They could’ve complemented each other with their differing personalities. Instead, for reasons she couldn’t fathom, they had become rivals. At least, Charles saw them as rivals. Paul didn’t care a fig.
Indeed, she wondered what her estranged husband did care about. Once he had cared passionately about broadcasting. Now, it appeared, he could take it or leave it. As easily as he could take or leave her.
Seeing them like this made her nervous. The brothers could banish her from Lyon Broadcasting. Everyone would be happy then.
She sauntered over to the table, trying for that heedless unconcern Paul had mastered. “Well, if it isn’t the brothers Lyon, plotting to take over the empire, I suppose.”
Charles slid to one side to make room for her in the booth. Paul didn’t budge. Margaret slid in beside her brother-in-law.
“Actually,” Charles said, draping his arm across the back of the booth, “we were deciding how to divvy things up.”
“Oh, really.” She should have realized that being this close to Paul would make her jumpy. The memory of that unexpected kiss just a few hours earlier had her completely rattled. How could Paul remain so cool? “You take the executive offices, Paul gets the break room and I get the studios and engineering booths? Are you sure A.J. will approve?”
Charles laughed, but there was an edge to it.
Paul took a long swallow from his glass of tea. “I don’t think you were part of the equation. Was she, Charles?”
“Now, listen, you two. My father helped found—”
Charles put a hand on her shoulder. “He’s baiting you, Margaret.”
She forced herself to relax.
“Besides, he knows about your father’s will.”
To her chagrin, Margaret felt her face flush. What her father had left her when he died was a position of no power. With Paul gone, her father had given his share of Lyon Broadcasting to Alexandre. Theoretically it would all be passed on to André when he was of age. But Margaret wasn’t quite as trusting as her father had been. A.J. Lyon was manipulative and shrewd. If he saw a way to benefit from doing something else with André’s rightful shares of Lyon Broadcasting, then he would do it.
Being merely a daughter, Margaret got nothing, which she also knew would be Justine’s fate unless she had a son. Thanks to her own father, Margaret couldn’t even count on the job she’d held since the shortage of men on the home front had boosted her into the position of acting news director. During the war, women had built ships and manufactured munitions and even made decisions at radio stations. But when the war ended and the men came back, the women went home.
Margaret had held on to her position only because she held sway with her father. But Wendell Hollander had died last year and Margaret’s clout at WDIX was slipping. Fast.
Charles had probably taken great delight in passing along the news to his brother.
“I was telling Charles there was no reason he and I can’t do television,” Paul said. “We certainly wouldn’t have any trouble getting the board behind us.”
Paul and Charles working together? And the only reason Paul would even consider it, Margaret knew, was to cut her right out of the project. “Now, listen, this is my idea. I’ve done all the work so far. You can’t—”
“Sure we can.”
Charles put a placating hand on her shoulder. But Margaret’s wrath was directed entirely at Paul, who smiled. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“No?”
“You listen to me, Paul Lyon. I made WDIX radio number one in news in this city while I’ve been in charge,” she said. “Tell him, Charles. There’s no reason—”
“You’re a woman,” Paul interjected. “That’s reason enough.”
The look in his eyes said he’d been reminded of her womanhood quite recently. She’d been reminded of her own womanhood, for that matter—the way she’d felt looking at his lean body sprawled on her pristine white linen sheets, the evidence of his manhood on prominent display; the way she’d burst into flame the instant he touched his lips to hers. And his lips had been hard and unyielding, which was how she imagined he would have felt the night before, if...
“I’m a broadcaster,” she said stiffly. “And I can do as good a job as any man. Better than some. My record speaks for itself. So if the two of you are cooking up any deals, you’d better deal me in.”
Paul went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “The thing is, Charles isn’t crazy about the whole television idea.”
“And I hold the swing vote.” Charles looked immensely pleased with himself.
“So we’ve reached a compromise.”
And left her completely out of the negotiations. Of all the conniving—
“I vote for your television station,” Charles said, “if the family hands me the reins of the radio station.”
For a moment Margaret felt elated. It was going to happen. She was going to make it happen. Then she realized what Charles was saying. He wanted complete control of WDIX radio, the station she’d nursed along for years. Her boasts weren’t empty boasts, either. She had raised WDIX from the bottom of the heap, where it sank when Paul left, to the top again. Charles would ruin all that. She knew he would. He had no feel for radio, no sense of why people listened or what they needed from their radio broadcasts. He had no business sense, either. He would run WDIX into the ground. Could she let that happen?
She looked at Paul. For an instant something blazed in his eyes—a passion for the future of broadcasting. It might not be much, but it was something they could share. It was a new beginning.
“All right,” she said. “We’ll do it.”
“It’s settled then,” Charles said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the family business.”
Margaret stood so he could leave.
Charles looked at them for a moment. “Oh, by the way, I’m going to be leaving Lyoncrest, too. I hope you won’t mind, but in six months, I’ll be running the best station this city has ever seen. And you two will be the laughingstock of New Orleans. I think putting a little distance between us is for the best.”
He walked away whistling. Margaret eased back into the booth, both relieved and stunned. Too much was happening too fast.
She felt the heat from Paul’s knees under the table, so close to hers. “So we’re going to be partners,” she said.
“Don’t let it go to your head, kid.”
What a stinker he was. “We’ll need some ground rules.”
“Oh?”
“This is purely professional. Nothing personal. Nothing...”
He spoke the word she couldn’t utter. “Sexual?”
What a word to use in public. She glanced around to see if he’d been overheard, saw no one choking on their gumbo. “Yes.”
“I think I can manage to restrain myself.”
His dry proclamation offended her. “Can you really?”
“I like a little flesh and blood, a little heart and soul in my dames,” he said.
“I’m not a dame.”
“No? You’re not much in the heart-and-soul department, either, Mrs. Lyon. Congratulations. You’ve achieved everything you ever wanted, haven’t you?”
“What are you talking about?”
He stood, tossing a bill onto the table to cover the tab. “You always wanted to be a businesswoman. Dollars and cents, right to your core. Congratulations. You made it.”
His words were like a slap in the face. She wanted to deny them, but knew there was little she could say to convince him. Of course, from his perspective it appeared as if she’d been perfectly content to leave him alone until she needed him to save her professional hide. He couldn’t know how many sleepless nights she’d spent, wondering where he was, wondering if anything would win him back.
When it came to Paul Lyon, she was nothing but flesh and blood, heart and soul.
PAUL STROLLED THROUGH the grounds of Lyoncrest with his mother, her slender hand tucked into the crook of his elbow. The January night wa
s cool, pleasingly so. And his mother’s presence was a balm to his spirit after the recent conversation with his father.
A.J. had given in to the idea of a television station, although it was clear he would be glad to see it fail. More galling than that, however, had been his comments in private. “You’re just another employee here,” he’d said in his usual gruff way. “Until you prove you can be trusted, you’re just a hired hand. Understood?”
Oh, Paul understood all right.
He sighed and tried to put the bitter discussion out of his mind.
“So, you have decided to rejoin your family,” Minna Lyon said, her voice as soft as the night air. “Your father informed me of the board’s vote. I am quite satisfied. Yet you were not with us for dinner.” She gave him the searching look that had always kept him honest.
“I’m not ready to face...all of it. Not yet.”
She patted his arm where her fingers rested. “You wronged her, Paul. It is time you faced it.”
He tightened his jaw, resisting the impulse to lay out the ugly truth about Margaret and her child. His mother had blinded herself to the truth and she was too old now to be robbed of the boy she considered her only grandchild.
“It was complicated.”
“Between men and women, it is always complicated,” she countered.
He wanted to tell her about Margaret’s blind ambition, about her bankrupt moral code, about the ice water that ran in her veins. He wanted to tell her that even now, when maturity might have changed her, Margaret still wanted success more than she wanted love or happiness. Or him.
“She doesn’t want me, Mother.”
She stopped beneath a bare dogwood tree. “If you believe that, you are a fool.”
He had no choice but to believe it. “That certainly seems to be the case, regardless.”
Minna laughed. “Even a foolish son is better than an absent son. I am glad you’re home. I will light a candle for you tomorrow that you will no longer be a fool.”
He smiled and brought her hand to his lips. “Better light two.”
They walked until the chill was too much for her, even in her cashmere shawl. Then he escorted her back to the house, poured her a brandy and delivered her to her bedroom.
He prowled the softly lit house, restless and irritable. The day’s events kept spinning through his mind. Learning from Charles just how powerless Margaret’s father had left her, hearing from Margaret’s own lips that she wanted nothing more from him than his professional skills and his vote, the eerie feeling of moving into an office adjoining Margaret’s. So much had happened it almost eclipsed the way the day had begun, with Margaret in his arms. Warm and yielding. A reasonable imitation of a woman who cared.
He heard Charles in the library, the soft melody of something melancholy. He turned away. No companionship there. He paused outside the back parlor and overheard a strident discussion between his father and Aunt Ella. Something about race relations being the next crisis to grip the nation. He wasn’t up for it. The door to the family game room stood ajar. Maybe he would turn on the Victrola, rack the balls and have a solitary game of billiards. When he stepped into the room, however, he realized he would have been better off facing any of the others.
Margaret sat curled up in one of two leather chairs in the corner near the Victrola, her feet tucked beneath her full skirt, her shoes on the polished floor. At the billiards table stood the boy, André. He handled his cue stick deftly, like someone used to the game.
Paul’s first instinct was to turn away, to leave without even the courtesy of an explanation. Confronting the evidence of Margaret’s duplicity was as painful as it had ever been. But as he stood there, with both Margaret’s eyes and the boy’s trained on him, Paul remembered what his mother said. He had made a commitment to live here and become a part of the family business again. He couldn’t avoid the boy. He’d better learn to deal with it.
“Hello, Paul.”
He heard the anxiety in her voice. He wanted to ease it. He wanted to make it harder on her. He loathed her and he loved her. He dreaded learning which urges would win out. “This is cozy.” He strove for as little emotion as possible.
“André loves billiards.”
“I suppose you encouraged that. Or Papa, perhaps.”
She shifted in the chair, slipping back into her shoes. Back straight, chin high, she sat with her hands clasped calmly in her lap. “He disappeared one day. We couldn’t find him anywhere. He was four at the time. We were frantic. Mother Lyon finally found him in here. He was barely tall enough to reach the table, but he was trying.”
Her story left a sour taste in his mouth. Margaret had no doubt heard the story of Paul’s early affinity for billiards. Charles had been a musical prodigy; Paul had slipped into something a little less praiseworthy. Always thinking, always scheming, Margaret had used that to her advantage. Before he could figure out what scathing remark to direct at her, the boy marched up to him, cue stick upright in his left hand.
“I’m André,” he said in a clear, strong voice. “You’re Mama’s old friend.”
For decades Paul had made his living using his voice, but at this moment it failed him.
“Mon cher, this is Mr. Paul. He’s here to help Mama at the new television station.” She came and knelt beside the boy. “Remember I told you about the television station?”
“With pictures in front of my eyes, instead of pictures in my ’magination?”
“That’s right.”
She stroked the little boy’s dark hair back off his forehead. The obvious tenderness of her touch drew forth a sharp longing in Paul. There was some heart and soul in her, after all, even if she did hoard it all for her son. They looked nothing alike, this mother and child. Instead, the boy was apparently the image of some nameless man.
André again turned his dark eyes on Paul. “Do you live here, too, now?”
“That’s right.” Paul was struck by the little boy’s straightforwardness, a trait he did share with his mother. At least, a trait Paul remembered the young Margie—the girl he’d fallen for—had possessed.
“Did you live here before?”
“Yes, I did. In fact, I used to play on this billiards table myself.”
“I can beat you,” André boasted. “I’m the best.”
Paul surprised himself by laughing. “You’re on, young man. Your break or mine?”
He told himself there was no reason to despise the little boy for his mother’s dishonesty. He actually enjoyed the game and André, especially the boy’s delight when Paul’s game disintegrated at the very end, delivering him to a shameful defeat at the hands of the seven-year-old.
He watched Margaret lead the boy off to bed and felt something unyielding begin to shift within him. Margaret knew he loved kids. She had it all planned, he supposed. He would have to be wary.
MARGARET CHANGED FOR BED, wrapping herself in her silk robe. She was restless, too excited for sleep, as André had been. He had talked incessantly about his new friend, Mr. Paul, who had shown him billiards tricks that no one else at Lyoncrest knew. He hadn’t wanted to sleep.
Neither did Margaret. She kept thinking of this room just twenty-four hours earlier, when Paul had been here, charging the air like a summer thunderstorm roaring in off the gulf. Now the room was empty. Terribly empty.
And she kept thinking of the amazing spectacle of Paul Lyon coaching his son. Inwardly, she had wept with joy at each touch, each smile. Outwardly she’d mustered every bit of willpower she had to remain in control. She ached to tell André the truth about his new friend. But for his own good, she couldn’t. Not yet. Soon, she prayed. Soon.
She opened the French doors to the gallery and drifted out. It was cool tonight and the air was fragrant. She saw irony in the fact that neither the temperature nor the scents in the air had registered with her the night before. Then, she had been conscious only of Paul in the room behind her. Paul, sprawled on her bed in the altogether. She could have had him
if she’d wanted him. She was sure of it.
But she hadn’t.
Supposing she had, though. How might things have been different now? she wondered.
“You’re not planning to sleep out here again, are you?”
His voice, close by and unexpected, startled her. Hand at her throat, she turned. Her heart fluttered wildly beneath her fingertips. “You’re here.”
He leaned against the wrought-iron railing that encircled the wide gallery. He still wore his dress pants, white shirt and vest, although he’d shed both his necktie and his suit coat. The vest was unbuttoned, his cuff links gone, as well, leaving the cuffs of his shirt loose, rolled once to reveal his wrists. A cigarette hung loosely from his fingertips; smoke curled up, drifting off over his head and into the night.
“Don’t panic. I’m here,” he said, “not there.”
He smiled. The gallery outside her room was shared with the room on the opposite side of the hall. The French doors leading to that room were open, as were hers.
“I like the view,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind that I settled in nearby.”
She tried not to read anything into his words. He liked the view of the gardens, nothing more.
“Not at all,” she said. She realized she was moving in his direction. She stopped. It wasn’t easy.
“Well, I’ll leave the gardens to you,” he said. “I expect morning will come early.”
“Yes. I... Thank you. For being kind to André.”
He shrugged and snuffed out his cigarette in the pot of trailing verbena in the corner. “Thank you for not saddling the boy with the erroneous impression that I’m his father.”
Margaret felt some of the hope begin to wither in her heart. “Paul—”
“I realized tonight it’s going to be easier than I thought,” he said quickly. “I’ve simply made up my mind to let go of the past. And that won’t be difficult because I can see now I don’t have any bad feelings for you or the boy. He means nothing to me, you see. No more than you do these days.”
The Lyon Legacy Page 7