Man Trouble

by Melanie Craft

  “You're working too hard,” she said. “Can't you take a break?”

  “Nope,” he said. “Not yet. Later, maybe.”

  “What's going on? More business problems?”

  “The same business problems. And now I have the added pleasure of doing two or three interviews a day.”

  “Hey,” Tom said. “No whining. You hired me, chief. Keep on going, and one of these days you'll learn to love it.”

  It was a topic that Molly had wondered about for a long time. “Why did you spend such a long time refusing to give interviews?” she asked Jake. “Carter told me that you hate the press. Is that it?”

  “No,” he said. “That's not the reason.”

  “Then why?”

  “I don't know. I didn't want to.”

  “My friend is being too modest,” Tom said. “He figured out his strategy years ago. I call it ‘present, but unavailable.’ He's always near the spotlight, but he never gets overexposed. And he never looks desperate for attention, which is a killer. It wouldn't work for everybody, but it works for him.”

  Molly looked curiously at Jake, and saw that he was shaking his head. “That's not the reason, either,” he said.

  Tom looked surprised. “Huh? So, then…?”

  Jake pushed back his chair. “The scars of others should teach us caution,” he said, and stood up. “Excuse me. I have a phone call to make.”

  He walked away, leaving them staring after him, startled.

  “What was that about?” Tom asked finally. “Who was he quoting, Yoda?”

  “I'm not sure,” Molly said. “But I think he was answering our question.”

  “Oh, yeah? Then I think we'd better cool it with the interviews until he catches up on his sleep. If he starts throwing out random weird shit like that on CNN, I'm going to quit and let that woman take over.”

  CHAPTER 26

  On Sunday, after Molly had gone down to the resort to see her friends, Cora mentioned to Jake how much she had been enjoying her company at the villa.

  “She's a wonderful houseguest,” Cora said. “She's polite, she cleans up after herself, she chats with me at breakfast, and in the afternoon she sits there for hours, tapping on her computer. My goodness, I remember Skye, and all of her demands—special low-carbohydrate meals from the chef, her favorite brand of bottled water flown in by helicopter because she doesn't like the taste of Evian, the personal hairstylist, those dry-clean-only bikinis…she nearly wore out my staff. Amanda wasn't much better, to be honest. Compared to them, it's almost as if Molly isn't even here”

  Jake didn't agree. Molly was very definitely there, in his opinion. He had a constant peripheral awareness of her whenever they were in the same room.

  “I would have expected some emotional drama, at least,” Cora continued. “The poor girl's whole life has been turned upside down, and it must be terribly stressful. I still don't understand why she agreed to do all of this with no more compensation than the possibility of a piddly little island museum. It's so odd.”

  Why, indeed, Jake thought. That was the billion-dollar question. He and Molly had not discussed the issue of her ex-professorship since the previous weekend in New York, but as far as he knew, she still believed that he was the saboteur of her lifelong dream of scholarly bliss.

  Cora was stunned when Jake filled her in on the behind-the-scenes events of that night. “Good heavens,” she said. “Do you mean to tell me that she blames you for the loss of her job?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “And you seriously think that she's considering exposing the fake engagement as her revenge? It would explain her motivation for helping us, if you could call it that…”

  “I don't know,” Jake said. “She had a chance to do it last weekend. But she didn't.”

  Cora frowned. “How Machiavellian this all sounds! I can't imagine Molly doing something so malicious. She doesn't seem like that sort of person.”

  “Let's hope she isn't,” Jake said. “Because hoping is about the only thing we can legally do. I've been looking into it, and we're more vulnerable than you want to know.”

  “What about the confidentiality agreement?”

  “It's only a deterrent, and not a very effective one if she doesn't care what it costs her to destroy me. If she breaks the agreement, we can take her to court to prevent her from making any profit from it. And we could probably recover some damages, but obviously, money isn't the issue. The real damage would already be done. We'd have a snowball's chance in hell of stopping the story if Molly decided to tell it.”

  “Oh, dear,” Cora said. “I'm rethinking my support for putting her on television. Is there any way that we can keep her away from the press until we have a better idea of her intentions?”

  “Not really. She's an adult woman, and a celebrity in her own right. We can't hold her prisoner here, unfortunately.”

  “She doesn't seem very eager to leave. Or to seek out publicity. That's a good sign, isn't it? You saw her on Friday when Elaine brought up the idea of putting her on television. She looked reluctant, which hardly suggests that she wants a venue to expose you.”

  “Maybe. We'll see.”

  Cora sighed. “Yes, I suppose we will. In the meantime, is there any way to find out who did leak the information about Sandra? That would solve the problem.”

  Jake nodded. “Believe me, I'm looking into that, too.”

  Molly found it very strange to be sitting in Cottage Five again. The weather was as tropically bright as ever, the cottage was the same, and Carter and Elaine were the same. It was almost as if it were still December, and the recent events at Belden had been some kind of terrible dream. She almost expected to look down and find herself wearing pink platform sandals.

  “What did you do with the Sandra gear?” she asked Elaine. Carter was out on the deck with his laptop and his microcassette recorder, transcribing the first of the tapes of his interview with Jake.

  “Oh, it's all in a box at home,” Elaine said. “I suppose I should give it to Goodwill. Carter took the wig because he thought he could sell it on eBay, but his cat developed some sort of romantic attachment to it, and that was the end of that. You know how he feels about his cat.”

  Carter's cat was burly and striped, and had already lost half of one tufted ear by the time that Carter adopted him from the local animal shelter. He didn't like Molly, but it wasn't personal. He didn't like anyone, including Carter.

  “It's just as well,” Elaine remarked. “Anyone willing to buy a used wig from someone like Carter should be protected from themselves.”

  Elaine was in a cheerful mood after one of her many sources of information had forwarded the news that Ingrid Anderson would be returning to Gold Bay at the end of the week. She would be there for three days, doing a swimsuit photo shoot for French Vogue, and Elaine knew a perfect opportunity when she saw one.

  “I've already called Michael,” she told Molly. “He's flying in on Thursday morning, and then we'll put an end to this One True Path to Joy foolishness.”

  “What about Rama Guru?” Molly asked.

  Elaine smiled. “He won't be here. He never goes to work with her. By the time he hears that she's gone back to her husband, it'll be too late. That freeloading karma quack is going to have to find himself a new supermodel, because this one is mine.”

  “But what if Ingrid doesn't want to be reunited with Michael?” Molly asked. It seemed to her that Elaine, of all people, should be considering this as a serious possibility.

  “Nonsense,” Elaine said briskly. “The girl is confused, that's all. I've arranged everything. A romantic candlelight dinner in a secluded spot, with roses, poetry, a violinist, and a little something from Tiffany's. Michael has very clear instructions about how to handle this. It can't possibly fail.”

  Molly wasn't so sure, but she refrained from commenting.

  Elaine leaned back against the sofa. “Have you been working on your book?” she asked.

  “Not for the pa
st few days,” Molly said. She had found it extremely difficult to concentrate since Jake arrived. And, as if one disturbing man wasn't enough of a distraction, her father had called again that morning and left another message. She had been trying to ignore all thoughts of home, but she couldn't put them out of her mind entirely, and the Belden catastrophe lurked menacingly around the edges of her consciousness. She knew that she couldn't delay the confrontation much longer.

  “I'm sure that it's busy at the villa,” Elaine said. She casually inspected the tip of one perfectly manicured nail. “I suppose that Mr. Amadeo is still hanging around?”

  “No, he finally went home,” Molly said. Tom had left that morning, after a private meeting with Jake.

  “Oh,” Elaine said. She sounded surprised and slightly miffed, which made no sense to Molly. She would have thought that Elaine would be glad to have Tom out of the way.

  “He'll be back on Thursday,” she said.

  “Will he?” Elaine said coolly. “Hmm. He'll probably be on the same flight as Michael then. I doubt I'll have much time to spend advising him next weekend. I do have other commitments you know.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Jake had planned to fly back to Miami after dinner on Sunday night, but he made the mistake of sitting down at his desk to read through some paperwork, and by the time he looked up again, it was past eleven P.M. His room was dark but for the light of the desk lamp and computer screen, and the house was silent.

  His jet was standing by at the Antigua airport, and if he left now, the Gold Bay helicopter would get him there before midnight, when the airport closed. He would be back home in Palm Beach by three A.M., and his first Monday meeting wasn't until ten. It wouldn't be a perfect night of sleep, but it would suffice, if he hurried.

  His eyes felt hot and scratchy, and he reached up to rub them. He didn't feel like hurrying. He also didn't feel like getting into a helicopter, then a plane, then a car before he finally made it to bed. Staying at the villa was much more appealing, and if he left early the next morning, and went straight to work from the airport, he could easily make his meeting. It wasn't a difficult decision. He made a quick phone call to let the pilots know that the plan had changed, and then stood up, stretching, and realized that he was hungry.

  The kitchen was on the bottom floor of the villa, a significant hike from his room. The hallway was dark, but as Jake approached the main staircase, he saw light coming from Molly's room, down the hall. Her door was ajar, and as he paused at the top of the stairs, he could hear the faint sound of her voice. He couldn't make out what she was saying, but her tone was different, higher, as if she were upset.

  It sounded as if she were on the phone, but with whom? And why did she sound so unhappy?

  He hesitated for a moment, then moved cautiously down the hall toward her door, listening as her words grew more audible with each step.

  “…sorry that you had to go through all of that,” she was saying. “I never wanted you to feel humiliated in front of your colleagues. I know how much your reputation means to you, but I really don't think that my actions reflect on your—”

  Another moment of silence. “It doesn't matter. It's too late, anyway. I made the choice to write the book, and they made the choice to fire me.”

  She paused, listening, and Jake heard her take a sharp breath. “I don't agree,” she said in a shaky voice. “I worked very hard on Pirate Gold, and it's not fair to call it trash. The history was accurate, and a lot of people liked it. I think that the next one will…Yes, I…I am writing another one. What? No, I won't be using my real name.”

  Jake leaned against the wall, shocked by what he was hearing. Molly sounded like a stranger; someone entirely different from the confident and funny woman that he knew. It was clear that he should leave and pretend that he had never heard any of this disturbingly raw conversation, but he couldn't make himself move. He found that he was angry. Whoever Molly was speaking to seemed to think that they had the right to denigrate her, and he couldn't imagine why she didn't just tell the person to go to hell. She sounded barely able to stand up for herself, and he hated the unfamiliar submissiveness of her tone.

  “But I do share your values,” she was saying pleadingly. “I work hard, and I care about doing my best, and I try to be a good person. I know that this isn't the life that you wanted for me, but it's the life I have now, and I'm…proud of it. I want you to be proud of me, too.”

  She listened. “I see,” she said at last. Her voice was low and brittle. “Well, give it some time, and maybe you'll feel differently later.”

  More silence, and then, “I can't talk about Jake. Yes, I understand that it was a shock for you, and you don't know what to tell people, but I'm not going to discuss it. Well, you've read the papers, haven't you? That's all there is to it…what? What? No, of course I'm not pregnant!”

  Jake ducked his head, suppressing a snort of laughter.

  The caller seemed to have said something that pushed Molly over the edge, because her voice sharpened suddenly, and she said in a breathless rush, “Well, if Jake is a shallow, publicity-seeking playboy, and I'm an embarrassment to you and Belden, then we must be perfect for each other! I'll send you photos from the wedding.”

  She slammed down the phone, and Jake exhaled silently, relieved by the restoration of the familiar Molly. He began to sneak away, taking care not to make the wooden floor creak, but he hadn't gone more than a few cautious steps before he heard a new sound that stopped him in his tracks.

  It was a choking noise interspersed with moist sniffles, and it was unmistakable. Molly was crying. Her sobs were muffled, as if she were holding something up to her face to stifle the noise, but her gasps were coming faster, and they sounded increasingly ragged. Jake froze, deeply alarmed, and turned to stare at the mostly closed door, wondering what to do. In his experience with weeping females, tears were usually a tactic, but in this case they were private and not directed at him. He remembered his father's funeral—the only time he had ever seen his mother cry. After a week of supernatural calm, she had suddenly broken down and begun to sob, making rough, primal sounds of grief that had terrified him.

  Molly's tears were more controlled, but in them he heard an echo of that same sorrow. She was crying as if she had lost someone or something that she thought she couldn't do without. It was unbearable to Jake, and without considering how he would explain himself, he stepped forward and knocked on her door.

  All sound inside the room stopped abruptly, as if someone had flicked a switch. There was a rustling noise, and the sound of footsteps pattering across the floor, and finally Molly's voice said tremulously, “Who is it?”

  Jake pushed on the door, which swung open. Molly was now on the far side of the room, standing in front of the open window. She was wearing a thin white pajama top that fell to the middle of her thighs, and her legs were bare beneath it. The only sound in the room was the soft crash of waves against the cliffs below the open window.

  “Are you all right?” Jake asked. It was a stupid question, because she obviously wasn't, but it was the best he could do on short notice.

  She sniffed slightly and pressed her nose against her raised hand. Looking up again, she cleared her throat. “What? Yes, of course. I'm fine, why do you ask? I was just reading. I was about to go to bed. It's getting late. What are you doing here? I thought you left hours ago.”

  Jake blinked, taken aback by the sudden torrent of words. “I decided to stay the night,” he said. He wondered if he should back off and leave her alone. It seemed boorish to confront her when she clearly wanted to hide the fact that she had been crying. But he didn't go. The disturbing sound of her sobs still lingered in his ears.

  “Who was that on the phone?” he asked.

  She recoiled. “What? When?”

  “Just now. You sounded very unhappy.”

  “You were listening to my conversation?”

  “I was walking by your door, and I overheard a few words.” It wasn'
t strictly true, but it wasn't exactly a lie, either. He had overheard a few words…a few hundred.

  “Why were you walking by my door?” Molly asked suspiciously. “There's nothing at this end of the hall but guest rooms. And I'm the only guest here now.”

  “Right,” Jake said. “I was…coming to talk to you. I wanted to know if you needed anything from Miami. I'm leaving early tomorrow morning, but I'll be back on Friday, and if there's anything you want me to bring you…”

  Molly gave him a strange look. “Thanks,” she said. “A chocolate bar and some clean socks. It's tough to be out here in the wilderness without any of the basic comforts.”

  “Chocolate with almonds or without?”

  She ignored the question. “It's almost midnight. If you wanted to offer courier services, you could have called me tomorrow. You do have the phone number for this house, don't you?”

  “Oh, for God's sake,” Jake said impatiently. It was too late, and he was too tired to play verbal fencing games with her. “Fine, I listened to your conversation. You were talking to your father?” From the content of the call, and from what Jake remembered of the pompous Stanford Shaw from the White House luncheon, he seemed like the most likely candidate. And it was only ten P.M. in Wisconsin.

  Molly didn't answer. She folded her arms against her chest and turned her head to stare through the window. The moonlight glazed her profile, and Jake saw a damp shine on her cheek.

  “You were crying,” he said.

  “I was not.”

  “Right,” he said dryly. “My mistake. So if I leave you alone, are you going to start not crying again?”

  Apparently, she wasn't even going to wait that long. She sniffed and reached up to swipe at her eyes. “Go away,” she said miserably.

  For some reason that Jake didn't understand, Molly's shrewish temper didn't bother him at all, but the sight of her with a tear-tracked face and her body slumping in defeat made him want to shake her until her fighting spirit reasserted itself.