Envy Mass Market Paperback

by Sandra Brown

  “I’ve never seen you wearing glasses. Do you ordinarily wear contacts?”

  Impatiently she raked her hair back. “What I want to know is why.”

  She had lowered the timbre of her voice, although it appeared to have been an effort. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly as though the volume and vituperation trapped inside were creating inner turbulence.

  “Why did you play this ridiculous game with me, Parker? Or Mackensie or whatever the hell your name is.”

  “Parker Mackensie Evans. Mackensie was my mother’s maiden name. When I was deciding on a pseudonym, it seemed a logical choice. Tickled my mom no end for me to use it. It has a nice ring. It’s androgynous. It’s—”

  “Answer me”

  “—safe.”

  “From what?”

  “Discovery.” He tossed out the word like a gauntlet. For long moments, it seemed to lie there between them on the dirt floor alongside the book. Finally he said, “When I sold the Deck Cayton series, I wished to remain anonymous. I still do.”

  “The series has been enormously popular. Why hide behind a pseudonym?”

  He folded his arms across his chest and gave her a pointed look. “Why do you suppose, Maris?”

  Her lips parted as though to speak, but then realization dawned, and her lips closed. She looked away, embarrassed.

  “Right. Deck Cayton is every man’s fantasy. Every woman’s, too, according to you. He’s agile and quick, he can chase the bad guys and carry a woman to his bed. Why would I want to dispel his dashing image by showing up at personal appearances in a wheelchair?”

  “No author photographs on the book jackets,” she mused out loud. “No book signings or personal appearances. I often questioned your publisher’s marketing strategy and wondered why it didn’t include you. They were protecting you.”

  “Wrong. I was protecting me. Even my publisher doesn’t know who Mackensie Roone is. My editor doesn’t know my real name or whether Mackensie Roone is male or female. No one knows anything about Mackensie Roone’s true identity. My agent tells me the speculation has run the gamut from—”

  “Of course,” Maris interrupted on a soft cry. “Mackensie Roone has an agent! I know her. You didn’t go through her when you submitted Envy. Why?”

  “She doesn’t know about it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I haven’t told her. She’ll get her percentage of anything Envy earns because I’ll bring her in to negotiate the final contract. But until that time, I chose to go this one alone.”

  “Why?”

  “Is there an echo in here?”

  “Before I kill you, I want to understand this, Parker.”

  Despite the first half of that statement, she appeared more befuddled than angry now, although he sensed he was being granted only a temporary reprieve. If he knew her at all, and he felt he was coming to, once she had time to think about all this at length, she was going to get as mad as hell all over again.

  “Explain yourself, Parker. Why the secrecy?”

  “I wanted to write a different book. Totally different from the snappy dialogue and fast-paced action in the Deck Cayton books. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not easy to write.” He grinned ruefully. “Frankly, it surprises the hell out of me how popular they’ve become.

  “But because they’re so popular, and Deck is so well-known to the fans—I mean, to some, he’s like a member of the family who’s merely away from home between books—they expect a lot from me. They want the same, but different. They want each book to take Deck into a new and exciting adventure, but they’d turn vicious if I deviated too far from the formula.

  “It’s hard to deliver every time out of the chute. Each successive book has outsold the previous one, and I’m glad. But that also raises the stakes and the standard, and makes each book harder to top.”

  “That’s a refrain I’ve heard from other successful novelists,” Maris remarked. “They say it’s difficult to top themselves. Noah has said that about The Vanquished.”

  Parker didn’t want to talk about Noah and his goddamned success story.

  “I’ve come clean with you, Maris, now be truthful with me. If my agent had called you up one day and said, ‘Guess what I’ve got? Lying on my desk as we speak is a new novel by the author of the Deck Cayton series. Something entirely different from the mysteries. Very hush-hush. And he wants you to see it first.’ You’d have creamed, right?”

  She blinked at the offensive expression, but she didn’t shy away from his eyes as they bore into hers.

  “I wanted you to cream over Envy, Maris. But without knowing anything about me or my past successes.”

  She looked away, readjusted her eyeglasses, absently brushed a gnat off her arm. When she looked at him again, she said, “All right, yes. I wouldn’t have used your crude terminology, but I would’ve been excited by such a call. Why would that have been such a terrible thing?”

  “Because I wanted an unbiased opinion of the writing.”

  “Which entitled you to make a fool of me.”

  “No, dammit! That wasn’t…” He felt his own ire rising, and he suspected it was because her argument had merit. He began again. “I sent the prologue to you unsolicited because that was the only way to guarantee an impartial reading. I wanted you to approach it without preconceptions. I wanted it to stand on its own, not on my reputation as a bestselling author. I wanted it to be good.”

  “It would have been just as good without the charade, Parker. My reaction to it would have been the same.”

  “But I would never have known for sure, would I?” He gave her time to respond, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. He was right, and she knew it. “I tricked you, yes. But I needed to prove to myself that there was more in me than a scotch-drinking, skirt-chasing hunk with a big gun and a bigger dick.”

  “Deck Cayton has more substance than that.”

  “Thanks. I think so. I wasn’t sure you did.”

  She bent down and picked up the book.

  “Are you going to bang me over the head with that?”

  “Maybe.” Her anger hadn’t dissipated. It was still there, simmering. She just had it under control. “But even as mad as I am,” she said, “I can’t abuse a book. It goes against my nature even to dog-ear a page.”

  “I’m that way, too.”

  She returned his peacemaking smile with a glare. “Don’t you dare try to charm me, Parker.” She passed the book down to him and dusted her hands. “What you did was—”

  “Terrifying.”

  “That wasn’t the word I was going to use.”

  “But it’s the correct one. When I put that prologue in the mail, I was scared shitless.”

  “Of what? Rejection?”

  “Big time. You could have sent me a curt letter. Said no thanks. Said I stunk. Said I should give up writing and try stringing beads or basket weaving instead. I’d have probably bought a package of razor blades and locked myself in the bathroom.”

  “That isn’t funny.”

  “You’re right, it isn’t.”

  “Besides, you’re too egotistical for suicide.”

  How little she knew. There had been times during those darkest days when his soul had been as twisted as his legs and his emotions were as raw as the flesh that defied healing, when, had he been able to move, he would have taken the path of least resistance and ended it there.

  But while he was in that pit of despair, he had been imbued with a will to live. Determination had been breathed into him by some omnipotent power or cosmic authority greater than his paltry human spirit.

  Not an angel, though. Not an angel as angels are typically portrayed. There was nothing benevolent, God-blessed, or holy about his plans for Noah Reed.

  He reached for Maris’s hand and squeezed it hard. “Don’t underestimate how important this is to me.”

  She didn’t squeeze back but searched his eyes. “Why did you send Envy to me, Parker? I know your editor for the Mackensie Roo
ne books. He’s very capable.”

  “He is,” he agreed solemnly.

  “My question stands. There are hundreds of editors in a dozen major publishing houses. What set me apart? Why’d you choose me?”

  “The article in the magazine.” He hoped she wouldn’t detect that he was lying. The answer seemed plausible enough to him, but she was looking at him with an intensity that was unnerving. “The things you were quoted as saying convinced me you were the editor for Envy.

  “I liked what you said about commerce versus quality, and how the balance in publishing is in danger of shifting in favor of the former. I’m not writing this book for the money. I’ve got more money than I’ll ever need. Deck Cayton has seen to that.

  “I’m writing Envy for me. If it finds an audience, I’ll be pleased. If it doesn’t, you still saw something worthwhile in it, and to me that’s damn good confirmation of my talent.”

  “It’ll find an audience.” She pulled her hand free of his. “I’ll see to that. I have too much invested in it not to.”

  “A measly fifteen grand?”

  “I wasn’t referring to the advance.”

  His silly smile collapsed and he matched her gravity. “I know.”

  “I was referring to…”

  He thought he saw the start of tears, but it might have been a tricky reflection off the lenses of her glasses. “I know what you were talking about, Maris.”

  They exchanged a long and meaningful look. He was consumed with the desire to touch her. “I don’t want you to leave.”

  He hadn’t known he was going to say that until he heard his own gruff voice filling the heavy silence. He hadn’t made a conscious decision to speak the words, but he meant them. And he meant them for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with his revenge on Noah Reed.

  “Write your book, Parker.”

  “Stay.”

  “I’ll be in touch.” She backed up several steps before turning and walking away from him.

  “Maris!”

  But she didn’t stop or even slow down, and she didn’t look back, not even when he called her name again.

  Chapter 16

  “This visit is long overdue. I’m glad you were free.” Nadia Schuller sent a smile across the table to her luncheon guest.

  As the setting for this intimate get-together, Nadia had chosen a small, cozy restaurant on Park Avenue. Its menu was unaffected; the decor was country French. Nadia thought the lace panels in the windows were a bit precious for Manhattan, but they contributed to the restaurant’s friendly ambience.

  And that was the note she was trying to strike with this lunch—friendliness.

  Which was somewhat of a challenge when you were screwing your guest’s husband.

  “Thank you for the invitation.” Maris offered a strained little smile and opened her menu, a not so subtle hint that she was ready to get lunch under way and over with as quickly as etiquette permitted.

  A waiter in a long white apron approached their table. “What would you like to drink, Maris?” Nadia asked.

  “Iced tea, please.”

  “I’m having white wine. Would you rather have that?” She made it sound as though she were granting Maris permission to have an alcoholic beverage if she preferred.

  Addressing the waiter this time, Maris repeated, “Iced tea, please. Lots of ice and a fresh wedge of lemon.” Turning back to Nadia, she said, “I formed the habit when I was in the South.”

  “They drink it year-’round down there, don’t they? That and moonshine.” Nadia ordered her wine and the waiter withdrew. “I heard all about your trip to Dixie.”

  “Oh?”

  “From your secretary. When I called to invite you to lunch.”

  “I thought perhaps Noah had told you.”

  “No, I haven’t seen Noah in, hmm… actually, I think it was the night I saw the two of you at the awards banquet.”

  They made small talk until the waiter returned with their drink order, then listened to his recitation of the chef’s specials. Nadia requested a few minutes for them to think over their selections. This delay in the proceedings seemed to perturb Maris, but Nadia wasn’t going to be brushed off like a piece of lint.

  She didn’t like Maris in the least, and she was absolutely certain that her dislike was reciprocated. Both were successful businesswomen, but their approach to their careers, to men, to life in general, couldn’t be more dissimilar.

  Maris Matherly-Reed had enjoyed all the advantages that Nadia had been denied. Maris had been born into a wealthy and well-respected family and had cut her perfectly straight teeth on a silver spoon.

  She had attended exclusive private schools and was a frequent guest at the tony parties held in the tony estates in the Hamptons. Her photograph often appeared in the society columns. She had traveled extensively.

  Maris had culture out the ass—an ass that hadn’t required painful, expensive liposuction to get it slim and taut. Shapely as it was, however, you couldn’t melt an ice cube on it.

  Nadia, née Nadine, had been born poor. Her family’s poverty was forgivable. It was their ignorance and uncouthness she had found intolerable. As early as preadolescence, she determined not to remain in Brooklyn and marry some boorish loser of a husband with whom she would fight over how they were going to house and feed their ever-increasing brood.

  She was destined for far better things.

  She lost her virginity at thirteen to her first employer, the manager of a novelty store where she clerked in the afternoons after school. He caught her stealing nail polish and lipstick from the store’s stock and had given her a choice between his sweaty coupling or arrest and juvenile court.

  Besides the discomfort of being screwed on top of shipping crates in a dank stockroom by someone with clumsy, damp hands and garlic breath, it hadn’t been that bad a trade-off.

  That was only the first of many times Nadia bartered sex to get something she wanted or to avoid something she didn’t. She perceived high school as a sentence she must serve, but amused herself by stealing her classmates’ boyfriends.

  She didn’t give a fig about the broken hearts she caused. It didn’t worry her that she didn’t have a single girlfriend. As long as there were boys lusting after her, vying for her attention, giving her presents, and taking her places in exchange for doing what she would have enjoyed doing anyway, why should she care?

  When her grades fell short of meeting graduation requirements, her rudimentary math teacher agreed to favorably adjust her score in exchange for a blow job. Her world history teacher, a pathetically homely woman, had been tearfully grateful when Nadia professed a secret affection for her. In the span of one rainy evening in the teacher’s apartment that smelled of cat-litter boxes, Nadia’s grade escalated from a D to a B+.

  Once she had her diploma, she eschewed higher education. She had no patience for scholastics. Instead, she plowed straight into the workforce, moving from job to job at six-month intervals, until she was hired as a copy editor for a local neighborhood weekly newspaper.

  This was the first job that had appealed to her and that she felt was worthy of her. Within weeks of being hired, she resolved that this was the field in which she would re-create herself—beginning with changing her name—and become famous.

  Eventually she talked the managing editor into letting her write an occasional article. The negotiation took place in the backseat of his car in the shadow of the row house where he lived with his wife and four children. Nadia had straddled his lap and, working him into a state of near delirium, got his gasping promise to give her idea a trial run.

  The Nadia Schuller pieces were gossipy, chatty, anecdotal stories about the lives and loves of people who lived in the neighborhood. It soon became the most popular feature of the newspaper. Nadia was on her way.

  Now, twelve years and countless lovers later, she sat across from Maris Matherly-Reed, behaving in a civilized manner but harboring an enormous amount of antipathy for a woman who beste
d her without even trying. Were Maris to hate her more, Nadia would hate Maris less. What she couldn’t tolerate was Maris’s seeming indifference toward her. As though she merited no notice at all.

  For instance, when they met at the entrance to the restaurant, Nadia had remarked on the light tan Maris had acquired while she was in Georgia and rather cattily reminded her how damaging sun exposure was to the complexion.

  Maris’s cool comeback had been, “Next time I go, I’ll be sure to take a hat.”

  They placed their entrée orders with the waiter. As Nadia passed Maris a basket of bread, she remarked, “Tragic news about Howard Bancroft.”

  That elicited a reaction. Maris declined the bread basket with a small shake of her head and her eyes turned sad. “Very tragic. I didn’t learn of it until I returned late yesterday afternoon.”

  “How many years had he been at the helm of your legal department?”

  “Since before I was born. We were all shocked.”

  “Has anyone speculated on why he killed himself?”

  “Nadia, I—”

  “Oh, this isn’t for ‘Book Chat.’ The facts were in the newspaper account, and it painted a grisly scene. I got the official, sanitized press release from your PR department. It said little about his manner of death and was more about his contribution to Matherly Press.”

  Howard Bancroft had been discovered in his car, parked half a block from his house on Long Island, with his brains blown to smithereens and a pistol in his hand.

  “The people at Matherly Press are a closely knit group. No one picked up warning signals?”

  “No,” Maris replied. “In fact, Noah had a meeting with him just that afternoon. He said Howard was being typically Howard.” She shook her head with remorse. “He was such a well-loved man, especially in the Jewish community. I can’t imagine what drove him to commit such a desperate act.”

  Their main courses arrived. As they ate, they switched to a brighter topic—the books Matherly Press had scheduled for its fall lineup. “I predict that it’s going to be a very successful holiday season for us,” Maris told her. “Our best ever.”