“What?” Mrs. Ogden sounded a bit offended.
“Sorry. Excuse me, please—I just remembered something I have to do.”
She called Annie at Sherwood, and said, “Do me a favor?”
“Anything, Mrs. Welles, you know that.”
“Two favors, then,” Synnamon said firmly. “I’m not your boss any more, so would you please use my first name? And second—I need to call Nicole Fox at her regular job, and I don’t want to ask Carol for the number.”
There was enough of the perfect secretary left in Annie that she didn’t even ask why. “Let me put you on hold,” she said, and a moment later Synnamon was reaching for a pen.
She stared at the number for several minutes before she picked up the phone again.
A bored-sounding secretary answered. “Ms. Fox isn’t in,” she said. “But she’ll probably call later. Can I take a message?”
“No.” Then Synnamon took a deep breath. “Yes— and get this word for word, please. ‘Synnamon Welles called to ask, Would you kindly do something about this situation you’re in?’ ”
The puzzled-sounding secretary repeated it, and Synnamon put the phone down. The tightness in her chest had eased, if only by a fraction. At least, now that she’d done the little she could, she didn’t feel quite so helpless any more.
The dinner hour arrived, and Conner with it. He was almost painfully prompt these days, Synnamon had noted.
Mrs. Ogden had made pot roast. Obviously, Synnamon thought, she’d decided a little down-home atmosphere might help smooth things out. She was dishing their entrees up as they entered the dining room together, in silence.
“You don’t need to stay to serve that,” Synnamon said.
Mrs. Ogden didn’t even glance up. “It’s quite all right. I just love seeing those sour looks you two give each other curdling my gravy.”
Synnamon bit her lip. Obviously her halfhearted excuse this afternoon hadn’t sat well with Mrs. Ogden, and she’d have some fences to mend come tomorrow morning. Then there was the fact that Conner hadn’t even seemed to notice the exchange. Mrs. Ogden’s attitude didn’t bode well, but Conner’s was positively threatening.
If this keeps up, she thought, we’ll all be nuts.
She had to force herself to pick at her dinner, and it wasn’t until after she heard the back door close behind Mrs. Ogden that she made an effort to start a conversation. Then she pushed her untouched Bavarian cream aside and said, “Tough day?”
She thought for a moment that Conner wasn’t going to answer.
“You might say so.” He picked up his coffee. “Nick called this afternoon and dropped a bombshell on me.” A bombshell. So her message to Nicole had gotten through and jolted her—finally—into action.
Now that the moment she had been waiting for had arrived, all Synnamon wanted to do was run from it. Suddenly her throat was so tight the air felt too thick to breathe. The soft scent of half a dozen beeswax candles in the table centerpiece seemed as harsh and overpowering as a chemical fire.
“No wonder—” Her voice was little more than a breath. She cut the words off and picked up her water goblet.
“No wonder what?” Conner’s gaze sharpened on her.
Synnamon shrugged. “I’d noticed that you were a bit moody when you came in.” And that, she thought, was an understatement that deserved a Pulitzer Prize.
He sipped his coffee, watching her over the rim. “I thought perhaps you knew ahead of time.”
She tried to sound interested but detached. “What was the bombshell?”
“She backed out of the job.”
The words took an instant to register. Her muscles seemed to understand before her brain did, and with detached interest Synnamon watched her wrist turn and her fingers loosen, letting her goblet tumble to the table. She didn’t even jump when the water surged over her, drenching the front of her dress.
She backed out of the job. But that made no sense at all.
Conner set his cup down. “You seemed shocked.”
“So do you.” She hardly heard what she said. It took the last air in her lungs to form the words. “But—you told me yourself you thought she was considering it.”
“I may have said it, but I didn’t really believe she’d do it. In fact, I can’t believe it now.” He was frowning.
It was not the reaction she had expected. It wasn’t even close. She would not have been surprised at shock, pain, discomfort, confusion. But anger? Anger that obviously wasn’t focused at her, but at Nicole—and not because of a baby, but because of a job.
She said, tentatively, “That’s what you’re angry about? The job?”
“Wouldn’t you be? She hadn’t actually signed an employment contract, but we’d agreed on the deal. I held the position to make it convenient for her past the time I wanted the job filled—and then she pulls this.” He shook his head.
Synnamon was stunned. One thing was obvious. Nicole hadn’t told him about the baby.
But why? What on earth could have made the woman decide to keep such a secret?
For Conner's sake, she thought. To spare him pain.
She could understand that. She’d considered doing the same thing herself, when she’d discovered her pregnancy. It wasn’t Conner’s fault or his responsibility, she’d told herself. Why tell him at all?
She’d ended up doing so, of course, for two reasons. One was her own moral code. She felt it was wrong not to tell the man he was to have a child. But equally important—even though she wouldn’t have admitted it at the time—had been her selfish desire to win him back.
But what if her baby had been the second one? If the situation had been reversed, if he’d already known about Nicole’s pregnancy before Synnamon had discovered hers, would she have told him?
No, she thought. I wouldn’t, because it would only cause him pain.
Sadness swept over her. What a noble and generous decision Nicole had made. It was also dead wrong, of course, but noble nonetheless.
How odd it was, she thought, that in the midst of the whole mess she found herself thinking that the two of them—she and Nicole—could have been friends if things had only been different.
“Well?” Conner said.
Synnamon stood up and started to clear the table. “I’m sure she has her reasons,” she said softly.
Conner watched her, his gaze brooding, and then abruptly pushed his chair back. In silence, he carried his dishes to the kitchen and then vanished down the hall toward the guest suite.
Synnamon slipped quietly past his door and closed herself into her own room.
No wonder Nicole had wanted time to think things through. But Synnamon, out of her own impatience, had left a curt message and perhaps pushed the woman into a decision she would later regret. Nicole had refused— for reasons that to her were obviously overwhelming— to interfere in an existing marriage.
But that’s only going to make all three of us unhappy, Synnamon thought. The sheer weight of numbers dictated a different answer. If there could be two relatively happy people instead of three miserable ones…
She knew what she had to do.
She sat for a little while longer, trying to build up her willpower, and then she crossed the hall and knocked on the guest room door.
CHAPTER TEN
Synnamon knocked, but she didn’t hear his step on the thick carpet. She raised her hand to knock again, and the door opened under her touch.
“Well.” Conner folded his arms across his chest. “To what do I owe this honor?”
Tears prickled behind her eyes. She couldn’t look at him. “I just wanted to say…” Her voice failed, and she had to clear her throat before she could start again. “I’m sorry for everything.”
She didn’t know how long the silence lasted. She only knew it seemed a hundred years—and even that wasn’t long enough. Because the moment he answered, whether he accepted her apology or rejected it, she would have to go away from him, and that was the one thing she di
dn’t want to do.
The tears began to overflow.
Conner didn’t speak. He moved, instead, and held out his arms.
Synnamon tried to turn away, but her body wouldn’t obey orders. She gave a little whimper and crept into his embrace. She knew it was foolish, stupid, wrong—but she could not deny herself a last bit of closeness.
“Oh, Synnamon,” he said. He sounded as if he was in pain, too.
If she could have him just a little while longer, she told herself, just long enough to create one last cherished memory, then she would tell him that he could go, with her blessing, to Nicole.
Just a little while longer. Who would it hurt, after all?
She knew she was making excuses that might not stand up even to her own inspection in the light of day. But right now she didn’t care. She would do what she had to do—and she had a sneaky suspicion that Nicole would understand.
Conner drew her ever so slightly closer, and Synnamon let herself relax until the softness of her body molded against the strength of his. Slowly, she raised her face to his and let her fingertips brush his cheek.
He had told her once to let him know when she changed her mind about wanting to make love with him. Now she told him, with every nonverbal means at her command. Simply being close to him brought pleasure. Touching him and being touched created glory.
When she gave herself to him, it was, for the first time ever, completely without hesitation, without reservation and with all the love she possessed.
One last loving, she told herself, to hang onto for the rest of my life…
And then there was no possibility of coherent thought—only sensation stronger than anything she had ever known. A beauty she had no more than glimpsed before unfolded for her in a panorama of surrealistic color and crashing sound and left her shaking and crying and clinging to him with all the frantic strength of her desire.
He held her afterward, and stroked her hair, and smoothed away her tears, and a long while later he said, “I think we have some things to talk about.”
Synnamon tensed and shook her head. “Tomorrow,” she whispered, and kissed him again. “Tomorrow.”
He held her even after he went to sleep, and she lay in silence for a long while, pressed against his side, watching and listening. She memorized every angle of his face, the curve of each eyelash, the rhythm of his heartbeat.
She waited till the middle of the night to slip away from him. He murmured a little protest and then sank back into sleep, and she left him there and retreated to her bedroom to pack a few of her most precious belongings. She tried a dozen times to write a note, and ended up with three bare sentences.
It’s better this way for all of us. Maybe you should talk to Nicole again. I’ll be in touch when I can.
She didn’t know how to sign it, so she didn’t. She folded the page, wrote his name on the outside and left it propped against the coffeepot where he would see it first thing in the morning.
Then, very quietly, she closed the apartment door behind her. The doorman downstairs summoned a cab, but she waited till it was well away from the building before she told the cabby to take her to the airport.
She’d fit right in with all the early commuters, Synnamon thought, on the red-eye flight to Phoenix.
The Contessa had called it the city of new beginnings. Synnamon had hoped that would be true for her, as well, but as the days slid by she found herself doubting that her hopes could ever rise again from the ashes she had made of her life. Perhaps, she thought, once the baby became more real, she would find energy once more, and faith, and an optimistic eye for the future. But in the meantime, it took all the stamina she had just to call Morea and leave a message for her to refile the divorce papers.
The Hartfords were obviously worried about her. Mrs. Hartford cossetted her with every kind of food Synnamon had ever said she liked, and probably would have tucked her into bed each evening if Synnamon had allowed it.
After the first sleepless night, she moved to the Contessa’s room. It might hold as many memories as the guest suite, but at least they were more manageable ones.
Still, she lay awake for hours each night while she sorted out the rubbish pile she’d made of her life. She understood now that it hadn’t been reluctance to stay married that had prompted her to ask Conner for a divorce. It had been the fear of going on as she was, loving him but unloved in return. She had been afraid that someday he might leave her alone, as her father had, so she had prompted the split herself instead of waiting uncertainly for the day she was sure would come.
She understood, too, why she’d been so generous—despite Morea’s strenuous and reasonable objections— in that first, abortive property settlement. By giving Conner full control of Sherwood, Synnamon had been setting him free. She’d separated herself from the company hoping, deep inside the hidden corners of her heart, that he would say the company didn’t matter, that he wanted her as much as he wanted Sherwood. That he wanted her more…
But it hadn’t happened that way, of course, and so she’d moved on. She’d resigned from her job and told herself and Conner and everyone who asked that she was escaping the stress of her father’s legacy, the pressures of customer service.
She’d been trying to escape, all right. But it wasn’t job stress she’d run from, it was Conner—and the knowledge, no less real even though she hadn’t admitted it to herself at the time, that she could never be as important to him as he was to her.
How stupid, she thought. I had almost everything I wanted, but I threw it away because I wanted morel She’d had Conner, his name, his promise of fidelity, his honor. But she’d wanted his love, so she’d tossed away the rest as if it had no value.
And now she had nothing at all.
There was no escaping Valentine’s Day. It wasn’t so much a day any more, Synnamon concluded in disgust, but an entire season. Long before February fourteenth, radio stations began blaring ads for flowers and candy. For a full week, the newspaper headlined the best places in Phoenix to buy exotic gifts, and one of the television talk shows featured daily interviews with the ten longest-married couples in the state. Red hearts and love songs were everywhere.
And it rained. Day after day it rained.
“Don’t you dare complain about the rain,” Morea said unsympathetically when she called on the twelfth, “because it’s snowing like fury here in Denver. And as long as we’ve brought up fury, that’s exactly how I feel about you. I’m speaking as your friend, of course, and not your attorney—but how dare you leave a message like that and then not even call back?”
“I’m sorry, Morea. I’ve been a little worn down.”
“You could be more helpful, you know. You didn’t tell my secretary where you are, you didn’t even leave a number—”
“How did you find me, anyway? This phone is unlisted.”
“It wasn’t easy, let me tell you. I had to call Conner to get the number.”
Synnamon’s heart squeezed. “You didn’t tell him I’m here?”
“How could I? I didn’t know it myself. I just thought it was worth a try. In any case, if Phoenix was the first hideout I thought of, it’s not likely to puzzle Conner for long.”
“Stupid question,” Synnamon admitted.
Of course, Conner would have had no trouble figuring out where she’d gone. And the fact that he hadn’t followed her, hadn’t even called, only confirmed that it didn’t matter to him what she did. By now he’d no doubt sorted everything out with Nicole.
“Now what’s this about the divorce?” Morea asked. “Are we actually going through with it this time? Because if this is only another lovers’ spat—”
“It’s a far cry from that.”
“You know, I ought to refuse to take you back at all.”
“Please, Morea. I need a friend.”
“You know all my weaknesses, don’t you?” Morea sighed. “I suppose we have to start from scratch with the property settlement. And now there’ll be child
support to negotiate, too.”
“No. I don’t want any of that. Offer Conner the same deal we agreed to before on the property, and tell him I don’t expect anything from him.”
“Are you out of your ever-loving mind?”
“No,” Synnamon said calmly. “I think I’ve just started to get it back.”
Morea groaned. “You’re already assured of a place in the hall of fame for difficult clients, Synnamon, you don’t have to go for a world’s record. All right, I’ll get everything organized, and you can sign the papers Friday night at the Valentine’s ball. Then if Conner agrees—”
“Now who’s lost her marbles? If you think I’m coming back to Denver for a dance—”
“Of course you are,” Morea interrupted. “The Have a Heart committee is giving you an award for selling the most tickets any one person’s ever managed to peddle. How will it look if you don’t show up to accept it?”
Synnamon managed a groan—which Morea seemed to interpret as agreement—put the telephone down and went out on the terrace. The rain was only a light mist now, and under the shelter of the terrace roof the air was clean and fresh and almost warm, compared to what she’d left behind in Colorado. She stretched out on a chaise longue and watched scattered raindrops splashing into the pool just off the terrace.
All right, she decided. She’d go to the ball, since Morea apparently was going to insist. She’d make just enough of an appearance to keep the committee happy, she’d sign the papers, and then she’d come back to Phoenix and get on with life. It was time to stop feeling sorry for herself, for her sake and that of her child.
She didn’t quite know how she’d start. With simple things, she supposed—a swim, a walk, a little shopping, a call to a friend. The important thing was to begin. If she went through the motions long enough, surely someday she’d feel like living again.
The grand ballroom of the Denver Kendrick Hotel was agleam when Synnamon slipped through the main doors and edged off to a shadowed corner. From this isolated spot, nearly concealed behind a trellis draped with roses and ivy, she could see most of the enormous room. Three huge crystal chandeliers, their multitude of tiny bulbs dimmed, cast a romantic glow over the crowd of dancers. Around the edges of the polished dance floor were rows of tiny tables draped in pink linen, each topped with a single long-stemmed red rose in a glass vase. Red and pink balloons drifted in the shifting air currents. From a stage at one end of the ballroom came the soft strains of a love ballad.
The Perfect Divorce! Page 15