Man Trouble

by Melanie Craft

  Jake had finally fallen asleep at two A.M., but it was a restless sleep, and he was awakened by even the slightest noise as he subconsciously listened for the sound of the phone. But Molly didn't call, and he woke early, with a splitting headache.

  As the day passed, and they learned that Molly would indeed be appearing on the show, it became obvious that everything she had said had been a lie. Her intention had clearly been to escape from the apartment after Jake had discovered her betrayal. She had been in a tight spot when he had cornered her in the bathroom, and she would have said anything, including confessing love for him, to get out safely.

  By six P.M., Jake and Tom had finally conceded defeat. Tom had begun working out an aggressive plan for damage control that involved discrediting Molly in every possible way. He intended to cast a shadow on her morals, her personal life, her past relationships, even her sanity. Jake was simply too numb to think about it. He sat, watching the screen, feeling like a condemned man.

  It should have been a day of celebration. That afternoon, in a moment of stunning irony, Jake had gotten a call from Oliver Arias, who reported that all of the recent publicity had caused Berenger room reservations to surge. Bookings were up twenty percent, a stunning increase for a still-shaky market. The company would be having an outstanding fiscal quarter that significantly exceeded the forecasts. When Jake delivered the earnings results in two weeks, it was almost a certainty that the stock price would jump to a point where they were no longer vulnerable to Atlas's hostile offer.

  Operation Family Man had succeeded.

  Oliver had also wanted to propose a plan by the marketing department to develop a Pirate Gold weekend theme package at the Miami and Key West Berenger hotels, but Jake had not been in the mood for that discussion.

  The opening music stopped. Tom paused in his pacing and moved to stand behind Jake like a sentry, his hands gripping the back of the couch. “O-kay,” he muttered. “Let's get this over with.”

  The camera cut to a close-up of the anchorman. “Welcome to Inside Edge,” the man said, gazing levelly at the camera. “I'm Drake Daniels. Tonight: a bizarre conspiracy revealed. In this era of corporate greed and wrongdoing, the public demands the answer to one overwhelming question. How far would an embattled CEO go to secure his own success? Would he lie to his employees? To the press? To the American people? The answer…may shock you.”

  Clips began to roll of Jake and Molly together at the Berenger Grand opening, along with a voiceover describing the surprise engagement of the celebrity billionaire to the professor-turned-novelist.

  “…years as a confirmed bachelor, the playboy mogul has been associated with the most glamorous and desirable women in the world…”

  The inevitable medley followed, photos and film from the past ten years, of Jake with a succession of beautiful women, posing on a succession of red carpets. The clips went on and on as Jake watched silently, surprised by how few of those glittering dates he actually remembered. It was like watching pictures of a stranger who looked just like him, someone who had been having much more fun than he recalled having.

  “Wow,” Tom said suddenly. “Who's that?”

  “Anjalika Devi,” Jake said. “Miss India 1993.” He had liked Anjalika. They had been introduced by a mutual friend and had dated for a few months, but there had never been real chemistry between them. She was married now, to a British surgeon, and they had two sons.

  “…rumors of an engagement to actress Skye Elliot were crushed when the couple parted on bad terms in October, a result, says the Academy Award-winning actress, of Jake's unwillingness to give up life in the fast lane.”

  The pleasant face of a plump, middle-aged woman appeared on the screen, with a caption reading Dr. Judith Brightman, author of Casanova Complex: Men Who Can't Commit.

  “These men have a terrible fear of intimacy,” she said earnestly to the camera. “This problem usually has roots in a dysfunctional childhood relationship with the mother.”

  Jake raised his eyebrows at the screen, hoping that Cora was not watching. She would not be amused.

  “…But then, in a shocking twist just three weeks ago, Jake Berenger announced that he planned to marry Dr. Molly Shaw, also known as Sandra St. Claire, the author of the best-selling historical saga, Pirate Gold. There was speculation that the very public engagement was an attempt to improve the troubled tycoon's image…”

  A recently recorded interview with Skye Elliot began to roll. She was in the garden of her Malibu home, with softly filtered sunlight playing on her blond hair. “In my opinion, this engagement is definitely a publicity stunt. I know Jake better than anyone, and I guarantee that he'll never get married. He secretly hates women. Anyway, Molly Shaw isn't his type.”

  And then a clip from an interview that Jake had given just the past week. He had been at Berenger headquarters in Miami and—as orchestrated by Tom—the news crew had filmed Jake and the interviewer walking slowly down a hallway, where the walls displayed huge photos of the various Berenger properties. “I've waited years to find the one woman I loved enough to marry,” Jake was saying to the interviewer. “Molly Shaw is that woman, and now I have only two priorities in my life: my family, and the continued success of Berenger Corporation.”

  Jake turned his head, feeling a stab of pain and anger. More irony, he thought. At the time he'd said that, he had meant every word.

  The camera returned to live feed of Drake Daniels. “Two priorities?” he asked, looking very grim. “Or, perhaps, only one. Here with us in the studio is Molly Shaw. Welcome, Molly. Also joining us is Vanity Fair staff writer Carter McKee.”

  The camera pulled back to reveal Molly and Carter seated in chairs next to Drake Daniels. Molly was wearing a soft blue suit that looked suspiciously like something that Elaine Newberg would have picked out. She had not been wearing it last night when she fled the apartment, and she had taken nothing then but her coat and purse. Carter McKee had apparently brought it to New York as part of the pre-arranged plan.

  He stared at Molly as the camera zoomed in on her face. She looked beautiful, intelligent, and tired. There was a weariness around her eyes and mouth that suggested that she had not slept well. A last-minute attack of conscience? If so, it hadn't been strong enough to keep her off the air.

  “Molly, this is a story that the viewers would like to hear first from you,” said Drake Daniels. “Tell us the truth about what Jake Berenger asked you to do.”

  Molly nodded, and looked into the camera with the practiced ease of someone who had undergone hours of Tom's media training. “This is difficult for me…” she said.

  Nope, Jake thought coldly. You don't know difficult, babe. You just wait.

  “I know that people are questioning Jake's motives for announcing this engagement. I was told to stay quiet and go along with the plan, but I couldn't do that. I think that the public has a right to know the truth.”

  “Go ahead,” said Drake Daniels. Carter McKee was on the edge of his seat, almost twitching with excitement.

  Molly took a deep breath. “I'm here to admit to everyone that the rumors are true. I…I am pregnant.”

  There was a stunned silence, and Jake saw Carter's face freeze. The camera cut to Drake Daniels, who also appeared to be speechless.

  “What the hell?” Tom exclaimed, straightening up from where he had been slumping over the back of the couch. “What?”

  “I don't know,” Jake said, staring at the screen.

  “What is she doing? She's not pregnant!” Tom stopped suddenly, as if something had just occurred to him. “Uh, I mean…is she?”

  “It's not impossible,” Jake said, doing a quick mental calculation. “But even if she is, she wouldn't know it yet.”

  “I'll be damned,” Tom said. “Well. I didn't know that you two were…uh…huh.”

  Molly was speaking earnestly to the camera. “Jake wanted to keep it a secret until after the wedding. He thought that the tabloids might start saying that he was being
forced into this marriage. But the truth leaked out anyway, and sure enough, people started questioning his motives for deciding to settle down. I wanted to come on the show tonight to tell everyone that it was absolutely his decision, and that he asked me to marry him weeks before we had this wonderful news. We've moved up the wedding date so that it will be as soon as possible. We're very happy, and we'd like to thank all of the people who wrote to offer us their congratulations.”

  “Molly,” said Drake Daniels, “surely you know that there have been other, more serious rumors about this engagement. Rumors that accuse Jake of arranging it with the intention of deceiving the public in order to raise the Berenger stock price. Do you have a response to that?”

  Molly looked surprised and slightly hurt. “What a funny idea. When other businessmen decide to get married and start a family, it's considered very normal, isn't it?”

  “Did Jake Berenger ever ask you to participate in a fraudulent engagement for publicity purposes?”

  “Of course not,” Molly said, smiling now, as if she were indulging in a little joke. She waved her ring for the camera, and the studio lights caught the glitter of the diamond. “This certainly isn't fraudulent. It's Cartier!”

  Drake Daniels gave a tight smile that did not reach his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “But—”

  “Oh,” Molly exclaimed. “I have one more announcement. I wanted to tell my readers that my new novel, Caribe, the sequel to Pirate Gold, will be released by Leighton House in July!”

  The camera cut to a full-screen shot of Drake. “Thank you,” he said. He seemed to be clenching his teeth. “The real story on Jake Berenger's engagement…and Molly Shaw's new novel. You heard it first right here, on Inside Edge. Up next: Is your veterinarian overcharging you for pet medication? A hidden-camera exposé.”

  The show went to a commercial break.

  “Unbelievable!” Tom exclaimed. He was pacing again, going back and forth behind the couch. “You can turn it off—it's over. They won't put her back on the air. Why the hell did she just do that? Why would she give them an interview and then screw them like that, on live television?”

  Jake clicked the remote, and the screen went dark. He had a tightness in his throat that made it difficult to speak. “She told me last night that she never gave them an interview,” he said. “She told me that Carter McKee taped her secretly, then edited the tape and used it to help sell the story to Inside Edge. I thought she was lying.”

  “What!” Tom exclaimed, stopping in his tracks. “Are you serious? If that's true…” He stared at Jake for a moment, then started to laugh. “Yeah. Okay. I get it now. I get it. Jake, my friend…Molly didn't betray you, she betrayed Carter McKee. I think I can explain what happened. That girl saved our asses.”

  “Explain,” Jake said. His heart was beating fast.

  “Carter McKee sold the story to the network, and they were going to break it tonight, using him as the inside source. But then—last night, I'm guessing—Molly told him that she would go on the show to tell the story. That sounded great to the producers, who put her on, but then she didn't say a damn thing! You saw her—she stonewalled them. She was good, wasn't she? I taught her that.”

  “Why didn't they play the tape?” Jake asked.

  “Because,” Tom said happily, “they couldn't! There was no interview, so the edited tape was all they had, and taping Molly without her consent was illegal. Even the lowest tabloid show wouldn't be stupid enough to put that on the air.”

  “Carter McKee can still tell the story.”

  “He could,” Tom said. “But who's going to believe him? He's got no proof, and after what Molly did, his credibility is zero. He looks like a liar, or worse—a nutcase. I don't think that Vanity Fair is going to be taking his calls, either. That young man is destined for a career in the tabloids—he'd better start polishing up his application for a job at The Weekly World News.”

  Tom's cell phone rang, and he picked it up. “Amadeo.”

  Jake reached up to scrub his face with his hands. He felt shaken, as if he had just run through a burning house and somehow come out only slightly singed.

  “Aha,” Tom exclaimed accusingly into the phone. “You! I'll bet that you were—what? Of course I saw Molly on the show! Did you know about this? When? Oh, yeah? And you didn't bother to call me, did you! Damn it, woman, you have some nerve. Jake? He's right here. Yeah, I'm at his place—we were both watching. Why?”

  He listened, and Jake saw a surprised look on his face. “I'll be damned,” he said, and listened again. “No kidding. Okay. Hold on.”

  He turned to Jake. “It's that woman,” he said.

  “I guessed,” Jake said dryly.

  “She's downstairs in the lobby. She says that she's been trying to get through to you for twenty minutes, and that your security people are very rude.”

  “She called to tell me that?”

  “No, she wants to come up. She has…well, you'll hear it. Okay for me to go down and get her?”

  “Fine,” Jake said. It didn't surprise him to hear that Elaine Newberg was in New York. He had long since concluded that he was doomed to be dogged by her wherever he went. He hoped that she would finally prove herself useful by telling him where to find Molly. He had a feeling that she would know.

  Unable to sit still any longer, he stood up, walked to the window, and stared out. With the exception of the darkened rectangle of Central Park, the lights of the city stretched as far as he could see. It was enormous, this city, and well able to hide one woman, especially one who did not want to be found. Molly would have left the television studio by now, but to go where? Back to the Grand? To another hotel? The airport? Gold Bay? Belden? He didn't know what she was thinking, where she was going, or when he would see her again. The uncertainty was maddening, and it made him want to pace the floor, swearing like Tom.

  He heard the chime of the elevator, and moments later, Elaine swept into the room. “Jake, dear,” she said briskly. She was wearing a swirling black wool cape trimmed with fur, and clutching a large, shiny crocodile handbag, which she plunked down on the coffee table. She looked at him, and shook her head. “It's been a dreadful two days, I know. I am so terribly sorry about all of this. I had no idea that that shameful brother of mine—half brother, actually—was intelligent enough to cause so much trouble.”

  “What brings you to New York?” Jake asked, feeling persecuted.

  “A desperate cry for my help, of course,” Elaine said. “I should tell you first that I don't make a habit of breaking and entering. But I do make an exception for crisis situations, and I know an interesting young man named Fabrizio who can work magic with a deadbolt lock. We went to Carter's apartment last night and retrieved something that Molly asked me to find and give to you.”

  She reached into her bag and pulled out a small cassette player. “The original tape,” she said dramatically. “Proof that there was never any interview!”

  “I already know that,” Jake said impatiently. “I don't need to hear the tape. Do you know where Molly is?”

  “Yes, but first, this—”

  “I don't care about that. I have to talk to Molly. She said something very important to me last night, and I thought it wasn't true, but now…Look, I need to find her. Where is she?”

  “Jake, dear, if you'd just be patient—”

  “I can't be patient,” Jake exclaimed. “Tell me where she is!”

  Elaine sighed. “She's on her way here, of course. But the traffic is bad, so it will be a few more minutes. In the meantime, if you'll just listen to this tape, I think it will explain everything that you want to know.”

  CHAPTER 35

  After the taxi dropped Molly off in front of the Berenger Grand, she hesitated on the steps, huddling in her coat and staring apprehensively up at the hotel's sandstone and bronze entrance. People streamed past her in both directions without giving her a second glance, and she could hear the blare of taxi horns and the shrill notes of the doormen's
whistles behind her.

  She had not been nearly so nervous in the television studio. She didn't know what to expect—didn't know, even, if she would be allowed upstairs to see Jake. If everything had gone according to plan, Jake would have seen the show, and Elaine would have played him the real tape, and he would know that she had never been a part of Carter's scheme. But Molly had had a lot of recent experience in the many ways that plans could go wrong.

  Elaine had arrived on the early morning flight from Chicago, and at ten A.M. they had proceeded to Madison Avenue to find an outfit for Molly to wear on television. At first, Molly had objected to the idea of spending the morning shopping, on the grounds that it seemed inappropriate to focus on fashion in the middle of a crisis, but Elaine had prevailed.

  “One does not win any points for public slovenliness, however earnest it may be,” she said with a critical look at the black sweater and wrinkled pants that Molly had been wearing since her escape from Jake's apartment the previous evening. “And you won't be doing Jake any favors by appearing on television looking like a bag lady, dear. We'll go to Rosalind, my personal shopper at Bergdorf. She'll have just the thing.”

  Molly had eventually given in, but she had drawn the line at a professional blow-dry and makeup application. She didn't want to look too polished. Elaine might think that she was being silly, but if Jake watched the show, Molly wanted him to see a hint of her real feelings on her face, like a coded message of sincerity, meant only for him.

  Molly had expected to have to explain herself to the security staff before they would call up to Jake's apartment, but—to her surprise—Tom Amadeo was standing by the reception desk, scanning the crowd as if he were looking for someone.

  She approached him warily, and then he saw her. He grinned and strode forward. Her heart jumped.

  “Did you see the show?” she asked him anxiously.

  “Ha!” he exclaimed. “Did I see it! Listen, babe, you were pretty good, but next time you need to remember to turn a little more toward the camera. And no fiddling with your hair—it distracts attention from the message. Nice job with the book plug at the end, though. They didn't want to let you get that in, but it's like I told you, you've got to be assertive with these people.”