish filled Katie's eyes, but she met his glittering gaze without flinching. "No."

  David let go of her and strolled into the living room. "Sylvia," she heard him say, "Katie is sorry that she upset you, and she'll apologize for her rude­ness tomorrow. Come on, I'll walk you down to your car."

  When they left the apartment, Katie walked woodenly into the bedroom she had shared with David and pulled her suitcases out of the closet. She was mechanically opening drawers and removing her clothing when she heard him return.

  "You know, darling," David said in a soft, silky voice from the doorway, "four months ago, I thought you learned never to make me angry. I tried to teach you the easy way, but evidently it didn't work. I'm afraid this lesson will have to be a little more memorable."

  Katie looked up from her mindless packing and saw him calmly unbuckling his belt and sliding it out of its loops. Even her vocal cords froze with stark ter­ror. "If you dare to touch me," she said in a suf­focated voice, "I'll have you arrested for assault."

  David stalked her slowly across the bedroom, watching with malicious enjoyment as Katie backed away. "No you won't. You're going to cry very hard, and say you're sorry, and tell me that you love me."

  He was right. Thirty minutes later, Katie was still screaming "I love you" into the pillow when the apartment door closed behind him.

  She had no idea how much time passed before she dragged herself off the bed, pulled a coat on, picked up her purse and left the apartment. She had no re­collection of driving to her parents' house that night, nor did she ever return to the apartment.

  David called her day and night, alternately trying to cajole and threaten her into coming back. He was deeply sorry; he had been under tremendous tension at the office with his case load; it would never hap­pen again.

  The next time she saw him she was with her lawyer in divorce court.

  Katie glanced up as Ramon turned into a narrow dirt driveway. Straight ahead in the distance she could see light glowing against the hillside. Gabriella's house, she assumed. She looked around at the surrounding hills, which were sprinkled with the twinkling lights from the other houses, some high, some low, some much farther away than others. It made the hills seem welcoming, like a safe harbor on a dark night. She tried to enjoy the sight, to concen­trate on the present and the future, but the past refused to let go of her. It clutched at her, warning her....

  David Caldwell had not completely deceived her; she had let herself be deceived. Even at a naive, virginal twenty-one, she had sensed that he was not entirely the charming man he seemed to be. Subcon­sciously she had registered the controlled rage in his eyes when a waiter didn't scurry fast enough in a res­taurant; she had seen the clenching of his hands on the steering wheel when another driver didn't move out of his way; she had even seen the veiled specula­tion in his eyes when he looked at another woman. She had suspected that he was not the man he wanted her to believe he was, but she had been in love and she had married him anyway.

  Now she was on the verge of marrying Ramon, and she couldn't shake the creeping suspicion that he wasn't the man he wanted her to believe he was, either. He was like a puzzle whose pieces didn't quite fit together. And he seemed so hesitant, so uninformative when she asked questions about him and his past. If he had nothing to hide, why was he so reluctant to talk about himself?

  That brought a storm of argument from Katie's heart. Just because Ramon didn't like to talk about himself didn't necessarily mean that he was conceal­ing some sinister personality trait from her. David had loved talking about himself, so in that respect the two men were very different.

  They were very different in every respect, Katie told herself firmly. Or were they?

  She just needed some time to adjust to the idea of marrying again, she decided. Everything had hap­pened so fast that she was panicking. In the next two weeks her irrational fear would leave her. Or would it?

  Gabriella's house was clearly in sight when Ramon abruptly stepped in front of her, blocking her path. "Why?" he demanded in a terse, frustrat­ed voice. "Why are you so frightened?"

  "I—I'm not," Katie denied, startled.

  "Yes," he said harshly, "You are."

  Katie stared up at his moonlit face. Despit
e his harsh tone, there was gentleness in his eyes and calm strength in his features. David had been neither gen­tle nor strong. He had been a vicious coward. "I think it's because everything seems to be happening so quickly," she said with partial honestly.

  His brows drew together into a frown. "Is it only the haste that worries you?"

  Katie hesitated. She could not explain the source of her fear to him. She didn't entirely understand it herself, at least not yet. "There's so much to be done, and so little time to do it," she prevaricated.

  He sighed with relief as his hands slid up her arms, drawing her close against his heart. "Katie, I always intended for us to be married two weeks from today. Your parents will be here for the cere­mony, and I will handle all the necessary arrange­ments. All you have to do between now and then is meet with Padre Gregorio."

  His velvety voice, his breath stirring her hair, the musky, masculine scent of his body, were all com­bining to work their magic on Katie. "Meet with Padre Gregorio to discuss the ceremony, you mean?" she asked, leaning back to look at him as his arms encircled her.

  "No, to convince him of your suitability to be­come my wife," Ramon corrected.

  "Are you serious?" she breathed, her attention absorbed in the sensuous male lips slowly coming nearer and nearer to hers. Desire was beginning to course through Katie's veins, sweeping aside her doubts and fears.

  "Serious about you? You know I am," he mur­mured, his mouth so close now that his warm breath mingled with hers.

  "Serious about having to convince Padre Greg­orio that I'd make a good wife for you?" she told his descending mouth.

  "Yes," he whispered huskily. "Now convince me."

  A hazy smile touched her lips as she curved a hand behind his head, bringing his mouth even closer to hers. "Are you going to be hard to convince?" she teased.

  Ramon's voice was hoarse with burgeoning pas­sion. "I am going to try."

  Katie's other hand glided up his chest in a deliber­ately tantalizing caress that made his muscles tense and his breath catch. "How long do you think it will take me to convince you?" she whispered seductive­ly.

  "About three seconds," he murmured hotly.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Katie rolled over onto her back and opened her eyes, emerging from her deep, exhausted sleep with a queer sensation of unreality. The room in which she had slept was sunny and immaculately clean, spartanly furnished with an old maple dresser and nightstand that had been polished to a mirror shine.

  "Good morning," Gabriella's soft voice spoke from the doorway. Katie's memory snapped into focus as Gabriella crossed the room and placed a steaming cup of coffee on the nightstand beside the bed. At twenty-four, Gabriella was strikingly lovely. Her high cheekbones and luminous brown eyes were a magazine photographer's dream. Last night, she had confided to Katie that she had been asked to pose by a famous photographer who had seen her one day in the village, but her husband, Eduardo, had refused to permit it. That, Katie thought ir­ritably, was exactly what she would have expected from that taciturn, handsome man she had met last night. Katie thanked her for the coffee and Gabri­ella smiled. "Ramon came to see you this morning before he left, but when he learned you were sleep­ing, he said not to" disturb you," Gabriella explained. "He asked me to tell you that he will see you this evening when he returns."

  "From Mayaguez," Katie put in, merely to keep the conversation going.

  "No, from San Juan," Gabriella corrected. A look of almost comic horror crossed her face. "Or perhaps it was Mayaguez. I am sorry I do not re­call."

  "It doesn't matter," Katie assured her, puzzled over her obvious distress.

  Gabriella brightened with relief. "Ramon left much money for you. He said we should begin our shopping today if you feel ready for it."

  Katie nodded and glanced at the plastic alarm clock beside her bed, surprised to see that it was already ten o'clock. Tomorrow she would be sure to be up when Ramon came to see her before he left for work at the failing farm in Mayaguez.

  Silence hung like a pall over the seven men seated at the conference table in the boardroom at Galverra International's San Juan headquarters—a silence that was shattered as the baroque grandfather clock began ominously tolling the hour of ten—marking the final, gasping breaths of a dying corporation that had once been a thriving world conglomerate.

  From his position at the head of the long table, Ramon's glance raked over the five men on his left who were Galverra International's board of direc­tors. Each man had been carefully selected by his father, and each possessed the three qualities that Simon Galverra required of his board members: intelligence, greed and spinelessness. For twenty years, Simon had drawn on their intelligence, exploited their greed, and ruthlessly taken advantage of their inability to contradict his opinions or challenge his decisions.

  "I asked," Ramon repeated in a cold clipped voice, "if any of you can suggest a viable alternative to filing corporate bankruptcy." Two directors ner­vously cleared their throats, another reached for the Waterford pitcher of ice water in the center of the table.

  Their averted gazes and continued meek silence ig­nited the rage he was keeping under such tenuous control. "No suggestions?" he asked with silky menace. "Then perhaps one of you who is not incap­able of speech altogether will explain to me why I was not informed of my father's disastrous decisions or his erratic behavior during the last ten months."

  Running a finger between his shirt collar and his throat, one of the men said, "Your father said you were not to be bothered with matters here. He speci­fically said that to us, didn't he, Charles?" he asked, nodding for confirmation at the Frenchman seated beside him. "He told us all 'Ramon is going to be overseeing the operations in France and Bel­gium for six months, then he is addressing the World Business Conference in Switzerland. When he leaves there, he will be busy entering into negotia­tions with people in Cairo. He is not to be bothered with the little decisions we are making here.' That is exactly what he said, isn't it?" Five heads nodded in unison.

  Ramon looked at them as he slowly rolled a pen­cil between his fingers. "So," he concluded in a dangerously soft voice, "not one of you 'bothered' me. Not even when he sold a fleet of oil tankers and an airline for half their worth... not even when he decided to donate our South American mining interests to the local government as a gift?"

  "It—it was your money, and your father's, Ramon." The man on the end held up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "All of us combined own only a small percentage of stock in the corporation. The rest of the stock is your family's. We knew what he was doing wasn't in the best interest of the cor­poration, but your family owns the corporation. And your father said he wanted the corporation to have some tax write-offs."

  Fury boiled up inside of Ramon, pouring through his veins; the pencil in his hand snapped in two. "Tax write-offs?" he bit out savagely.

  "Y—yes," another said. "You know—tax deduc­tions for the corporation."

  Ramon's hand crashed down on the table with the impact of an explosion as he surged to his feet. "Are you trying to tell me that you thought it was rational for him to give away the corporation's assets so we would not have to pay taxes on them?" A muscle rioted in his clenched jaw as he passed a final murderous look over them. "I am sure you will understand that the corporation will not be able to reimburse you for your travel expenses to attend this meeting." He paused, maliciously enjoying their stunned looks. "Nor will I approve the payment of your annual retainer fees for your services as 'di­rectors' during this past year. This meeting is ad­journed!"

  Unwisely, one of them chose that moment to be­come assertive. "Er, Ramon, it is in the bylaws of the corporation that directors are paid the annual sum of—"

  "Take me to court!" Ramon spat. Turning on his heel, he stalked through the doorway into his ad­joining office, followed by the man who had been seated on his right, silently observing the proceed­ings.

  "Fix yourself a drink, Miguel," Ramon gritted as he st
ripped off his suit coat. Jerking his tie loose, he walked over to the windows.

  Miguel Villegas glanced at the elaborate drinks cabinet against the paneled wall, then quickly sat down in one of the four gold velvet armchairs facing the baronial desk. His brooding eyes were dark with suppressed sympathy as he looked at Ramon, who was standing at the windows with his back to him, one arm braced high against the frame, his hand clenched into a fist.

  After several tense minutes, the hand unclenched and the arm came down. In a gesture of weary resig­nation, Ramon flexed his broad shoulders, then ran his hand around the back of his neck, massaging the taut muscles. "I thought I had accepted defeat weeks ago," he said on a bitter sigh as he turned. "Apparently I had not."

  Moving over to the desk he sat down in the massive, high-backed chair behind it and looked at Rafael Villegas's eldest son. With an expressionless face, he said, "I take it that your search turned up nothing encouraging?"

  "Ramon," Miguel almost pleaded, "I am an ac­countant with a local practice; this was a job for your corporate auditors—you cannot rely on my findings."

  Ramon was undeterred by Miguel's evasiveness. "My auditors are flying in from New York this morning, but I will not give them the access to my father's personal records that I gave you. What were your findings?"

  "Exactly what you expected," Miguel sighed. "Your father sold off everything the corporation owned that was making a profit, and kept only those companies that are currently operating at a loss. When he couldn't find anything else to do with the proceeds from the sales, he donated millions to every charity imaginable." He took several ledger sheets out of his briefcase and reluctantly slid them across the huge desk to Ramon. "The item that is the most frustrating to me is the high-rise office towers you were building in Chicago and St. Louis. You have twenty million dollars invested in each one. If the banks would just loan you the rest of the money so you could finish them, you could sell them, get your investment back, and make a sizable profit besides."