by Nora Roberts
When, if ever, she wondered, would they forge some kind of trust?
“I hope you don’t mind talking out here.” Eve gestured to the cushioned chair beside her.
“No, not at all.” How many, Julia wondered, had seen that famous face washed of makeup? And how many knew that the beauty was in the complexion and bone structure, not the artifice. “Wherever you’re most relaxed suits me.”
“I could say the same.” Eve poured the juice and lifted a brow when Julia shook her head at the addition of champagne. “Do you ever?” she asked. “Relax?”
“Of course. But not when I’m working.”
Thoughtful, Eve sipped her mimosa, and finding it to her liking, sipped again. “What do you do? To relax, I mean?”
Thrown off, Julia stammered, “Well, I … I …”
“Caught,” Eve said with a quick, lusty laugh. “Let me tell you about yourself, shall I? You’re enviably young, and lovely. You’re a devoted mother whose child is the center of her life, and you’re determined to do a good job of raising him. Your work comes second, though you approach it with a ponderous sobriety. Etiquette, propriety, and manners are your bywords, particularly so since there’s a tough, passionate woman under all the control. Ambition is a secret vice you’re almost ashamed of having. Men are far down on your list of priorities, somewhere, I would think, below folding Brandon’s socks.”
It took all of Julia’s will to keep her face composed. She could do nothing about the flash of heat in her eyes. “You make me sound very dull.”
“Admirable.” Eve corrected her, and dipped again into the raspberries. “Though the two are sometimes synonymous. The truth is, I’d hoped to get a rise out of you, to shake that awesome composure of yours.”
“Why?”
“I’d like to know I’m baring my soul to a fellow human.” With a shrug, Eve broke off the end of a flaky croissant. “From your little exchange with Paul over dinner the other night, I detected a good healthy temper. I admire temper.”
“Not all of us are in the position to let ours loose.” But hers was still smoldering in her eyes. “I’m human, Miss Benedict.”
“Eve.”
“I’m human, Eve, human enough that being manipulated pisses me off.” Julia opened her briefcase to bring out her pad and recorder. “Did you send him to see me yesterday?”
Eve was grinning. “Send who?”
“Paul Winthrop.”
“No.” Surprise and interest registered clearly, but Julia reminded herself the woman was an actress. “Paul paid you a visit?”
“Yes. He seems concerned about the book, and the way I’ll write it.”
“He’s always been protective of me.” Eve’s appetite came and went these days. She bypassed the rest of breakfast for a cigarette. “And I’d imagine he’s intrigued by you.”
“I doubt it’s personal.”
“Don’t.” Eve laughed again, but an idea began to brew. “My dear, most women have their tongues hanging out after five minutes with him. He’s spoiled. With his looks, his charm, that underlying shimmer of raw sex, it’s hard to expect otherwise. I know,” she added, drawing in smoke. “I fell for his father.”
“Tell me about that.” Julia took advantage of the opening and punched record. “About Rory Winthrop.”
“Ah, Rory … the face of a fallen angel, the soul of a poet, the body of a god, and the mind of a Doberman chasing a bitch in heat.” When she laughed again, there was no malice in it, but ripe good humor. “I’ve always thought it was a pity we couldn’t make a go of it. I liked the son of a bitch. Rory’s problem was that whenever he got an erection, he felt honor bound not to waste it. French maids, Irish cooks, leading ladies, and spangled bimbos. If a look had Rory getting it up, he felt it was his male duty to stick it somewhere.” She grinned, refilling her glass with juice and champagne. “I might have tolerated the infidelity—there was nothing personal about it. Rory’s mistake was that he found it necessary to lie. I couldn’t stay married to a man who thought me stupid enough to believe pitiful fabrications.”
“His unfaithfulness didn’t bother you?”
“I didn’t say that. Divorce is much too clean and unimaginative a way to pay a man back for screwing around. I believe in revenge, Julia.” She savored the word as she savored the zip of champagne. “If I had cared more about Rory, less about Paul, well, let’s just say things might have ended more explosively.”
Again Julia felt that shimmer of understanding. She had cared too much about a child herself to destroy the father. “Though your relationship with Rory ended years ago, you still have a warm relationship with his son.”
“I love Paul. He’s the closest I’ve come to having a child of my own.” She waved away the sentiment but lighted a cigarette immediately after crushing one out. How difficult it had been for her to make that statement. “Not your average mother figure,” she said with a thin smile. “But I wanted to mother that boy. I was just over forty, right at the point where a woman knows she has virtually no time left to take that turn at the biological bat. And there was this bright, beautiful child—the same age as your Brandon.” She drank again, to give herself time to get control over her emotions. “Paul was my only turn at bat.”
“And Paul’s mother?”
“Marion Heart? A stunning actress—a bit of a snob when it came to Hollywood. After all, she was theater. She and Rory bounced the child back and forth between New York and L.A. Marion had a kind of detached affection for Paul, as if he were a pet she had bought on impulse and now had to feed and walk.”
“But that’s horrible.”
It was the first time Eve had heard real emotion in Julia’s voice, emotion to match what flashed in her eyes. “There are a great many women in the same situation. You don’t believe me,” she added, “because of Brandon. But I promise you, not all women embrace motherhood. There was no abuse. Neither Rory nor Marion would have dreamed of harming the boy. Nor was there neglect. There was only a kind of benign disinterest.”
“It must have hurt him,” Julia murmured.
“One doesn’t always miss what one hasn’t known.” She observed that Julia had stopped taking notes and was listening, just listening. “When I met Paul, he was an intelligent and very self-sufficient child. I couldn’t step in and play the doting mama—even if I’d known how. But I could pay attention, and enjoy. The truth is, I often think I married Rory because I was head over heels for his son.”
She settled back, enjoying this particular memory. “Of course, I’d known Rory for some time. We traveled in the same circles. There was an attraction, a spark, but the timing had always been off. Whenever I was free, he was involved, and vice versa. Then we made a film together.”
“Fancy Face.”
“Yes, a romantic comedy. A damn good one. It was one of my best experiences. A sharp, witty script, a creative director, an elegant wardrobe, and a costar who knew how to make those sexual sparks fly. Two weeks into filming, and we were making them fly offscreen.”
• • •
A little drunk, a lot reckless, Eve strolled into Rory’s Malibu beach house. Shooting had run late, and afterward they had hidden themselves away in a dingy diner, swiging beer and gobbling greasy food. Rory had popped coin after coin in the jukebox so that their laughter and all that sexual teasing had been accompanied by the Beach Boys.
Flower power was making its early noises in California. Most of the other diners were teenagers and college students with hair flowing down the backs of their tie-dyed T-shirts.
A young girl, groggy on pot, slipped love beads around Rory’s neck when he dropped two dollars in change into the juke.
They were established stars, but went unrecognized. The kids who patronized the diner didn’t spend their money on movies starring Eve Benedict and Rory Winthrop. They spent it on concerts and drugs and incense. Woodstock was only three years and a continent away.
Eve and Rory weren’t overly concerned with Vietnam or sitar musi
c.
They had left the diner to roar into Malibu with the top down on his Mercedes, buzzed on beer and anticipation. Eve had timed this night carefully. There was no shoot the next day, so she wouldn’t have to worry about puffy eyes. She might have wanted a night of sex, but she was first and last a film star.
She’d made the decision with her eyes open to take Rory as a lover. There were holes in her life, holes she knew would never be filled again. But she could cover them over, at least briefly.
With her hair wildly touseled by the wind, her shoes left behind on the floor of his car, Eve took a quick turn around the living room. High glossy wood ceilings, walls of sheer glass, the sound of the surf. Here, she thought, lowering herself to the rug in front of the huge stone fireplace. Here and now.
She smiled up at him. In the light of the candles he’d hurriedly lit, he looked incredible. Bronze skin, mahogany hair, sapphire eyes. She’d already tasted his mouth, while technicians had crowded around them. She wanted it—and him—without a script or director.
She wanted wild, dangerous sex, to help her forget for a few hours what she would live with for the rest of her life.
He knelt beside her. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted you?”
There was nothing, she knew, more powerful than a woman about to yield to a man. “No.”
He gathered her hair in his hand. “How long have we known each other?”
“Five, six years.”
“That’s how long.” He lowered his head to nip at her lip. “The trouble is I’ve been spending too much time in London, when I could have been here, making love to you.”
It was part of his charm, making a woman believe he thought only of her. In fact, whatever woman he was with at the moment, the fantasy was quite real.
She slid her hands over his face, fascinated with the lines and dips and planes that formed into such staggering male beauty. Physically, Rory Winthrop was perfect. And for tonight, at least, he was hers.
“Then have me now.” She accompanied the invitation with a low laugh as she tugged his shirt over his head. In the candlelight her eyes glinted with hunger and promise.
He sensed that she wanted not a dance but a race. Though he might have preferred a bit more romance and anticipation this first time, Rory was always willing to accommodate a woman. That, too, was part of his charm—and part of his weakness.
He dragged at her clothes, delighted, destroyed by the way her nails scraped shallow furrows in his back. A woman’s body always excited him, whether slender or full, youthful or ripe. He feasted on Eve’s flesh, sinking into her lush curves, seduced by the scents, the textures, groaning as she tore at his slacks to find him hard and ready.
It wasn’t fast enough. She could still think. She could still hear the drum of water against sand, her own heartbeat, her own ragged breaths. She wanted the vacuum of sex where there was nothing, nothing but sensation. Desperate, she rolled over him, her body as agile and dangerous as a whip. He had to make her forget. She didn’t want to remember the feel of other hands cruising over her, the tastes of someone else’s mouth, the scent of someone else’s skin.
Escape would be her survival, and she had promised herself that Rory Winthrop would be that escape.
The candlelight danced on her skin as she arched over him. Her hair streamed back, an ebony waterfall. As she took him into her, she let out a cry that was only a prayer. She rode him hard until at last, at last, she found release in forgetfulness.
Spent, she slid bonelessly down to him. His heart jackhammered against hers, and she smiled, grateful. If she could give herself to him, find pleasure and passion with this man, she would heal and be whole again.
“Are we still alive?” Rory murmured.
“I think so.”
“Good.” He found the energy to run his hands down her back and slowly knead her bottom. “That was a hell of a ride, Evie.”
She smiled. No one had ever called her Evie, but she decided she liked the way it sounded in his proper, theater-trained voice. Lifting her head, she looked down at him. His eyes were closed and he wore a foolish grin of pure satisfaction. It made her laugh, and she kissed him, grateful again.
“What to try for round two?”
His eyes opened slowly. She could see both desire and affection mirrored there. Until that moment she hadn’t realized how much she had craved both. Care for me, just for me, she thought, and I’ll do my damnedest to care for you.
“Tell you what. I’ve got a great big bed upstairs, and a great big hot tub out on the upper deck. Why don’t we make use of both?”
They did, splashing in the steamy water, tearing up the satin sheets. Like greedy children they fed off each other until their bodies begged for sleep.
It was a hunger of a different kind that awakened Eve just past noon. Beside her Rory was spread out on the enormous bed, facedown in the posture of the half dead. Still floating on the afterglow, she gave him a quick kiss on the shoulder and went off to shower.
There was a choice of women’s robes in his closet—either ones he had bought for convenience or that had been left behind by other lovers. Eve chose one in blue silk because it suited her mood, and started downstairs with the idea of fixing them both a light breakfast they could eat in bed.
Eve followed the murmur of a television to the kitchen. A housekeeper, she thought. Better yet. Now she could order breakfast, not cook it. Humming, she dug out the pack of cigarettes she’d slipped into the pocket of the robe.
The last thing she expected to see standing at the kitchen counter was a young boy. From her side view in the doorway, she caught the profound resemblance to his father. The same dark, rich hair, the sweet mouth, the intense blue eyes. As the boy carefully, almost religiously spread peanut butter on a slice of bread, the television across the room switched from commercial to cartoon. Bugs Bunny popped out of his rabbit hole gnawing wryly on a carrot.
Before Eve could decide whether to walk in or to slip quietly away again, the boy’s head lifted—like a young wolf scenting the air. As his gaze met hers, he stopped slathering the bread and studied.
In her time Eve had been measured and considered by too many men to count, yet this young boy struck her speechless with his sharp, disconcertingly adult scrutiny. Later, she would laugh it off, but at that moment she felt he had punched straight through the image to the woman beneath, to Betty Berenski, the thirsty, dreamy girl who had forged herself into Eve Benedict.
“Hello,” he said in a childish echo of his father’s cultured voice. “I’m Paul.”
“Hello.” She had a ridiculous urge to tidy her hair and smooth down her robe. “I’m Eve.”
“I know. I’ve seen your picture.”
Eve felt embarrassed. He looked at her as if she were almost as funny as Bugs outwitting Elmer Fudd. She could tell he knew what went on in his father’s bedroom. There was such a cynical curl to his lip.
“Did you sleep well?”
The little shit, Eve thought as embarrassment became amusement. “Very well, thank you.” She swept in then, like a queen into a drawing room. “I’m afraid I didn’t realize Rory’s son lived with him.”
“Sometimes.” He picked up a jar of jelly and began to coat another piece of bread. “I didn’t like my last school, so my parents decided to transfer me to California for a year or two.” He fit the two pieces of bread together, matching up the edges. “I was driving my mother crazy.”
“Were you?”
“Oh, yes.” He turned to the refrigerator and chose a large bottle of Pepsi. “I’m rather good at it. By summer I’ll have driven my father crazy, so I’ll go back to London. I enjoy flying.”
“Do you?” Fascinated, Eve watched him settle himself at the glass-topped kitchen table. “Is it all right if I fix myself a sandwich?”
“Of course. You’re making a film with my father.” He said it matter-of-factly, as though he expected all of his father’s leading ladies to stand in the kitchen on Saturday afternoon
s in a borrowed robe.
“That’s right. Do you like movies?”
“Some of them. I’ve seen one of yours on the telly. TV.” He corrected himself, reminding himself he wasn’t in England now. “You were a saloon singer and men killed for you.” He took a neat bite of the sandwich. “You have a very pleasant voice.”
“Thank you.” She looked over her shoulder to assure herself she was having this conversation with a child. “Are you going to be an actor?”
His eyes lit with laughter as he took another bite. “No. If I were going to go into films, it would be as a director. I think it would be satisfying to tell people what to do.”
Eve decided against making coffee, plucked another soft drink from the refrigerator, and joined him at the table. Her notion of taking a snack up to Rory and indulging in an afternoon tussle was forgotten. “How old are you?”
“Ten. How old are you?”
“Older.” She sampled the peanut butter and jelly and was rewarded by a flash of sensory memory. The month before she had met Charlie Gray, she had lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and canned soup. “What do you like best about California?”
“The sun. It rains a lot in London.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Did you always live here?”
“No, though sometimes it feels like it.” She took a long drink of Pepsi. “So, tell me, Paul, what didn’t you like about your last school?”
“The uniforms,” he said immediately. “I hate uniforms. It’s as if they want to make you look alike so you’ll think alike.”
Because she’d nearly choked, she set the bottle down. “Are you sure you’re ten?”
With a shrug he polished off the last of the sandwich. “I’m almost ten. And I’m precocious,” he told her with such sobriety she swallowed her chuckle. “And I ask too many questions.”
