Her apartment was on the top floor, with a very pretty penthouse garden. It was in a small, exclusive building and Oliver suspected correctly that it was a co-op. This was no ordinary working girl, and he knew that Robert Townsend was not only a major advertising success, but he was also from a very prominent family in Boston. And Megan's breeding was stamped all over her, from her hair to her shoes, to her well- bred voice, to the expensive white silk shirt she'd put on with a pair of jeans to greet him. Her hair was hanging loose, and he loved the way it flowed down her back and over her shoulders. She wasn't just pretty, he realized now, she was beautiful, and very striking. She had put some makeup on, and she escorted him into the airy living room, which was all done in white and chrome, with a black-and-white marble floor, and two zebra rugs tossed casually under an enormous glass table. There was one mirrored wall to reflect the view, and the glass table in the tiny dining room was set for two. And somehow, even though she wore only jeans and a silk shirt, she had an aura of great sophistication.
“This is quite a place!” He marveled at the view, and she led him out onto the terrace as she handed him a gin and tonic.
“It's my only case of excessive indulgence.” Her father had wanted to buy her a town house for her thirtieth birthday, earlier that year, but she had steadfastly refused it. She loved the place she had, and it was big enough, and Oliver certainly understood why she liked it. “I spend an awful lot of time here. I spend most of my weekends here, buried in manuscripts.” She laughed easily and he smiled.
“I can think of worse fates.” And then he decided to play her game. There was a great deal he suddenly wanted to know about Megan Townsend. “What about you? Married? Divorced? The mother of twelve?” although that at least seemed more than unlikely. Everything about her screamed that she was unencumbered and single.
“Never married. No kids. No cats, dogs, or birds.
And no currently married lovers.” They both laughed, and he grinned ruefully.
“I guess that leaves me out.”
“Are you going back to your wife?” she inquired, as they sat on two white Brown Jordan deck chairs outside.
“No, I'm not.” He met her eyes squarely, but he didn't tell her that until recently, he would have liked to. “Our lives have gone in very separate directions. She's a graduate student at Harvard now, and an aspiring writer.”
“That sounds admirable.”
“Not really.” There was still a trace of bitterness in his voice, whenever he talked about Sarah to strangers. “She walked out on me and three children to get there.”
“Sounds like heavy stuff.”
“It was.”
“And still is?” She was quick, and she seemed anxious to get to know him.
“Sometimes. But better lately. You can't hang on to anger forever,” he smiled sadly, “although I tried to for a long time. She kept insisting she was coming back, but I think that charade is finally behind us. And the kids are adjusting … so am I….”He smiled at her, and then suddenly laughed at himself. “Although, I have to admit to you, this is the first 'date' I've had in twenty years. You may find my dating manners a little rusty.”
“You haven't been out with anyone since she left?” Megan was impressed. The woman who'd left him must have been quite something. She'd never been without a man in her life for more than a month, and she was sure she didn't want to be. Her last lover had departed only three weeks before, after a comfortable six months, commuting between her penthouse and his Fifth Avenue town house. She moved with a racy crowd, but something about Oliver had intrigued her, his looks, his charm, and something that had suggested to her that he was very lonely. “Are you serious?”
And then suddenly he remembered the lady wrestling fan, and laughed again. “No, I lied … I had a date a couple of months ago, and it was a disaster. It almost cured me.”
“Good Lord, Oliver,” she laughed and set down the remains of her gin and tonic, “You're practically a virgin.”
“You might say that.” He laughed and for a moment, wondered if he had gotten in over his head this time. He hadn't made love to a woman in seven months, and suddenly he wondered what would happen if he tried. Maybe it wouldn't even work. For seven months, he hadn't wanted anyone but Sarah. And he hadn't slept with anyone else in twenty years before that. He had never cheated on his wife, and this girl seemed somehow as though she was used to getting any man she wanted. Suddenly a little boy in him wanted to run home as fast as he could, and he felt like Sam as he stood up and went to admire the view again, while she went back inside to finish putting together the promised salad.
“I warn you, I can't cook. Caesar salad and carpaccio are the full limit of my skills. After that, it's strictly pizza and Chinese takeout.”
“I can hardly wait. I like them all.” And he liked her, too, although she frightened him a little bit.
They sat down to dinner in the dining room, and talked about her work, and his, and he began to feel more at ease again, and then eventually she asked about his children, and he tried to describe them to her.
“They were all pretty hard hit when their mother left, and I was too. But I think they're coming out of it now.” All except Benjamin and the disaster he had created for himself with Sandra.
“And what about you? How do you feel now?” She seemed a little mellower after some good French white wine, and he had relaxed too. It was easier to talk to her now, as they mused about life over their simple dinner.
“I don't know. I don't think about it much anymore. I just keep busy with my work and the kids. I haven't thought about how I feel in a while. Maybe that's a good sign.”
“Do you still miss her?”
“Sure. But after twenty-two years, I'd be crazy not to. We were married for eighteen years, and dated for four years before that. That's a long time in anyone's life. In my case, it's half a lifetime.”
“You're forty-four?” She smiled, and he nodded. “I figured you for about thirty-nine.”
“I figured you for twenty-five.”
“I'm thirty.” They both laughed.
“And how does that feel? As terrifying as they say? Sarah hated turning thirty, she felt as though her whole life was behind her. But that was nothing compared to thirty-nine … and forty … and forty-one…. I think that's what got to her finally. She was panicked that she would never accomplish anything before she got really old, so she ran. The dumb thing was that she had accomplished a lot, or at least I thought so anyway, but she didn't.”
“I'm not hung up about those things, but I guess that's because I'm not married and bogged down by kids. I've done exactly what I've wanted to do all my life. I guess you could say I was spoiled rotten.” She said it with a look of glee, and he laughed, suspecting she was right, as he glanced around the expensively appointed apartment.
“What's important to you? I mean, what do you really care about?”
Myself, she almost said out loud, and then decided to be a little less honest. “My work, I guess. My freedom. Having my own life to do exactly as I please with. I don't share well, and I don't do well with having to live up to other people's expectations. We all play by pur own rules, and I like mine. I don't see why one has to do anything, get married, have kids, conform to certain rules. I do it my way, and I like that.”
“You are spoiled,” he said matter-of-factly, but for the moment, he wasn't sure that he minded.
“My mother always told me not to play by anyone else's rules, and I never have. I always seem to be able to look beyond that. Sometimes it's a strength, and sometimes it's a terrible weakness. And sometimes it's a handicap because I don't understand why people complicate life so much. You have to do what you want to do in life, that's the only thing that matters.”
“And if you hurt people in the process?” She was treading on sensitive ground, but she was also smart enough to know it.
“Sometimes that's the price you pay. You have to live with that, but you have to live with yo
urself, too, and sometimes that's more important.”
“I think that's how Sarah felt. But I don't agree with that. Sometimes you owe other people more than you owe yourself, and you just have to tough it out and do what's right for them, even if it costs you.” It was the basic difference between him and his wife, and possibly the difference between him and Megan.
“The only person I owe anything to is me, and that's how I like it for now. That's why I don't have kids, and I'm not compelled to be married, although I'm thirty. I think that's what we're really talking about. In a sense, I do agree with you. If you have kids, you owe a lot to them, and not just to yourself. And if you don't want to live up to them, you shouldn't have them. I don't want all that responsibility, which is why I don't have them. But your wife did. I suppose the basic mistake she made was marrying you and having children in the first place.” She was more astute than she knew, and she had hit Sarah's philosophies bluntly on the head, much to Oliver's amazement.
“That was my fault, I guess. I talked her into all of it. And then … twenty years later, she reverted to what she had been when we met … and bolted….”
“You can't blame yourself for that. It was her responsibility too. You didn't force her to marry you at gunpoint. You were doing what you believed in, for you. You can't be responsible in life for other people's behavior.” She was a totally independent woman, attached to no one and nothing, but at least she was honest about it.
“What does your family think about the way you live?” He was curious about that, too, and for a moment, she looked pensive.
“Oh, I suppose it annoys them. But they've given up on me. My father keeps getting married and having kids. He had two with my mother, four with his second wife, and he's just had his seventh child. My mother just gets married, but forgets to have kids, which is fortunate, because she really doesn't like them. She's sort of an Auntie Mame. My sister and I spent most of our lives in expensive boarding schools, from the time we were seven. They would have sent us sooner if they could, but the schools wouldn't take us.”
“How awful.” Oliver looked horrified. He couldn't even imagine sending his children away. At seven, Sam had still been a baby. “Did it affect you?” But he realized, as soon as he had said it, that it was a stupid question. There were obviously reasons why she was attached to nothing and no one now.
“I suppose it did. I'm not very good at forming what the English call 'lasting attachments.' People come and go. They always have in my life, and I'm used to it … with a few exceptions. “She looked suddenly sad, and began to clear the table.
“Are you and your sister close?”
She stopped and looked at him oddly. “We were. Very close. She was the only person I could ever count on. We were identical twins, if you can imagine that. Double trouble, as it were. Except that she was everything I wasn't. Good, kind, well-behaved, decent, polite, she played everything by the rules, and believed anything anyone told her. She fell in love with a married man at twenty-one. And committed suicide when he wouldn't leave his wife.” Everything had changed for Megan after that, and Oliver could see it in her eyes as she told the story.
“I'm sorry.”
“So am I. I've never had another friend like her. It was like losing half of myself. The better half. She was all the good things, all the sweet things I never was and never would be.”
“You're too hard on yourself.” He spoke to her very softly, and his kindness only made it more painful.
“Not really. I'm honest. If it had been me, I'd have killed the son of a bitch, or shot his wife. I wouldn't have killed myself.” And then, with a look of anguish, “When they did the autopsy, they found out she was four months pregnant. She never told me. I was here in school. She was staying in London with my mother.” She looked at him with hardened eyes. “Would you like coffee?”
“Yes, please.” It was an amazing tale. It was incredible to realize the things that happened in people's lives, the tragedies, the pain, the miracles, the moments that changed a lifetime. He suspected that Megan had been very different before her sister died, but he would never know that.
He followed her out to the kitchen, and she looked up at him with a warm smile. “You're a nice man, Oliver Watson. I don't usually tell people the story of my life, certainly not the first time I meet them.”
“I'm honored that you did.” It explained a lot about her.
They went back out to the terrace to drink the pungent brew she extracted from the espresso machine, and she sat very close to him as they looked at the view. And he sensed that she wanted something from him, but something that he wasn't ready to give her. It was too soon for him, and he was still afraid of what it would be like to reach out to a woman who wasn't Sarah.
“Would you like to have lunch sometime this week?”
“I'd like that very much.” She smiled. He was so sweet and innocent, and yet so strong and so decent and so kind. He was everything she had always feared and never wanted. “Would you like to spend the night with me here?” It was a blunt question and the question took him by surprise as he set his cup down. He looked over at her with a smile that made him look handsome and boyish at the same time.
“If I say no, will you understand that it's not a rejection? I don't like rushing into things. You deserve more than that. We both do.”
“I don't want anything more than that.” She was honest with him. It was one of her few virtues.
“I do. And so should you. We spend the night, we have some fun, we wander off, so what? What has it given us? Even if we only spend one night together, it would be nicer for both of us if it meant something.”
“Don't put too much weight on all that.”
“Would it be simpler to say I'm not ready? Or does that make me sound like a loser?”
“Remember what I said, Oliver? You have to play by your own rules. Those are yours. I have mine. I'll settle for lunch, if you're not too shocked at being propositioned.”
He laughed, feeling more comfortable again. Any- thing seemed acceptable to her, she was flexible and undemanding, and so sexy, he wanted to kick himself for not taking her up on her offer then and there before she could change her mind.
“I'll call you tomorrow.” He stood up. It was time to go. Before he did something he would regret later, even if she didn't. “Thank you for a wonderful dinner.”
“Anytime.” She watched him closely as they walked to the door, and then looked into his eyes with something few men saw. Although she had bedded down with many, there were few who knew her. “Oliver … thank you … for everything. …”
“I didn't do anything, except eat and talk, and enjoy being with you. You don't need to thank me.”
“Thank you for being who you are … even if you never call me.” She was used to that, usually after a night of unbound passion. As she had said to him, people came and went in her life. She was used to it. But if he didn't call her, she would somehow miss him.
“I'll call you.” And with that, he bent, and took her in his arms and kissed her. She was the first woman he had kissed since his wife had left, and her mouth was inviting and warm, and her body strong and appealing. He wanted to make love to her more than anything, but he also knew he had to go. He wanted to think about this. She was too powerful a woman to be taken lightly.
“Good night,” she whispered as the elevator came, and he smiled as he looked her straight in the eye as the doors closed. She stood there for a long time, and then she walked slowly back into her apartment and closed the door. She went back to the terrace, and sat down, thinking about him … and the sister she hadn't talked about in years. And without knowing why, or for which of them, she began to cry softly.
Chapter 15
He called her, as promised, first thing the next morning, and invited her to lunch at the Four Seasons that day. He had lain in bed thinking about her for hours the night before, and hating himself for not staying and making love to her. He had had everything in the w
orld handed to him on a silver platter, and he had run away. He felt like a total fool, and he was sure that Megan shared his opinion.
They met at the Four Seasons at noon, and she was wearing a bright red silk dress and high-heeled black patent leather sandals, and he thought she was the sexiest woman he had ever seen. It made him feel like an even bigger fool about the night before, and he told her as much as they settled down at their table. The fountain in the middle of the room was issuing a delicate spray, and there were people everywhere from his business and her own. It was hardly a discreet place for them to meet, but neither of them had any reason to keep secrets.
She told him about the new book she was interested in publishing, and he explained to her at length about one of their new clients. And it was three o'clock before they looked around and realized that they were the only people left in the room. Megan laughed and Oliver looked faintly embarrassed.
“How about dinner tomorrow night?” he asked as they left.
“Can you cook?”
“No.” He laughed. “But I can fake it. What would you like? Pizza? Chinese? Pastrami sandwich? Cheeseburger from Hamburger Heaven?”
She laughed at him. “Why don't I pick up some things at my favorite deli and we can make a mess of it together?”
“Sounds great.” He loved the idea, the coziness of it, and most of all the prospect of seeing her again.
“Do you like moussaka?”
“I love it.” But he was a lot more interested in her than the meal, and he kissed her lightly on the cheek as he put her in a cab and walked back to his office.
“New client?” Daphne asked him at four o'clock when she dropped by his office with some storyboards to show him.
“Who?”
“That knockout I saw you with at lunch.” She grinned happily at him across his desk and he blushed and pretended to concentrate on the storyboards for the commercial.
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