Penthouse Suite

by Sandra Chastain

  “You mean because of me?”

  “You? Certainly not. Why would you think that?”

  “You said you couldn’t concentrate because you were …” her voice trailed off.

  “Believe me, Kate, you had nothing to do with this. The man was just better prepared than we’d expected.”

  The Showboat loomed up before them like a Mississippi River boat, all brick red, gold, and lacy white. It was breathtaking. Kate couldn’t hold back a gasp.

  “It’s something to see, isn’t it? That’s another thing that bothers me. Everybody knows that Red has no taste. Who would buy something that looks like a million-dollar brothel?” Max stopped the car and handed over the keys to the attendant.

  “Well, it is very different,” Kate agreed. The glass walls and rich velvet decor made her uneasy somehow, and she patted the lemon in her bag comfortingly as they walked through the lobby and took the elevator to the penthouse suite.

  “We were just about to give up on you, Max.” A bald, portly man with a huge unlit cigar said as he came toward them. “The others are in the library.”

  “I was unavoidably detained,” Max answered with a serious face and a side wink for Kate. “Kate, this is Red Garden. Red, Kate.”

  Red nodded to Kate and continued to move toward an open doorway in the back of the room. “I’d like you to meet the new hotel owner, Max, and then stick around later for dinner.”

  Red stopped at the door, looked at Kate, and back at the party guests clustered around the bar. “Perhaps you’d like me to introduce your lady to some of the others while you go on in.”

  “That isn’t necessary,” Kate said. “I see Matthew Blue heading this way. I’ll talk with him until you’re free.”

  Max released Kate reluctantly, touching his lips to her cheek gently. “This won’t take too long, darling.”

  Matthew’s bushy hair was more unruly than the first time Kate had seen him. She was glad to see his friendly face, and his smile widened appreciably when Kate met him halfway.

  “Matthew, I’m so glad you’re here.”

  Behind Matthew, Kate saw a tall, striking woman bearing down on them with a directness that was definitely not indicative of cocktail party circulating. Smooth, fawn-color hair cascaded down a body elegantly encased in a bronze gown.

  “So, you’re Kate. I’m Lucy Pierce,” the woman said with a half-knowing smirk. “You’re my replacement in the room at the top, I’ve been told. Fast work. But then, Max has always made it a point to look after his aunt’s protégées.”

  “Oh, you’re Lucy. I’m so glad to meet you,” Kate said innocently. Lucy’s welcome was as genuine as a thirty-dollar bill, and they both knew it. “Did you come with Mrs. Jarrett?”

  “Why, no. Actually, I’m turning in my resignation. I’ve accepted another job, more prestige, more money. A girl has to look after her future. You certainly know about that,” Lucy said sharply, quickly excusing herself when someone called from across the room.

  Matt gave Kate’s elbow a squeeze. “Don’t let her get to you, Kate. Lucy Pierce is just blowing air bubbles. Max may have played around with her, but she’s not even in the running.”

  “I know, Matthew,” Kate assured the dear man. And she did. Lucy was obviously accustomed to receiving the attention of every man around, and Kate could understand why.

  “What will you have to drink, Kate?” Matthew and Kate walked across a gold and black Oriental rug and stood near the piano where a handsome young man with a faraway look in his eyes played blues tunes.

  “Just fruit juice, thanks,” Kate said, glad to be somewhat isolated from the animated discussions taking place behind them. She knew that she was being observed discreetly, and the knowledge was disquieting.

  As Matthew went to the bar, Kate looked at the guests. They were laughing, talking. Shades of J.R. and Dallas, she thought. The room was too bright and gay. Kate suddenly felt uncomfortable. Learning to fit in with Max’s friends might be more nerve-racking than she’d imagined. She glanced around and quietly slipped through the sliding glass doors and out onto the terrace. She’d be more comfortable facing them with Max at her side.

  Standing in the darkness, she looked at the ground below. The hotel was built on a piece of land that jutted out into the Gulf. The riverboat design of the building set it apart from it’s neighbors.

  Kate heard the terrace door opening behind her. “I’ll step out here for a smoke while you talk about it, gentlemen,” a masculine voice said, “but it won’t change anything. I’ve outbid you, and Red has my check.”

  There was a sound of footsteps on the terracotta tile floor. A man moved through the shadows toward the corner where Kate was standing. He paused in a patch of light, pulled a silver cigarette case from his pocket, and snapped it open.

  The scene was straight out of a Cary Grant movie. She watched, spellbound, as he touched a thin silver flame from an ebony lighter to the cigarette. A lazy puff of smoke floated across the air.

  “Hello.” The man moved toward her, replacing the cigarette case. “Fellow refugee from the lion’s den?”

  “I suppose. It’s a bit loud in there.” Kate turned back to gaze at the sea.

  “You prefer the solitude of the night? So do I.” He walked up beside her.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Are you one of Red Garden’s friends, or one of the Hotel Association ladies?”

  “Neither. I’m here with … someone.” Kate didn’t know why it was so hard for her to say Max’s name.

  “Too bad,” the stranger commented with just the right amount of despair in his voice. “I thought you might like to join me later, for a drink.”

  “Thank you, but I think I’d better look for my friend.”

  “Please don’t go on my account. After all, I’m the intruder. I promise I won’t annoy you any more.”

  Behind them, inside the room, the piano player started to play a slow romantic tune.

  “Quite a place, isn’t this?” The stranger turned his back to the Gulf, resting his elbows on the rail as he looked into the room. “Like something out of the Gay ’Nineties, complete with the madam.”

  Madam? Kate followed his line of sight to Lucy Pierce glancing around with a look of irritation on her face. When she appeared to be heading in their direction, the stranger took Kate’s shoulder and pulled her back into the shadows. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to kidnap you. But that woman is someone we’re both better off avoiding.”

  At that moment, Kate saw Max appear at Lucy’s side. Lucy was motioning toward the balcony, and anger flashed across Max’s face.

  The sliding doors flew open, and Max crossed the terrace in four steps, jerking Kate away from the startled man at her side.

  “Kate, how could you bring the very thing I’ve fought hardest against right into my own hotel? Dorothea was right. You’ve been working for Maverick magazine all along.”

  “That’s absurd. I don’t know anything about Maverick magazine? I don’t understand. What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong is that your editor, J.M. Houston, is the mysterious buyer, Kate. And I find you standing out here in the dark in his arms. You must be very happy.”

  J.M. Houston? Kate looked from Max to the dark stranger she’d been talking to. J.M. Houston?

  This was Vertigo. She was Kim Novak and Alfred Hitchcock was directing her fall through space into a black void of nothingness.

  Eight

  “Max, no …” Kate whispered.

  “I trusted you, Kate. I left myself wide open. I’ll have to hand it to you, lady, you’re brilliant, a professional from the word go. You had me fooled, and that doesn’t happen very often.”

  Kate couldn’t believe what was happening. Max was livid. Not only was he stern and unforgiving, but she could feel the heat of his anger in the fingers holding her arm in an iron grip.

  “Just a minute, Max, aren’t you being unreasonable?” Matthew Blue had moved to the edge of the circle. “I,
for one, don’t believe a word of it. Let’s hear what Kate has to say.”

  “I didn’t believe it either,” Max said, desperation in his voice. “I told the committee that they were wrong. Kate couldn’t work for him. Making Kate a writer for Maverick magazine was just one of Dorothea’s little jokes.”

  Max saw the stricken look on Kate’s face. Confusion gave way to hurt, then total disbelief. She jerked her arm from his grasp.

  “Max,” she said softly, “I don’t even know J.M. Houston, and I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t know him? Then how do you explain my finding you here with him at the very moment we’re trying desperately to save the future of the Carnival Strip?”

  “You’re J.M. Houston of Maverick magazine?” Kate asked the man next to her. He nodded. “Then tell him the truth, Mr. Houston,” Kate whispered raggedly. “Tell him that I had nothing to do with this.”

  “I did,” he answered. “He didn’t believe me either.”

  Kate felt the floor tilt. She wanted to disappear.

  “Isn’t it obvious, Max?” Lucy Pierce trilled. “J.M. sent her here to keep him informed while he made the arrangements. You fell for her, didn’t you, Max? She probably spent a lot of time in your suite. It would have been easy for her to wait until you were gone, get the necessary figures, and pass them on to her boss.”

  Kate could tell that Lucy’s words were hitting home. She’d had a key. Max knew that she had access to his office. And he believed that Mr. Houston had inside information. He thought she was guilty. Nothing she could say was going to change his mind.

  “That’s how he knew exactly how much to bid,” someone volunteered from the crowd. “He had a mole. Isn’t that right, Mr. Houston?”

  The stranger blinked his eyes lazily and smiled. “Surely you gentlemen don’t think I’d do anything illegal, do you? And I’d never reveal my sources. Let’s just say that I do find this lovely lady very appealing.”

  “Kate,” Max continued, “Kate, J.M. Houston, and the Showboat. Later, when he’s been able to grease enough palms to swing votes in his direction, we’ll have gambling on the Strip. All perfectly legal, thanks to his inside source. Thanks to you, Kate.”

  Matthew Blue caught Kate as her legs began to buckle, half supporting her as she tried to speak. “I swear, Max, I’ve never seen this man before in my life. I don’t work for him, and I never have.”

  “She’s right,” Matthew snapped. “Kate working for Maverick magazine was just something your aunt cooked up. Tell him the truth, Houston. It can’t matter to you now.”

  “Oh, I think having Kate work for Maverick magazine is a fine idea,” J.M. agreed in amusement. “I’ve already made her an offer, which she turned down. Maybe now she’ll reconsider.”

  But Max wasn’t listening. He simply stared at Kate as though he’d never seen her before. “And I fell in love with you, Kate. For the first time in my life I was in love.” He turned away.

  “Max, wait. You’re a smart businessman,” Matthew called out, as he turned Kate toward the elevator, “but this time you’re way off base.”

  Kate straightened her shoulders and allowed Matthew to propel her through the crowd to the elevator. She couldn’t believe what had happened. Max thought that she’d betrayed him—Max, the man she loved. She hadn’t even acknowledged to herself that she loved him until now. But it was true. Except there would be no happily ever after. Max couldn’t care about her and still believe that she was involved in such a terrible scheme.

  Somehow she got out of the suite and into Matthew’s car. He headed away from the hotel, down the beach highway. Tears rolled down Kate’s cheeks, and she sobbed in the silence. She didn’t know when the car stopped or how long Matthew had been waiting before he said, “Max is wrong and I’m responsible. I should have spoken up sooner, but I wanted to find out how Houston managed to pull this off.”

  “I don’t understand, Matthew. What could you have done? Max wasn’t in the mood to listen to anybody.”

  “The sale was contingent on approval of the mortgage holder, Kate. That’s me. I hold the mortgage on the Showboat, along with a half dozen other pieces of property along the strip. And I don’t approve.”

  “You? But—” Kate’s head was spinning. Max hadn’t lost the hotel to an outsider, but she’d lost Max.

  “I’ll tell Max tomorrow,” Matthew was saying, “when he’s had time to think. I’ve seen him like this once before. He was just as hurt and angry then as he is now. I took him in and helped him get through it. I’ll straighten this out too.”

  Kate didn’t answer. Max didn’t trust her and that couldn’t be changed.

  “Right now,” Matthew went on softly, “I’m ready for something to eat besides those little cheese things they give you at those parties to soak up the booze. I never did like my liquor contaminated with junk.”

  “Where are we?” Kate looked around. They were parked in front of a cedar house made from thick beams. She could hear the sound of the sea in the distance. She allowed Matthew to help her from the car and down a flower-lined walk to an open, sparsely furnished room built out over the water.

  “This is where I live,” Matthew said proudly. “You wouldn’t think an old sea pirate like me lived here, would you?” Kate stepped outside on the deck and breathed deeply. Matthew followed her.

  “It’s lovely, Matthew. It reminds me of a painting of yours I saw in a little beach art shop. There was a dark-eyed little boy watching the fishing fleet just at the edge of the horizon. You could almost see the tears in his eyes. He seemed very lonely.”

  “Yes. It was painted from the same spot where you’re standing. If you look out at the sea, you can see just about where the fishing fleets disappear in the dawn.”

  It was dark now, and Kate had to envision the scene in her mind, but she knew how the boy must have felt. She wanted to go, too, to run away and disappear. But this time she wasn’t looking for adventure.

  “Kate, about Max’s behavior tonight. I think it would help you to know why he was so angry.”

  “I don’t care, Matthew.”

  “Maybe not, but listen to me anyway. It’s all tied in with his mother and her drug addiction. He was just a kid when he found out. He’d built up some fantasy about her dying a tragic death. Dorothea couldn’t tell him the truth about her sister. He heard the gossip.”

  “I know, she killed herself. Max told me.”

  Matthew looked surprised. “One summer Max came home from school. He’d never fit in very well there and that summer he went kind of wild. He got into drugs, but he realized he was in trouble and he came to me. I guess I was too blunt about telling him that drugs were the reason his mother committed suicide. But I wanted him to understand why he could never allow himself that weakness.

  “After that, he seemed to understand why Dorothea wanted him to have a different kind of life. He set a quest for himself. He knew he could never stop people from taking drugs, but he’d keep drugs off the Strip. He’s fighting a losing battle, but somebody’s got to try.”

  “I understand, Matthew. Really I do. But how could he believe that I had anything to do with it?”

  “I don’t think he does. He cares about you, Kate. And when he looked out that window and saw J.M. Houston’s arm around you, he went berserk. First Max thought that he’d lost the hotel to Houston. Then Houston practically admitted that he had someone on the inside. Then he sees you with Houston. Give him time.”

  “Time? I don’t think so. Letting myself care about Max was a mistake. Men like Max don’t mean to, but they end up hurting you. My own father was a man like Max. I knew that. I should never have let things go this far.”

  “Kate, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that we can’t always control our lives. We’re just like those fishing boats sitting out there. We plot our course, but we never know when we’re going to get caught up by a storm and be set down someplace we didn’t plan to be. You ju
st have to set a new course. Now, you sit out here and enjoy the view. I’ll see about something to eat.”

  Kate scarcely heard his last words. She sat down on one of the cushioned recliners, slipped out of her shoes, and leaned back. She was totally drained, more tired than she’d ever been before. Her head ached and something tight seemed to be swelling behind her eyes. She closed them, trying to relax.

  What had happened at the Showboat was like a bad dream, and she didn’t know how to wake up. She’d told Max the truth. If Max truly cared for her, he couldn’t believe that she’d betray him. But he did. Dorothea’s innocent little lie had grown and grown until now even the truth didn’t matter.

  Kate stretched out, lifting her handbag up from the floor. Her handbag. She ran her fingers over it, circling the lemon.

  “You’ve just about hooked him,” Dorothea had joked. “just reel him in. And if the line breaks …”

  Well, the line had broken all right. She’d lost Max and she was back to lemons. She had to go and fall in love, the one thing she’d sworn she’d never do. She was a fool, she had been from the beginning, sounding like some kind of Pollyanna, using lemons to make lemonade. How silly.

  Kate opened the bag and took out the offending yellow fruit, looking at it hopelessly. Lemons were bitter. She sunk her teeth into the sour yellow skin. The taste reminded her of the look on Max’s face when he’d seen her with Houston—bitter, bitter, bitter …

  “Don’t worry, Dorothea,” Matthew Blue was saying, “I’ve already blocked the sale. Houston will never get the hotel. Even Max didn’t know that it was my money that Red Garden used. I always have a clause written into the contract that gives me first option on any sale.”

  “But how come none of us knew about you being the money behind the mortgage company.”

  “That’s what I did with my money when I sold my boats. It was my way of helping the folks I care about. I didn’t want any credit, so I didn’t make it public.”