Passion

by Marilyn Pappano

  There was no way she could be Teryl’s biological mother.

  Maybe her husband was Teryl’s father. Maybe he’d grown bored and lonely all those months Lorna had been on one set or another location. Maybe he’d had an affair that had produced a pretty little baby girl and Lorna had been willing to accept the child as her own as the price to save her marriage.

  Or maybe Teryl hadn’t been born to either of them. She had called herself the only Weaver by birth, but maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she was just the first in a long line of other people’s kids that the Weavers had taken to love as their own, and she didn’t know it.

  She didn’t even have a clue.

  “I can’t believe you never told me that Lorna Terrill is your mother.”

  “I’m named for her, you know. They were expecting a son, and they intended to name him Terrill, but when they had me instead, they just changed the spelling to make it more feminine.” Teryl gazed up into the night sky. The stars overhead lost much of their brilliance to the city lights, but she could still pick out a few constellations, a few wishing stars. Wishing on stars had long been a Weaver family tradition, and Lorna had long been their favorite star for wishing. “I meant to tell you, but it’s not the sort of tidbit you just drop into the conversation. ‘Dinner was wonderful, the dessert was delicious, and the lovemaking was sinful, and, oh, by the way, did I mention that my mother was once a famous movie star?”

  He scowled at her. “The dessert was supposed to be sinful.”

  “Oh, pardon me. Then the lovemaking was delicious.” And wicked. Wild. Wonderful. It had definitely been a new experience for her—damp grass, a soft quilt, moonlight and starlight, the night-heavy fragrances of the flowers. By the time they’d finished, she had thought she just might lie there forever. Every need she’d ever had had been fully sated, some to overflowing. If she had died then and there, she would have died a foolishly happy, enormously satisfied woman.

  Then John had suggested this walk, and from somewhere new reservoirs of energy had appeared. They had gotten dressed, locked up the house, and followed the winding brick drive through the grove of oak trees to the rise where they could look down on the Grayson house. Now they were approaching the ornate gates that led to the street and the city beyond.

  “I did intend to tell you about my mother,” she said softly. “I was just waiting.”

  “Until you trusted me enough?”

  She didn’t want to answer, didn’t want to risk hurting him, but she forced the words out anyway. “She was a star, John, one of Hollywood’s legendary sex symbols, and you’re—”

  “Just a fan, Teryl. I’m not deranged. I wouldn’t stalk her. I wouldn’t hurt her. I wouldn’t confuse what she is today with what she was thirty years ago.”

  “I know.”

  He gave her a sidelong glance. “Do you?”

  Crossing the driveway to one of the gates, she ran her fingers along the bars, still warm from the day’s sun, then leaned back against it to face him. “Yes,” she admitted evenly. “I do.”

  He remained where he was for a moment, hidden in shadow, then started toward her, not stopping until his body was pressing against hers. He lowered his head, close enough that she could feel his breath on her mouth, but he didn’t kiss her. “Don’t start trusting me too much tonight, sweetheart,” he muttered gruffly, “or we’ll both wind up in jail.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You look damned appealing standing here. If you trust me too much, I might be tempted to tie your hand up here like this…” He raised her right hand to a point above and away from her body, curving her fingers around the bar to hold it there. “And I might be tempted to tie your other hand like this…” Nuzzling her jaw, he repeated the process, then took a few steps back to look at her. “And if you trust me too much, you might be tempted to let me.”

  She curled her fingers tightly around the bars, feeling their heat and their strength. Even though she was free, even though she could move at any time, some small part of her was frightened by the mere suggestion of restraints, and that fear made her tremble. Or was it lust, she wondered, that made her body weak? The appeal of the forbidden, the guilty pleasure, the wicked desire. Her head knew that bondage was wrong. But some curious little place inside her wondered how it would feel to be bound to these bars, to be naked in the moonlight, trapped without chance of escape, open and totally vulnerable to John’s whims. She would be afraid, of course, but would she also be aroused? Thrilled by the risk? Turned on by the sense of danger but secure in the knowledge that he wouldn’t hurt her, that he would protect her and keep her safe?

  What would it take, he had once asked, to persuade her to let him strip her and tie her to the bed for pleasure and play? Absolutely nothing, she had replied, but he had disagreed with her. If she trusted him implicitly, she would let him do it, he had insisted. At the time she’d been adamant that he was wrong.

  Tonight she wasn’t so sure. Tonight she was beginning to see that maybe, just maybe, she could let him do it.

  And—although the idea shamed her, intrigued and bewildered her—tonight she suspected that she just might enjoy it.

  The life and death of Eliza Byrd. Simon had referred to the new book in that way so often that he’d decided tonight to title it that. The Life and Death of Eliza Byrd. He wondered if anyone would catch the significance, if anyone would ever notice the similarities between the book and the real-life story unfolding right here in Richmond. He doubted it. That stupid bitch Debra Jane wouldn’t, even though she knew how he felt about Teryl. She knew Teryl’s middle name was Elizabeth, knew that once long, long ago she had been called Eliza for short. The Byrd would escape her, though. She wouldn’t recognize a robin if it wore a name tag around its neck; how could she ever know about the existence of an African bird whose woven nests earned it the name of weaver?

  What are you going to do? she had demanded at the house this morning. You’re not going to hurt them, are you? After all these years, she still didn’t understand the difference between business and pleasure. Pain was pleasure. It was sexual. Hurting Teryl, slapping her, bruising her fair skin, making her cry, tormenting her—that was pleasure. This was business. Much as he would like to mix the two, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

  So what was he going to do? He’d been sitting here in the dark, watching, waiting, thinking. Obviously, he hadn’t planned well enough in Colorado. This time he had to be more cautious. He had to choose his time and place with more care. This time he had to succeed.

  Leaning across the seat, he silently rolled down the window on the passenger side, then sat back once again. It was a still night in a quiet neighborhood. There had been occasional cars passing by, but, thanks to the century-old trees that formed a canopy overhead, the street was so dark he would bet none of the drivers had even noticed his car, much less him sitting in it.

  It was for damned sure that the two people he was watching hadn’t noticed him.

  Smith moved up against Teryl again, bringing her hands down from the bars, guiding them around his neck, and kissing her. He was grinding his hips against hers, fucking her as surely as if they were naked and he were buried in her to the hilt. They didn’t even care that they were right there in plain view, the moon like a spotlight, visible to anyone who drove by. Simon could even hear her little moans. Shit, he thought scornfully, he could make her moan. He could make her cry and scream and beg, and he could make her come so hard that she would think she was dying.

  Not that he would bother now. Unlike his unnamed protagonist who continued to covet Eliza Byrd long after confronted by her slutty ways, he’d lost his desire for Teryl. He already had a whore in Debra Jane; sweet Teryl had provided a necessary balance. But Teryl wasn’t so sweet, after all. She had fooled her family, had fooled him and everyone else, and that made her a worse slut than even Debra Jane. Her deceit and deception made her impure. Vulgar. Contemptible. If he sought pleasure with her now, she would infect him with her f
ilth, and he would never be able to rid himself of her poison.

  He no longer wanted her, no longer needed her. She could fuck with John Smith wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted. It was only fair, after all.

  Because she was going to die with John Smith.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A crash of thunder rumbled through the house, vibrating the windowpanes, sending a shudder up through the bed that woke John from a restless sleep. Finding himself tangled in the covers and with Teryl, he wriggled free, slipped from the bed and into the cutoffs he’d discarded nearby, and made his way to the French doors, unlocking one and opening it only wide enough to slip out onto the balcony. The wind was whipping the trees around, blowing the rain sideways at times, ripping blossoms from their stems and sending them sailing. The balcony rail was scattered with the bruised petals of yellow roses from a bush thirty yards away.

  It was 6:10 on Wednesday morning, but the sky was midnight-dark, and what last night’s weathercast had predicted as hot and sunny was coming down violent and wet. Lightning flashed with enough brilliance to make him wince, and the thunder and wind combined to sound like a rushing freight train.

  He liked storms, liked the intensity and the power. He liked the energized, electrified way they made him feel. He liked the fury, followed always by calm. Maybe that, he thought, was what he really liked: the knowledge that the storm always ended. The wind blew itself away, the rain stopped, and the sun always came out again. Calm was always restored.

  Most of his life lacked such guarantees. There were no promises that everything would turn out all right, that the sun would come out again and life would once more be good.

  Unmindful of the rain that blew against him, he leaned on the rail and gazed across the garden. Teryl would be getting up soon, ready to go to work. He would take her, he decided. She didn’t like storms and didn’t need to be driving in rain. Besides, it would give him an opportunity to meet Rebecca. After that, he would come back here, make arrangements to get the air-conditioning on the Honda fixed, and wait for an express mail letter from Denver.

  In bed last night, Teryl had repeated her conversation with Rebecca to him, had relayed every bit of her boss’s skepticism, had told him the accusation that he was seducing Teryl into helping him defraud the agency. Damn Rebecca, and damn her agency. When they got this straightened out, the second thing he was going to do was fire Rebecca, more for that cheap shot than anything else.

  The first thing he was going to do was take care of Teryl.

  And the last was get out of her life. Even if he didn’t want to go. Even if she didn’t want him to go. Even if it killed him.

  Behind him the door swung open a foot or so, and he saw Teryl, sleepy-eyed, tousle-haired, wearing that tank top, standing there. She looked adorable. Sweet. Beautiful. “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice small, sleep-roughened.

  “Watching the storm. Come join me.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “You’re safe here.” The roof overhead covered him from the worst of the rain, and the L shape of the house protected him from much of the wind. He was at risk of nothing more dangerous than getting a little wet. “Come on out.”

  Again she shook her head. “Come to bed.”

  He needed only a glimpse of her discomfort, clearly visible in the lightning, to make up his mind. Returning inside, he locked the door. By the time he reached the bed, she was already under the covers, already snuggling in. Before he could even settle in, she began burrowing against him, wriggling as close as was physically possible. “What is it with you and storms?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her. He had asked her once before, the day they’d run into a storm after crossing from Georgia into South Carolina, and she’d had only a vague answer. I don’t know. They’re violent and dangerous. Now that she knew him better, maybe she would offer the real answer.

  “When I was a kid, I used to have nightmares. Thunderstorms were almost always a part of them. I’d wake up in a cold sweat, sometimes crying but usually too scared to make a sound. I never remembered any details, just that horrible things were happening and I couldn’t stop them.” She rubbed her cheek, warm and soft, against his chest, chilled from the rain. “The dreams had no basis in reality—at least, not my reality. Other than having a mother who was a famous movie star and living with anywhere from ten to twenty kids at a time, I had a perfectly normal childhood—nothing to explain nightmares. I always thought they were because of the other children. Some of the kids Mama and Daddy took in were fairly normal, but a number of them had been emotionally, physically, or sexually abused. I knew some of their stories. I’d heard some of the things that their families had done to them. I thought I was dreaming their dreams. Reliving their nightmares.”

  For a time John said nothing. He simply lay there, his muscles taut, his thoughts full of doubt and suspicion. The more he’d thought about the discrepancy in Lorna’s story last night, the more convinced he had become that Teryl was adopted, that she was quite likely one of those kids who had been emotionally, physically, or sexually abused. She must have been very young when she went to live with the Weavers, too young to remember those first frightening years. But not too young for nightmares where horrible things happened that she couldn’t stop. Not too young to become irrationally afraid of thunderstorms. Not too young to develop an unhealthy terror of being restrained.

  Every night they’d been on the road, he must have stirred some terrifying memories hidden deep inside the protective recesses of her mind.

  God forgive him.

  “I know it’s silly to be afraid now,” she went on. “I’m nearly thirty years old. I know storms aren’t evil. The only damage they can cause is from the force of the wind or flooding from the rain or getting struck by lightning. I know they don’t call for anything more than common sense.” Reluctantly she sighed and pulled out of his arms. “I’d better get ready for work. With this weather, traffic’s going to be awful.”

  “I’m going to take you.”

  She looked at him for a moment, probably thinking that she needed to act like a nearly thirty-year-old woman and turn him down. No doubt she considered it, but with a rueful smile, she simply accepted his announcement. “I appreciate it.”

  It didn’t take her long to dress, pull her hair back, and put makeup on. John waited with her until she was done, then they went to the kitchen together for breakfast. Finally, sharing the shelter of an oversize umbrella, they left the house and made a dash for the Blazer.

  They were only a short distance from the old Victorian that housed the offices when he announced his secondary motive for bringing her. “When we get to the agency, I want to come in and meet Rebecca.”

  Teryl gave him a sharp look. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “I won’t be difficult. I won’t bring up Tremont. I just want to meet her.” He offered her a rusty smile. “I’ve been paying this woman fifteen percent of my income for the last eleven years. She’s helped make me a rich man, and I’ve made her a wealthy woman. I think it’s time I at least got an idea what she looks like.”

  She was hesitant, and he couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t even being totally honest with her. There was one other reason he wanted to meet Rebecca. He wanted to remind her of something she’d once written in a note to him, wanted to see if he could jog her memory. It had been a handwritten note, one of little importance; he’d read it, forgotten everything except the last line, and thrown it away. Unless she was thoroughly compulsive, there wouldn’t be any record of it in her files. She and the real Simon Tremont were the only two people who could possibly know about it.

  As he pulled into the drive that led around to the parking lot, Teryl shrugged. “All right. Just don’t expect her to be happy to see you.”

  His grin was dry. “I don’t ever expect anyone to be happy to see me.” But that wasn’t true. He’d come to expect it of Teryl.

  Once again they shared the umbrella
from the truck to the back door. Inside, Teryl started a pot of coffee first, then led the way to her office, where she tucked her purse away in a drawer and changed from the damp loafers she wore to a pair of dressier sandals she’d brought. Finally, with a tight smile, she beckoned him to follow her down the hall.

  Rebecca’s door was open, all the lights in the office on, the drapes behind her desk drawn shut on the dreary day. Music was coming from the stereo on the shelves, something New Age and soothing, and she was sitting with her head back, her eyes closed. She looked cool, elegant, and impossibly polite, but John knew she was tough as nails. She might appear every bit the well-bred lady, but she was, first and foremost, a businesswoman.

  For eleven years her business had been selling his books. Unless she’d changed her mind in the last few days, though, she’d now thrown in with the enemy. She intended to help the man claiming to be Simon steal his career. And if she hadn’t changed her mind recently, maybe he could help her.

  Teryl rapped on the door, then cleared her throat. “Good morning, Rebecca.”

  The woman didn’t startle, as many would have done. She opened her eyes slowly, looking first at Teryl, next at John, then raised her head. “Teryl.” Just as slowly, she stood up and came around the corner of the desk. “You must be John. I’m sorry. Teryl didn’t mention your last name.”

  “Smith.” As if she didn’t know it damned well. He took the hand she offered, and she gave him a strong shake.

  Rebecca’s smile was tightly controlled and more than a little mocking. “Oh, yes, John Smith. What a coincidence. I’m Rebecca Robertson, but you probably know that. Are you here to discuss Simon Tremont with me? Because, if that’s the case, let me save us all some time and tell you that I won’t discuss my client’s business with anyone.”

  “Actually, I gave Teryl a ride this morning because of the weather, and, as long as I was here, I just wanted to see if you lived up to my image of you.”