Ulterior Motives

by Laura Leone

  Shelley drew a quick, sharp breath. She saw in his eyes that he’d read her thoughts. He knew. He was thinking the same thing.

  They were through playing games, Ross realized. She was ready. And he couldn’t wait for her any longer.

  Their gazes held for a moment longer, and Ross saw the sudden acceptance, the calm decision in hers. They had both passed their last chance to make a clean escape; they were past even wanting to.

  “I’ll hand this dress and the others out to you,” Shelley said softly. “Take them up to the counter and tell the girl to get them ready.” Ross nodded. “Oh, and tell her... tell her I’ll pay by credit card.” She didn’t add that she’d be paying off that bill for the rest of her natural life.

  Shelley took her time putting on her own clothes in the dressing room. It was a he-knew-she-knew-he-knew situation. There was no point in pretending they didn’t both know what was going to happen between them, and soon. They’d pretended long enough. But she needed a little time to compose herself. Finally realizing she wasn’t going to get any more composed, she went back out into the dress shop.

  Ross was holding a shiny bag full of her beautiful new clothes.

  “I have to pay for them,” she said, still speaking softly, wondering what had happened to her usual tone of voice.

  “I’ve already paid,” he said just as quietly.

  Their eyes met. She could say she couldn’t accept such a gift from him. She could say she was an independent woman who could pay for her own wardrobe. She could even rage that he had no right to be so presumptuous.

  She said, “Thank you.”

  They’d already silently made and agreed upon their decision. It didn’t matter that nothing concrete had yet been said or done. Whatever the future held in store for them, they both knew that he had just become the man in her life who had the right to buy her costly gifts.

  He held the door open for her and then followed her out into the darkening street. They were both being awfully quiet for two talkative people. Shelley didn’t feel like talking about trivial things and couldn’t yet find the words to discuss what mattered. Silence was best for a few minutes, and Ross seemed to sense this, too. She went along willingly with him, not bothering to ask where they were going. Several blocks later they reached his red Porsche, which was parked in one of the city’s small lots.

  He put her package behind the driver’s seat and then looked at her over the roof of the car. He must be slightly unnerved, she thought fondly; he’d forgotten to open her door for her.

  “Where do you want to eat?” he asked.

  “Mount Adams.” There would be no chance of accidentally running into any of her staff or clients up there, as there would be downtown.

  He nodded, and she realized he knew the reason behind her request. They’d have to talk about it. They’d have to talk about a lot of things. Later, she thought, later. For the moment they just needed to adjust to this. They were together now.

  She slid into her seat. He turned on the engine. He looked over his shoulder, preparatory to putting the car into reverse.

  “Wait,” she said suddenly. She needed something. Some affirmation, some comfort. Her eyes met his.

  “Shelley,” he whispered. His voice held a tenderness she’d never heard before, and his eyes were openly vulnerable.

  She leaned toward him, lowering her eyes, seeking his lips with her own. He returned her kiss with exquisite tenderness. Then they sat with their faces close together, savoring each other’s nearness.

  “When the gods want to punish us, they answer our prayers,” he murmured wryly.

  Shelley voiced the same sentiment in her more down-to-earth way: “Are we in it.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Everything I’ve ever heard or read about you tells me you can’t be fired. My job isn’t so sacred,” Shelley said.

  Ross looked out at the spectacular nighttime view of the Ohio River Valley. They were seated in one of Shelley’s favorite restaurants atop Mount Adams, not far from her apartment. They had ordered food and wine and were feeling more prepared to confront the issues between them.

  “You don’t want anyone to know about us, in other words.”

  “I think it could cost me my position, if I were known to be...” she trailed off.

  “Sleeping with me?” he said, unwilling to let her even hint that their relationship might be anything less serious.

  She nodded. “On the other hand, it seems sleazy to keep it a big secret.”

  He shrugged. “Let’s just agree to keep it a secret one day at a time. You can wake up any morning and change your mind. I, on the other hand, don’t care who knows, as long as it doesn’t hurt you.”

  She nodded again. “And I think we’d better agree not to talk about work.”

  “Do you think that’s possible?”

  “I think if we do, we’ll just go round and round the way we’ve been doing since you got here. I think it’s best if we just draw a clean line between our jobs and our relationship.”

  “And what happens if we have more confrontations in our professional capacities?”

  “I think we should... leave it at the office and not bring it home with us.” She saw the concern in his eyes and shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t know if I can, but I’ll try.”

  They were silent again. They both knew that most of the pressure she would be under in the coming weeks would be because of him. They both knew that he could ruin her career at Babel. He was frustrated that she wouldn’t consider a career with Elite as a reasonable alternative; she was frustrated that he couldn’t understand why.

  And under all that they both knew that Ross would only be in the same city with her as long as it took to establish supremacy for Elite here. But despite everything, they couldn’t stay away from each other any longer.

  Ross poured more wine. Shelley nibbled at the appetizer they’d ordered. She caught him staring at her. They both started smiling foolishly. She was so glad to be with him like this at last!

  “Tell me honestly—”

  “Honestly?” he repeated doubtfully.

  “Why did you send for Tim to help me out?”

  He tilted his head to one side and let his eyes caress her. She warmed to his perusal, finally enjoying rather than resisting the pleasure his admiring gaze gave her.

  “For you, Shelley. Just to help you. No other reason. No ‘ulterior motives.’ I can’t... be inadequate at my job for your sake, but this was something I could do for you without compromising my integrity.”

  She realized that she’d never heard him talk about his integrity before. She sensed such seriousness didn’t come easily to the surface with him. She was sorry she had assumed at times that he didn’t possess any integrity just because he didn’t parade it around. She let her eyes tell him so.

  “What did you do for Tim? Oh, come on, Ross,” she urged, seeing he meant to refuse to answer. “You can tell me.”

  He shrugged, taking another sip of wine. “I saved his neck once, that’s all.”

  “How?”

  He smiled. “There was an incident at college. I got expelled for it, actually—”

  “Ah, yes. Your famous aphrodisiac.”

  “You know about that?” he said in surprise. “Well, yes, I guess that’s something Babel could find out about pretty easily. It got a lot of publicity at the time.”

  “How was Tim involved?”

  “Well, I had developed an obscure major in Middle Eastern philosophy, designed purely for the purpose of showing my family that nothing was going to make me fall in line with their plans for me.”

  Shelley smiled, remembering her own estimate of that.

  “And in some obscure old text I read about this aphrodisiac. The author made some claims about it that a gentleman really can’t repeat to a lady.”

  Shelley rolled her eyes.

  “Anyhow,” he continued. “I showed the passage to Tim, just for a laugh. He was a biochemistry major at the
time. He was convinced we could duplicate it and make a fortune selling it to fraternity boys. A few of the ingredients puzzled him, but he thought he could come up with reasonable substitutes.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” Shelley said slowly.

  “I just kind of tagged along. Not innocently, to be honest. I mean, I was always getting into trouble in those days. But I was frankly expecting a dull time watching Tim play with beakers and test tubes.” He grinned at her. “I take it you know what happened after that?”

  “All hell broke loose.”

  “Exactly. We both got caught red-handed. I felt so sorry for Tim. He’d never been in trouble before, whereas I was used to it. He was terrified. I think he was afraid that his family would make him return to Afghanistan if they heard about the incident. So I took all the blame. I told the Dean that Tim had just been doing some make-up work for a class, and that I’d been the only one to make unauthorized use of university property.”

  “That was very nice of you.”

  “Not really. Like I said, I was used to trouble. Of course, I didn’t realize I’d get expelled for it.”

  “Were you upset?” Shelley asked.

  “Surprised, mostly. I’d intentionally done a lot of things I knew I wasn’t supposed to, and now I’d gotten kicked out for something I hadn’t intended to happen. But once I started thinking about it, I was glad. I knew my family couldn’t fix it. I’d be on my own. Finally.”

  “Did Tim—”

  “Oh, sure. When he realized I was going to be expelled, he wanted to share my shame. But that would have been a waste, and I made him promise to never tell anyone. It was the right decision, too. Here he is all these years later, a serious man with an impressive academic career. Whereas I was never destined to finish college.”

  “Was that when Tim switched his major to English lit?”

  “Yes.”

  They both laughed. Shelley studied Ross. For all her intuition, she had understood so little about him. Tim had been right. Ross was a man of generous spirit, of great gifts. And of great needs? she wondered.

  “Looking back now,” he mused, “I can see it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Why?” she asked curiously.

  “Well, my family kicked me out on my ear—we, uh, had some words about the incident and my general character, and I acted as badly as usual. Being left to my own devices at nineteen, as well as having all financial support withdrawn, turned out to be very good for me. It was about the only chance I had of acquiring any character.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “Absolutely. I was spoiled, bored, careless, selfish, and thoughtless. I had a lot of very unattractive character traits—and you should know going into this, Shelley, that I haven’t shed all of them. I’d had everything a boy could ever want. I’d been given more second chances than you could count. I was bright enough to succeed at school but too damn stubborn to bother most of the time. I was a rich boy, so there were plenty of girls—”

  “Trust me when I say your money had nothing to do with that,” Shelley said dryly. “But how did you get to be such a... brat?”

  “Just came naturally to me, I guess.”

  “Come on,” she insisted.

  “I shouldn’t have been born with all that. I would have been better off if I’d always had to work my butt off—like you.”

  “It’s character building,” she admitted.

  “And I wasn’t cut out to be what my father wanted me to be.”

  “Which was?”

  “His successor, in every way. You can pound a lot of good manners and expensive tastes and correct speech into a kid, but you can’t turn him inside out and make him what he’s not.”

  “No. Especially not someone like you.”

  “I’m just not proper.”

  “No, indeed.”

  “I wanted adventure. I like change. Until the day I die, I’ll like stirring up trouble. My dad’s work seemed incredibly dreary to me, the people he dealt with bored me to distraction, and our social position strangled me. I started going my own way when I was about four years old. Since I was the only son, he wouldn’t give up on me. God forbid he should let one of his daughters take his place instead of me,” Ross said, some of his old exasperation showing in his expression.

  “Your poor mother,” said Shelley. “Your house must have been a war zone.”

  He looked sheepish. “It was. She wanted peace between us, but it just couldn’t happen. The harder he pushed, the more I rebelled. I even did things I didn’t want to do, just to show him there was no way I’d do what he wanted me to do.”

  “So what happened when he kicked you out after you were expelled?” she asked.

  “My sisters were upset, but my mom was devastated. I was too young and selfish to think about how they felt. I just disappeared. Free at last.”

  “Where did you go?” she asked.

  “Well, I thought about going to Provence. I’d always been very close to my French relatives, always happiest during the summers I spent with them. But that seemed like it would be cowardly. I’d done everything I could for nineteen years to make my family give up on me. I figured I might as well get on with my new life as an orphan.”

  He grinned at her and continued, “It gets pretty weird after that. I worked some odd jobs for a while. I have a distant uncle that no one ever talked to because he was a smuggler. So, of course, I hunted him up. He had a ship—just a rustbucket really—that plied the Mediterranean and the west coast of Africa.”

  “Did you really smuggle?” Shelley asked in fascination.

  “Mostly we hauled regular cargo. But sometimes we smuggled wine, whiskey, tobacco, pistachio nuts, exotic oils, artifacts. Once we even hauled a load of some dreadful liquor made out of bananas that went bad halfway through the trip. God, was I sick!”

  “Did you like that life?”

  “I was usually in too much pain to worry about liking it.” He smiled reminiscently, recalling his initiation. “It was a tougher life than I’d ever known. I worked so hard that some nights I didn’t have the strength to pull the blanket over myself before I fell asleep. My hands were raw with blisters for weeks. It took a while for me to develop all the muscle and calluses and stamina I needed for that life. Not to mention the nerve. More than once I was afraid I’d rot in a third world prison. And I looked like the spoiled, sheltered kid I was, so I got robbed and beat up a lot at first.”

  “How long did you stick with it?”

  “Until I was good at it. I was determined to conquer or die. I got to be the toughest, shrewdest, most slippery guy my dear old uncle knew. By the end of my second year with him, I decided I’d learned enough and that this wasn’t the life for which I’d rebelled against my father for nineteen years. So I quit.”

  “Gosh, Ross, this is better than going to the movies.”

  “You haven’t touched your dinner,” he pointed out. “It’s been sitting in front of you for five minutes. Eat something.”

  She put some food into her mouth, scarcely tasting it. “Well? What did you do then?”

  “Oh, a lot of things. I started showing tourists around different countries in the Mediterranean. Just offered my services to people. I knew where they could find what they wanted, whether they were interested in fine food, good beaches, nightlife, sex, booze, or contraband. I worked for about five months as an interpreter and sort of general assistant for a British movie company in Morocco. Then I started working in a casino in Marrakech. I wound up running it after the manager disappeared mysteriously. People tended to do that a lot there. I turned that shabby little casino into a success in about a year. We even started attracting rich Europeans who were ‘slumming.’”

  “And you gave it up when you decided that that wasn’t why you’d left your family, either.”

  “It was all getting pretty sordid. I decided it was time to be near my relatives in Provence, make peace with my mom and dad. I got work after a while�
��”

  “Managing a nightclub.”

  “A pretty tawdry one, to be honest.”

  “Did you sort out your family problems?”

  “With everyone but my dad. We just called a cease-fire. We’re civil to each other, even talk now and then. We aren’t cut out to be close, though.”

  “And after Nice?”

  “I went to Paris. I was tired of living on the seamy side of life. It had been good for me. It had even been fun. But I wanted to live in nice places, meet normal people again, tell them what I did for a living. I still had expensive tastes, and I decided there was nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately, though, I still couldn’t stand to be under authority of any kind. I lost two jobs in two months.”

  “I can believe that,” she admitted. It was impossible to picture Ross taking orders from anyone. She smiled fondly, adoring him, pleased to have all those gaps in his past filled in, and sorry that she hadn’t seen his courage and self-honesty before. She reached across the table to lightly stroke his cheek. His eyes softened, and she could see the gesture pleased him. He pressed a kiss into her palm. “Then what?”

  “Then Henri hired me,” he said.

  “Why? I mean, you couldn’t have seemed very promising.”

  “Well, he didn’t exactly hire me,” Ross admitted.

  “Oh?”

  “No. I sort of won the job in a poker game.”

  “Really? Ross, this is great!”

  “I knew I had a touch for figuring out why a place was losing money and how to turn it around. I’d done it in Marrakech and again in Nice, but I wanted a respectable job this time, as well as my independence. I found myself in a poker game with Henri Montpazier and saw my chance. When the stakes got high enough, I made an interesting offer. If I lost, I’d work for him for free for one year. If I won, he’d pay me a good salary and give me one year to prove I could turn around the most disastrous school in his business empire.” Ross added, “I won.”

  Shelley stared at him incredulously. “That was the beginning of your career with Elite? That’s incredible! No wonder you’re outside the chain of command.”