The Millionaire's Marriage

by Catherine Spencer

  He’d let out an embittered croak of amusement and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. His wrist was as slender as a girl’s. “As long as she gets her daily fix, my old lady don’t give a rat’s ass about me or anyone else.”

  “What were you thinking of, all the time he held you at knifepoint?” Max had asked, during the drive back to the penthouse.

  “That I was going to die and wouldn’t have to divorce you, after all. I’d be your late wife, instead of your ex— a much more respectable way to end things.”

  She’d meant to sound carelessly sophisticated, to be the woman she so often portrayed in her work—untouched, remote, in control—but try though she might to keep her cool exterior firmly in place, inside she’d come unspooled. Tears had plopped off the end of her nose; her voice had quavered like a child’s. A deep, aching pit had opened up where her stomach used to be.

  “It’s going to be all right, sweetheart,” Max had con soled her, folding her hand in his. “I’ll look after you. ‘No one’s ever again going to hurt you or frighten you like that.”

  “Put away the knife,” she’d urged the boy, when the roadblock had loomed up ahead and flashing lights from a trio of police cars had closed in behind “Explain you haven’t eaten in days, that you have no place to live, that you were desperate. Maybe they’ll understand and get you the help you need

  “You’re a freakin’ fool, you know that?” the boy had

  jeered, but his eyes had been wide with fear. “Cops don’t unders:and and the only one who’s going to help me is me. Hit the brakes. I’m bailing out.

  When she hadn’t immediately responded his voice had risen to a scream. “Stop the freakin’ car, 1 said!”

  She’d slammed both feet on the brake pedaL Felt the heavy car fishtail perilously out of control, then rock ter rifyingly from side to side before spinning like a donut across two lanes toward a two-foot-high cement divider separating her from oncoming traffic.

  She’d wrestled with the steering wheel, heard the end less squeal of tires, smelled the trail of smoking rubber on the pavement, seen the roadblock rearing up, huge and deadly and then, at the last moment before impact, the passenger door flying open and the boy’s fragile body, curled up and catapulting into space, then. rolling like a ball into the deep ditch.

  And she’d screamed until her throat stung. In terror for his life, and for her own...!

  “Gabriella, wake up!” Max’s urgent voice penetrated the horror. His strong arms lifted the tangle of quilt from around her legs. His hands—those magical, wonderful hands which knew so well how to thrIll her with plea sure—wiped away the sweat pouring down her face. “You were dreaming, honey.”

  “The boy!” she whimpered, that final scene still vivid in her mind. “They took him away in an ambulance!”

  “Janssen phoned while you were sleeping. Apart from a few cuts and bruises, none of them serious, the kid’s

  -going to be fine. Well enough to be arraigned first thing Monday morning.” He plumped up the pillows and helped her to sit up. “Sweetheart, forget about him and start worrying about yourself. From what I’ve heard, you’re going to be pretty sore tomorrow. If you’d rammed

  head-on into that roadblock, you’d be lying in a hospital bed now. Luckily, the car scraped by with only a glancing blow on the passenger side.”

  “Can it be fixed—the car, I mean?”

  “Who gives a rip, one way or the other? It’s replace able. You’re not” He pinched the bridge of his nose and briefly closed his eyes as if a thousand tiny hammers were pounding in his skull. “How are you feeling?”

  She rotated her shoulders cautiously. “I have to admit, I’m feeling a bit stiff.”

  “Hardly surprising, but I happen to have the perfect remedy.” He glanced at the bedside clock Willow had made such a point of mentioning she’d bought for him. Funny how, in light of the morning’s events, everything she’d said and done seemed unimportant. “I’ll give you five minutes to get yourself into the hot tub.”

  “I’ve already packed my swimsuit,” Gabriella said.

  “Then make do with your birthday suit. And don’t look so fearful. I’m not such a lowlife that I’m going to ravish you in your weakened state.”

  Well, of course he wouldn’t! And she was ridiculous to be so bashful, when he already knew every inch of her body better than she did herself.

  Still, she hesitated. The fact was, the balance of their relationship had shifted in the last few hours. Their roles weren’t the same as they’d been that morning, or at any other time in their marriage. Real danger had entered the picture, acute enough that he’d told her, impulsively she was sure, that he loved her.

  She’d always thought him too proud to succumb to any thing as human as fear. That he wasn’t didn’t at all lessen him in her eyes; if anything it enhanced his appeal. But it also changed him. Suddenly, he was no longer the man she thought she knew.

  Watching her and probably reading the doubts chasing through her mind, Max clicked his tongue impatiently and disappeared into the bathroom, returning a moment later with his thick terry-cloth robe slung over his arm. “Here. If modesty’s an issue all of a sudden, wear this until you get down to the pool deck. I promise not to peek”

  The prospect of having her aching body massaged by pulsing jets of hot water was tempting, no doubt about it. Certainly, she had no wish to remain in bed, prey to an other nightmare rerun of the morning. “All right, you win.,,

  He regarded her unsmilingly. “I usually do, sweetheart. Better learn to live with it!”.

  He’d ordered dinner—her favorite salad, and lobster in tarragon cream sauce with roasted endive, which she also loved—from a restaurant a couple of blocks away. It waited in the kitchen, packed in thermal containers to keep it at perfect serving temperature, along with a cheese board and a tray of petits fours.

  Initially, he’d thought of doing the whole affair up in style in the formal dining room, but in the end had decided on something more intimate. He hadn’t wanted her parked at one end of the long polished table, with him at the other. He wanted her close enough to touch. Wanted to be able to thread his fingers through her hair, and stroke his hand up her long, elegant leg. Wanted to hold her and kiss her, and tell her that when he’d said that morning that he loved her, he’d meant it.

  So, while she showered and dressed, he started a fire in the living room to ward off the chill of the breeze floating in from the sea, and covered the coffee table with one of the antique hand-embroidered cloths she’d brought with her from Hungary. He hauled out the sterling-silver

  cutlery, and the Herend china so dear to her heart. Chilled a bottle of champagne and two wafer-thin flutes in a silver ice bucket. Slipped a couple of smoochy blues discs into the CD player and turned the volume low.

  Then, as an afterthought, he cut a rose from the climber on the terrace and plunked it in a little crystal vase be tween the two candles burning on the table.

  Still, she didn’t appear.

  What the devil could be keeping her?

  Nervously, he paced the floor. Something about her had changed since the morning’s incident, and he didn’t just mean that she’d been shaken up. She’d withdrawn from everything around her, especially hini.

  If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was afraid of him. And for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why. What he did know was that he didn’t like the way the foundation of their marriage seemed to be shifting under his feet yet again, just when he thought it had finally set tled on solid ground.

  Footsteps crossing from the stairs to the living room bad him spinning around to find her standing haloed in the light from the foyer, and if he’d thought her beautiful before, he found her breathtaking now.

  Her hair hung loose in a smooth pale curve that hid the ugly welt on her neck. Her skin glowed as if it were lit from inside with golden fire. The outfit she’d put on, a silky one-piece jumpsuit thing the color of a Rocky Mountain glacier,
clung to her with enviable familiarity. She wore sandals webbed with leather straps so fine they resembled lace. Her jewehy consisted of little gold hoops at her ears and her wedding ring.

  He hoped the latter boded well for the future.

  “Have I kept you waiting?”

  “If you have,” he said, wondering why he had a lump

  the size of a golf ball in his throat, and hoping like blazes he wasn’t going to break down again, “it was worth every second.”

  She glided toward him, preceded by the merest hint of perfume, and allowed him to take her hands. He wanted to kiss her in the worst way, to crush her in his arms and never let her go.

  But it as was if she’d surrounded herself with an invis ible shield, one which dared him to try to get past, and he had to settle for giving her a peck on the cheek, then letting her go.

  Stymied, he filled the champagne flutes. “Here’s to us, Gabriella.”

  She inclined her head and touched the rim of her glass to his, but offered no answering toast, nor even a smile. Instead, she looked at his housekeeping efforts and said, “You’ve gone to a lot of trouble.”

  “You’re worth it. I’m just sorry it took me this long to realize it.”

  Her gaze skittered away and settled on the fire. - Feeling slightly sick to his stomach, he said, “Honey, talk to me, please! Tell me what’s put that introspective look in your eye.”

  Her shoulders tilted in a tiny shrug. “I’m wondering why you’re here when I know you should be entertaining important clients.”

  “You’re my wife, Gabriella. Where else would I be at a time like this?”

  “I was your wife this morning, too, but that didn’t stop you from planning to spend the weekend at Whistler.”

  He drew in a long breath and took a turn about the room before answering, “Maybe it’s because I thought, given everything you’ve been through, that tonight you

  might need me more than my clients do. Or maybe it’s that I’ve finally got my priorities in the proper order.”

  “I don’t believe priorities change that quickly. I think you’re overreacting to an unfortunate incident and that you’ll wake up tomorrow wishing you hadn’t behaved quite so impulsively. 1 think,” she finished carefully, “that we might both live to regret your decision to aban don your overseas guests in my favor.”

  “Are you saying you’d rather I’d left you here alone?”

  “If I were wise, I would.” For the first time, she looked directly at him and he aw that her eyes were heavy with unshed tears. “We said our final goodbyes this morning, Max, and I don’t know that I èan weather having to go through doing that again.”

  “What if I’m asking you to forget what we said and did this morning, and start out over again with a clean slate?”

  She sighed so deeply, her entire body quivered. “And what if, next week, or next month or next year, you change your mind? Again.”

  He stretched out his hand and cupped her face. “I love you, do yàu hear? Until this morning, I couldn’t bring myself to admit that, and I wouldn’t be repeating the words now if I didn’t know them to be true.”

  “Oh, I’d like- to believe you!” she cried. “Heaven knows, I’ve waited long enough to hear you say them.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  She shook her head, looking almost dazed. “It’s. ..too sudden. Too much to take in all at once. I’m all at sixes and sevens inside.” She stepped away from him and spread out her hands as if she were warding off an attack. “I need to be strong enough not to keep settling for less than the absolute best in our marriage. It would be so easy to give in to my feelings, to accept what you’re teffing

  me and forget all the deceit and mistrust that’s gone be fore. But I know in my heart that that would be a mis take.”

  Once he’d set his sights on a specific goal, he went after it with single-minded concentration and could no more fathom her waffling at this stage of their relationship than he pretended to understand the vagaries of the fash ion industzy.

  “I keep bearing what you don’t want, Gabriella,” he said testily, “but I wish you’d spell out exactly what it is you’d like to see happen with us, because I’m at a loss to figure it out.”

  She brushed her fingertips under her eyes and made an obvious effort to put her thoughts into some sort of ra tional order. “This morning, you asked me why I didn’t just let that child take the car, and I said—”

  Some child! he was tempted to snap, but decided he’d be better off sticking to the real issue. “I know what you said. I assumed it was shock that had you talking such tripe.”

  “Not entirely. The thing is, Max, I really wasn’t all that afraid when I realized the danger I was in—no more than usual, that is. Because I’m afraid all the time, and have been ever since I married you. And I’m tired of it.”

  “You’re comparing being married to me with being held at knifepoint?” He rolled his eyes disbellevingly. “That’s absurd!”

  “No, it isn’t. 1 want to be free to love you unreservedly and be confident you’re giving the same back to me. I need to know that if I make a mistake, you’ll forgive me. I want to be able to open a letter from you and not be terrified you’re writing to tell me you’ve met someone else and want a divorce. When I hear your voice on the

  phone, I want to be filled with joy and excitement, instead of dread.”

  “Hell, Gabriella, if you’re asking for a guarantee that we’re never going to disagree again, or make any .more mistakes, I can’t give you one. Marriage doesn’t come with that kind of warranty.”

  • “I know,” she said. “But love does. At least, it should, if it’s the kind that’s going to last.”

  He eyed her suspiciously. “Exactly what are you get ting at?”

  “I want you to leave for Whistler in the morning and be with your clients. And I’m going to fly to Tokyo on Monday as planned, and from there to Sydney, Milan, Paris, and every other city on my schedule.”

  F “And then what?”

  “I’m not looking any further ahead than that.”,

  She was making no damned sense and he could have shaken her! Even more, he wanted to put an end to all this talk about love, and show her what it was all about with actions that spoke more potently than words “Are you saying we might be through?”

  “I hope we’re not. I hope what we’ve found is strong enough to withstand time and distance, but I know the only way I can be sure is to put it to the test.”

  The anger came surging out of nowhere, taking him by surprise almost as much as it did her. “And this is your idea of a solution? To walk out on me again? Well, forget it, Gabriella! Either you stay and we work things out to gether, or we call it quits once and for all.”

  “That’s blackmail,’ Max, and you know it,” she told him calmly.

  “Call it what the devil you like,” he seethed. “Those are my tenns. Take them or leave them, because I won’t be left here twisting in the wind while you go gallivanting

  around the world in search of the Holy Grail of matri mony!”

  “Is that your final word on the subject?”

  “It is.”

  She looked at him long and solemnly, and it seemed an eternity before she replied, “And you wonder why I’m afraid of you!”

  Then she left the room, climbed the stairs, and very quietly closed the door to the master suite. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out she wasn’t coming out again, or that he wasn’t welcome to join her.

  It was back to the guest room for him. The only dif ference was, this time she was the one who made that decision.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  PARIS in late September was lovely that year. Mellow and golden, with the sky behind Notre Dame cathedral a deep restful blue, and the trees along the Champs-Elysées just beginning to turn.

  The hotel in Arrondissement 8, where she always stayed, remained as elegantly charming as ever. Her fash ion shoots at the various couturi
er establishments had been a smashing success; a recently completed television interview well received.

  Every day, she walked through the Tuileries gardens, or along the banks of the Seine. She took her morning café au lait at her favorite sidewalk bistro, dined often with associates and friends at one or other of the many legendary restaurants in the city. And as she had every night since she’d left him, she came back to her hotel, praying that Max might have called.

  It had not happened once in the two months since she’d Left, and she was afraid it never would. Still, as she turned on to Avenue George V late on the fourth Tuesday since her return to Paris, and entered the lovely Art Deco ves tibule of her hotel, her hopes lifted, only to be dashed when the night clerk, anticipating her question, shook his head sympathetically. “I’m sorry, madame. There are no messages.”

  Dejectedly, she crossed to the elevator and as the ornate brass doors rolled closed behind her and the car began its slow ascent, she leaned her head against the marble wall and wondered for the hundredth time if she’d made the

  180

  right decision. Should she have stayed in Vancouver? Or would submitting to Max’s ultimatum merely have com pounded the doubts already besetting her?

  The answer was plain enougb. If he could let her go so easily, how real was his professed love?

  The elevator whispered to a stop on the fifth floor. List lessly, she stepped out and made her way down the hail to her suite. It was after tea already. The Do Not Disturb sign hung on the door, which meant the maid had already stopped by.

  Indeed, she’d left a lamp burning in the tiny entrance hail and even replaced that morning’s still-fresh flower arrangement with a huge bouquet of yellow roses sprin kled with starlike baby’s breath. Their heady scent filled the small suite.

  Gabriella dropped her handbag by the door, kicked off her shoes and wiggled her toes in the thick carpet with a sigh of pleasure. A model’s feet took more than their fair share of punishment in the course of a working day. Her shoulders, too. The muscles at the back of her neck felt as if they’d been stitched in place with piano wire.

  She would take a long, relaxing bath, maybe order a nightcap of hot milk from room service, spike it with co gnac from the bar in the little sitting room—and hope the combination would be enough to induce a sleep deep enough that Max wouldn’t find his way into her dreams.