He put the paper down and telephoned Felicia. “This is Ashton,” he said without the pretense of friendliness. “I just read your column. I didn’t know you’d been in contact with my brother.”
Here it comes, she thought. “I wasn’t certain until now that he’s your brother. He called me, introduced himself and suggested that I’d be interested in that information. He’s a very impressive man. I related precisely what he said. He told me she would confirm it and gave me her number. I figured you knew all about it, and that you would eventually give me the background.”
“I haven’t mentioned you to Cade, and I doubt Damon has because he doesn’t gossip about my personal life.”
“All right, but what’s it all about?”
“I haven’t seen you in four days. Can we meet for dinner?”
“I’d rather go to a movie,” she said.
“So would I, but we can’t talk in the movies.”
“I’d rather we didn’t talk at my place, Ashton, because…well, we need to cool off.”
“You need to cool off, perhaps, but I’m not in the habit of leaving anything half done, and this thing between us is far from finished. Meet me somewhere. Anywhere. Today’s Wednesday. I’ll even go to a prayer meeting with you. Felicia, don’t do this to us. Look, the public library’s open till nine. We can meet there.”
“Ashton, we can’t talk in the library.”
“No, but we can hold hands. You want us to be circumspect? Well, no place is more likely to ensure that than the library.”
“In that case, we can meet at Barnes & Nobel across from Lincoln Center. It’s a lot closer.”
“Meet you there in an hour,” he said. He wished he knew what she feared so much that she refused to be alone with him. A woman her age should trust herself not to do anything she didn’t want to do. If she didn’t trust him, he may as well forget about her.
When he walked into the bookstore, he saw her at once, sitting alone with a magazine in front of her. Since it was upside down, she couldn’t have been reading it. He kissed the side of her mouth and sat down. “Here’s the story,” he said, and told her what the man who proposed to take over Dream planned to do with the company.
“You mean he plans to give it to that lemon head? She’s a vacant lot, if I ever saw one. If I were you, I’d stop worrying. Even if he doesn’t drop her voluntarily after what she said, his wife will be after her like a hawk after a rabbit.”
“Maybe that’s what Cade had in mind, but you didn’t mention the man’s name.”
“That’s because I didn’t know it, but if I had, I probably wouldn’t have used it. What are his initials?”
He told her and asked, “Are you doing this for me or for your readers?”
“My readers don’t need to know everything, Ashton. Let’s go.”
He took her hand. “May I see you to your door?”
“Yes, if you want to.”
“I’m afraid to ask if you want me to.”
“I do.” She wiped her eye.
He stopped walking and asked her, “Is there something wrong with your eye?”
She shook her head. “I think an awful lot of you, and it happened too soon, Ashton. So soon that I don’t trust it. It frightens me, because I don’t trust me.”
“And you think that if you let a lot of time elapse while you treat me as you would your kid brother that we’ll arrive at a point where, as mature individuals, we can pursue this relationship?”
“Something like that.”
“Don’t count on it, Felicia. The physical attraction between you and me is as strong as a bull, and unless one of us loses respect for the other, nothing will destroy that chemistry. By forcing us to go slow, you are merely guaranteeing that when we finally give ourselves to each other, we’ll produce an explosion, and we’ll probably never be sated.”
“How can you say that?”
He put his right arm around her and relaxed when she seemed to enjoy having it there. “I can say it because I know how we respond to each other. You know it, too. That’s why you’re scared.”
She didn’t disagree, and they walked silently until they reached a traffic light and stopped. He hugged her as close as he dared, and his heartbeat accelerated when she leaned into him.
“I miss you when I don’t see you,” he told her.
“I know,” she whispered. “Me, too, but we were headed for a quick affair, and that’s not what I want for myself. I could have had that a dozen times, Ashton. I need someone to love and cherish me, and I need desperately to love in return. I need to love friends, my brother, children and a man. What I’ve got is not even half a life. Yet, I can’t complain. I have a good life, even if it isn’t perfect.”
He stood at her door gazing down at her. Could she love Teddy as he did? “Give us a chance, Felicia.” She opened the door, walked in and looked up at him. Trusting. Waiting. He thought the next move was his, but he couldn’t be sure, so he whispered to her, “Come to me, Felicia. Come here. I need to hold you.”
“Oh, Ashton.”
He lifted her into his arms and held her as fiercely as he dared. “If I kiss you the way I want to, the way I need to, I won’t leave here until I’ve buried myself in you, and you aren’t ready for that.”
She pressed her face into the curve of his neck. “No. When I am, you’ll know it. Aren’t you going to kiss me before you leave?” She parted her lips, and he plunged into her, savoring every crevice of her sweet mouth, caressing and stroking her as her moans threatened to destroy his self-control.
“Hold on, sweetheart,” he said. “If you’re not ready for us to make love, remember that I’m not seeing other women, and I’m as starved for you as you are for me. Possibly more so.” He tried to think of something they could do that wouldn’t end in unrequited desire. “Suppose we take a ride around Manhattan, Saturday. I haven’t done that since I had high school dates.”
“Yes, but not this Saturday. Don’t you remember you promised your granddad you’d take Teddy to see him?”
“Good Lord, I’d forgotten, and I don’t break promises to my granddad. He wouldn’t stand for it. Besides, Cade will be home, and I haven’t seen him for a while.”
She reached up and kissed his cheek. “I’ll see what I can come up with.” He hugged her and left. With that one short kiss, she’d heated him up so thoroughly that he doubted he would sleep. Instead of hailing a taxi, he walked home, grateful for the exercise. One thing was certain: he had to do something about Felicia Parker. She didn’t know it, but every time they spoke and each time he was in her presence, she gained ground with him. It became harder and harder to leave her.
Chapter 4
Felicia walked into her office the next morning and found a note from her boss. “Come see me as soon as you get in. R.” She dropped her briefcase on the floor beside her desk and went to Ray Gilder’s office.
“Seems the Underwoods are in for it,” he said. “You had a line on this a couple of days ago. Barber-Smith, Incorporated is trying a hostile takeover of Dreams. Something peculiar about it. I’d like to know how Kate Smallens got into the picture. That woman seems to make a living by being popular. See what you can get.”
“I’ll do what I can,” she said.
He narrowed his left eye. “You’ll do…what kind of response is that? If you don’t want to write it, I’ve got reporters who’d love to. Come to think of it, I don’t want that in your column. Give me a straight story on it.”
“I’ll get to work on it, and that means I have to get that story and write my column, too.”
“Yep. That’s what it means, but it shouldn’t make you sweat, you love challenges.”
Maybe, but she certainly didn’t welcome this one. She went back to her office and telephoned Ashton. “My boss has learned about Barber-Smith’s hostile takeover attempt of Dream,” she told him. “And he has instructed me to write the story. Not in my column, mind you, but on the business page. I don’t mind telling you tha
t he became suspicious when I showed no enthusiasm for the job.”
His silence didn’t disturb her, for she knew he had to consider his answer. “All right. Do what you have to do, but be certain you include the fact that I’m fighting this attempted theft tooth and nail, and if you want a quote, I’ll give you one.”
“I will certainly want a quote, and I’d like to report what you just said. However, I think I’ll call Cade, too. He’s a bit less gentle about this than you are.”
“By all means do that. He’ll give you a quote that will be long remembered.”
“I wouldn’t want to cause him a problem by including something slanderous.”
“Don’t worry, Felicia, my brother’s clever. He won’t say anything that he can’t prove.”
She frowned at that, for she remembered how he’d tricked Kate Smallens into boasting about her relationship with the bottling company mogul who proved to be Julian Smith. “He’s clever, all right, and he may have some other angles on this, Ashton. If you’re sure you don’t mind, I’ll call him. I’ll be in touch.”
“You bet you will. We have a date for Thursday,” he said. “How about a kiss?”
She made the sound of a kiss and said, “That’s not for the office, but I’ll make an exception of you.”
“What?”
“’Bye.” She hung up and phoned Cade Underwood.
“Underwood speaking.” The similarity of their voices shocked her. It was as if she were still speaking with Ashton.
“Mr. Underwood, this is Felicia Parker. I have an assignment to write the story of Barber-Smith’s attempted takeover of Dream, and I’d like as much information as you can give me. But first, I want to know whether, when you phoned me last week, you knew that Ashton and I are friends.”
“I didn’t know it for a fact, Ms. Parker, but I figured that unless something was wrong with him, you should have been friends by then.”
She was certain that he heard her gasp. “Would you mind explaining that?” she asked him in a voice that was neither friendly nor pleasant, her annoyance making her risk his refusal to let her interview him.
“Don’t mind at all. I saw the two of you dancing together at the Sterling gala, and you all but burned up my TV set. He’d have to be pretty slow not to capitalize on that.”
She nearly swallowed her tongue. “Do you always say what you think?”
“Pretty much. Let’s put it this way. If you don’t want to know, never ask me. I don’t pussyfoot with the truth.”
“Hold on there. There hadn’t been a rumor about you and Kate Smallens until you had me insert your denial of it in my column, and you knew she’d grab at any publicity.”
“I told the absolute truth. There was not and never had been anything between us, hard as she tried to get something going. I try not to develop relationships with vacuous people.”
So far, all she’d gained in that call was the information that Cade Underwood wasn’t to be toyed with, and that he didn’t believe in politeness for its own sake. By asking whether he’d called with information for her society column because she knew his brother, she had meant to put Cade at a disadvantage, obligating him to reveal what he knew about the takeover. But that move had netted her nothing. Might as well get down to business.
“Does Kate Smallens figure in Barber-Smith’s move to take over Dream? If you permit me, I will quote your answer.” She’d put him on the spot, but she figured that with this man you had to be direct.
“I don’t know about Barber, but Smith’s planning to give Dream to Kate, provided he succeeds in taking it over.”
Her pen fell to the floor, and she was certain that her eyes rounded. Surely a businessman of Julian Smith’s reputation wouldn’t do anything that stupid. With the Kate Smallens she’d talked with a few days earlier in control, the company would all but evaporate.
“That’s so incredulous that I’m reluctant to print it.”
“The old fellow must be getting either senile or desperate. Surely he knows by now that Kate loves only two things—Kate and money.”
“You haven’t given me anything that I can quote.”
His long sigh told her that he was becoming either bored or exasperated. “Ms. Parker, haven’t you been listening? I dislike repeating myself. Didn’t you write it down?”
“I did, but I’d planned to paraphrase it. I didn’t think—”
He interrupted her. “I prefer not to be paraphrased, Ms. Parker. I tell it like it is, and you do the same.”
“All right, Mr. Underwood. I’ll…Look, is there any reason why you and I can’t use first names? This formality isn’t necessary.”
“You’re right it isn’t, but it was your call.”
“Uh…I expect you know I’m going to run this past Ashton before I send it to my editor.”
“Oh, yeah? Why don’t you send him the part in which you quote him and send me the part in which you quote me?”
So he wasn’t above a little sibling rivalry. “I’ll send each of you the complete text, but I don’t promise to accept any editing.”
His laughter surprised her. He’d been so serious that she hadn’t associated mirth with him. “You stand your ground, eh? Well, it’s hard to respect a person who doesn’t.”
“Thanks for your help, Cade. Ashton would probably never have told me this.”
“Definitely not in those words. Ashton believes in fighting as cleanly as possible, though make no mistake, he’s a tough adversary.”
“I imagine he is, but probably not more so than you. Thanks again.”
She had enough information to begin her story, but she needed more, something to give it a punch. She phoned Ashton. “I had a good talk with Cade, and I know what Smith plans to do with Dream if he acquires it, but what I need to know are your plans for warding off this takeover,” she said, not bothering to coat it with a personal overture.
“Hello, Felicia.” She thought she detected a little testiness in his voice, but since she didn’t see a reason for it, she discounted the possibility until he said, “I hope you’re not serious. You want to print my plan to foil a takeover of my flagship company and guarantee a win for Smith? Hell, he’d hardly have to stretch himself if you laid it all out for him.”
“How can I write a one-sided story? I have to be fair and present all the facts.”
“I agree that you should present all of the facts that you have. I wouldn’t be where I am today if I tipped my hand in business deals. I also don’t see how you can treat this so impersonally. Is writing this story the most important thing in your life? I’ll be in touch. Goodbye, Felicia.”
He hung up, and she stared at the receiver in her hand, mouth open and eyes wide. If he didn’t support her efforts to do the best she could in her work, why should she need him? Irritated and hurt, she called her brother Miles and poured out her thoughts and feelings about her conversation with Ashton.
“Do you know what happens in a takeover?” he asked her. “How would you like to work your tail off building a business, it hobbles along, you allow others to invest in it so you can get the money to develop it, the business flourishes and then some Joe comes along and decides to outsmart you, buy up a lot of shares when you’re not looking, get the support of other investors and ease you out of your job? You’re no longer the boss, he is, and he can run your company as he pleases. And he can do that easily, if you advertise your plan to thwart him, but if you surprise him, he’s more likely to lose the fight.
“As smart as you are, Felicia, I’m surprised that you asked him, and I’d have been stunned if he’d told you and you printed what he said. I thought you had a personal interest in the man.”
“I have, but I still have to do my job.”
“Really? Then I assume it’s all right with you if Ashton Underwood loses Dream, one of the largest cosmetic companies in the country. You can bet that’s what he’s thinking right now. If you want that guy, you’d better straighten it out, and soon.”
&nbs
p; Just what I need: a choice between upsetting the man I want and who means more to me than he realizes and getting ahead in my job. I have a chance to write a lead story for the business section of the New York Evening Journal, and I don’t have enough material for two good paragraphs.
“You do care, don’t you?” her brother asked.
“Of course I care, Miles. I care a lot, but shouldn’t he see my position?”
“Look, Felicia, I’ve never thought of you as a selfish person, but you’re thinking only of yourself now. You don’t need Underwood’s plans in order to write a good story. You can write something about the history of Dream, how he started the business, why and how it grew to where it is—”
She interrupted Miles. “Go no further. You’re absolutely right, and I don’t know why I didn’t consider that. I can give my editor a good story, and at the same time condition Dream’s investors to sympathize with the man who struggled to build the company into what it is. You’re not a lawyer for nothing. I’m going to call Ashton back as soon as I work out a list of questions.”
“You may find it very productive just to let him talk. Ask how he started it and let him take it from there. And, sis…When you’re talking to him, lock the journalist in a closet. You got my drift?”
“You wouldn’t say that to a man.”
“Not unless he was trying to get it on with the person he was about to interview. There’s a time and there’s a season for all things, Felicia, and that’s not original with me. The idea dates all the way back to Christ.”
She didn’t get out of line with her older brother, and not because he was six years older than she, but because she loved, admired and respected him. From childhood, she had almost idolized him, trailing behind him, basking in his approval, happy whenever she was with him. For Miles treated her as if she were a precious gift from their parents to him.
“All right,” she said. “Please, no lectures. I’d better telephone Ashton.”
Just the Man She Needs Page 7