by Sandra Brown
She glanced across the table at him now. He was picking at the bread crust on his plate but, as though feeling her eyes, raised his and caught her looking at him. He gave her a frank return stare.
He was undeniably attractive, although years of pain or unhappiness or disillusionment or a combination thereof had etched lines into his face, making him appear older than he probably was. His rare smiles were tainted by bitterness. His brown hair was thick and threaded with gray. Grooming it would probably be an afterthought. He was wearing two days’ worth of stubble.
His eyes weren’t a definitive color like blue or green or brown. They were best described as hazel and would have been unremarkable except for the occasional amber spots that flecked the irises. That unique feature, coupled with his amazing ability to remain focused on something for an incredible length of time, made his eyes compelling.
Staring at her now, he seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. His eyes were issuing a challenge. Go ahead, they seemed to say. You’re dying to know why I’m in this chair, so why don’t you just ask?
She wasn’t going to take up that dare. Not now. Not until she knew him better, or not until she got at least a verbal commitment from him that he would finish his book.
“Have you written any more, Mr. Evans?”
“Want a refill of iced tea?”
“No, thank you.”
“Another sandwich?”
“I’m full, thank you. Have you got more for me to read?”
He looked pointedly at Mike, who took the hint. “Excuse me. I need to put some things away.” The older man got up and left the room through a connecting door.
As soon as Mike was out of earshot, he said, “You’re a very determined woman.”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”
“I know.”
He backed away from the table, turned his chair, and stared through the glass as though he could penetrate the darkness and see the surf. Maris gave him this time. If he was balancing the pros and cons of a decision, she wanted to say nothing that might tip the scales against her.
After a time, he turned back. “Do you really think it’s that good?”
“Do you think I would travel to a remote spot on the map if I’d had a lukewarm response to your writing?”
“In plain English, please.”
“Yes, Mr. Evans, it’s good.”
He looked at her with exasperation. “My tongue has been inside your mouth, which makes the ‘Mr. Evans’ a bit ridiculous, don’t you think? My name is Parker. Call me that, okay?”
She swallowed but refused to look away from him. “Okay. And you can call me Maris.”
“I planned to.”
He seemed determined to provoke her one way or the other, but she was equally determined not to let him. “Where are you from, Parker? Originally. The South, I know that.”
“Shoot! What gave me away?” He spoke in an exaggeration of his natural drawl.
She laughed softly. “Well, there is the accent, but Yankees have a hard time distinguishing regional nuances. For instance, Texans don’t sound like South Carolinians, do they?”
“Texans don’t sound like anybody.”
Again she laughed. “Where did your particular accent originate?”
“Why is that relevant?”
“Some of the words you use…”
“Like?”
“Like ‘fixing’ instead of preparing or cooking supper. And the word ‘supper’ itself, instead of dinner. ‘Dither,’ ‘gentleman caller,’ things like that.”
“I guess those colloquialisms crop up now and then in my speech. I try and keep them out of my writing.”
“Don’t. They season it.”
“A little seasoning goes a long way.”
She acknowledged his point with a nod. “I see you’ve thought about it. You’re conscientious about using idioms in your prose.” Propping her arms on the table, she leaned forward. “You put a lot of thought and hard work into your writing, Parker. Why are you reluctant to have it read?”
He had the answer ready. “Fear of failure.”
“Understood. Creative people are cursed with self-doubt. It’s the nature of the beast.” She gestured toward his bookcase. “But aren’t we glad that most don’t submit to it?”
“Many do, though, don’t they?” he argued. “They couldn’t stand the ridicule of critics, or the fickle whims of the buying public, or the pressure of living up to expectations, or the darkest goddamn doubt of all, which is that they had no talent to begin with and that exposure of that reality is just around the corner. How many writers can you name who drank themselves to death? Or made it quick and blew their brains out?”
She thought the question over, then said, “Tell me, Parker, does that require more courage, or less, than becoming a recluse on an out-of-the-way island?”
The shot struck home. For several long moments he seemed to wage a battle with himself, then he whipped his chair about and rolled it to the worktable. He booted up the computer, saying to her over his shoulder, “This means nothing, understand?”
She nodded agreement, although she was certain that they were both lying. Whatever this was, it meant something.
“I’ve written a first chapter.”
“In addition to the prologue, you mean?”
“Correct. If you want to read it, I’ll let you. With the understanding that I’m under no obligation to you. Whether you like the material or not, I’m making you no promises.”
Maris moved beside his chair and together they watched the pages as they rolled out of the printer. “Does the first chapter start where the prologue left off?”
“No. The scene in the prologue comes toward the end of the story.”
“So you go back and bring the reader forward?”
“Right.”
“How far back?”
“Three years. Chapter one takes place when Roark and Todd are college roommates.”
“Roark and Todd,” she repeated, trying out the character names and deciding she liked them. “Which is which?”
“What do you mean?”
“Which one do we see in Hatch Walker’s office in the prologue? Who crashes the boat and who has gone overboard?”
This time his grin was free of bitterness.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” she asked.
“If I did, what would be the point of your reading the rest of the book?”
“The rest? So you are planning to finish it?”
His grin slipped a fraction. “Let’s see what you think first.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Don’t get too excited, Maris. It’s only one chapter.”
He removed the pages from the tray on the printer, then tapped the edges on the table to even them up before passing them to her. She grasped them, but he continued to hold them. She looked at him expectantly.
“When I kissed you? It didn’t have a damn thing to do with trying to scare you off.”
Before she could respond, he released the pages and shouted for Mike. “Bring her a phone so she can call for a boat,” he told the older man when he appeared in the doorway. “It’ll take about as long for it to get to the island as it takes for you to get her back to the landing. Should time out just right.”
“But it’s after eleven o’clock,” Mike exclaimed. “You can’t send her back at this time of night.”
Maris, flustered, said a little too quickly and loudly, “It’s fine, Mike. I’ll be fine.”
“I won’t hear of it.” Ignoring Parker’s warning look, Mike declared, “You’ll stay here tonight. In the guest house.”
Chapter 8
To avoid the parties being seen together in a public restaurant, the luncheon meeting was held in a private dining room on the thirty-first floor of WorldView Center. The paneled room was discreetly and expensively furnished. The hand-woven carpet was thick and sound-absorbing, the floral arrang
ements were elaborate and still dewy, the lighting was indirect and subdued. To add to the dignified ambience, heavy draperies had been drawn across the expansive windows, which ordinarily would have provided a magnificent view of the Midtown skyline.
The host, seated at the head of the dining table, asked politely, “More coffee, Nadia? Mr. Reed?”
Nadia Schuller indicated to the white-gloved waiter that she would like her cup refilled. Noah declined. They had dined on vichyssoise, lobster salad, and marinated asparagus. Strawberries Romanoff and selected chocolates had been served for dessert.
Noah thanked their host for the sumptuous meal. “It was excellent.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” Morris Blume thanked and then dismissed the servers.
As Nadia idly stirred cream into her coffee, Noah exchanged a look with her that said social hour was over and business was about to commence.
In addition to Morris Blume, five other representatives from WorldView were seated around the table. Six months earlier, Nadia had arranged an introductory meeting between Blume and Noah. Blume hadn’t been coy at that initial meeting. Rather, he had stated plainly that he wished to acquire Matherly Press for WorldView.
Immediately upon adjournment of that meeting, his corporate lawyers had begun working feverishly on an acquisition proposal. After months of researching and analyzing, drafting flow charts, drawing market-share graphs, and making projections, the final rendition had been delivered to Noah in an enormous three-ring binder. This meeting was for the purpose of hearing his response to it.
“You’ve had a month to study our syllabus, Mr. Reed,” Blume said. “I’m eager to hear your impressions.”
Morris Blume was whipcord thin and strikingly pale, a feature emphasized by his prematurely bald head. A rim of sparse hair continued to grow from his scalp, but he shaved it every morning, which left a gray shadow beneath his shiny dome. He wore eyeglasses with silver wire frames and always dressed in conservative gray. The man seemed to have an innate aversion to color.
He had been at the helm of the international media conglomerate since his hostile takeover four years ago. Only thirty-six at the time, he had ruthlessly ousted his predecessor along with anyone on the board of directors who adhered to what Blume termed “archaic and unenlightened mind-sets.”
Under his leadership, WV, as it was affectionately known on the stock exchange, had expanded from its base entertainment and broadcast entities into Internet commerce, satellite communications, and fiber-optics technology. Blume had catapulted WorldView into the twenty-first century, increasing its worth from a mere billion dollars to nearly sixty billion in only forty-eight months. Stockholders easily forgave his brash methods of doing business.
So what did a mammoth like WorldView want with a gnat like Matherly Press?
That was the question Noah now posed to Blume.
“Because it’s there?” the pale CEO glibly replied. Everyone at the table laughed, including Noah. He could appreciate the son of a bitch’s arrogance because he was an arrogant son of a bitch himself.
“You’ve already acquired a publishing house in the U.K.,” Noah pointed out. “The ink is barely dry on that contract.”
“True.” Blume nodded solemnly. “Platt/Powers will be a good investment for us. Their magazine division is the strongest in the British Isles. They distribute everything from a well-respected world news weekly to the sleaziest of sleazy porno.” He gave Nadia a smile that was disturbingly reptilian. “I assure you, Nadia, that I’m far more familiar with the former than the latter.”
She looked at Blume over the rim of the china cup as she took a sip of coffee. “How disappointing.”
Blume let the resultant laughter wane before he resumed. “Platt/Powers had twelve bestsellers in hardcover last year.”
“Thirteen,” one of the bean counters at the table supplied.
“More than that in paperback,” Blume continued. “As part of WorldView, it will dominate the bestseller lists this year. We’ve got the know-how and the budget to make that happen.”
“I’ve already interviewed two writers whom you pirated from their former publishers,” Nadia remarked. “They’re very excited about your marketing strategies, particularly the ones that will give them greater exposure here in the States.”
“We utilize our media resources,” Blume explained. “All of them. They are vast and unmatchable.”
He folded his bloodless hands together on the table and assumed an earnest demeanor. Focusing on Noah, he said, “By buying Platt/Powers, WorldView acquired a healthy publishing house. But the U.K. market is smaller than the American market. Significantly so. We want one on this side of the pond. We want Matherly Press.
“You publish books with mass appeal. Moneymakers, if you will. But you also publish literary works. Without question yours is a profitable house. It’s also a venerable publishing institution. It has a cachet of respectability. We’d like that for our little company.”
The fatuous understatement elicited a twitter from the WV group, but Noah let it pass without even a smile. Blume seemed to take that as a sign that he should stop and let the other side talk for a while.
“I’ve studied the proposal thoroughly,” Noah began. “You did your homework. The research was impressive. The projections are exciting but within the realm of achievability.”
“This is sounding very good,” Blume said, throwing grins all around.
Noah held up a cautionary hand. “However, before we move forward, there are a couple of points that must be addressed.”
“That’s the purpose of this meeting.”
“First, what about antitrust laws? Are you going to be in violation? I don’t want to become embroiled in a protracted legal dispute with the federal government.”
“I assure you that we don’t, either, and we’ve taken every precaution to avoid it.”
One of the lawyers was given the floor to explain why the probability of that happening was slim. Noah asked several questions, which he didn’t allow to be dismissed with legal double-talk. He kept at the counsel until his concerns were addressed and given the attention they deserved.
“Good,” Blume said when explanations had been provided to Noah’s satisfaction. “What’s your second point?”
Noah plucked an invisible piece of lint off the sleeve of his suit jacket, then looked over at Blume and said blandly, “Matherly Press isn’t for sale.”
* * *
“To which he said?” Daniel Matherly asked.
“Nothing that bears repeating,” his son-in-law replied.
“Something about stubborn old men who refuse to see the light, I’d bet.”
“Nothing that blatant, but definitely along those lines.”
They were having drinks together in Daniel’s home study. Maxine had poured them the first round. “One is his limit. He can’t have another,” she told Noah before leaving them.
“I’ll see that he doesn’t,” he called after her as she left the room. But a conspiratorial wink at Daniel nullified his promise to the housekeeper.
Now, a half hour later, they were enjoying their second round. “Fetch me my pipe, will you, please?”
Noah retrieved Daniel’s pipe from where he’d left it on the desk. He delivered it and a tobacco pouch to the large leather wing chair where Daniel sat with his feet propped on an ottoman. Methodically he packed his pipe and put a match to it.
“If Maxine smells that smoke—”
“I’ll claim it was you who was smoking.” He exhaled a plume of smoke toward the ceiling. Thoughtfully, his eyes remained fixed on the crown molding. “The mongrels are closing in on us, Noah. They’re mean and they have sharp teeth.”
Noah sipped his scotch. “WorldView?” He made a negligent gesture. “I don’t know how I could have stated it any more plainly. Matherly Press isn’t for sale.”
“They’ll persist. Particularly that Blume bastard.”
“It’s said he pisses ice cubes.�
�
Daniel chuckled. “I don’t doubt it.” He puffed on his pipe for a moment. “Even if Morris Blume falls by the wayside or gives up and goes away, another mongrel, even meaner than he, won’t be far behind.”
“Let them come. We can stave them off.”
Daniel smiled at his son-in-law’s confidence. Everyone in the industry had become acquainted with Noah Reed a decade ago following the publication of The Vanquished. The novel, set during the Reconstruction, had taken the nation by storm. There wasn’t a publisher in New York who hadn’t wished he’d been lucky enough to nab it, Daniel Matherly included.
But to everyone’s surprise, and his new fans’ dismay, Noah’s ambitions lay not in writing, but in publishing. He had followed every step of the publishing process on The Vanquished and had derived more enjoyment out of that than he had from writing the novel.
He was an engaging young man with superior intelligence and razor-sharp instincts. Some of his ideas on how best to market his book had been implemented by his publisher, and they had worked. The house reasoned that Noah would be equally successful publishing other books and had hired him.
The junior editor had quickly proved his mettle. During his first year, he acquired an obscure manuscript from an unknown author, who became a bestseller with that first novel and remained one to this day.
Noah had been a quick study editorially, but the business side of the industry was where he truly distinguished himself. His inventive marketing strategies were so successful that they were blatantly copied by other publishers.
He was a fearless negotiator, whom literary agents admired but dreaded facing across the bargaining table. He was a born leader. Once, on the eve of a labor strike, he had traveled to a printing company in Pennsylvania to personally appeal to the disgruntled workers. Acting as a mediator between them and plant management, he helped settle the dispute, quelled the strike, and prevented an industry crisis.
Noah Reed was bright, ambitious, even shrewd. Daniel had been rightly accused of being shrewd himself, so he didn’t regard it a derogatory term. So when, to Daniel’s surprise, Noah had come to him three years ago, covertly expressing his unhappiness with the limits placed upon him by his present employer and boldly stating his desire to make a move, Daniel had listened with interest. Noah’s ideas were innovative but didn’t conflict with the ideals on which Daniel’s ancestors had founded Matherly Press. Indeed, Noah shared them.