by Sandra Brown
She would weep and call him names and beg to know how he could have hurt her so terribly when she had done absolutely nothing to deserve it. He would give her the opportunity to vent. Once she had, she would grant him forgiveness. No doubt of that.
She would forgive him for the old man’s sake. Maris could always be counted on to spare Daniel any kind of unhappiness. She would forgive him also because women love to forgive and then to make the forgiven miserable every day thereafter for the rest of his postforgiven life. That wasn’t going to be his future, of course, but he figured that’s what Maris had planned for him. In light of his deal with WorldView, he would do nothing at this point to enlighten her. That would come later.
In the meantime, the temporary separation wasn’t without its perks. While Maris wasn’t speaking to him, he didn’t have to listen to her harping.
Nadia was another matter entirely. She continually nagged him to divorce Maris. Her persistence had become tiresome and had created a tension between them that came to a head, ironically enough, on the final day of his self-imposed deadline.
They had scheduled a luncheon meeting in an outrageously expensive, trendy uptown restaurant. One of Matherly Press’s bestselling authors was joining them to be interviewed by Nadia for “Book Chat.” The writer hadn’t yet arrived when they ordered prelunch cocktails.
To other diners, which included a large number of publishing industry personnel, it appeared they were having a civil conversation about current market trends or perhaps the sci-fi phenomenon that had rocked the book world by securing the top spot on every bestseller list, when, in fact, they were arguing about their immediate future.
“She knows about us, so why wait? File for divorce now and get it over with.”
“I can’t leave the family until the deal with WorldView is cemented,” he argued.
“What does one have to do with the other?”
“That is an incredibly stupid question, Nadia.”
The insulting remark froze Nadia’s smile into place. Had they been anyplace else, her temper might have erupted on the scale of Vesuvius. As it was, she took a languid sip of her martini, smoothed the starched linen napkin in her lap, and adjusted the triple strand of pearls around her neck—which he noticed was suffused with angry color. “Be careful, Noah,” she said quietly. “You do not want me angry at you.”
Like her, he kept his smile in place, but his voice had an edge. “Are you threatening me?”
“Being the cold, heartless bastard you are, I think you recognize a threat when you hear one.”
“Isn’t it because I’m a cold, heartless bastard that you can’t resist me?”
Seeing that the awaited writer had arrived and was being escorted to their table by the maître d’, Nadia flashed him a brilliant smile and spoke for his ears alone. “Do yourself a favor, Noah, and remember that I could give you lessons on how to be heartless.”
Following the tedious lunch, he escorted her out of the restaurant and onto the sidewalk. A chauffeured car was waiting for them, but Nadia politely declined his invitation of a lift back to her office.
He took her hand in what he hoped looked like a friendly handshake between two professionals, but he addressed her with a confidential pitch he knew she would understand.
“If it seems like I’m dragging my feet on this divorce issue, it’s because I don’t want to make an error that could cost us this deal. I want it for us, Nadia. But in order to get it, we must be willing to make a few sacrifices. I can’t dissolve my marriage to Maris now. It’s out of the question. You understand that, don’t you?”
To his immense relief, she smiled up at him and looked appropriately contrite. “Of course I understand. I’m just impatient to be with you.”
“No more than I. In fact,” he said, moving a half step nearer to her, “I want to be inside you right now.”
She closed her eyes and swayed slightly toward him, then glanced around to make certain no one had noticed or could overhear. “Naughty you. You’ve made me wet.”
“Then six o’clock can’t come soon enough.”
He squeezed her hand quickly, then climbed into the backseat of the waiting car, smiling to himself. The secret to keeping Nadia content was to keep her agitated between her legs. That was the mainspring of her self-worth. Her self-image revolved around it. If she was happy there, she was happy.
He disliked her constant nagging, but his argument with her had been stimulating and had geared him up for his showdown with Maris. Call it a rehearsal, he thought as he stepped off the elevator and pushed through the glass doors leading into the executive offices of Matherly Press.
He went into Maris’s office straightaway, but she wasn’t there. On his way out, he bumped into her assistant. “Can I help you, Mr. Reed?”
“I’m looking for Maris.”
Her eyes were magnified by the thick lenses of her glasses as she looked at him quizzically. “She’s not coming in today, Mr. Reed. Remember, she’s going back to Georgia.”
Going back to Georgia? Since when? Shit! This didn’t fit into his timetable at all.
It required all his acting skills not to give his ignorance away to the secretary. “Right, right. I know she’s leaving today, but she said she was stopping here briefly before going to the airport.”
“She did? That’s not what she told me.”
“Hmm, I guess she changed her mind.” He forced a smile and hoped it looked more natural than it felt. “I’ll catch her on her cell phone.”
He called no less than a dozen times but kept getting Maris’s voice mail. It was obvious that she did not want to be reached. He cursed her throughout the remainder of the workday. If she had suddenly appeared, he could well have killed her with his bare hands.
This was the worst possible time for her to play the betrayed wife and run away. Hadn’t he made it plain to her that he wasn’t going to stand for any crap from her, and that if he told her to roll over and play dead that’s what she was to do? Her pouting could ruin this whole thing.
On second thought, fuck her.
He had the document that Howard Bancroft had drawn up for him. Unless he was given no other choice, he would rather not use it. From a legal standpoint, that document could make things sticky, and he would rather avoid any legal stickiness. But it was there in his safe-deposit box, an insurance policy, an emergency measure to be used if it became necessary.
Feeling confident and unconquerable again, he arrived at Nadia’s Chelsea apartment shortly after six o’clock. He was in the mood for a cold drink and a cool shower, topped off by hot, aggressive sex.
He was whistling as he jogged up the staircase. But when he let himself into the apartment, his whistling abruptly died.
A beefy young man dressed in a tight-fitting black T-shirt and black slacks was emerging from the bedroom, strapping on his wristwatch. He then shouldered his gym bag and casually eased past Noah on his way out the door. His only acknowledgment of Noah was a negligent nod.
For minutes after the young man left, Noah remained on the threshold in a slow burn. A burn so hot that he was a combustion chamber, well decked out in Hugo Boss. He shot his monogrammed cuffs, smoothed down his hair, wiped the perspiration from his upper lip. These were conscious gestures, activities for his hands so he wouldn’t use them to rip, bash, or otherwise destroy something, animate or otherwise, he wasn’t particular at the moment.
When he was finally under moderate control, he moved toward the bedroom and gave the door a gentle push. It swung back on silent hinges. Nadia was sprawled naked on the wide bed amid rumpled silk sheets. Her hair was damp and tangled. Her skin merely damp.
Seeing him, she stirred and smiled drowsily. “Noah, darling, is it six o’clock already? I lost all track of time.”
The blood vessels in his temples were pounding to the point of pain, but his voice remained calm. “Who was that man?”
“Oh, you met Frankie? He’s a personal trainer at my health club.”
She levered herself up onto one elbow and looked at him with malice, mitigated only slightly by a sly smile. “That is an incredibly stupid question, Noah.”
* * *
Daniel Matherly finished reading the last page of the manuscript. As he lined up the edges and stacked the pages, he said, “That’s all you’ve got so far?”
Maris nodded. “I haven’t received anything from him since I returned. I’ve called several times to give him a pep talk, but I’ve spoken only to Mike, his aide. According to him, P… the author isn’t writing much these days.”
“I wonder why.”
“He’s sulking.”
“His muse has flown.”
“Nothing that mystical. He’s being his stubborn and mule-headed self. Like any mule, he requires prodding.” She hesitated before adding, “So I’m going back.”
“Really? When?”
“I’m on my way to the airport now.”
“I see.”
“I only stopped by to check on you, tell you good-bye, and to hear your opinion of what you’ve read so far.”
She had postponed her departure for a week. After catching Noah in Nadia Schuller’s apartment, it was a foregone conclusion that she would return to Georgia and see Parker again.
Her husband’s affair had given her a green light to examine her ambiguous and conflicting feelings for Parker. But in order to be fair to him, and to herself, she had delayed going until she had thought it through from every angle. She didn’t want her return to be a knee-jerk reaction to a rapid series of shocking developments in her life. She didn’t want it to be the reaction of an angry and vindictive wife. Rather, she wanted it to be an action taken after days of careful consideration.
For the past seven days, she had thought of little else.
She had been terribly angry at Parker the morning she left, but the truth of the matter was she hadn’t wanted to leave. She could admit that now. And every moment since her leaving, she had wanted to be with him again.
Initially, guilt had burned inside her like a live coal. She was married. She had made a commitment at the wedding altar, and she had regarded it a lifetime pledge. All her marriage vows she had taken seriously.
But apparently she had been the only one standing at the altar that day who had. Noah had broken his vows. For all she knew, Nadia wasn’t the first woman with whom he had cheated. He had certainly had no shortage of girlfriends prior to his marriage. It was possible he had never changed his pattern of behavior from that of a bachelor to that of a married man. He had willfully chosen to be unfaithful to her. She would just as willfully choose to end the marriage. By taking a lover, he had squandered the right and the privilege to be her husband.
But even if she hadn’t caught him with Nadia, she would be leaving him. That night on the sidewalk in Chelsea, Noah had revealed an aspect of himself that appalled, repelled, and frightened her. She would not live another day with a man who hinted at violence so effectively that she believed him capable of it. Their marriage was over. Noah Reed was her past.
What she needed to determine was if Parker Evans was her future.
She could no longer ignore or deny her attraction to him. It wasn’t strictly his intellect and talent that appealed to her, as she had tried to delude herself into believing. She was attracted to him, the man. Countless times she had fantasized kissing him again, having his hands on her, having her mouth on him.
She didn’t even know if he was capable of making love in the conventional sense, but it didn’t matter. She wanted to touch him and to be touched. She wanted to be intimate with him on whatever level and by whatever means it could be achieved.
While married she never would have acted on that desire. During her courtship and marriage, she had never looked at another man or thought of one in a sexual context, which had made her spontaneous attraction to Parker all the more disturbing.
During her return flight to New York, she had convinced herself that the island was responsible for the romantic yearnings she had experienced there and that once she was back in familiar territory, they would stop. By the time the plane touched down at La Guardia, she had persuaded herself that the rift between her and Noah was curable, that the temporary lull in their marriage had left her open to fanciful daydreams that would vanish the moment their dozing passion was reawakened.
She had talked herself into believing that with a little ingenuity on her part she could revive their love life and feel again the exhilaration and excitement she had when she left the church on Noah’s arm as his bride.
What a naive strategy that had been!
It made her angry now that she had been willing to assume all the responsibility for their marriage being out of sorts. How could she have been so gullible? Did everyone except her know about Noah’s affair? The people with whom they both worked every day—had they known? Was she a comically tragic figure, the last-to-know wife? The staff must have thought, Poor Maris, as she toiled away at book publishing while her husband periodically slipped out for an illicit rendezvous with his mistress.
Noah had his adversaries among the staff, but he also had his allies, people he had pirated from the publisher with which he’d been formerly affiliated. Divorcing him would be easy compared to disassociating him from Matherly Press.
Which brought her to the next hurdle she must face: informing Daniel of their split.
She would postpone it for as long as possible. It would come as a double blow for him. He would be losing not only his son-in-law, but his protégé. Maris was confident that her father was strong enough to handle it, as he had handled all the other setbacks and disappointments in his life, but she saw no point in upsetting him prematurely. However, until the time came when it was necessary for him to know, it was going to be a challenge to keep up the pretense that everything was normal.
He was watching her now with his unsettling intuitiveness. It was hard not to squirm under the direct gaze. “So what do you think, Dad?”
“About the book? I think it’s very good. Speaking as a publisher, I would prod the author to complete it.”
“Then I guess I’m off.” She stood up and began pulling on her raincoat.
“What does Noah think?”
“He hasn’t read it yet.”
“I wasn’t referring to the manuscript, Maris. What does he think of your going away to spend more time with this writer?”
“I don’t need his permission.” Seeing that he was taken aback by the sharpness of her tone, she amended it. “I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“Apology accepted. I don’t presume to interfere with your personal life. It’s just that…”
“Don’t stop there. You’ve come this far.”
He reached for her hand. “It’s just that I remember well when you fell in love with a book, and then with the author.”
She gave him a faint smile. “Is that what you’re thinking? That I’ve got a schoolgirl’s crush on this writer?”
“It wouldn’t be for the first time.”
“I’m older and wiser now.” She stopped herself from saying, I’ve learned my lesson. “This book, this author, have nothing to do with Noah and our marriage. Nothing whatsoever.”
That was the truth. Her marriage was over whether or not she ever saw Parker Evans again. Had she never heard of Parker or Envy, her marriage would have ended. It would have ended because her husband was false and their marriage a sham.
“So Noah’s agreeable to your going?”
Noah’s feelings on the matter seemed very important to her father. But they wouldn’t be if he knew the whole story. She was tempted to roll up her sleeves and show him the bruises on her arms that even a week’s time hadn’t faded. She could tell him how she’d spat blood for an hour after biting her tongue. What if she repeated Noah’s harsh threats, using the same sinister inflection that had been almost more alarming than the words themselves? Her father wo
uld be as shocked as she had been. He would be ready to find Noah and mete out punishment with his own hand.
That’s why she wouldn’t expose Noah to him now. She would save it for a day when she had things more sorted out in her own mind, when she wasn’t on her way out of town, when she had a workable plan for Matherly Press as well as her personal life. Until she had answers already in place in her own mind, she wouldn’t detail the problems to her father.
Instead, she looked him straight in the eye and, for the first time in her life, lied to him. “Yes. He’s agreeable.”
He took her face between his hands and kissed her on both cheeks. “What time is your flight?”
“I’ve barely got time to make it.” Plagued by guilt for lying to him, she embraced him tightly. She squeezed her eyes closed and wasn’t surprised to feel tears in them. “You’re my best friend, Dad. I love you very much.”
“And I love you, Maris.” He set her away from him so he could look into her face. “More than you could ever know.”
Chapter 21
Parker answered the door. For several moments he looked at her blankly. Finally he said, “Did you forget something?”
“Very cute.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you going to ask me in?”
He hesitated as though thinking it over, then pushed his chair backward into the foyer, giving her room to step inside. “Where’s Mike?”
“He went to the mainland for groceries, toilet paper, stuff like that.”
“And left you here alone?”
“I’m not helpless,” he said in what amounted to a snarl. “I lived by myself before Mike came onboard. Besides, I’m not alone.”
He was with a woman.
Maris realized now that all the signs were there. Mike was away. Parker’s shirt was unbuttoned, and his hair was more disheveled than usual. “I’m sorry. I… I should have called before I came.”
“Yeah, you should have,” he said crossly. “But since you’ve made the trip, you might just as well come on in. We’re in here.”
He wheeled his chair around and rolled it into the dining room. Reluctantly Maris followed, wishing there were a way she could turn and run without looking like a coward. Short of that, she wished she didn’t have to meet his lady friend looking so bedraggled.
