Power Play: A Novel

by Steel, Danielle

  They talked a lot about his work at dinner, and the pieces he was currently writing. He had several interviews scheduled that sounded interesting to her.

  “I think it would be exciting to meet different people all the time. I work with the same ones year after year. It’s hard to keep things fresh, and get everyone motivated,” she said, and he nodded.

  “Your job is a lot more challenging than mine, Fiona, and harder,” he said with a look of admiration, “but I enjoy what I do. My father always said ‘do something you love.’ I took it seriously. He was a smart guy. He loved practicing medicine, and so did my mother. And I love writing and journalism. One of these days I’m going to write a book, when I have time, which isn’t now.” He was busy as an investigative reporter, juggling all his assignments. “I’m kind of a rabble-rouser with the pieces I write. I’m always looking for the seamy underbelly, or the hidden dishonesty of what people don’t tell you. Even if you don’t see it, you know it’s there.”

  “Did you think that about me?” she asked, looking a little shocked. His eyes had lit up when he talked about digging up the truth.

  “No,” he said immediately. “I’ve been a fan of yours for years. You’re a straight shooter, about everything. And it shows. You shine like a beacon in the midst of some damn dishonest people in the corporate world,” Logan said as their dinner arrived. His blunt opinions reminded her of her sister again, although her delivery was more diplomatic. But she loved analyzing people too, and she said as much to him. He smiled when she said it, and she laughed.

  “Okay, so why is it that you don’t want to go out with my sister? I take it you don’t trust my matchmaking abilities.” Fiona smiled at him. She could see that he had no interest in meeting Jillian for a date, which seemed too bad to her. She was sure they would have fun together. It was hard not to with Jillian, and she had a wicked sense of humor, much like his, which was razor sharp. But his tongue was not. He was a kind person, with a good mind. Not unlike Jillian either.

  “I don’t trust anyone’s matchmaking abilities after some of the blind dates I went on arranged by friends. I got smart about that a long time ago,” he said, and Fiona didn’t disagree after her own experiences with fix-ups by friends when she first got divorced. Alone was always better than the blind dates she’d been on. “But I don’t want to go out with her for another reason, although I’d like to meet her,” he said simply. “She sounds like a lot of fun. And smart, like her younger sister,” he said, paying her a left-handed compliment that made Fiona smile.

  “So? You’re not up for dating at the moment?” Fiona inquired. It seemed like a waste to her, if that was the case. He was a great guy, and she thought any woman would be lucky to go out with him, and he was right up her sister’s alley.

  “Actually, I am up for dating,” he corrected her. “I just don’t want to go out with her.” Fiona looked disappointed, and he lowered his voice so the people in the next booth wouldn’t hear, in case someone had recognized her. “I want to go out with you,” he said, looking her straight in the eye.

  “With me?” She was shocked as he nodded. He was making it perfectly clear and had realized that she wouldn’t get it otherwise. She didn’t consider herself dating material anymore and had put it out of her mind. She considered him a friend. And he had something else in mind. He could tell she wasn’t getting the message, so he said it again: “I want to go out with you. On a date.”

  “Why?” she asked with a puzzled look, and he laughed out loud at her question.

  “Because you’re beautiful, honest, nice to be with, extremely intelligent, a good person, have integrity, and I have a great time with you. Do you want more?” He hadn’t listed successful, powerful, or a CEO, none of which he cared about, although others would. “And that’s just a start. I admire you. I like you. I think you’re a terrific person. And I think you’re shortchanging yourself if you give up on men. You’ve had some bad experiences, but that’s no reason to quit. I think one can have a relationship and a big job. The two are not mutually exclusive, if you’re with the right person and do it right. Maybe you never have before. And I realize that I’m not a CEO, or chairman of the board of a large corporation, or a ‘captain of industry,’ but I like what I do, and I’m good at it. I’m comfortable in my own skin and with who I am. I’m not threatened by you, or angry because you make more money than I do or have a bigger job. I like you. I have fun with you. I’d like to go out with you. More, I’d like to date you, not your fantastic older sister who is six feet tall and smart as a whip and a fabulous tennis player. You. Her little sister. That would really work for me. What about you?” He knew it wasn’t what she had in mind initially, but he hoped she’d be open to it now.

  “I never thought … I didn’t realize.…” She stumbled over her words and lowered her eyes as she chased crumbs around the table and didn’t know what to say. And before she could say anything, he reached across the table and held her hand in his. He didn’t want to scare her, but he also didn’t want her to run away, and she looked as though she might.

  “It doesn’t have to be complicated. Just give it a chance and see what happens. Lives won’t be lost if we decide we’re not made to go out with each other. The worst that can happen is we’ll wind up friends. I’ve got room for a new friend in my life. What about you? Are you willing to give it a try?” He was direct and not afraid to say or go after what he wanted. Fiona was the same way in business, but not in her personal life. She had given up on that years before, maybe even before she and David broke up. He had beaten her down for years, and she didn’t want to go through that again.

  Her eyes were sad as she looked at him, and he could see the hurt there. And she seemed so vulnerable and so scared that he wanted to take her in his arms, not talk to her across a dinner table.

  “What if we hurt or disappoint each other? If we do, you’ll hate me.”

  “No, I won’t.” He looked her in the eye fearlessly and seemed confident, in her and himself. “I’ll be disappointed. But you’re not going to screw me over or do something dishonest. I already know that about you. Neither am I. You don’t know that about me yet, but it’s true. And who knows, maybe we’d have a great time and it would work. It’s worth a shot.” He smiled then. “People like you and me don’t come along every day. In fact, we’re pretty damn rare. We’re both honest, honorable people. And maybe we’d be happy. If nothing else, we can go to dinner and ball games and have some fun. You need some fun in your life, Fiona. You can’t work all the time, and neither can I. And I’m a workaholic too. I’m not going to bitch at you about your job. I’m willing to take whatever time you have left over, or work when you do. There are plenty of weekends when I have deadlines and can’t go out, and eat three meals a day at my desk. You don’t have to make any big commitment to me. Just leave the door open, and see where it goes.” He was very convincing.

  She opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again. She looked at him for a long time, and her hand was still in his. She hadn’t pulled it away, which he considered a good sign. And she was surprised by everything he had said. It had never even occurred to her that he’d want to date her, or be involved with her. At first, she thought he was using her as a source for information, and then she thought he just liked her as a pal, like another guy. She had no concept of herself as a woman anymore, nor any idea how beautiful he thought she was. And he didn’t give a damn that she was four years older, she didn’t look it. In fact, she looked ten years younger than he did. And age seemed irrelevant to him. He liked everything about her. He felt her squeeze his hand gently before she finally spoke.

  “Yes,” she said so softly he almost didn’t hear it, but he saw her lips move.

  “Yes? As in yes, you’ll go out with me?” He looked as shocked as she had when he told her he wanted to date her.

  “Yes.” Her voice was stronger this time, and she laughed. “I think you’re crazy and I don’t know why you want to date me. My
life is nuts. I work crazy hours, and almost all the time. And I need to spend time with my kids when they can see me. But if you can put up with everything that comes with it, then yes, maybe you’re right, and you have to leave the door open in life, and it’s worth a shot, as you put it. But one thing I want us to agree on.” He was waiting for her to come up with some terrible condition that would screw the deal. He knew just how tough she was in business, and wondered if she was in her personal life too, although she didn’t look it. No one who didn’t know her would have guessed she was the CEO of a major corporation. She wasn’t tough as a person, she was gentle and feminine and kind, which was part of what he loved about her. She was no ballbuster. He waited to hear the deal breaker for her. “I don’t ever want you to use me as a source. I’m not going to leak anything to you, Logan. Don’t ever ask me to, or try to pump me for information, or use me.” He could see that she meant it, and he wouldn’t have done that anyway. He knew it would have blown everything to smithereens and he didn’t want that to happen, now or later. Especially later, if things were going well. He wouldn’t jeopardize that for anything in the world.

  “Of course not,” he said, surprised she even felt she needed to say it. “You have my word.” He stuck his right hand across the table. He was holding hers in his left. And she reached up and shook his. “I promise.” And she could see that he was being honest with her, and she trusted him to keep his word.

  “Then we have a deal,” she said, smiling at him, and she looked carefree and young, and suddenly laughed at him. “But I still want you to meet my sister. You’re going to love her. You really missed a great opportunity with her.” She looked like a kid when she giggled.

  “I’ll just have to live with the deal I just made,” he said, smiling back, and meaning her. “I think on the whole I did okay.” Their dinner arrived and they started talking animatedly and the evening flew by.

  He drove her to the garage after dinner, and walked her to her car. She invited him to come to the house in Portola Valley the next day to hang out at the pool. It sounded good to him, and just before he left her, he kissed her on the cheek and then ever so gently on the lips. He didn’t want to scare her, or rush her, and he had a feeling it had been a long time since she had been with a man, and he was right. And they had time.

  “See you tomorrow,” he said, smiling, as she got in her car.

  “I had a wonderful time,” she said, thanking him, and then with a wave she drove away and he got back in his car, looking pleased. It had gone better than he’d ever dreamed. It had been a very, very good day.

  Chapter 21

  On Sunday morning Fiona slept in later than usual, and was drinking a cup of coffee and reading the Sunday New York Times, when Alyssa walked into the kitchen, looking upset. She had been on the phone with John most of the night. She slipped into a chair at the kitchen table and looked at her mother with wide eyes. Fiona could tell that something was up. She wondered if she and John had had a fight.

  “Everything okay?” Fiona asked her with a frown. “Do you want breakfast? Good morning, by the way.” She leaned over and kissed her daughter, who looked as though she had been crying. “Something happen with you and John?” It was the only explanation she could think of for the look on Alyssa’s face, and she wondered if the canceled weekend was for some other reason than that his mother was sick.

  “No, it’s not okay. It’s John, but not what you think. We’re fine. It’s his parents, Mom.” She looked at her mother and made her promise not to tell a soul.

  “Who am I going to tell, for heaven’s sake? Of course I won’t tell. What’s wrong?” After the sexual harassment incident, she wondered if Marshall was in some kind of trouble again.

  “His parents are getting a divorce,” she cut to the chase. “His dad came up to Tahoe on Friday and told his mom he’s divorcing her, and John says she’s falling apart. But it gets worse. He told her he’s had a girlfriend in L.A. for eight years. She’s a lot younger than his mom, I don’t know, twenty-five or thirty or something. But he’s been with her all this time, and that’s why he goes to L.A. every week, to be with her, and I guess he has to work there too. But they even have a house together in Malibu. And Mom, you won’t believe this, they have two little girls together, twins! Can you believe that? He wanted to show John and Lindsay pictures of them, because they’re their sisters. Lindsay had a fit. John was on the phone with me all night. I didn’t even know what to say to him. Anyway, his dad is filing for divorce, and he’s going to marry the girlfriend with the twins.”

  “Holy shit,” Fiona said with a look of astonishment. She had heard stories like it before. People had second hidden families, and mistresses, but this was very close to home, and Marshall had appeared to be such a model husband and father. You just never knew what went on in people’s lives. She felt sorry for John and the other children, and especially for his mother. So the poster boy CEO wasn’t such a good guy after all. Logan’s instincts about him had been right. And he probably was guilty of the affair in the harassment suit too.

  Above all, Fiona felt sorry for his wife. She had stuck by him through the threatened harassment suit. And maybe there were others, who knew. Marshall wasn’t nearly as respectable as he seemed, far from it. Fiona wondered why he had decided to marry the younger woman now, after so many years. Fiona felt sorry for them all, except the mistress with the twins. She should have known better than to get involved with a married man and have babies with him. Fiona assumed she was some gold digger who was after what she could get and had hung on long enough to win the jackpot, or maybe blackmailed Marshall into it. But she surely wasn’t a decent girl, sleeping with a married man, and breaking up his family for her own. Fiona did not approve, and all her sympathies were with Liz and her children, and her heart went out to John.

  “He says that was always his worst fear,” Alyssa told her, “that his parents would get divorced. Especially after that woman accused his father of sexual harassment and said she had an affair with him. Maybe she really did, and he paid her off to lie about it.” Anything seemed possible now. Marshall had lost all credibility with his family and those who knew him, once they heard the story of his mistress with the twins. “John says his mom’s been a nervous wreck ever since that woman came forward and accused him of having an affair with her. John says his mom believed his dad, but she was upset anyway. I guess it scared her. And now John says the whole family is in an uproar. His older brother says he’ll never speak to him again. He thinks their dad is a sociopath. And Lindsay hasn’t spoken to him all weekend. John doesn’t know what to think. He’s always respected him so much. He idolized him.” Alyssa spilled out the whole story to her mother’s astonished ears.

  “Mom, what can I do?” Alyssa asked her with a worried look. “John’s so upset. And he says he’s ashamed for his father too. And he’s sure it’ll be all over the press.”

  “It probably will,” Fiona confirmed to her. “These things come out eventually, especially if he’s going to marry her now.” Several public figures had been in similar situations, and the tabloid press always had a heyday with it. “There’s nothing you can do, sweetheart, except be there for John, and comfort him. He didn’t do anything wrong. None of this is his fault.”

  “He loves his father so much, and now he says he’ll never forgive him.”

  “Maybe he won’t. Or he might one day. It’ll all take time.”

  “He said he’ll never meet those girls, or accept them as his sisters.”

  “That’s sad for them too. They’re automatically outcasts because of what their parents did, which isn’t fair to them. All the children are paying the price for the sins of the father. And so is his wife. I can only imagine how John feels.” And it suddenly occurred to her that it supported all of Jillian’s theories about the outrageous sexual behavior of men in power, and that power was an aphrodisiac to them. This was a perfect example of just that.

  Fiona looked at her watch then and r
ealized that Logan was about to arrive any minute, and she still had to shower and dress. She cleared the table and Alyssa helped her. They had been talking for two hours. And Fiona told her she had to dress.

  “Are you going somewhere, Mom?” Alyssa looked surprised. Her mother never went out on Sundays. She stayed home and worked, or spent time with Alyssa or Mark.

  “I’m having a guest,” Fiona said, avoiding her eyes as she folded the newspaper and put it away.

  “Like who?”

  “A friend,” Fiona said vaguely, and Alyssa looked at her with wary eyes.

  “What kind of friend?”

  “The one who took me to the baseball game yesterday.”

  “You mean you’re seeing him again?” Alyssa looked shocked as her mother nodded.

  “It’s not a big deal, I’ve had dinner with him a couple of times, and he’s good company. I was going to introduce him to Aunt Jill, but I guess we had too much fun and she’s been away for too long.” Fiona smiled at her daughter, who still looked concerned. She was not used to her mother dating and wasn’t sure it was a good idea. What if he turned out to be a jerk? Or mean? Fiona had had the same concerns, but she didn’t now. She was almost certain Logan was a good guy, whether they turned out to be compatible or not. Time would tell.

  “Isn’t he an investigative reporter?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “For God’s sake, don’t tell him about John’s dad, Mom.” She looked panicked.

  “Of course not.” He had given her his word the night before, but she wouldn’t have told him a story like that. It would come out soon enough without her adding to it. And out of respect for John, she wouldn’t have told anyone. “I would never do that,” she assured her daughter, who looked relieved. “Why don’t you stay and meet him? You can have lunch with us at the pool. I think you’ll like him.”