by Nora Roberts
kicked off and received dominated one wall. Surrounding Drake were the adult toys he used to compensate for those his mother had denied him during childhood. A trio of pachinko machines, a billiard table, a bronze-backed basketball hoop, state of the art in pinball, arcade, and sound systems. His library of videotapes topped five hundred, and there was a VCR in every room of the house. A guest would be hard put to find reading material other than racing forms or trade magazines, but Drake had other entertainment to offer.
In the room beyond, sexual toys were stacked—from the sublime to the ridiculous. He’d been taught from an early age that sex was a sinful thing, and had long since decided in for a penny, in for a pound. In any case, a few visual aids increased his appetites.
Though he had only a passing taste for drugs himself, he kept a stash of pills and powders to trot out if a party threatened to become dull. Drake Morrison considered himself a conscientious host.
He’d refused more than a dozen Super Bowl parties for that Sunday. To him, it wasn’t a game flickering on the screen, something to be enjoyed and hooted over with friends. It was life and death. He had fifty big ones riding on the outcome, and couldn’t afford to lose.
Before the first quarter had ended, he’d gulped down two Becks and a half bag of chips dripping with guacamole. With his team up by a field goal, he relaxed a little. His phone rang twice, but he let his machine do the talking, convinced it was bad luck to leave his perch even to urinate during the game, much less to answer the phone.
Two minutes into the second quarter and Drake was feeling smug. His team was holding the line like bulls. Personally, he detested the game. It was so … physical. But the need to bet was unrelenting. He thought of Delrickio and smiled. He would pay the Italian bastard back, every penny. He wouldn’t have to sweat when he heard the cool, polite voice over the phone.
Then maybe he’d take a quick winter vacation. Down to Puerto Rico to play in the casinos and fuck a few high-class broads. He’d deserve it after pulling himself out of this hole.
With no help from Eve, he thought and reached for a fresh beer. The old bitch refused to lend him another dime—just because he’d had a run of bad luck. If she knew he was still dealing with Delrickio … Well, he didn’t have to worry there. Drake Morrison knew how to be discreet.
Anyway, she didn’t have any right being so tight-assed with her money. Where the hell was it going to go after she croaked? All she had were her sisters, and she didn’t have any use for them. That left Drake. He was her only blood tie, and he’d spent his entire adult life knotting himself around her neck.
He was brought back to the game with a thud when the tight end on the opposing team sprinted thirty-five yards for a touchdown.
He felt his little bubble burst—as if a balloon had lodged then exploded in his throat. And reached for another handful of chips. Crumbs scattered over his shirt and lap as he stuffed them into his mouth. Didn’t matter, he told himself. It was only a three point spread. Four, he corrected himself, wiping his hand across his mouth as the kick sailed through the posts.
He’d get it back. There was plenty of time.
In his beach house in Malibu, Paul huddled over his keyboard. The book was giving him trouble—more than he’d expected. He was determined to get past his current block. He often looked at writing that way. One wall to scale after the next. He didn’t enjoy it—and it was the greatest pleasure of his life. He hated it and loved it in much the same way he’d learned some men felt about their wives. Writing a story was something he had to do—not for the money; he had plenty— but in the same way he had to eat or sleep or empty his bladder.
Leaning back, he stared at the screen, at the little white cursor that blinked after the last word he’d written. The word was murder.
It gave him a great deal of satisfaction to create thrillers, complicating the lives of the characters that grew inside him. Most of all, he liked to watch them balance life and death in their hands. At the moment he just didn’t seem to care enough.
Too many distractions, he admitted, and glanced over his shoulder at the television that was blaring out the action in the third quarter of the big game. He knew it was childish to have the set on and pretend to watch. The truth was he didn’t even care for American football. But he was sucked in, year after year, by the Super Bowl. He’d even picked his team, vindicating his weakness by rooting for what he considered the underdog—since they’d been behind by three in the first quarter.
The game was certainly a distraction, but it wasn’t what had been keeping him from falling into his work over the past couple of weeks. That distraction was certainly more fascinating than a bunch of men with padded shoulders dragging each other to the ground. A cool-eyed, long-legged blond named Julia.
He wasn’t even sure what he wanted from her. Besides the obvious. Getting his hands on her was a pleasant enough fantasy—particularly with her remoteness and bursts of passion sending out such mixed and irresistible signals. But if that was all it was, why wasn’t he able to dismiss her from his mind as he had been able to dismiss others when it was time to settle in to work?
Perhaps it was her complexity that nagged at him. She was slickly professional, quietly domestic. Ambitious and retiring. He’d already discovered that rather than aloof, she was shy. Cautious rather than cynical. Yet she had been bold enough, brave enough, to cross a continent with her young son and take on the vagaries of one of Hollywood’s legends.
Or was it hungry enough? he wondered.
He could fill in some of the blanks himself since he had dipped into her background. He knew she had been raised by two professionals, had survived a broken home, a teenage pregnancy, and the loss of both parents. Despite the vulnerabilities he’d seen, she was tough. She’d had to be.
Christ, he realized with a laugh. She reminded him of Eve. Perhaps it was because of Brandon, so unlike the boy he had been.
Eve hadn’t mothered him in the traditional sense, Paul knew. But she had saved him. Even though she had been his father’s wife such a short time, she had changed Paul’s direction. She’d given him the attention he’d so desperately craved, praise he’d stopped expecting, criticism that had mattered. Most of all, she’d given him an uncomplicated love.
Brandon was being raised that way, so how could he not be an appealing child? Odd, Paul thought, he’d never considered himself a man who particularly enjoyed children. He liked them well enough, found them amusing and often interesting, and certainly necessary for the preservation of the human race.
But he actually liked being around the kid. He’d felt comfortable the day before, eating pizza and swapping basketball stories. He was really going to have to see about taking the kid to a game. And if the mother came along, so much the better.
He glanced back at the television long enough to see the underdog was now behind by three going into the fourth quarter. Paul gave a fleeting thought to all the money that would be lost and won over the next fifteen minutes, then went back to work.
Drake was on the edge of his seat. The rug beneath him was scattered with crumbs from the chips and pretzels he’d been steadily devouring. Fuel to feed that gnawing pit of fear in his gut. He was into his second six-pack of beer, and his eyes were red-rimmed and glazed—like a man’s who was suffering from a hideous hangover. But he didn’t take them off the screen.
Four minutes and twenty-six seconds to go, and he was up by three. His team had muscled its way to a touchdown, but had blown the extra point.
They were going to do it. They were going to put him in the black. Drake stuffed a handful of pretzels into his mouth. His Ralph Lauren sport shirt was soaked with sweat and beneath it his heart hammered.
His breath short and fast, he toasted the gladiators on the screen with a half-empty beer, then bolted up in shock, as if the defensive lineman had kicked him in the groin. The opposing receiver caught a long pass and sailed unmolested into the end zone.
The ball was spiked. The crow
d went wild.
Three minutes and ten, and his life passed before his eyes.
They were assholes, he thought, swilling his dry throat with beer. They’d fumbled twice in the last ten minutes. Even he could do better. Pussies. He chugged beer, noshed chips, and prayed.
Bit by bit, they marched their way down the field. With every yard gained, Drake inched closer to the edge. His eyes were watering when they hit a solid defensive wall on the seventeen.
“One fucking touchdown!” he shouted, springing up to pace at the two-minute warning. His legs felt like rusty springs.
Fifty thousand dollars. He walked back and forth, cracking his knuckles as the commercial droned on. He couldn’t bear to think what Delrickio would do if he didn’t come up with the rest of the money. With his hands shaking, he pressed them to his eyes.
How could he have done it? How could he have taken fifty thousand and bet it on a stinking game when he owed the mob ninety?
Then the game was back, and so was his desperation. Drake didn’t sit now, but stood in front of the six-foot screen. The quarterback’s eyes seemed to stare into his. Desperation into desperation. There were grunts. The snap. Big, sweaty men scrambled on the screen inches from Drake’s face.
Three-yard gain. Time out.
Drake began to bite his nails.
The teams formed again. It seemed the same to him. What was the difference? he thought desperately. What was the fucking difference?
Quarterback sack. Six-yard loss.
He began to blubber now as the time dripped away. A grown man sobbing in a room full of toys. The need to urinate became so intense, he could only dance from foot to foot. With less than a minute to go, the defense held. Forth and two. Run, pass, or punt. After an excruciating time-out where Drake raced to the John to relieve his aching kidneys, they opted to run. Hulking uniforms formed a mountain of grass-stained color.
He panted as the players pushed and shoved, as refs jumped in to pull hot heads apart. Drake wanted them to tear at each other, to draw blood. More tears welled in his eyes as the measurement was taken.
“Please, please, please,” he chanted.
Short, inches short of the down. Miles short of hope. When the ball changed hands, the game was virtually over.
Drake stood, weeping as the crowd cheered. Big men took off helmets to show grimy faces of triumph or sorrow.
More than one life was changed when the clock ran out.
Julia hobbled into the circular reception area of Drake Morrison’s office at ten o’clock sharp for her appointment. She struggled to keep from wincing as she crossed to the center reception counter and announced herself to the slick-looking brunette who seemed to be in charge.
“Mr. Morrison’s expecting you,” she said in a silky contralto that was bound to make male clients salivate over the phone. If that didn’t do the trick, the forty-inch bust that was holding a cubic zirconia captive in its admirable cleavage should finish the job. “If you’d just have a seat for a few moments.”
There was nothing Julia wanted more. With a long and quiet sigh, she settled onto one of the sofas and pretended to be absorbed in Premiere magazine. She felt as though she had been beaten slowly, methodically, with a foam-coated baseball bat.
A one-hour session with Fritz and she was ready to beg for mercy—hopefully from a fully prone position.
He was kind-eyed, encouraging, flattering, and, she was sure, the real Conan.
Julia remembered to turn a page of the magazine while the receptionist answered the phone in her best Lauren Bacall. From profile, her amazing bust made Dolly Parton look prepubescent. Curious, Julia sneaked a peek, and noted that neither male in the reception area was salivating.
Settling back gingerly, she let her mind drift.
Despite the aches, it had been an interesting morning. Apparently women became more expansive when they shared torture. Eve had been friendly and amusing—particularly when Julia had forgotten dignity long enough to pant out a stream of oaths during the last of the dreaded crunchies.
And it was hard, if not impossible, to retain a professional distance when two exhausted women were naked and sharing the showers.
They hadn’t discussed people during this session, but things. The gardens Julia discovered Eve was so fond of. The music she preferred, her favorite cities. It hadn’t occurred to Julia until later that it had been less of an interview and more of a chat. And that Eve had learned more about Julia than Julia about Eve.
The more discomfort she had suffered, the more comfortable Julia had been with talking about herself. It had been easy to describe her home in Connecticut, how good she felt the move from New York had been for Brandon. How much she hated flying and loved Italian food. How terrified she’d been at her first book-signing with people crowded around.
And what was it Eve had said when she’d confessed to being frightened by public appearances?
“Give them your brains, girl, never your guts.”
Remembering, Julia smiled. She liked that.
Cautiously, she shifted. When her thigh muscles shrieked in chorus, she didn’t quite hold back the whimper. The men across from her flicked a glance over the tops of their magazines, dismissed her, then went back to reading. To take her mind off her multiple aches, she speculated about them.
A couple of actors hoping for representation by one of the big guns? No, she decided. Actors would never go looking for a publicity manager together. Not even if they were lovers.
It wasn’t fair to label them gay because they weren’t drooling over Dolly Bacall. Maybe they were loyal and faithful family men who never looked at women other than their wives.
And maybe she was sitting across from two dead guys.
An IRS team waiting to audit Drake’s books, she decided. Much closer to the mark. The men had the cool, unsympathetic, and ruthless looks she expected from IRS agents—or Mafia hit men. Did they have calculators or .32s tucked beneath those trim black jackets?
That had her grinning for a moment, until one of them looked over and caught her studying them. Julia had reason to hope her own books were in good order.
A glance at her watch showed her she’d already been waiting ten minutes. The double white doors with Drake’s name prominently displayed were firmly closed. Staring at them, she wondered what was keeping him.
Inside his overdecorated ecru and emerald office, as spiffy and obsessively trendy as the reception area, Drake kept his trembling hands linked on the glossy surface of his desk. He looked as though his body had shrunk to the size of a child, dwarfed by the custom-made leather executive chair.
Behind him was a window with its view of L.A. from high up in Century City. It always pleased him that at any whim, he could see in a glance the panorama the producers of LA. Law had made famous.
He kept his back to it now, his eyes downcast. He hadn’t slept the night before until jittery panic had sent him hunting up a couple of Valium and the brandy bottle.
“I’ve come to you personally,” Delrickio was saying, “because I feel we have a relationship.” When Drake merely nodded, Delrickio’s lips tightened, only briefly, in disgust. “You understand what would happen now if I did not have this personal connection with you?”
Because he felt this demanded an answer, Drake wet his lips. “Yes.”
“Business can be influenced by friendship only to a point. We are at that point. Last night you were unlucky. I can sympathize, friend to friend. But as a businessman, my priority must be my own profit and loss. You, Drake, are costing me money.”
“It shouldn’t have happened.” Drake’s emotions threatened to surface again, swam in his eyes. “Up until the last five minutes …”
“That is neither here nor there. Your judgment was poor, and your time is up.” Delrickio rarely raised his voice and didn’t do so now. His words boomed and echoed in Drake’s head, nonetheless. “What do you intend to do?”
“I—I can get you another ten thousand in two, maybe t
hree weeks.”
His eyes masked by the downsweep of his lashes, Delrickio took out a roll of peppermint Life Savers, thumbed one free, and laid it on his tongue. “That’s far from satisfactory. I expect the rest of the payment in one week.” He paused, waggling his finger. “No, because we are friends, in ten days’ time.”
“Ninety thousand in ten days?” Drake reached for the Waterford carafe on his desk, but his hands shook too badly for him to pour. “That’s impossible.”
Delrickio’s face remained impassive. “When a man owes a debt, a man pays. Or takes the consequences. A man who doesn’t pay his debts may find himself becoming clumsy—so clumsy he slams his hand in a door and crushes his fingers. Or he may become so distracted by his obligations that he is careless when he shaves—so that he slices his face … or his throat. In the end he may become so disheartened that he will throw himself out of a window.” Delrickio glanced at the wide pane at Drake’s back. “Like that one.”
Drake’s Adam’s apple pressed against the square knot in his tie when he swallowed the ball of fear in his throat. His voice came out like the whine of air from a leaky balloon. “I need more time.”
Delrickio sighed like a disappointed father who had just been shown a poor report card. “You ask me for a favor, and yet you haven’t granted me the one I asked you.”
“She wouldn’t tell me anything.” Drake reached for a handful of sugared almonds from the Raku bowl on his desk. “You know how unreasonable Eve can be.”
“Indeed I do. But there must be a way.”
“I tried pumping the writer.” Drake caught the faint glimmer of light at the end of a dark tunnel, and sprinted. “In fact, I’m working on bringing her around. She’s in the outer office right now.”
“So.” Delrickio’s brow lifted, the only sign of interest.
