Tangled Web

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  She knew that, too. She didn’t like the fact that Chase had noticed, or that, unlike Edmond, Chase wouldn’t let something go simply because she wanted him to. Hating the defensive shift in her posture, she pushed her fingers through her hair. She had to tell him something. Otherwise, he’d never quit. “We were never friends, okay?” she responded passionately. “I know what your mother said, but the truth is I didn’t ever know him very well, and what I did find out about him, I didn’t like.” In fact, I hated, she added mentally.

  “But the two of you did date once,” Chase pressed, more puzzled than ever.

  Awash in regret, Hope lifted her head. “Twice.” In retrospect, she found it hard to believe she had ever been that foolish and naive.

  His eyes pierced hers. “And it didn’t work out,” he ascertained softly.

  That was the understatement of the century. “Right,” Hope replied. Both her expression and her voice were as neutral as she could make them.

  “And that’s why you’re holding a grudge against him?”

  That, and I don’t trust him, Hope thought, aware her heart was thudding heavily in her chest. Admitting only what she felt she could, she evaded Chase’s question entirely. “I don’t trust him or his motives right now because his firm is in trouble. His family was heavily into land speculation at the time of the oil bust. They lost quite a bit, and from what I’ve read, have yet to recover. The Morris Fabric Company is about all they have left.”

  “And that’s why you refused to hear him out?” Chase regarded her inscrutably. “Because you think they might be in a panic now or because they’ve made some bad business decisions in the past?”

  No, Hope thought, because Russell hurt me terribly and caused my estrangement from my family. She shrugged indifferently and picked up her calendar. “I’ve got a very busy day.”

  He studied her relentlessly, knowing instinctively she was only telling him a small part of the truth. He didn’t like that but finally took the hint and headed for the door anyway. As Hope watched him go, it was all she could do not to tell him to wait. She wanted to tell him what had happened, now and in the past. If she did, she would be vindicated. He would know her for the good person she was, rather than the money-grubbing amoral home wrecker circumstances indicated. But she couldn’t confide in him about her marriage without breaking her promise to Edmond. Nor could she risk letting her past with Russell Morris be known, for Joey’s sake. She remained silent, torn between wanting Chase to know the truth and wanting her future and her son to be protected.

  Chase turned at the door, looking as mixed-up as she felt. “I’m sorry about my mother,” he said with his hand on the knob. His lips pressed together as he struggled to find the words to express his thoughts. “She speaks before she thinks sometimes.”

  No, she hates me, Hope thought. She thinks I ruined her marriage. And no matter how often Chase tried to run interference between them, that was never going to change, not unless Rosemary realized that she was responsible for the demise of her marriage.

  “WE WILL NEVER GAIN control of Barrister’s unless you help me, Chase,” Rosemary started the moment Chase walked into the sleekly decorated Foulard’s and slid into his chair.

  Chase swore mentally. “I don’t want control.” Running the store was a responsibility he was not equipped to handle. Furthermore, after two days of going over the books, he could find nothing Hope had done wrong. Her strategy for saving Barrister’s was much more aggressive and in tune with the current economic climate than his would have been.

  Rosemary spread her napkin across her lap and signaled the waiter for another Perrier. “Well, I do want it back,” she stated emphatically, opening her menu. “Edmond never should have left Barrister’s to Hope in the first place.”

  Chase disagreed. Considering how closely the two had worked together, Edmond had done the only logical thing. “He had faith in Hope.”

  Rosemary arched a thinly plucked brow. “I think you mean, darling, that he liked having a beautiful young woman on his arm. It enhanced his virility, no doubt.”

  Chase didn’t like the bitterness he heard in his mother’s tone. As far as he knew, Edmond’s marriage to Hope withstanding, Edmond had never been a skirt chaser. He’d been a monogamous man.

  Rosemary continued vehemently, “Joey has no right to Edmond’s money anyway.”

  Though Chase rarely drank at all, and never in the middle of the day, he signaled the waiter and ordered a glass of Bordeaux. “Joey is his son, the same as I,” he said after the waiter retreated.

  Rosemary assumed a closed but furious expression, as if, Chase thought, that was a fact of life she never intended to accept. “But not the same mother,” she corrected, her hand clenching the crystal stem of her water glass. “And I will not be put in the same class with that—that white trash hussy.”

  “Prejudiced?” Chase asked. Hope was about as far from being a tramp as it was possible for a woman to be, despite the circumstances of her speedy marriage to his father.

  Rosemary sniffed. “There is such a thing as breeding, Chase. She doesn’t have it.”

  That, too, he would have liked to differ on. He’d watched the fluid, graceful way Hope walked, and knew the kindness and generosity in her nature. Chase had always felt, even when he resented her the most, that Hope was a very classy young woman. True, she hadn’t possessed much of a head for business when she’d met his father, but that had all changed. These days, she had a sharply honed business acumen and a lot more self-esteem. That was due to his dad. Edmond had had a way of making people believe in themselves.

  “You’re letting her beauty get to you,” Rosemary said as their salad plates were brought out.

  Chase sighed and picked up his fork. When he had agreed to meet his mother at the exclusive French restaurant for lunch, it was with the express condition that they speak only of business. Hope’s looks didn’t enter into that. “Mother, please give me a break, would you?” He loved his mother, flaws and all, but lately she was really trying his patience.

  “You’re not denying you’ve noticed?”

  No, he couldn’t deny that. And the years were only enhancing her looks, adding an edge of maturity and perspective and inner calm he found very appealing. It was getting harder to remember she was off limits to him.

  “And why did you defend her like that this morning? We had her on the run. If you would’ve only backed me up, we might have been able to pressure her to resign her position as company president.” Rosemary added a bit more lemon juice to her artfully arranged lettuce leaves.

  Chase finished his own salad just as the waiter brought out the main course, duckling Normandy, spiced with apples and brandy. “You’re dreaming if you think Hope will ever willingly relinquish the reins of Barrister’s.”

  “Then it’s up to us to make her so miserable she’ll have no choice but to quit. We can stay on there indefinitely, you know, overseeing our interests.”

  Chase knew that, too. Their holdings in the company came with personal offices on the top floor of the Galleria store. “Can but won’t,” Chase countered firmly. “I for one am going back to my research as soon as possible.”

  “Not without some money you won’t.”

  Silence fell between them. Chase realized his mother was right. He might not want to get involved in store business, but he didn’t have a choice. His medical research efforts were largely funded by his share of the Barrister’s profits.

  Nevertheless, the assumption that Hope’s looks could distract him was very annoying. True, he had allowed beauty to cloud his judgment before with Lucy, but he’d learned his lesson when their engagement failed. He had no intention of making the same mistake again. His mother of all people should have known that. “Hope is doing the best she can,” he finally said.

  At his defense of his stepmother, Rosemary reeled as if she had been slapped across the face. Her face white, she hissed, “How can you sit there and defend the woman who was the cause of m
y divorce from your father? If she hadn’t come along we would still be married.”

  When he had been young, his mother’s penchant for drama had inspired a multitude of emotions in Chase; now it only annoyed him. “Would you?” he countered evenly, letting his mother know indirectly he wasn’t about to be sucked into any feud, regardless of how much Rosemary felt she had been wronged in the past. “The way I recall it,” he continued dryly, “the two of you used to fight all the time. That was, when you were speaking to one another.”

  “Chase!”

  “It’s the truth, Mother,” he said calmly, remembering his tumultuous childhood. Yes, he’d had plenty of material things, and he had always known his father and mother both loved him fiercely, but it would be stretching the truth to declare they’d ever had anything remotely resembling a tranquil or satisfying family life. That just hadn’t happened. The three of them had rarely ever been together. He had been happy going off on fishing and hunting expeditions with his father, or to Europe or Mexico with his mother. But they had never been a cozy family unit, not even on holidays.

  “No, that is not the truth,” his mother disputed bitterly. “The truth is that your stepmother broke us up. And I can prove it!” Reaching into her purse, Rosemary withdrew a manila envelope. She thrust it at him. “Go ahead. Look inside.”

  Chase knew instinctively he didn’t want to see what was in there; he also knew his mother wouldn’t let up until he looked. Suppressing a heavy sigh, he undid the string. Inside were a number of black-and-white photos at least a decade old. His father, entering the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Atlanta, the nineteen-year-old Hope by his side. His father with his arm around Hope, following a bellman, laden with suitcases, into the elevator. Hope and his father dining together intimately, with their heads bent together and their looks intent. He could tell by Hope’s waist-length hair that the photos had been taken before they were married. Later, only months after Joey had been born, Hope had cut her hair. Although the basic style had changed from time to time, to his knowledge, she had never worn it longer than shoulder-length since. Sickened by what he realized to be true, he turned away.

  “Read the dates on those copies of the hotel bills,” his mother said vehemently. “The two of them were away, together, for the weekend, only days before Edmond asked me for a divorce. Now tell me she didn’t steal my husband from me and break up my marriage!” Rosemary finished with tears in her eyes.

  Chase recalled Hope saying, the day before, “I never broke up your parents’ marriage, Chase! I swear it!” She had seemed so earnest, so sincere. He had believed her. Now, looking at the evidence his mother offered, he felt like a gullible fool. Had Hope done what Rosemary was accusing her of? Had she purposely set out to steal Edmond away from Rosemary? Had Edmond been sucked into her noble act the same way he had? Was it possible Hope had seduced him and gotten pregnant deliberately, knowing that as gallant a man as Edmond would feel he had to do the right thing and marry her?

  Chase didn’t want to think so. But he also knew how attracted he was to Hope. Even knowing she had been married to his father had not been enough to circumvent his desire for her. Of course, he hadn’t acted on that passion. His father had, despite the fact that he already had a wife at home. Did it matter that Rosemary was shrewish and difficult? Chase thought not. If Edmond had wanted to pursue another woman, he should’ve ended his marriage first, made a clean break with Rosemary, and then gone after Hope, in that order. But he hadn’t. Still, Chase had to admit, like it or not, his own life wasn’t always as neatly ordered and well thought out as he’d like it, either. If it were, he’d be back in the rain forest, consumed with his medical research, instead of here in Houston, feeling increasing desire for Hope. If life were logical he’d be able to stop trying to be Hope’s white knight and concentrate on saving himself from this tangled web of deceit.

  Aware his mother was as lost in private regrets as he, Chase glanced at the photographs again. Hope was so young; his father was old enough to know better. God knew, he didn’t want to believe any of this had really happened. It seemed so out of character for Hope and his dad. But Edmond and Hope had been in Atlanta together illicitly.

  A moment’s foolhardiness, an unplanned moment of weakness in Houston, was almost, almost, understandable, given Hope’s beauty and Edmond’s own unhappy marriage. And if it had been unplanned, unexpected, then the pregnancy was also understandable. A whole weekend away, in Atlanta, at the Ritz-Carlton was something else entirely. The way the two of them had gone into the hotel together, complete with luggage, was no accident. That had to have been well-planned and deliberate; it required plane tickets, reservations, and packing. The idea of them fooling around so blatantly while Edmond was still married to Rosemary sickened him.

  His appetite fled. He handed the envelope back to his mother. All the negative feelings he had ever had about Hope were back and hitting him with full force. He still didn’t want to deal with this. Not now. Not ever. Because it really wasn’t his problem. It was his parents’ divorce, not his.

  “Why are you bringing this all up now?” he asked his mother wearily, wishing fervently she never had. Years had passed since then. Hope had grown up, matured. Hell, they were all wiser now. Even if he wanted to hold a grudge against her for her foolhardiness then, he couldn’t, not knowing the lovely woman and devoted wife and mother she had later become.

  Rosemary looked tortured and miserable. As she recovered, though, her eyes took on a determined glint. “I’m bringing this up, Chase, because I want you to be careful around Hope, not get sidetracked into losing sight of our objective, which is to get the store back on track, no matter what it takes.”

  Chase studied his mother, knowing what she didn’t, that since he had been in Houston his objectives had changed, for the better, he felt. He no longer wanted to simply save the store or raise funds for his next research expedition, but to resurrect his family as well. He may not have known it before but he knew it now. As much as he didn’t want to deal with things, he needed to be close to both Joey and Hope. And he needed to understand Hope, to get her to open up and confide in him. Again, not an easy task. But he knew what Hope had apparently yet to realize. If they were ever to deal with each other in the future, they had to also deal with the past.

  “LEAVING, and so soon?” Russell Morris said. He fell into step beside Hope shortly after she entered the dimly lit parking garage.

  “I was sure you’d put in a full day.” He glanced at his watch and made a tsking sound. “And here it is only three-thirty.”

  Hope tightened her hold on her briefcase and increased the speed of her steps. She didn’t need this. Determined to show no fear, however, she said briskly, “I thought I made it clear. We have nothing to say to each other, Russell. Nothing.” She turned her head and gave him a sharp look, her low words edged with warning, “So leave me alone.”

  “If I only could.” Russell shook his head laconically and looked her up and down. Having reached her Mercedes, Hope reached for the handle. He moved quickly, positioning his body against the side of the car, and blocked her way. “But I can’t. I need your help. And by God,” he finished with malevolent intent, “you’re going to give it to me.”

  All the anger she’d been withholding pushed to the surface; memories she had worked long and hard to bury rushed to the fore. He had made her life utterly miserable once; he wouldn’t do so again. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I ever do anything to help you,” she swore.

  He laughed, the self-serving sound echoing evilly in the parking garage. “Is that so? I wonder. I had a nice chat with Rosemary yesterday afternoon. I could have an even more revealing chat with her tomorrow if I wanted.”

  Cold chills moved up and down Hope’s spine. I’m not going to let him get to me, she instructed herself sternly. I’m not going to let him take advantage. She sighed dramatically and gave him a long-suffering look. “This bullying is pointless, Russell,” she said, pretending she couldn’t care
less. “You can talk to Rosemary all you want but she has very little to say about how Barrister’s is run. I have controlling interest. And I am not going to cooperate with you, no matter how much you try to force me to do so. You might as well save yourself a lot of trouble and just give it up right now, before I’m forced to get a restraining order to keep you away from me and the store.”

  His eyes darkened and his mouth took on a threatening slant. He crossed his arms against his chest and regarded her smugly. “You wouldn’t go to court. You wouldn’t risk the publicity—”

  “Watch me.”

  “That would mean digging up the past. And you wouldn’t want Rosemary to know about that, would you? If she knew, then the whole world would know. Hell, it’d probably turn up in the Chronicle or the Post.”

  Again, Hope felt a chill of uneasiness slide down her spine. If Russell followed through on his threat, he would be hurting himself as much as he was hurting her. But she could see he was desperate; he no longer cared. If he was going to lose everything, he wasn’t going to do so alone. No, he’d want to take her and heaven only knew who else, with him.

  She swore silently and then emitted a lengthy sigh. For Joey’s sake, she would try to reason with him. Running a hand through her hair, she said, “Barrister’s has no capital to put up for such a risky venture.”

  He looked unimpressed. “You could find it.”

  Now he was asking the impossible. “How?”

  “Sell a few of your stores.”

  She laughed incredulously at his gall. “That isn’t funny.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be,” he supplied darkly. “Or you could talk to the Board of Directors. The bank.”

  How was it possible, Hope thought, feeling sick and weak again, that she could have forgotten how relentlessly destructive and self-centered this man was? “I can’t,” she said firmly. “Even if I wanted to—which I don’t—I can’t.”