by Sandra Brown
“May I quote that in my column?”
“You may.”
Nadia opened her ever-present notebook and asked Maris to enumerate the titles and authors she was especially excited about. After jotting them down, she laid aside her pen and took a dainty bite of grilled sea bass. “Tell me about this project you’re working on in Georgia.”
“I can’t.”
Nadia stopped eating. “Why not?”
“It’s not open to discussion.”
“How positively fabulous. I love projects swathed in mystery.”
“This one is and must remain that way. And even my telling you that is off the record. Don’t use it.”
Nadia took a sip of wine, gazing at Maris over the rim of the glass. “You’ve just increased my curiosity about a thousand times over.”
“You’ll have to remain curious.”
“The author—”
“Chooses to remain anonymous. That’s also off the record. Even my staff doesn’t know the writer’s identity, so it will do you no good to try and trick or wheedle information from anyone at Matherly Press.”
“No one knows who he is?”
“I never said it was a he.”
“Right, right, you didn’t. Does that mean it’s a she?”
“It means I’m not telling.”
“Give me something,” Nadia cajoled. “Friend to friend.”
“You’re not my friend.”
Nadia was taken aback by Maris’s tone. Suddenly, with that terse statement, they were no longer talking about the unnamed writer in Georgia.
She kept her smile in place, saying, “That’s true, Maris. We haven’t been. We’ve been too busy with our respective careers to get to know one another and cultivate a friendship, but I’d like to change that. I’d like—”
“We will never be friends, Nadia.”
Again, Nadia was taken off guard by Maris’s candor. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you want to sleep with my husband.”
In spite of herself, Nadia was impressed. Miss Goody-Two-Shoes wasn’t so goody after all. She had more grit than the girls’ school polish suggested. Dropping all pretense, she met Maris’s level gaze. “You can’t wonder why. Noah is an attractive man.”
“An attractive married man.”
“A distinction that has never stopped me.”
“That’s what I hear.”
Rather than being insulted, Nadia laughed. “Good. I love being the topic of scandalous conversation.”
She took another sip of wine, then ran her index finger around the rim of the glass as she continued to study Maris with a new appreciation. She admired directness but never would have believed the former debutante capable of it to this degree.
But she wondered how cool Maris would remain if she confessed to her affair with Noah. What if she gave wifey a blow-by-blow—pun intended—account of what they had done in bed last night? She would bet that for all Maris’s composure, that would rattle her right down to her Manolo Blahniks.
While that would be fun, it wouldn’t be wise. There was too much at stake. Curbing the temptation to flaunt the affair, she asked, “Have you spoken to Noah about this?”
“Yes.”
“And what did he say?”
“That his interest in you is strictly business-related. That your column is so influential, he can’t risk offending you. That’s why he goes along with your obvious machinations.”
Nadia shrugged. “There you have it. I’ve established myself by using people as sources of information. In turn, they use me for free publicity and promotion. Noah understands the way it works.”
She had managed to dance around the topic without either lying or telling the whole truth, and she hoped Maris would leave it at that. The WorldView deal needed no further complications.
Taking advantage of Maris’s silence, she said, “I’m glad we cleared the air. Would you like a bite of sea bass?”
“No, thank you.”
“It’s delicious, but I’ve had my fill.”
Actually, she was still hungry, but she pushed her plate away. One area of thigh tissue absorbed fat like a goddamn sponge despite the procedure she had undergone. She fanatically counted every calorie. Exercise was the only religion she believed in or practiced, and she worshiped strenuously every day.
Noah teased her about her rigid fitness regimen, saying she even brought it to bed with her. In fact, she counted sex as an aerobic exercise. She knew precisely how many calories were burned with each act of coitus.
Noah knew her well. He could be the sole man on the planet to whom she might be faithful. She didn’t love him, any more than he loved her. Neither of them bought into the myth of romantic love. He had readily admitted that his marriage hadn’t been inspired by amorous passion, but rather his burning desire to become part of the Matherly dynasty via the only Matherly available to him.
He had developed a mentor-protégé relationship with Daniel, but even that wasn’t enough to satisfy his ambition. Becoming the old man’s son-in-law was the next best thing to a blood kinship. Marrying Maris would cement his future, so he had made it happen.
Nadia admired that kind of single-minded scheming and the guts it took to carry out a bold plan. To her, ruthlessness was an aphrodisiac like no other. She spotted it in Noah the first time she met him. Recognizing in him a self-serving ambition that was equal to her own, she had wanted him, and she hadn’t played coy.
Their first business lunch date had carried over into an afternoon spent in bed at the Pierre. To her delight, Noah approached sex with the same self-gratifying appetite and animalistic detachment as she. By the time he left her lying tangled up in the damp sheets, she was raw and sore and exhilarated.
They were also compatible out of bed. They understood one another. Their individual drives to achieve were harmonious but competitive enough to spark arguments and add zest. They were good for each other. They complemented each other. As a team, they would be unconquerable. That was why Nadia wanted to become Mrs. Noah Reed.
Well, that was one reason why.
The other was harder for her to acknowledge: There was just enough of Nadine remaining in her to want to be married before she died. She didn’t want to grow old alone. Somewhere between power lunches and sundown specials, a single woman became a spinster.
Through her twenties and thirties, she had scorned the very idea of matrimony. To anybody who would listen she claimed no interest whatsoever in monogamy and the marriage bed. What a fucking—literally—bore.
But the truth was that, for all the men who had shared her bed, who had sighed and cried and groaned and crowed between her thighs, not one, not a single one, had ever asked her to be his wife.
And, to be brutally honest, Noah hadn’t actually proposed, either. He wasn’t the hearts-and-flowers-and-bended-knee type. She had more diamond rings than she had fingers and toes. How their plans for matrimony had come about was that she had told him she wanted to marry him. And Nadia never took no for an answer.
Now her future husband’s present wife was finishing a cappuccino that she hadn’t wanted. Usually Nadia could sweet-talk or browbeat someone out of a tidbit of information that she could expand into an item for her column, but Maris had remained stubbornly mute about her secret project. She seemed disinclined to talk on any level about the nature of the book or about the writer.
Not that Nadia gave a flip about Maris’s silly secret project. The purpose of this lunch had been to keep Maris derailed, unaware, and blissfully ignorant of what Nadia and Noah were doing with WorldView behind her back.
But Maris had tipped her hand. Noah should be warned that she might not be as malleable and naive as she looked. Nadia hoped her suspicion of an affair had been quelled, because the last thing they needed in these important final weeks was a jealous wife breathing down their necks.
“Anything else, Maris?” she offered graciously. “Another cappuccino?”
“No, thank you
. I should get back to the office. I’m playing catch-up after being away, as I knew I would be.”
“Then why’d you come?” The question was out before Nadia realized she was going to ask it. But having done so, she owned up to being curious. Why had Maris accepted her invitation?
“For a long time now, we’ve detested the sight of one another. But we always played polite,” Maris said. “I hate phoniness, especially in myself.” She looked inward for a second, then added, “Or maybe I’m just disgusted with lies and liars. In any case, I thought it was time to tell you to your face that I’m on to you.”
Nadia took it all in, then smiled wryly. “Fair enough.” As they made their way to the entrance, she said, “You’ll still feed me industry news items, won’t you?”
“News. Not gossip.”
“When you’re ready to reveal this mysterious author and book, will you give me the scoop?”
“The author is very publicity-shy. I doubt—”
“Nadia, what a nice surprise.”
Nadia turned at the greeting and found herself looking into the colorless countenance of Morris Blume, the last person on earth she would choose to bump into when Maris Matherly-Reed was standing beside her. She didn’t find the surprise nice at all.
“How are you, Morris?” She extended her hand to him but kept her tone aloof and uninviting. “I recommend the sea bass.”
“And I recommend the martinis,” he said, raising his frosted glass. “In fact, I coached the bartender here on how to make one just right.”
“Stirred or shaken?”
“Shaken.”
Maris had moved to the coat check to retrieve her raincoat, so Nadia felt free to engage in a mild flirtation. It wouldn’t be smart to be too aloof. Her dinner with him at the Rainbow Room had been enjoyable. If she gave him the brush-off now, he would wonder why.
“Gin or vodka?”
“Vodka. Straight up and extra dirty.”
One of her artfully waxed eyebrows arched. “I like the sound of that.”
“Here.” He lifted the pick from his glass and extended it toward her mouth.
Keeping her eyes on his, she touched the tip of her tongue to the olive, then closed her lips around it and sucked it into her mouth. “Hmm. My favorite thing.”
“Join me in one?”
“I’m afraid I can’t, Morris. Rain check?”
“I’ll call.”
She flashed him her most promising smile. It had been mastered after years of practice and was now practically habitual. She told him to enjoy his lunch and turned away to rejoin Maris.
To her consternation, the smile worked too well. Blume trailed her, making an introduction to Maris unavoidable. She executed it with as much casualness as she could affect.
As the two shook hands, Blume said, “I’ve long been an admirer of your publishing house.”
“And a suitor,” Maris remarked.
He grinned disarmingly. “So you’ve read the numerous letters I’ve written to your esteemed father?”
“Along with his replies.”
“Do you agree with him?”
“Wholeheartedly. While we’re flattered that an entity like WorldView is interested in merging with us, we like ourselves the way we are.”
“So your husband told me during our last meeting.”
Chapter 17
Noah was reviewing the company’s most recent shipping invoices when his wife stormed into his office and slammed the door behind her, stunning his secretary.
She tossed her handbag and damp raincoat into the nearest chair and strode to the edge of his desk. She’d been testy and despondent since her return from Georgia last evening, but she had never looked better. Today she was dressed in a suit tailored for office wear, but it was a form-fitting one he’d always admired. Time spent on the beach had put some color in her cheeks and stripped it from her hair. Sun-bleached strands framed her face, giving her a youthful, healthy appearance.
Her expression, however, wasn’t sunny.
“Hello, Maris. How was your lunch?”
“I was just introduced to WorldView’s whiz kid, Morris Blume. He told me to give you his regards.”
Goddamn Nadia! he thought. Why hadn’t she called to warn him of this? Then he remembered: He had given Cindy strict instructions to hold his calls until after he’d had time to review the financial statements stacked on his desk—ironically because of WorldView. He’d been going over the charts and columns entry by entry, becoming intimately familiar with them, seeking potential trouble spots which might cause Blume and company concern. Should they pose any questions, Noah wanted to have an explanation ready.
Remaining as unflappable as possible, he said, “How nice of Mr. Blume to remember me.”
“Apparently it wasn’t that much of a stretch for him, Noah, given you two had a recent meeting.” She braced herself on his desk with stiff arms and leaned toward him, her eyes flashing. “What meeting is he talking about, Noah? And why wasn’t I informed of it? What meeting?”
He stood up and came around the desk. “Maris, kindly calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.”
“All right, then, I’m asking you to. Please.”
He reached out to take her by the shoulders, but she backed away and slung off his extended hands.
“Would you like a glass of water?”
“I would like an explanation,” she said, enunciating each word. “You know how Dad and I feel about conglomerates like WorldView.”
“I share your opinion.” He hiked his hip over the corner of his desk and placidly folded his hands on his thigh, although he would have liked to wrap them around her slender neck. “That’s why I agreed to the meeting with WorldView.”
She shook her head in disbelief, as though up until that time she had been clinging to the hope that Blume was lying. “You met with those jackals? You actually did? Behind my back and without my knowledge?”
Noah sighed and gave her a pained look. “Yes, I met with them. But before you go into orbit, can you be reasonable and give me an opportunity to explain?” He took her fuming silence for permission to continue.
“Blume’s flunkies had been hounding me for months. They called until I stopped taking or returning their calls. With no regard for that blatant hint, they began faxing me until I got tired of throwing the damn things away.
“They made nuisances of themselves until I determined that the most expedient way to handle the situation was to attend a meeting and tell Blume to his baby’s-ass face that we were not interested in anything he had to offer by way of a merger. Period. End of discussion. I don’t think I could have made our position any clearer. I didn’t tell you about it because you were extremely busy and didn’t need any additional stress.”
“I’m always busy.”
“The meeting was inconsequential.”
“I hardly think so.”
“And, frankly,” he said, “I anticipated that you would react emotionally rather than rationally. I predicted that you would fly off the handle and lose all perspective. I hoped to avoid a scene such as this.”
“This isn’t a scene, Noah. This is a private conversation between husband and wife, between business partners. Two relationships that should come with an implied trust.”
“Exactly,” he said, raising his voice to match the level of hers. “Which is why I’m amazed, both as your husband and your business partner, by your apparent lack of trust in me.”
“Chalk it up to my reacting emotionally, flying off the handle, and going into orbit!”
“Which are fair analogies, Maris. You came barging in here and practically accused me of treason against Matherly Press.”
“At the very least you consorted with the enemy!”
A knock on the door brought them around. Daniel was standing on the threshold, leaning heavily on his cane. “I’m exercising one privilege of old age, which is to intrude when uninvited.”
Noah shot his cuffs.
“Of course you’re welcome, Daniel. Maris has just returned from lunch. We were having a discussion about—”
“I heard. From all the way down the hall.” Daniel came in and closed the door. “Maris is upset about the meeting you had with WorldView.”
She reacted with a start. “You knew about it?”
“Noah told me of his decision to meet with them. I thought it was a sound idea and was glad he was going instead of me. I don’t think I could have stomached it.”
“Why wasn’t I informed?”
She addressed the question to both of them, but Noah answered. “You were leaving for Georgia. Daniel and I could see how excited you were about this project and were afraid that if you knew about WorldView you’d change your plans. There was no reason to bother you with it.”
“I’m not a child.” She glowered at him, then at Daniel.
“We made a mistake in judgment,” Daniel conceded. “It wasn’t our intention to slight you.”
“I don’t feel slighted, I feel babied. I don’t need protection, Dad. Or coddling. Or special favors. When it comes to business, I’m not a daughter or a wife, I’m an officer of this corporation.
“I should have been consulted on something this major, I don’t care how busy I was or what my travel plans were. You were remiss and just plain wrong to exclude me from those discussions. I’m also mad as hell at both of you for letting me be made a fool of in front of Morris Blume and Nadia Schuller.”
“I apologize,” Daniel said.
“So do I,” Noah echoed. “I’m terribly sorry that you were embarrassed today at lunch. I take full responsibility for that.”
She didn’t verbally accept their apologies, but Daniel took her silence as a tacit pardon. “Are we still on for dinner tonight? Maxine’s making pot roast.”
“We’ll see you at seven,” Noah confirmed. Daniel split an uneasy glance between them and then left them alone.
Maris went to the window and turned her back to the room. Noah remained where he was, still perched on the corner of his desk. Several minutes passed before she spoke. “I’m sorry I lost my temper.”
“It hasn’t been that long ago that I told you how beautiful you are when you’re angry.”
