FALSE PRETENSES

by Catherine Coulter

  “You will tell me, Elizabeth, if he contacts you?”

  “Probably.”

  “Are you ready?”

  She nodded and rose. As she slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder, she saw Catherine Carleton at a far table, across from a man she’d never seen. They stared at each other, and to her shock, Catherine smiled and gave her a small wave.

  Elizabeth felt a frisson of fear. Don’t be a fool, she told herself. She can’t hurt you, not now, not ever again.

  Still, Rod wondered why she walked so stiffly from the restaurant.

  “That’s the dragon lady?” Chad Walters asked, following Elizabeth Carleton with his eyes as she walked gracefully between the tables.

  “Yes,” said Catherine. “That’s the gold-digging little slut who trapped my father and murdered him.”

  “I’d acquit her,” he said. “That lady’s got class. Quite a musician, I hear.”

  “Not from me, you didn’t.”

  “No more sour grapes, Cathy. Finish that salad and let’s go fuck.”

  Catherine’s eyes glittered. “Fine, you bastard, just as long as you realize who you’re fucking.”

  “Honey, the way you scream, I always know. You did trim those fingernails of yours, I trust.”

  “Screw you, Walters. And you can forget that whore stepmother of mine. She’s frigid as the ice in your drink.”

  “A frigid whore,” Chad said in that slow voice of his. “An interesting concept.”

  Catherine sighed. “Odd how I never curse except when I’m around you. Come on, let’s get out of this place. If one of my sainted grandmother’s friends sees me with you, she might try to do me out of my monthly allotment of hard cash. And you wouldn’t like that, now, would you?”

  “No,” Chad said without apparent loss of aplomb, “I certainly wouldn’t, but then again, you get the million from your father’s will soon, don’t you?”

  Catherine wished more than anything at that moment that she could be free of him. But she couldn’t, not yet. “Yes,” she said, “very soon.”

  Elizabeth loved the Windows on the World restaurant high atop the World Trade Center. The night was clear, with nearly a full moon and little smog to mask the stars. And she was with Rowe. She felt the tension of the long afternoon begin to fade. He ordered her a glass of Chablis and a lime and soda for himself. He smiled at her and she began to talk. About Benjamin Hallimer, an ace moneyman, as Rod had introduced him, about Edgar Derby, who was a power in computer systems and communication, of Coy Siverston, a strategist who could work on six different problems or deals at once, so Rod had told her, and Oran Wicks, a detail man. And, of course, Adrian Marsh, a young wunderkind from Harvard who would be both her right and left hand. She paused when their meal arrived, and felt herself tense up again.

  “You must tell me if I’m boring you, Rowe. I’m such a novice at all this, but the gentlemen—no ladies in this group—were very patient with me.”

  “I’m not at all bored, sweetheart. Tell me all about it. After all, what is a lover good for if he’s not also a confidant?”

  Lover. It sat oddly in her mind. She was being silly, for she did sleep with him. A lover. Her first lover.

  “What are you thinking, Elizabeth?”

  She flushed just a bit, and shook her head, concentrating on the beef Wellington.

  Rowe said, “So you’ll take care of old Brad with this power team?”

  “Yes, so Rod assures me. Brad knows nothing about any of it. It’s to be a surprise. In fact, there’ll be an unexpected audit of Brad’s business expenses for the past six months next week. Rod is convinced, as are the rest of the Noble Six, as I call them, that Brad is doing his best to ‘screw the slut.’ That’s why everything’s cloaked in such secrecy.”

  Rowe reached his hand across the table and began toying with her fingers. “I wish you and your Noble Six luck, Elizabeth. It sounds like you’ll have old Brad just where you want him—without his sharp teeth.”

  “I’d prefer to live and let live, but no one trusts Brad. Nor do they trust Michael Carleton, Timothy’s younger brother. He’s the one who truly frightens me. He’s so desperately controlled and driven.”

  “Is there anything I can do, Elizabeth?”

  She clasped his hand. “Just be here for me, and if you have advice, please, I’m all ears.”

  “And beautiful hands as well. I had a new Baldwin delivered today. Will you play for me when we get home?”

  Home, she thought. Another concept that sat oddly in her mind, but then again, it was difficult for her to think of Timothy’s home as hers. Rowe’s condominium occupied the entire tenth floor and it was filled with eighteenth-century French and English antiques. She was almost afraid to touch anything. She was still, deep down, a bourgeoise from the Midwest.

  What would happen? What did she want to happen?

  It was nearly midnight when she began to play. The action on the new Baldwin grand was stiff, so she broke it in with Gershwin, then moved to Chopin. She was wearing one of Rowe’s shirts, a white oxford with a button-down collar. Very conservative. She wasn’t wearing anything else.

  He led her back to the bedroom. She was on the point of sleep when he said against her ear, “My darling, have you mentioned our relationship to Rod Samuels?”

  She shook her head against his shoulder. “No, it’s too private. It’s not part of my . . . well, reality with him.”

  “Good,” he said. “I don’t want to share you with anyone. You’re mine, Elizabeth, all mine.”

  She thought she heard him whisper that he loved her as he stroked his big hand down her back, and she fell asleep filled with a sense of safety and belonging.

  Christian Hunter sat behind his Victorian mahogany desk in his library, a gold pen held between his fingers, a blank sheet of stationery before him. Rowen Chalmers. Something had to be done about him. He stared down at the blank paper, then wadded it up and tossed it into the wastebasket. It hit dead center and he smiled. He’d played basketball in college. He hadn’t lost his touch. He must remember to move the wastebasket a bit farther away, perhaps against the wainscoting so he could bank some of his shots.

  He pushed the button on his private line, then dialed a number he knew very well.

  A gravelly voice answered.

  “Hunter here. Talk to me.”

  The man talked, at great length. When he stopped, Christian said nothing for several moments. He propped his feet up on his desk. “Excellent,” he said finally. “Continue. I’ll call you on Tuesday.”

  He gently set the phone back into its ornate cradle and leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head. When he heard the soft knock at his study door, he frowned, but only for an instant.

  “Christian?”

  “Just a moment, Susan,” he called back.

  She was waiting for him in the bedroom, wearing only the very expensive peach silk negligee he’d bought for her. She was blond—dyed, of course, but that didn’t bother him overly—and she was wearing the tinted green contacts he’d ordered for her.

  She was beautiful, he thought, watching her for a moment. But her breasts were too big. He walked to the stereo and slipped in a CD. The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra filled the silence with the Third Brandenburg Concerto.

  He felt himself growing hard and began to kiss Susan.

  “Can’t we ever listen to something neat? Like the Beatles, Christian?” she said, squirming against him.

  “No, we can’t. You’re only twenty-one, Susan. The Beatles were way before your time.”

  “Backstreet Boys then,” she said, giving him a grin. She felt his fingers press against her. His fingers moved. She climaxed in the allegro third movement.

  5

  Jonathan Harley felt the headache grow, pounding at his left temple, a steady building of pain that made him close his eyes and sit perfectly still. He never had headaches and it disconcerted him. He thought of calling to Mrs. Maxwell to bring him aspirin, th
ought of it until he heard his wife’s voice, shrill, demanding, calling to him.

  Another scene, another screaming match with no winner, not that there ever could be a winner, of course. So much change, he thought, change that brought a wife whom he no longer knew or understood. He had, he realized, stopped caring about Rose three years before, when he’d found out about the Italian gigolo she’d met on a cruise ship. And slept with. And admitted sleeping with to him.

  “Jonathan!”

  His eyes felt red and unfocused. He heard his own voice, blank with the growing pain. “In here, Rose.” A pause, then, “Please bring some aspirin.”

  She didn’t. “What’s the matter?” she asked, coming into his study, her new evening gown swirling about her ankles. The diamonds glittering at her throat made his eyes hurt.

  “I have a terrible headache,” he said.

  She laughed. “A woman’s excuse, darling. But I didn’t come to see if you wanted to go to bed. You aren’t dressed. The Banbridges are expecting us in thirty minutes.”

  “I’m not going,” he said. “I told you last week and last night that I wasn’t going. There will be at least fifty guests. I won’t be missed. Have a good time, Rose.”

  She hated him in that moment, truly hated him. He spoke to her as if she were some sort of boring lackey; he didn’t give a damn about her. She said, her voice sharp, “My parents will be there. In case you’ve forgotten who they are, Jonathan, they are the Pillsons. The Andrew Pillsons. They will expect to see you.”

  “Give them my best.”

  “Bastard.”

  “Please, Rose, my head is coming off. If you want to fight, it will have to wait.”

  “Everything and everyone waits for you, don’t they? You, the famous Jonathan Harley, oh yes, famous now. If it hadn’t been for my father—”

  “Rose, you don’t want to be late.”

  “You are a monster, a selfish, hateful monster. I suppose you’ll leave soon enough after I do. Your headache will disappear like magic, and your little tart will drool over every word you say. Who are you screwing now, darling?”

  “I’m not screwing anyone, Rose.”

  “Of course I wouldn’t expect an honest answer. You will come with me, Jonathan. You must come. You will not humiliate me, not again.”

  “I wasn’t aware that I had ever humiliated you.”

  “So calm, so very controlled, aren’t you? You’ve turned into a robot, no feelings—”

  “I thought I was a monster,” he said, and wished he’d kept his mouth shut. He just wanted to be alone now, with some aspirin, in an empty, silent room.

  “. . . you don’t care about anyone, do you? Nothing except your rotten business, and all your cheap women, of course.”

  “I care about NetFRAME, certainly. If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be wearing diamonds, Rose. You wouldn’t have a maid, a housekeeper, a cook, and a chauffeur. There are no cheap women.” He actually felt his lips curve into a smile. “If I screwed around as much as you think I do, there wouldn’t be any business left. I’d be dead from exhaustion.”

  She felt anger soar through her. It was impossible to score a point on him, he was too articulate, too detached, too manipulative. “So you admit there are some women?”

  “Only one, three years ago, as you well know. My paltry sort of revenge—unworthy, I know.”

  “Will you always throw Pietro up to me?” Her voice caught on a sob, and he waited, praying she wouldn’t go into hysterics. “He wanted me, believed I was beautiful and special.”

  “Rose, I will throw up, but not Pietro. Please, go to your party. Have a good time.”

  She stood very still, and stared at a portrait of their cottage in Nantucket behind him on the wall. The colors were soft, the scene stark. Odd how the artist had caught the different lights. Next to the painting was a photograph of the two of them standing on the beach, the cottage in the background. It had been taken some four years before. Jonathan was wearing faded jeans and a plain white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, sneakers on his feet. She was in shorts and a halter, barefoot, her long blond hair blowing in her face. Both were smiling brightly. So long ago. He still looked the same, she thought, gazing toward him now behind his desk. Black, black hair, olive complexion, and eyes as dark as an moonless night, a bit of nonsense she’d told him once, years before. They’d been a striking couple, Jonathan as tall and as lean now as he’d always been, a runner and an athlete who took care of himself, and she, petite, blond, and very fair-complexioned. She felt suddenly vastly older than that smiling young woman in the photograph. She felt wrinkled inside, and useless.

  She said slowly, looking straight at him, “If you don’t come, Jonathan, I will leave you.”

  “That is the idea. Don’t drive yourself, particularly if you intend to drink.”

  But he knew what she meant, and she knew that he knew. They stared at each other, so far apart now after seven years of marriage. They were strangers, but even the détente was no longer present. They were enemies and strangers. A stranger in a strange land? A stranger from a strange land? He couldn’t remember. She said nothing more, merely turned on her heel and left the study, banging the door behind her.

  He didn’t wince, he made no movement at all. He supposed he should get a divorce. He supposed he knew it had to happen, he’d just avoided thinking about it, even in their worst fights. He’d spent more hours working during the past three years than ever before in his career. It was a coward’s way, he knew. He was a coward, a coward with an appalling headache. He pulled himself to his feet to go find some aspirin.

  It was close to ten o’clock that evening before he felt human enough to return to his study and do some work. Anything to keep himself from thinking about Rose and her threat. Once, she’d been Rosie, his Rosie, soft and sweet. Long ago. He thought of the company, his computer company—NetFrame—that he’d built. Sure, he’d had help from Rose’s father in the beginning, but it was his, all his. He was thirty-five. Thirteen years of his life were in that company. Divorce would rend not just his life but also the company. He had control, clear control, but a settlement would prevent his plans for further expansion, perhaps even draw him perilously close to only a fifty-percent ownership. It was an appalling thought, particularly since one of his good friends, Peter Anchor, told him the rumors he’d heard through a friend of his in New York. Carleton Industries was sniffing around. ACI—Abercrombie-Carleton Industries. That ridiculously diversified conglomerate wanted an innovative and successful computer business that made powerful business computers, to go along with their shoe companies, their steel factories, their foreign hotels, their software companies, their textile companies, their publishing house, God only knew what else. But with a twist. They’d use him to provide an inexpensive substitute to traditional mainframes. They obviously wanted to go head to head with IBM. Well, he did, too, but he wanted to be the one to do it.

  He felt paralyzed. Who the hell was running that sprawling octopus? There’d been nothing out of the board of directors, not a sound. He remembered that the young wife had been acquitted of Timothy Carleton’s murder. The stock fluctuated alarmingly and The Wall Street Journal speculated endlessly, but everyone was keeping quiet. Not that it mattered; the family owned enough shares to put the power where it pleased, the board only an assembly of old men who nodded their agreement.

  It’s just a rumor, nothing more. You’ve been in on enough of those tactics to know it could be just that—a rumor.

  Carleton’s sons? Were they in charge? Or Timothy Carleton’s brother, Michael? No, more than likely it would be Timothy’s own children. What was the older one’s name—Brad, yes, Brad Carleton, a spoiled unethical bastard if ever there was one. And dangerous, very dangerous.

  Jonathan forced himself to calm down. He pulled out a yellow notepad from his top desk drawer and methodically began to write down questions. He’d get the answers he needed by the end of the week. His handwriting was crisp, his lines
straight.

  Man really in charge?

  Weaknesses?

  Jonathan paused. He could write down a hundred more questions that needed answers, but first he had to know who was now running things. It always boiled down to one man and how skilled that one man was in maneuvering; his tactics, his strategy, his resources. But when he began to write his list again, it was issues that would face him in a divorce action. He felt his headache returning with a vengeance. He felt even sicker when he realized that there was no child-support question on his list. His three-month-old son, Alex, had died in his crib. One morning he was dead, no illness, nothing. Nothing to understand. Sudden infant death syndrome they called it. Acceptance was beyond him for a very long time. Rose—then Rosie—hadn’t wanted any more kids, and at the time he couldn’t blame her for that. But now, after three years, it was too late.

  He wouldn’t lose control of his company. He couldn’t. He’d do anything to anyone before he’d let that happen.

  Anything.

  Brad Carleton sat behind his father’s desk and sipped at his coffee in its delicate Wedgwood cup. No one had said a word when he’d moved. And he intended to stay. That bitch wouldn’t get him out, not a chance.

  When his personal secretary, Nan Bridges, rang to tell him two gentlemen were here to see him, he told her to have them wait. Slowly, very slowly, he straightened the papers on his desk, put his feet up, and buzzed Nan.

  He smiled at the two gentlemen who entered his office, and waited a good minute before he rose.

  “Mr. Carleton,” the taller of the two said. He didn’t extend his hand. “I’m Coy Siverston and this is Adrian Marsh. We are here, sir, at the behest of the CEO of ACI, Elizabeth Carleton. We request your controller’s assistance in an immediate audit of your personal business expenses.”

  Brad nodded to the men and said, “I see. Anything else, gentlemen?”

  Coy cleared his throat, and Brad saw the big gold tooth near the front of his mouth. “The Carleton Textile Company, the Brammer-Carleton Lumber Company, and the Morrissey-Carleton Food Company.”