“Your boss attacked me!” That’s what she should say. She felt guilty for having been on the verge of premature surrender, lulled into submission by the warmth of Christopher’s muscled arms and the sensuous movements of his hips against her.
There had never been that ecstasy of danger and desire with Bob. Bob had held her, had kissed her. His love for her was never as intense as it was for his job, but Christopher didn’t love her at all. She responded to Christopher’s lust in a way no decent woman should. His power over her was as complete as he suspected. To let him know that, though, was to put a dangerous weapon in his hands. Janet wasn’t about to arm the enemy. Thank God, she had seen the last of him. Tomorrow she would leave this country, these memories, this place—him. She shouldn’t have come.
The area outside, once deserted, was now filled with people arriving for the shift change. Christopher knew they were coming. He knew the work schedule. He knew the only thing possible, in the short time available to him and Janet in that locker room was a few stolen kisses. A man didn’t make love to a woman with a crowd of witnesses due on the scene. Not even Christopher Van Hoon dared that. He had once again subjected her to a sense of danger when there was no danger.
Except there was danger! Janet knew it whether Christopher did or not. She had unwittingly flowed with that erotic moment. Thank God there had been no more time! Had there been, she would have regretted it later. She wasn’t the kind of woman capable of deriving any long-lasting satisfaction from sex with a man who didn’t love her.
She had demanded love from Bob and got it—at least as much as he was capable of giving. She had given him love in return. Their kind of love had nothing to do with the perversion of Christopher’s well-choreographed kisses.
She was intelligent, practical, and rational. She enjoyed her control of her life. She didn’t appreciate the chinks Christopher exposed in her armor. It had been a long and tough struggle to reach her present independence. She wasn’t turning over one small segment of hard-won victory to a man who saw her as one plaything in a long procession of playthings. For too many years she had been dependent on men who pulled out and left her at confusing loose ends. First her father, then Bob. She was no longer leaning on any man. She refused to lean on one as mercurial as Christopher.
And if her nights were painfully lonely, filled only with ethereal fantasy, that was the price she paid. Her dream lover didn’t use and abuse her, tossing her aside when he was done. He was a figment of imagination, but he was a more substantial friend, confidant, and lover than his flesh-and-blood counterpart could ever be.
The taxi arrived. By then Christopher’s car was gone, Christopher with it. She was far better off with him out of her life. He didn’t deserve the few hours she had given him. She had solved no problems by coming—she had made new ones.
Christopher was a product of his environment. She no longer blamed him for what he was. She couldn’t expect more from a man raised in the shadow of a father who set so bad an example. Still, it pained her to see what the boy had become. He had once had such potential for becoming a truly caring human being. It saddened her to think she had somehow failed him.
And Janet Kelley Westover wished Christopher Van Hoon was created in her image of how she thought he should be!
She was daydreaming again. Daydreams were healthy only when kept in perspective. The chances were good that Christopher would have turned out no differently had Janet never left Lionspride. There were constants in every family, passed from father to son. Vincent Van Hoon inherited his greed for profit from his father. Such motivation controlled the Van Hoons. Christopher was too successful for it not to be part of him, too. Company profits soared under his expert guidance, the result of profits from gold and other South African minerals.
South Africa’s control of the free world’s chromium and platinum was almost total. Bob had told her that. Bob had told her about man’s insatiable search for power, and he had died covering such struggle. As long as Christopher controlled vital natural resources, he held the trump cards. It was ludicrous for Janet to try winning a hand. Money wouldn’t cease pouring into Van Hoon coffers just because the hostess of Animal Kingdoms in the Wild got up on her soapbox and bemoaned the extinction of the quagga and the bluebuck, the threatened extinction of the elephant.
The Van Hoons weren’t totally to blame, she admitted. She was mistaken if she tried making them the sole culprits. Oh, Vincent Van Hoon contributed to her father’s early death. That provided sufficient fodder to feed her bitterness. But her father’s death and what led up to it were part of a far bigger picture in which countless Vincents, countless Van Hoon Afrikaner Minerals played a role.
She and Christopher never had a chance.
The cab stopped at her hotel. She paid the driver, and the doorman opened the taxi door. Her legs hardly supported her weight. She hoped a hot bath would help, and maybe some food. She hadn’t eaten all day.
Christopher had offered pâté de fois gras, chicken in aspic, asparagus, caviar, champagne. He wanted her body in return. She wasn’t that desperately hungry!
She went through the revolving door and headed across the lobby to the elevators. There was no need to detour at the front desk. Her room key was in her purse.
He had chosen a chair purposely situated behind a pillar, clandestinely waiting to intercept her. “Are you going to walk by without at least saying hello?” he asked. The familiar sound of his voice stopped her, but she quickly started walking again. “Janet! Please wait!” He was up and after her.
Whatever his invisible hold on her, it was unholy—a connecting web of memories, past and present, good and bad. Did he know that? How could he? Maybe he sensed it as a hunter senses a weakness in its prey. “I’m tired,” she said, but she stopped anyway. She faced him, prepared for his look of repentance. He was a consummate actor. He should be on the stage. He was wasting his talents on her—or was he?
“Sit down for a moment… please,” he said. He dropped to a small couch, patting the empty space beside him.
“‘Will you walk into my parlor?’ said the spider to the fly,” she quoted. She took a chair across from him. It was either sit or fall. She was emotionally drained. He knew that; he was used to taking advantage. “We have nothing to say,” she said wearily. “We said it all. We said more than enough.”
“I’m afraid you’ve been left with less than a good impression of me,” he said. What unmitigated nerve it took for him to be there at all!
“That, I’m afraid, is a gross understatement,” she said, gazing over his head. Looking directly at him was painful. His eyes were too seductive. He was too disarming. Only minutes before he had been stealing kisses.
“I won’t blame myself,” he said. Naturally. What Van Hoon would? It was always someone else’s fault. If he thought he was dropping all the blame at her feet, he was overestimating his powers of persuasion. She was partially responsible—for reasons he would never know. But she refused to let him squeeze out blameless. “The culprit was time,” he argued, naming his scapegoat.
How right he was! Time was the culprit. Sixteen years of time, although Christopher hardly knew that. Unless…
She examined his face for some sign that he knew her real identity.
“You gave me only two days,” he said. She missed his meaning. She was too caught up in her own thoughts. But her confusion was short-lived. He was mentioning mere days, not years.
“What are you babbling about?” she asked angrily. “Gave you only two days for what?”
“I was desperate and running out of time,” he said, so appealing in his role of penitent. “Offering you money was a spur-of-the-moment mistake, a last-ditch effort to save a sinking ship. It was unforgivable, I know.”
“I don’t accept your apology!” she said, standing up. The sooner he was out of her sight the better. She reasoned more clearly when he wasn’t around. He confused her too easily. “Some things are not forgiven at the mumbling of a few ‘I
’m sorry,’” she insisted. “And if that sounds unsportsmanlike to you, then I’m sorry.”
“Come on, Janet. You can see I like you,” he said.
He was a chameleon; potential seducer, diamond merchant, gold baron, boy, man.…
“‘Like’ has never been enough in my book for what you’re suggesting,” she said. He could have said he loved her, a lie or not. She was glad he had been honest enough not to. It was a cheap shot to mouth dishonest sentiments to a vulnerable woman.
“I don’t believe in love at first sight,” he said, standing up. His nearness disturbed her, as always. “I don’t believe in love in two days, either.”
What about love born of one summer, sixteen years before? Did he believe in that, or would he think her a foolish woman, indulging in memories of childhood puppy love? She didn’t ask. She wouldn’t be mocked. “I doubt you believe in love—period!” she accused. “Or, maybe you can love gold, or diamonds, or chromium, or platinum, or a piece of land like Lionspride. But love a person? That’s far beyond you. My life is too short to waste time on an emotional cripple. I have more important things to do—like catch a plane in the morning. And I’m not packed.”
“I do believe in immediate physical attraction,” he said, and she walked away. His hand roughly clamped her arm to stop her. She was furious at his inability to accept that not all women were captivated by the Van Hoon charm—furious because she was one who was, in spite of herself.
“We aren’t at Lionspride now,” she said coldly. She wasn’t cold inside. She was boiling with the mysterious heat always flamed by his touch. “Nor are we at one of the Van Hoon mines. There will be someone in this lobby who doesn’t know the Van Hoon influence or doesn’t give a damn. So if you’ll turn me loose, it will save us both a good deal of unwanted embarrassment.” She gave her arm a tug, surprised and disappointed when he released it. They were attracting attention.
“Give me one more chance,” he said. She was tempted. She’d been tempted before, and look what that got her. “We’ll have supper,” he said. “Here at the hotel—anywhere you want. There’ll be people around, so you won’t have to worry.”
“You must learn when it’s time to give up,” said, speaking her words to herself as well as to him. She had to think of herself—no one else was. There was nothing but heartache in seeing Christopher one more time. She wasn’t careless enough to risk it.
“I won’t accept that!” he said. She marveled at his monumental conceit.
“Even the Van Hoons can’t win all the time,” she said with little satisfaction. She was possibly cutting off her nose to spite her face. She wanted supper with him. She wanted to give him another chance. However, some people never changed, whatever the high hopes for them. Christopher was one of those people. He would benefit from learning there were no rewards for violating basic rules of civilized behavior. The feelings of others merited as much consideration as did his own. “I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it. “Really, I am.”
“I’ll be here at eight o’clock,” he said, refusing to give way, eating his portion of humble pie. And Janet, acting so superior, knew she wasn’t guiltless. She had responded to him, however belatedly. “I’ll wait for you until nine,” he added. He smiled… so guileless when he smiled. It was hard to remember he was the enemy, a dangerous enemy. How close she had come to surrendering to the persuasiveness of his seduction. “An hour is forty-five minutes more than I gave you last time.”
She didn’t crack a smile, proud of her self-control as she gathered her defenses around her. “Save yourself the wait, Mr. Van Hoon,” she said, “by not bothering to show up at all.”
She didn’t remember her walk to the elevator. It was a few moments stolen from time. The ride up to her room was vague. She looked into mirrors of the elevator and hallway and couldn’t place the face staring back at her.
In her room, there were golden roses, rescued from the bathroom sink by the maid and arranged in a crystal vase. The vase sat in the center of the vanity table. Janet saw the flowers, smelled their fragrance, saw her reflection in another mirror and thought of Christopher. She looked tired. The man who had given her those flowers was fresh and alive. A skillful hunter, he thrived on the chase, whereas Janet felt run to ground by their encounter.
A bath didn’t help; the water was too hot. She stayed in too long, hardly pulling herself out of the tub finally. Her resolve twirled down the drain with the water.
She was a fool not to give Christopher another chance. She had come all this way and then had failed to go the final mile. There was a barrier of sixteen years between them, but she wasn’t taking every advantage to break through. She wasn’t as strong as she had thought. But then, Christopher was more dangerous than she’d imagined. She faced losing what little she had salvaged from her childhood. There were no guarantees of reward for further sacrifice—quite the contrary.
The meal she ordered from room service helped, even though the chicken sandwich was dry enough to choke her. Washing it down with a glass of milk, she glanced at the clock—again. She was counting the hours, the minutes, and the seconds until eight o’clock: five hours, ten minutes, forty-five, four, three… seconds. She was an unwilling subject pulled from an audience and given a post-hypnotic suggestion: at eight o’clock, you will be dressed for supper and will go downstairs, where you will enthusiastically greet Christopher.…
She was not going downstairs to meet him. She was not subjecting herself to the temptations of uncaring lust. It was difficult, since her childhood love for him wasn’t dead, not yet. It made her believe in the miracle of his loving her again—if he had ever loved her.
“Do you really love me?” That’s what she had asked him sixteen years before in the grove of blue-gum trees.
“I love you, and someday I’ll marry you,” he had replied with the simple determination of youth. Her lips had burned from his kiss. Oh, the sheer beauty and wonder of that moment! The glory of the sun, piercing high branches to reach them among the cool shadows! It had been like worshipping in a cathedral, wherein sunlight was made more golden by its passage through stained-glass windows. Christopher’s golden hair had shifted in the caressing breeze. She had been jealous of the liberties so freely taken by that wind. Christopher was hers alone. She had loved him as only a romantic girl could. She had taken his answer as a promise. Sixteen years later, she still savored the illusion that that promise might be fulfilled.
She got dressed, picked up the tape spools and walked down the hall to the room Tim and Roger shared. Roger came to the door. He was direct from sunning on his balcony. His skimpy bathing suit was orange, visible through the open front of a short robe. His chest was visible, too. It was hairy. Christopher’s chest wasn’t. At least, it hadn’t been when he was eighteen. What Janet had seen since, glimpses of tanned smoothness beyond Christopher’s unfastened shirt buttons, gave no indication of change.
“Would you check these out, Roger?” she asked, extending the spools to him. Another woman would have been affected by Roger’s remarkable physique. He had been a gymnast in college, not too long ago. His muscle tone was excellent, his chest and stomach well-defined. Janet hadn’t seen Christopher in a swimsuit since their interlude at the pools above Lisbon Falls, but already she knew Roger didn’t stand a chance in comparison. “I want to be sure the tapes weren’t damaged on their run through Mr. Van Hoon’s equipment,” she said.
“Jill told us the clever bastard pulled a fast one,” Roger said, stepping back to let her in.
“Let’s just hope something can be salvaged,” she said, not speaking only of the tapes. She nodded when Roger pantomimed the offer of a drink. He knew her preference, and mixed a rum and Coke. He and Tim had brought a good supply of liquor with them. The Coke and ice were compliments of room service. “There’s the possibility he didn’t erase anything,” she said. The outside of her glass quickly beaded with condensed moisture. The sliding doors to the balcony were open. The temperature was in the eig
hties.
“You think so?” Roger asked, fixing himself a drink, clearly dubious.
“He doesn’t believe we’re much of a threat,” Janet said, and laughed with little amusement. “I daresay, he’s probably right.” She took a large swallow of her drink, suddenly sorry she had asked for it. Visions of turning into a helpless alcoholic in frustrated old age flashed before her. But she was stronger than that. One drink didn’t make her a boozer.
“I thought you two hit it off rather well,” Roger said, eyeing her over the rim of his glass. He, Tim, and Jill had probably spent the morning comparing notes. Men were as gossipy as women; Janet had never believed otherwise. “We tried to call you ear1ier,” he continued. It sounded like a subtle shift in conversation, but it wasn’t. “You were already up and out. Making the most of your last day, were you?”
“Mr. Van Hoon—” she almost said “Christopher,” but she caught herself in time. It was best to keep things formal “—was gracious enough to show me around one of his gold mines.”
“One of them?” Roger asked, impressed. Even now, he didn’t realize how much money and power were tied up in one man. He thought in terms of Rockefeller, Mellon, Getty. He would recognize the name Rothschild, but others were less easily placed in his mental financial hierarchy. Even avid readers of gossip columns, bombarded by Christopher’s name, his picture and accounts of his social exploits, couldn’t fully comprehend the much-used adjective “wealthy” as it applied to Christopher Van Hoon
“He has several mines,” she said, taking another swallow of her drink. She walked to the open doors of the balcony, looking out over the city in which Christopher merely lived—sometimes. When you were as wealthy as he was, you bore no allegiance to any place or any person. His loyalty was to money, power and ways of increasing both. Cities were stopover spots. Women were decorations and momentary diversions. “Several gold mines, several diamond mines, several chromium mines, ad infinitum,” she added bitterly.
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