by M. L. Ray
Looking him up and down, as if the answer should be obvious, she then shrugged. “Because you’re BMOC, and I’m—well, I’m who you see here. But have it your way. I have to go now.” And once again she scurried away, leaving a disgruntled Jeff in possession of the corridor.
At least she seemed to be coming out of her shell. He was beginning to wonder if that was a good or a bad thing.
Another two weeks of cajolery and tongue-in-cheek flattery passed, before he could convince her to at least meet with him in the student cafeteria for a Coke. Although, she did inform him, in no uncertain terms, that she didn’t drink the stuff because it corroded the innards.
“What, then?” Jeff asked, without the slightest hint of impatience.
“Hot tea. And honey with lemon.” Smiling, she pushed her glasses back in place and plunked herself, and her battered laptop, at a chosen table.
Sighing, he shambled off in his athletic, loose-limbed gait. It was getting to the point where the game wasn’t worth the work involved. At this rate, he’d never get this wallflower into bed. He might as well go back to Lana, if she were still available. Still, there was something about that smile…
“You were going to tell me all about your background,” he finally said, once settled.
Those amazing green eyes met his over the rim of her cup. “Was I?”
Good to see that she had found some backbone somewhere, after their first encounter had left her shaking with anxiety. “Yup.” In pure defiance of her own stance, he popped open a can of Coke and slugged down a healthy portion. “You said you’d just moved here from New Hampshire.”
“I did say that, didn’t I?”
He waited a decent amount of time before prodding. “Look, Liv, if you wanna play some kinda game here, fine and dandy. I’m the wrong guy for that.”
“Oh, you don’t play games?”
Damn. Better backpedal, and make it fast. “Only with the right girl,” he told her, in that warm syrupy tone that most of his dates found exciting. Hoping to clinch the deal, he reached across the small table to lace his fingers through hers. “Is it you?”
“I don’t know, Jeff. I seriously doubt it.”
There was just no dealing with this obstinate female. She seemed to actually take confidence in her lack of self-confidence! How off-whacked was that?
“Well, let’s just say I’d like to try,” he concluded flatly.
“Why?” She had tilted her head a little sideways, like a cockatoo, studying him as if he were some laboratory specimen.
“Why? Oh, hell, I dunno—for the experience, I guess. You can broaden my horizons.”
“All right,” she finally acquiesced softly, with a sigh. Almost forlornly, as if she were surrendering some sort of battle.
They arranged that he would pick her up at her dorm room Saturday evening for dinner and a movie. Something light, something fun, something that would leave dreary class work behind.
Then she let down her defenses, just a little, to tell him about her family’s move from the northeast, after Martin Bower’s job transfer to midsize Fallkirk, Wisconsin, just over the border; and her own belated transfer to and enrollment in this small college. Not that she’d had to move halfway across the country with them, of course; but they were closely bonded, she and her parents and four younger siblings, and it seemed best that they all put down their new roots together.
“Yeah?” Jeff, whose relationship with a neglectful father, and a stepmother near to his own age, could best be described as stormy, asked with some skepticism, “How’s that goin’?”
“Fine. Sometimes I feel a little smothered. That’s why I insisted they let me live on-campus, and they’re an hour’s drive away from here, anyway. But they mean well.”
In Jeff’s experience, parental involvement never meant well. “So what’s your major, and where are you going from here?”
“I’m working toward my Bachelors in Fashion and Retail Management.”
“Fashion?” Frowning in disbelief, he toyed with the pop top of his soda can so as not to meet her gaze straight on.
Amazingly, she chuckled. “Yeah, I know. Me, right? Who’da thunk it? But it’s a good field, and it’s something I’m really interested in.”
“Huh. Don’t know as there’s much money available, is there?”
“As long as there’s enough to make a living, that’s okay. I don’t expect to ever be a millionaire.”
“Don’t you? I do.”
Their Saturday night date, beginning with dinner at an upscale restaurant, continuing with the view of a current movie from new recliner seats, and ending with a chaste peck on the cheek at the door of her dorm room, went well enough that he was able to convince her to repeat the experience.
Another time meant an evening at one of the local college watering holes. A time after that meant one rainy afternoon at the Milwaukee Art Museum; and yet one more time meant attendance at an actual live theatre performance. In between were stops at fast-food places or the library.
He would reluctantly admit that, during their times together, he was coming to see her as a person rather than just a sex object. She was committed to her studies, caring and compassionate toward others, and quite admirable, personality-wise. Trouble was, he didn’t want Mother Teresa. He wanted somebody like Jennifer Anniston, of Friends fame; or that sexy, sultry Penelope Cruz. Shallow? Maybe. Probably. But it worked for him.
It took him almost two months of determined effort before she finally gave it up. Mission accomplished. Goal achieved.
The following week, two days before Christmas, he dumped her.
Just like the spider who devours its mate after procreating millions of little spiders, Jeff couldn’t help it. The thrill of the chase was gone, and he was ready to move on.
Oh, the sex had been okay. Especially considering it was Olivia’s first time. She had showed an interest and an enthusiasm that was flattering, to say the least, and could no doubt be expanded upon. Still… All right, all right, so he was a shiftless no-good excuse for a man. A cur. A dog.
Harvey Benton would be shutting down for the holiday. His going home from then until late January would give her the chance to get over him. And then, once back at classes, he could start fresh, with a new romance.
Everything would work out perfectly.
Chapter 1
Today
“Jeff, Mr. Kingston is on line one for you,” Patty’s crisp voice came through the intercom from her office, halfway down the hall. “Says it’s urgent.”
“Urgent,” muttered Jeff, studying the computer monitor at his elbow. “With Kingston, everything is always urgent.” Nevertheless, he clicked to a new screen, brought up his client’s financial page, then reached for the phone. “Phil,” he said into the receiver with false heartiness. “How’s it goin’, Sir?”
His answer was more growl than spoken word. As one of the firm’s long-term and most prestigious clients, Philip Kingston could call, or nag, or stop in as frequently as he wanted, and he often did, unannounced. Since the responsibility for hand-holding his accounts had fallen into Jeff’s lap, by default, when a senior partner had recently and unexpectedly passed on to his maker, the tension level in this corner of the Thomas Yates Investments building had shot up into the stratosphere.
“No, Phil, my advice is the same as it was yesterday, and the day before. Don’t sell anything. Don’t move anything. Just ride it out.” With a barely stifled sigh, Jeff rubbed at his forehead, where several vicious little imps with hammers were doing their best to create a migraine.
The shock wave of the Great Recession had hit, destroyed a few million lives, badly hurt many million more—mainly senior citizens, on a fixed income—and rolled on, leaving desperation and desolation in its wake. The fat cats at the top, the big rollers, hardly felt the impact. Smaller investors, whose portfolios had been decimated over a period of months since the first crash, caused by Wall Street and bank
s too big to fail, were dazedly trying to cope. Many of them would never recover what had been lost.
Philip Kingston was not one of those. A bald, shrunken, eighty-year-old mogul whose family despised him, he had begun life with an inherited fortune, which his expertise had continued to grow. He was not hurting. To hear him talk, however, you’d think he was two steps away from living in a cardboard box under the nearest bridge.
Another heartfelt sigh. The old man was Jeff’s cross to bear, retribution for a misspent youth.
“Yes, Phil, I hear you. I’ll be happy to do whatever you want, of course. But if you’ll just listen to my advice for—”
A squawk from the other end; probably of protest.
“Yes, I do notice that the Dow has fallen a few thousand points. But I also think that, given a chance, it will recover. Things will improve. How long will it take? Well, that’s impossible
to—"
After twenty minutes of exhaustive cajoling and soothing, and a promise to get over to the Kingston mansion promptly at 2:00 this afternoon—probably for more tongue-lashing and symbolic cudgeling—Jeff managed to escape.
“Vulture,” he muttered, as he hung up the receiver. With brow furrowed, underarms damp, and every muscle clenching and straining, he felt as if he’d just gone ten rounds in the boxing ring against Muhammad Ali.
You’d think he’d be used to the wiles of that fire-breathing curmudgeon by now, but apparently not.
Jeff was still recovering from this conversation, when Patty buzzed him again. “A new client on line two, interested in talking with you about his nonexistent savings.”
Just what he needed, someone else to complain about the current scary state of the economy. His title was Financial Advisor, not Merlin the Magician. No crystal ball here, fellas. No tarot cards or rune stones to read the future.
“Name?”
“It’s a Mr. McFarland. Angus McFarland.”
“Okay.” Another sigh, but inwardly this time. “Give me a minute, then put him on.”
Although what they were living through right now could be considered some of the most stressful times in recent history, up until the last six or eight months, Jeff had made a darned good income for what he did.
Not a millionaire by any means—not yet, anyway; not by his own merit.
But enough to support being the landholder of a sumptuous residence near Harrison, New York, whose three Colonial-styled floors held elaborate furnishings, whose garages contained four luxurious vehicles to be used depending upon function and distance, whose library and wine cellar accommodated only the finest of both. Enough to support being the member of a local prestigious country club, whose services he was usually too busy to patronize, and a health club, which he was not. Enough to support being the owner of a small Bareboat Motor Yacht, tied up at a marina off Long Island Sound. Enough to support being the possessor of an elegant wardrobe, measured and cut and sewn to order, by one of London’s Savile Row tailor shops.
All right, all right. To be perfectly honest, he hadn’t attained all this grandeur by his own efforts, alone. Certainly not during the mere ten year climb since his senior year at Benton.
No, most of this was due to the vast inherited wealth brought into their much-anticipated marriage, by his darling wife, Annajane Merrill Quinley.
“Patty, would you come in here a minute, please?” Upon the appearance of his trim, attractive secretary in the doorway, he handed over a folder filled with notes written during the most recent consultation. “We’ve got ourselves another client. Set up a file for him, please, and get his personal info into the computer. I’ve got an appointment to see him tomorrow, at 10 a.m.”
“Will do, boss. Are you going out to lunch today?”
“No. I’d better just have a sandwich here at my desk, because later on I’m being called into the presence of the almighty himself.”
Patty gave a sympathetic chuckle. “Oh. Phil Kingston, huh? Better take a couple bottles of Pepto along. In fact, maybe you should invest in a case of the stuff, for future emergencies.”
“Actually,” Jeff paused to consider, “maybe the old guy will kick the bucket soon, and I’ll be off the hook completely.”
“I don’t know. His two sons are bound to inherit the estate, and I hear they’re worse than their father.”
“Thanks for that. My joy knows no bounds. Listen, pick up a ham on rye from The Café, will you? Then go ahead and get out of here for an hour. I’ll hold down the fort.”
“That’s easy enough,” was her tongue-in-cheek parting shot, as she turned away. “Just handle all the phones and correspondence while you keep one finger plugged into the dike.”
Was he the luckiest son of a gun in the universe, or what? So many others were flailing, financially, barely keeping their heads above water. And here he was, not only surviving, but thriving; his lifestyle one of ease and contentment and luxury. He worked at a job that he loved doing (usually), and the girls peppered around this office were young, lovely, buxom, and anxious to please.
Not that he had ever taken advantage of the fact. No, sir. But, like most males, he did appreciate the view. Especially low-cut ones.
From the “love ’em and leave ’em” mindset that had filled his Benton College days, and those for a while after, he had stuck completely to the straight and the narrow once married. Fooling around on his wife just wasn’t something he wanted to do. He had neither the inclination, the desire, nor the foolhardiness. Discounting the fact that Annajane would slice off overhanging parts of his body with a dull razor blade if she ever found out, he had, oddly enough, actually acquired a sense of honor.
They had met shortly after his move to the Empire State, Jeff and his bride-to-be, at a fundraiser set up in some posh hotel. Something to do with children’s welfare, he remembered, or their education. At the time, charitable organizations were not really his thing, but this was business. His company had purchased tickets for a round table of guests, and Jeff, as newest member of the team, was elected to serve.
Even from a distance, across the ballroom, he had been struck by Annajane’s beauty and poise. This was a girl to whom he definitely wanted to achieve an introduction. And so he had, moving in with his usual easy charm and practiced flash of dimples.
However, this was no adoring college student to be swayed by such masculine appeal. With the exchange of names, her cool blue eyes had lightly raked him from top to bottom, and back again, with undeniable assessment. Had she found him wanting, in some way? Had the intensity of her scan pierced through his clothing to the silk boxers underneath? Awed, Jeff felt something akin to a small shiver pass over his spine.
“Hello, Jeff,” she said, in low throaty tones. Her hand, in their joined clasp, lingered longer than necessary, boding well for the future. “This is a star-studded gathering, isn’t it? We hope to far surpass last year’s pledges.”
“Oh, uh, yeah. Sure. You’re on the Board?” he said stupidly. Which merely proved how little attention he had been paying to the whole affair.
She chuckled. “This, and a number of others, whose causes I favor. Let me take you around and meet a few people, Jeff. Unless you have someone here who—”
“No. No, I’m stag tonight.”
And just as well, for that was the beginning.
Much later, he would discover—once it was formally acknowledged by her crowd that they were a couple destined for the altar— that appearances are quite often deceiving; because, beneath that reserved, remote Grace Kelly exterior, lay a wealth of passion and fire. Of which he, Jefferson Richmond Quinley, would be the sole recipient.
Mazel Tov.
Yup. Decidedly the luckiest son of a gun in the universe.
Annajane possessed not only intelligence and elegance, but a sizable fortune, as well. Praise be to grandparents and other ancestors who had made their pile through whatever nefarious means, only to graciously die off and leave that accumulated abundance
to their single surviving heir.
After a hasty and headlong courtship, a spectacular wedding that set even local jaded society on its ears, and a month-long honeymoon to Bali, Jeff and Annajane settled into married life. Tanned and fit, one of the area’s beautiful couples, they purchased their showcase of a mansion, that had been constructed on a sprawling cul-de-sac named Queens, outside Harrison, one of the richest towns in America.
“Cuddlesack?” Jeff had curiously repeated their realtor’s term, describing its location. “Why do you call it that?”
The agent had laughed and apologized. “One of the neighbor’s little girls coined the word. She couldn’t pronounce ‘cul-de-sac,’ and wouldn’t have understood it, anyway. So she came up with ‘cuddlesack.’ All of us in the area have just continued using it, because she was cute, and it’s cute.”
So for five years the Quinleys had happily occupied Whitehall, at ‘Cuddlesack’ Queens, which so admirably suited their needs once every room had been renovated to within an inch of its life. That, too, was done easily enough, since his new bride owned her own decorating firm, in which, Annajane freely admitted, she “dabbled.”
Yup, Jeff thought once again, as he munched the lowly ham sandwich at his magnificent teakwood desk. The luckiest son of a gun in the universe.
* * * * * * * * * * *
A muscle-punishing workout at the racquet club after his session with Phil Kingston had done little to release accumulated tension. The old codger had all but accused him of stealing, of cooking the books, of somehow engineering the whole crash all by himself. Jeff had spent a brutal two hours at the Kingston mansion, before finally allaying suspicions enough to drag his stressed-out body for some physical activity. Then the steam room. Then a long luxurious massage and shower.
“The man is totally fixated on his fortune,” he had complained to his wife, much, much later.
“Well, of course he is, darling,” Annajane assured him. “What else does he have, after all?”
Jeff’s eyes narrowed. They were finishing their usual fine dinner, one of his favorites - pear and arugula salad, filet of beef tenderloin with baby red potatoes and sauce Bordelaise, and fresh grilled asparagus. The maid had just cleared away the last course, and returned to serve each a small plate of butterscotch banana bread, before discreetly disappearing.