by Nora Roberts
gardeners—she wanted a lusher, more tropical look—and with some very cranky caterers. It was … well, one of her most interesting ideas.”
Fascinated, letting the whole picture develop in her mind, Julia rested a hand on her chin. “So, how was the party?”
“A roaring success. Enough rum to float a battleship, native music—and Eve, looking like the island queen in a blue silk sarong.”
“Tell me something, how does one learn how to rent an island?”
“Trial and error. With Eve, you never know what to expect, so you prepare for everything. I’ve taken courses in law, accounting, decorating, real estate, and ballroom dancing— among others.”
“In all those courses, was there ever any that tempted you to go further, pursue another career?”
“No.” There wasn’t a hint of hesitation. “I’d never leave Eve.”
“How did you come to work for her?”
Nina looked down into her wine. Slowly, she circled her finger around the rim of the glass. “I know it may sound melodramatic, but Eve saved my life.”
“Literally?”
“Quite literally.” She moved her shoulders as if she were shrugging off any doubts about going on. “There aren’t many people who know about my background. I prefer to keep it quiet, but I know Eve’s determined to tell the full story. I guess it’s best if I tell you myself.”
“It usually is.”
“My mother was a weak woman, drifted from man to man. We had very little money, lived in rented rooms.” “Your father?”
“He’d left us. I was quite young when she married again. A truck driver who was away as much as he was home. That turned out to be a blessing.” The pain in her voice ran deep. Nina began to clench and unclench her fingers on the stem of the glass, still watching the wine as if it might hold a secret. “Things were a little better financially, and it was all right … for a while … until I wasn’t so young anymore.” With an effort she raised her eyes. “I was thirteen when he raped me.”
“Oh, Nina.” Julia felt that icy pain, the kind a woman feels hearing the mention of rape. “I’m sorry.” Instinctively she reached out to take Nina’s hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“I ran away a lot after that,” Nina continued, apparently finding comfort in the firm grip of Julia’s fingers. “The first couple of times I came back on my own.” She gave a wan smile. “No place to go. Other times, they brought me back.” “Your mother?”
“Didn’t believe me. Didn’t care to believe me. It wouldn’t have suited her to think that her daughter was in competition with her.”
“That’s monstrous.”
“Reality often is. Details aren’t important,” she went on. “I finally ran away for good. Lied about my age, got a job as a cocktail waitress, worked my way up to manager.” She began to speak more quickly, not as if the worst was over, but as if she had to get a running start at the rest. “My previous experience had helped me keep myself focused on the job. No dating, no distractions. Then I made a mistake. I fell in love. I was nearly thirty, and it hit me hard.”
Something glittered in her eyes—tears or old memories— quickly obscured by her lashes as she lifted the glass to her lips. “He was wonderful to me, generous, considerate, gentle. He wanted to get married, but I let my past ruin that for both of us. One night, angry that I wouldn’t give him a commitment, he left my apartment. And he was killed in a car accident.”
She drew her hand from Julia’s. “I fell apart. Tried to commit suicide. That’s when I met Eve. She was researching her role of the suicidal wife in Darkest at Dawn. I’d botched the job, hadn’t swallowed enough pills, and was in the hospital under observation. She talked to me, listened to me. It may have started as an actress’s interest in a character type, but she came back. I’ve often wondered what she saw in me that made her come back. She asked me if I wanted to waste my life on regrets, or if I wanted to make then work for me. I screamed at her, swore at her. She left me her number and told me to call if I decided to make something of myself. Then she walked out, in that go-to-hell way of hers. In the end I called her. She gave me a home, a job, and my life.” Nina drained the rest of the wine. “And that’s why I’ll rent islands for her, or do anything else she asks me to do.”
• • •
Hours later, Julia was wide awake. The story Nina told her crowded her mind. The private Eve Benedict was so much more complex than the public one. How many people would take a stranger’s tragedy and find a way to offer hope? Not just by writing a check. Easy to do when the money was there. Not by making speeches. Words cost nothing. But by opening that most intimate chamber, the heart.
Julia’s ambition for the book began to creep along a new path. It was no longer a story she wanted to tell, but one she needed to tell.
As longer-range plans began to form, she thought of the paper still in her pocket. It concerned her more now after Brandon had responded to her casual question by telling her he’d found the envelope lying on the front stoop. She ran her fingers over the page, then withdrew them before she could give in to the urge to take the paper out and read it again. Better to forget it, she told herself.
The night was growing cool. A breeze fragrant with roses ruffled the leaves. In the distance, the peahen screamed. Even though she recognized the sound, still she shuddered. She had to remind herself that the only danger she faced was becoming too used to luxury.
There was little chance of that, she thought, bending to pick up one of her discarded sandals. Julia didn’t consider herself the kind of woman who could fit comfortably into minks or diamonds. Some were born for it—she tossed the scuffed leather toward the closet—some weren’t.
When she thought of how often she misplaced earrings, or left a jacket crumpled in the trunk of her car, she admitted she was definitely better off with cloth and rhinestones.
Beyond that, she missed her home. The simplicity of it, the basic routine of tidying her own things, shoveling her own walk. Writing about the famous, the glamorous was one thing. Living like them another.
Peeking into Brandon’s room, she took another look. He was sprawled on his stomach, his face smashed into his pillow. His latest building project was neatly arranged in the center of the room. All of his miniature cars were lined up in a well-orchestrated traffic jam on his desk. For Brandon, everything had a place. This room, where the famous and powerful must have slept, was now completely her little boy’s. It smelled of him—crayons and that oddly sweet, somewhat wild aroma of a child’s sweat.
Leaning against the doorjamb, she smiled at him. Julia knew that if she took him to the Ritz or plopped him into a cave, within a day Brandon would have cordoned off his own space and been content. Where, she wondered, did he get that confidence, that ability to make a place of his own?
Not from her, she thought. Not from the man who had conceived the child with her. It was at times like this that she wondered whose blood ran through her to be passed off to her son. She knew nothing about her biological parents, and had never wanted to know—except late at night when she was alone, looking at her son … and wondering.
She left his door open, an old habit she had never been able to break. Even as she walked to her own room, she knew she was too restless for bed or for work. After tugging on a pair of sweats, she wandered downstairs, then outside, into the night.
There was moonlight, long silver tapers of it. And quiet, the exquisite quiet she’d learned to prize after her years in Manhattan. She could hear the air breathing through the trees, the fluid ebb and flow that was the song of insects. Whatever the air quality in L.A., here each breath was like drinking flowers and moondust.
She walked past the table where she had sat that afternoon, verbally jostling with Paul Winthrop. It was odd, she thought now, that they had shared her most extensive personal conversation with a man in too long to remember. Yet she didn’t think they knew each other any better than they had before.
It was her job to find out
more about him—as it pertained to Eve. She was already certain he was the little boy Eve had spoken of to Brandon. The young boy who had liked petits fours. It was difficult for Julia to picture Paul as a child hoping for a treat.
What kind of mother figure had Eve Benedict been? Julia pursed her lips as she considered. That was the angle she needed to explore. Had she been indulgent, careless, devoted, aloof? After all, she had never had a child of her own. How had she reacted to the smattering of stepchildren who had woven in and out of her life? And how did they remember her?
What about her nephew, Drake Morrison? There was a blood tie between them. It would be interesting to talk to him about his aunt, not his client.
It wasn’t until she heard the voices that Julia realized she’d wandered deep into the garden. She immediately recognized Eve’s whiskey tones and just as immediately noticed a faint difference in them. They were softer, gentler, with the richness that enters a woman’s voice when she’s speaking to a lover.
And the other voice was as distinctive as a fingerprint. That deep, gravelly rasp sounded as if the vocal cords had been scraped with sandpaper.
Victor Flannigan—the legendary leading man of the forties and fifties, the dashing and dangerous romantic lead in the sixties, and even into the seventies. Now, though his hair gone white and his face was deeply lined, he still brought sensuality and style to the screen. More, he was considered by many to be one of the finest actors in the world.
He had made a trio of films with Eve, brilliant, fiery films that had provoked a flood of rumors about the fire offscreen. But Victor Flannigan was married to a devout Catholic. Rumors about Eve and him still buzzed from time to time, but neither added the fuel of comment to the flames.
Julia heard the sound of their merged laughter, and knew she was listening to lovers.
Her first thought was to turn quickly and start back to the guest house. Journalist she might be, but she couldn’t intrude on so obviously private a moment. The voices were coming closer. Going on instinct, Julia backed off the path and into the shadows to let them pass.
“Have you ever known me to be ignorant about what I was doing?” Eve asked him. She had her arm through his, her head inclined toward his broad shoulder. From the shadows Julie realized she’d never seen Eve look more beautiful or more happy.
“Yes.” He stopped and took Eve’s face in his hands. He was only a few inches taller than she, but built like a bull, a solid wall of muscle and bulk. His white hair was a mane of silver in the moonlight. “I imagine I’m the only one who could say that and stay alive.”
“Vic, darling Vic.” Eve stared into the face she had known and loved half of her life. Looking at him now, seeing the age, remembering the youth made tears back up in her throat. “Don’t worry about me. I have my reasons for the book. When it’s finished …” She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, needing badly to feel that strong pump of life from his pulse. “You and I will curl up by the fire and read it to each other.”
“Why bring it all back, Eve?”
“Because it’s time. It wasn’t all bad. In fact”—she laughed and pressed her cheek to his —“since I decided to do it, it’s made me think, remember, reevaluate. I’ve realized how much pleasure there is in just living.”
He captured her hands to bring them to his lips. “Nothing in my life has given me more than you. I’ll always wish—”
“No.” Shaking her head, she cut him off. Julia could see the glint of tears in Eve’s eyes. “Don’t wish. We’ve had what we’ve had. I wouldn’t change it.”
“Not even the drunken brawls?”
She laughed. “Not one. In fact, sometimes it pisses me off that you let Betty Ford dry you out. You were the sexiest drunk I’ve ever known.”
“Remember the time I stole Gene Kelly’s car?”
“It was Spencer Tracy’s, God love him.”
“Ah, well, we’re all Irishmen. You and I drove to Vegas and called him.”
“It was more to the point what he called us.” She pressed close, absorbing the scents that were part of him. Tobacco, peppermint, and the piney aftershave he’d used for decades. “Such good times, Victor.”
“That they were.” He pulled away from her, searching her face, finding it fascinating, as always. Was he the only one, he wondered, who knew her weaknesses, those soft spots she hid from a hungry world? “I don’t want you hurt, Eve. What you’re doing will make a lot of people—a lot of spiteful people—unhappy.”
He saw the glitter in her eyes as she smiled. “You were the only one who ever called me a tough old broad and got away with it. Have you forgotten?”
“No.” His voice roughened. “But you’re my tough old broad, Eve.”
“Trust me.”
“You, yes. But this writer is a different story.”
“You’d like her.” She leaned against him, shutting her eyes. “She’s got class and integrity shouting from her pores. She’s the right choice, Vic. Strong enough to finish what she starts, proud enough to do a good job of it. I believe I will like seeing my life through her eyes.”
He ran his hand up and down her back and felt the embers start to glow. With her, desire had never aged or paled. “I know better than to try to talk you out of anything once you’ve made up your mind. Christ knows I gave it my best shot before you married Rory Winthrop.”
Her laugh was soft, seductive, as were the fingers she trailed over the back of his neck. “And you’re still jealous that I tried to tell myself I could love him the way I love you.”
He felt the pang, but it was only part jealousy. “I had no right to hold you back, Eve. Then or now.”
“You never held me back.” She gripped what she’d always wanted and could never completely have. “That’s why no one’s ever mattered but you.”
His mouth took hers as it had thousands of times, with a lightness and a passion and a quiet despair. “God, I love you, Eve.” He laughed when he felt himself harden like iron. “Even ten years ago I’d have had you on your back here and now. These days I need a bed.”
“Then come to mine.” Hand in hand they hurried off together.
Julia stayed in the shadows for a long time. It wasn’t embarrassment she felt, nor was it the tingle of learning a secret. There were tears on her cheeks, the kind that fell when she listened to a particularly beautiful piece of music, or watched a perfect sunset.
That had been love. Enduring, fulfilling, generous. And she realized what she felt beyond the beauty was envy. There was no one to walk in a moonlit garden with her. No one to make her voice take on that musky edge. No one.
Alone, she walked back to the house to spend a restless night in an empty bed.
The corner booth at Denny’s was a far cry from a power breakfast spot, but at least Drake was sure he wouldn’t run into anyone he knew. Anyone who mattered. Over his second cup of coffee he ordered a short stack with ham and eggs on the side. He always ate when he was nervous. Delrickio was late.
Drake laced his cup of coffee with three packs of sugar and checked his Rolex for the third time in five minutes. He tried not to sweat.
If he had dared to risk leaving the table, he would have run into the men’s room to check his hair. He passed a careful hand over it to be sure every strand was in place. His fingers walked over the knot of his tie, finding the silk firmly in place. He brushed fussily at the sleeves of the Uomo jacket. His hammered-gold cuff links winked against the crisp ivory linen of his monogrammed shirt.
Image was everything. For the meeting with Delrickio he needed to appear cool, confident, collected. Inside, he was a little boy with jelly knees being led out to the woodshed.
As tough as those beatings had been, they were nothing compared to what would happen to him if he didn’t pull off this meeting. At least when his mother had been finished with him, he’d still been alive.
His mother’s credo had been spare the rod, spoil the child, and she had wielded that rod while religious fervor glaze
d her eyes.
Delrickio’s credo ran more along the lines of business is business, and he would slice off small vital parts of Drake’s body with the same casual skill as a man paring his nails.
Drake was checking his watch for the fourth time when Delrickio arrived. “You drink too much coffee.” He smiled as he took his seat. “It’s bad for your health.”
Michael Delrickio was nearing sixty and took his cholesterol count as seriously as he took the business he had inherited from his father. As a result, he was both rich and robust. His olive skin was pampered by weekly facials and contrasted dramatically with steel-gray hair and a lush mustache. His hands were smooth, with the long, tapering fingers of a violinist. The only jewelry he wore was a gold wedding band. He had a thin, aesthetic face only marginally lined, and deep, rich brown eyes that could smile indulgently at his grandchildren, weep over a soaring aria, or show no expression at all when he was ordering a hit.
Business rarely tapped Delrickio’s emotions.
He was fond of Drake, in an avuncular fashion, though he considered Drake a fool. It was that fondness that had caused Delrickio to meet with him personally rather than send someone less fastidious to rearrange Drake’s pretty face.
Delrickio waved for a waitress. The restaurant was crowded, noisy with whiny children and the clatter of cutlery, but he got prompt service. Power covered him as neatly as his Italian suit.
“Grapefruit juice,” he said in his faintly Bostonian accent. “A bowl of melon balls, very cold, and whole wheat toast, dry. So,” he began when the waitress walked away. “You are well?”
“Yes.” Drake felt his armpits dampen. “And you?”
“Healthy as a horse.” Delrickio leaned back and patted his flat belly. “My Maria still makes the best linguini in the state, but I cut down on my portions, eat only a salad for lunch and go to the gym three times a week. My cholesterol’s a hundred seventy.”