“I doubt that,” she scoffed, but more quietly. She was surprised by what Gordon had said. Carter Malloy had never struck her as a man with a thoughtful bone in his body. “What do you mean by help out?”
“I’d wager that he’d join the consortium.”
“Out of pity for me?”
“Not at all. He’s a shrewd businessman. He’d join it for the investment value. But he’d also want to be involved for old times’ sake. I’ve heard him speak fondly of Crosslyn Rise.” He paused, stroked a finger over his upper lip. “I’d go so far as to say we could get him to throw in his fee as part of his contribution. That way, he’d have a real stake in making the plans work, and if they didn’t, it would be his problem. He’d swallow his own costs—which would be a far sight better than your having to come up with forty or fifty thousand if the project fizzled.”
“Forty or fifty thousand?” She hadn’t dreamed it would be so much. Swallowing, she sank into her chair once again, this time into the deepest corner, where the chair’s back and arms could shield her. “I don’t like this, Gordon.”
“I know. But given that the Rise can’t be saved as it is, this is an exciting option. Let me call Carter.”
“No,” she cried, then repeated it more quietly. “No.”
“I’m talking about a simple introductory meeting. You can tell him your general thoughts about the project and listen to what he has to say in return. See how you get along. Decide for yourself whether he’s the same as he used to be. There won’t be an obligation. I’ll be there with you if you like.”
She tipped up her chin. “I was never afraid of Carter Malloy. I just disliked him.”
“You won’t now. He’s a nice guy. Y’know, you said it yourself—it drove him nuts that he was poor and you were rich. He must have spent a lot of time wishing Crosslyn Rise was his. So let him take those wishes and your ideas and make you some sketches.”
“They could be very good or very bad.”
“Ah,” Gordon drawled, “but remember two things. First off, Carter has a career and a reputation to protect. Second, you have final say. If you don’t like what he does, you have the power of veto. In a sense that puts him under your thumb, now, doesn’t it?”
Jessica thought back to the last time she’d seen Carter Malloy. In vivid detail, she recalled what he’d said to her, and though she’d blotted it from her mind over the years, the hurt and humiliation remained. Perhaps she would find a measure of satisfaction having him under her thumb.
And, yes, Crosslyn Rise was still hers. If Carter Malloy didn’t come up with plans that pleased her, she’d turn her back on him and walk away. He’d see who had the last laugh then.
2
Jessica had never been a social butterfly. Her mother, well aware of the Crosslyn heritage, had put her through the motions when she’d been a child. Jessica had been dressed up and taken to birthday parties, given riding lessons, sent to summer camp, enrolled in ballet. She had learned the essentials of being a properly privileged young lady. But she had never quite fit in.
She wasn’t a beautiful child, for one thing. Her hair was long and unruly, her body board-straight and her features plain—none of which was helped by the fact that she rarely smiled. She was quiet, serious, shy, not terribly unlike her father. One part of her was most comfortable staying home in her room at Crosslyn Rise reading a good book. The other part dreamed of being the belle of the ball.
Having a friend over to play was both an apprehensive and exciting experience for Jessica. She liked the company and, even more, the idea of being liked, but she was forever afraid of boring her guest. At least, that was what her mother warned her against ad infinitum. As an adult, Jessica understood that though her mother worshipped her father’s intellect, deep inside she found him a boring person, hence the warnings to Jessica. At the time, Jessica took those warning to heart. When she had a friend at the Rise, she was on her guard to impress.
That was why she was crushed by what Carter Malloy did to her when she was ten. Laura Hamilton, who came as close to being a best friend as any Jessica had, was over to visit. She didn’t come often; the Rise wasn’t thought to be a “fun” place. But Laura had come this time because she and Jessica had a project to do together for school, and the library at the Rise had the encyclopedias and National Geographics that the girls needed.
When they finished their work, Jessica suggested they go out to the porch. It was a warm fall day, and the porch was one of her favorite spots. Screened in and heavily shaded by towering maples and oaks, it was the kind of quiet, private place that made Jessica feel secure.
She started out feeling secure this day, because Laura liked the porch, too. They sat close beside each other on the flowered porch sofa, pads of paper in their laps, pencils in hand. They were writing poems, which seemed to Jessica to be an exciting enough thing to do.
Carter Malloy didn’t think so. Pruning sheers in hand, he materialized from behind the rhododendrons just beyond the screen, where, to Jessica’s chagrin, he had apparently been sitting.
“What are you two doing?” he asked in a voice that said he knew exactly what they were doing, since he’d been listening for quite some time, and he thought it was totally dumb.
“What are you doing?” Jessica shot right back. She wasn’t intimidated by his size or his deep voice or the fact that he was seventeen. Maybe, just a little, she was intimidated by his streetwise air, but she pushed that tiny fear aside. Given who his parents were, he wouldn’t dare touch her. “What are you doing out there?” she demanded.
“Clipping the hedges,” Carter answered with an insolent look.
She was used to the look. It put her on the defensive every time she saw it. “No, you weren’t. You were spying on us.”
He had one hip cocked, one shoulder lower than the other but both back to emphasize a developing chest. “Why in the hell would I want to do that? You’re writing sissy poems.”
“Who is he?” Laura whispered nervously.
“He’s no one,” was Jessica’s clearly spoken answer. Though she’d always talked back to Carter, this time it seemed more important than ever. She had Laura to impress. “You were supposed to be cutting the shrubs, but you weren’t. You never do what your father tells you to do.”
“I think for myself,” Carter answered. His dark eyes bore into hers. “But you don’t know what that means. You’re either going to tea parties like your old lady or sticking your nose in a book like your old man. You couldn’t think for yourself if you tried. So whose idea was it to write poems? Your prissy little friend’s?”
Jessica didn’t know which to be first, angry or embarrassed. “Go away, Carter.”
Lazily he raised the pruning sheers and snipped off a single shoot. “I’m working.”
“Go work somewhere else,” she cried with a ten-year-old’s frustration. “There are lots of other bushes.”
“But this one needs trimming.”
She was determined to hold her ground. “We want to be alone.”
“Why? What’s so important about writing poems? Afraid I’ll steal your rhymes?” He looked closely at Laura. “You’re a Hamilton, aren’t you?”
“Don’t answer,” Jessica told Laura.
“She is,” Carter decided. “I’ve seen her sitting in church with the rest of her family.”
“That’s a lie,” Jessica said. “You don’t go to church.”
“I go sometimes. It’s fun, all those sinners begging for forgiveness. Take old man Hamilton. He bought his way into the state legislature—”
Jessica was on her feet, her reed-slim body shaking. The only thing she knew for sure about what Carter was saying was that it was certain to offend Laura, and if that happened, Laura would never be back. “Shut up, Carter!”
“Bought his way there and does nothing but sit on his can and raise his hand once in a while. But I s’pose he doesn’t have to do nothing. If I had that much money, I’d be sittin’ on my can, too.”
“You don’t have that much money. You don’t have any money.”
“But I have friends. And you don’t.”
Jessica never knew how he’d found her Achilles’ heel, but he’d hit her where it hurt. “You’re a stupid jerk,” she cried. “You’re dumb and you have pimples. I wouldn’t want to be you for anything in the world.” Tears swimming in her eyes, she took Laura’s hand and dragged her into the house.
Laura never did come back to Crosslyn Rise, and looking back on it so many years later, Jessica remembered the hurt she’d felt. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t seen Laura Hamilton for years, that by the time they’d reached high school Jessica had found her as boring as she’d feared she would be herself, that they had nothing in common now. The fact was that when she was ten, she had badly wanted to be Laura’s best friend and Carter Malloy had made that harder than ever.
Such were her thoughts as the T carried her underground from one stop to the next on her way from Harvard Square to Boston. She had a two-o’clock meeting with Carter Malloy in his office. Gordon had set it up, and when he’d asked if Jessica wanted him along, she had said she’d be fine on her own.
She wasn’t sure that had been the wisest decision. She was feeling nervous, feeling as though every one of the insecurities she’d suffered in childhood was back in force. She was the not-too-pretty, not-too-popular, not-too-social little girl once again. Gordon’s support might have come in handy.
But she had a point to prove to him, too. She’d told him that she wanted to actively head the consortium altering Crosslyn Rise. Gordon was skeptical of her ability to do that. If he was to aggressively and enthusiastically seek out investors in Crosslyn Rise, she had to show him she was up to the job.
So she’d assured him that she could handle Carter Malloy on her own, and that, she decided in a moment’s respite from doubt, was what she was going to do. But the doubts returned, and as she left the trolley, climbed the steep stairs to Park Street and headed for Winter, she hated Carter Malloy more than ever.
It wasn’t the best frame of mind in which to be approaching a meeting of some importance, Jessica knew, which was why she took a slight detour on her way to Carter’s office. She had extra time; punctual person that she was, she’d allowed plenty for the ride from Cambridge. So she swung over to West Street and stopped to browse at the Brattle Book Shop, and though she didn’t buy anything, the sense of comfort she felt in the company of books, particularly the aged beauties George Gloss had collected, was worth the pause. It was with some reluctance that she finally dragged herself away from the shelves and set off.
Coming from school, she wore her usual teaching outfit—long skirt, soft blouse, slouchy blazer and low heels. The occasional glance in a store window as she passed told her that she looked perfectly presentable. Her hair was impossible, of course. Though not as unruly as it had once been, it was still thick and hard to handle, which was why she had it secured with a scarf at the back of her head. She wasn’t trying to impress anyone, least of all Carter Malloy, but she wanted to look professional and in command of herself, if nothing else.
Carter’s firm was on South Street in an area that had newly emerged as a mecca for artists and designers. The building itself was six stories tall and of an earthy brick that was a pleasantly warm in contrast to the larger, more modern office tower looming nearby. The street level of the building held a chic art gallery, an equally chic architectural supply store, a not-so-chic fortune cookie company, and a perfectly dumpy-looking diner that was mobbed, even at two, with a suit-and-tie crowd.
Turning in at the building’s main entrance, she couldn’t help but be impressed by the newly refurbished, granite-walled lobby. She guessed that the building’s rents were high, attesting to Gordon’s claim that Carter was doing quite well.
As she took the elevator to the top floor, Jessica struggled, as she’d done often in the five days since Gordon had first mentioned his name, to reconcile the Carter Malloy she’d known with the Carter Malloy who was a successful architect. Try as she might, she couldn’t shake the image of what he’d been as a boy and what he’d done to her then. Not even the sleekly modern reception area, with its bright walls, indirect lighting and sparse, avante-garde furnishings could displace the image of the ill-tempered, sleezy-looking juvenile delinquent.
“My name is Jessica Crosslyn,” she told the receptionist in a voice that was quiet and didn’t betray the unease she felt. “I have a two-o’clock appointment with Mr. Malloy.”
The receptionist was an attractive woman, sleek enough to complement her surroundings, though nowhere near as new. Jessica guessed her to be in her late forties. “Won’t you have a seat? Mr. Malloy was delayed at a meeting. He shouldn’t be more than five or ten minutes. He’s on his way now.”
Jessica should have figured he’d be late. Keeping her waiting was a petty play for power. She was sure he’d planned it.
Once again she wished Gordon was with her, if for no other reason than to show him that Carter hadn’t changed so much. But Gordon was up on the North Shore, and she was too uncomfortable to sit. So, nodding at the receptionist, she moved away from the desk and slowly passed one, then another of the large, dry-mounted drawings that hung on the wall. Hingham Court, Pheasant Landing, Berkshire Run—pretty names for what she had to admit were attractive complexes, if the drawings were at all true to life. If she could blot out the firm’s name, Malloy and Goodwin, from the corner of each, she might feel enthusiasm. But the Malloy, in particular, kept jumping right off the paper, hitting her mockingly in the face. In self-defense, she finally turned and slipped into one of the low armchairs.
Seconds later, the door opened and her heart began to thud. Four men entered, engaged in a conversation that kept them fully occupied while her gaze went from one face to the next. Gordon had said Carter Malloy had changed a lot, but even accounting for that, not one of the men remotely resembled the man she remembered.
Feeling awkward, she took a magazine from the glass coffee table beside her and began to leaf through. She figured that if Carter was in the group, he’d know of her presence soon enough. In the meanwhile, she concentrated on keeping her glasses straight on her nose and looking calm, cool, even a bit disinterested, which was hard when the discussion among the four men began to grow heated. The matter at hand seemed to be the linkage issue, a City of Boston mandate that was apparently costing builders hundreds of thousands of dollars per project. Against her will, she found herself looking up. One of the group seemed to be with the city, another with Carter’s firm and the other two with a construction company. She was thinking that the architect was the most articulate of the bunch when the door opened again. Her heart barely had time to start pounding anew when Carter Malloy came through. He took in the group before him, shook hands with the three she’d pegged as outsiders, slid a questioning gaze to the receptionist, then, in response to the woman’s pointed glance, looked at Jessica.
For the space of several seconds, her heart came to a total standstill. The man was unmistakably Carter Malloy, but, yes, he’d changed. He was taller, broader. In place of a sweaty T-shirt emblazoned with something obscene, tattered old jeans and crusty work boots, he wore a tweed blazer, an oxford-cloth shirt with the neck button open, gray slacks and loafers. The dark hair that had always fallen in ungroomed spikes on his forehead was shorter, well shaped, cleaner. His skin, too, was cleaner, his features etched by time. The surly expression that even now taunted her memory had mellowed to something still intense but controlled. He had tiny lines shadowing the corners of his eyes, a small scar on his right jaw and a light tan.
Gordon was right, she realized in dismay. Carter wasn’t ugly anymore. He wasn’t at all ugly, and that complicated things. She didn’t do well with men in general, but attractive ones in particular made her edgy. She wasn’t sure she was going to make it.
But she couldn’t run out now. That would be the greatest indignity. And besides, if she did that, what woul
d she tell Gordon? More aptly, what would Carter tell Gordon? Her project would be sunk, for sure.
Mustering every last bit of composure she had stashed away inside, she rose as Carter approached.
“Jessica?” he asked in a deep but tentative voice.
Heart thudding, she nodded. She deliberately kept her hands in her lap. To offer a handshake seemed reckless.
Fortunately he didn’t force the issue, but stood looking down at her, not quite smiling, not quite frowning. “I’m sorry. Were you waiting long?”
She shook her head. A little voice inside told her to say something, but for the life of her she couldn’t find any words. She was wondering why she felt so small, why Carter seemed so tall, how her memory could have been so inaccurate in its rendition of as simple a matter as relative size.
He gestured toward the inner door. “Shall we go inside?”
She nodded. When he opened the door and held it for her, she was surprised; the Carter she’d known would have let it slam in her face. When she felt the light pressure of his hand at her waist, guiding her down a corridor spattered with offices, she was doubly surprised; the Carter she’d known knew nothing of courtly gestures, much less gentleness. When he said, “Here we are,” and showed her into the farthest and largest office, she couldn’t help but be impressed.
That feeling lasted for only a minute, because no sooner had she taken a chair—gratefully, since the race of her pulse was making her legs shaky—than Carter backed himself against the stool that stood at the nearby drafting table, looked at her with a familiarly wicked gleam in his eye and said, “Cat got your tongue?”
Jessica was oddly relieved. The old Carter Malloy she could handle to some extent; sarcasm was less debilitating than charm. Taking in a full breath for the first time since she’d laid eyes on him, she said, “My tongue’s where it’s always been. I don’t believe in using it unless I have something to say.”
The Dream (Crosslyn Rise Trilogy) Page 3
