“I am tired.” But since he’d been the perfect escort, polite and deferential to my desires, I felt compelled to add, “But we can stay if you have more you’d like to see.”
Another one of the open and unmistakably pleased smiles that had been commonplace today crossed his face, softening the patrician lines. “We can always come back. If you want.”
We. Casual error or deliberate choice? Jack didn’t strike me as the type to be given to casual errors—or invitations. We began walking along the path to the parking lot. “Jack?”
“Hm?”
“Thank you.”
He nodded but remained silent until we’d reached the car—even then, he never spoke, but merely hummed along with the radio, the melodies combining with the rush of the wind and providing pleasant accompaniment down the twisting, hilly roads to the hotel.
Just inside the lobby doors, Jack paused, gesturing toward the concierge’s desk. “Ava should have checked in by now. I’ll call and see if she wants to meet for drinks later. Just for a half hour or so, let you two become acquainted before getting down to brass tacks tomorrow.”
I pressed a hand to my stomach, suddenly wishing I hadn’t yielded to Jack’s insistence and indulged in the ice cream cone. Or the hot dog. Or any food, really. “That sounds … fine.”
Straight white teeth flashed in a smile as much reassuring as it was slightly mocking. “Relax, Natalia. It’s just drinks. Ava doesn’t bite over drinks. And if she does, rest assured, I’m fairly certain she’s up to date on her shots.”
I nodded and resisted the urge to look around for the nearest flowerpot. “Well then—”
“No, wait.” His smile broadened into the boyish grin that had appeared with increasing frequency throughout our day together. “This should only take a moment. We’ll go up together.” God, but the man could be charming, even when he wasn’t visibly trying. I allowed him to lead me to a seat on one of the lobby’s tufted circular benches where I leaned my head against the high back and allowed my gaze to play out over the scene spread before me. One of elegance and leisurely grace—underscored by quiet conversations and soft piano music and the high-pitched tinkling of glasses drifting from the adjacent lounge as the cocktail hour got underway.
“Are you certain? No word?” I twisted around on the bench, watching Jack as he paced, the whitening of his knuckles clearly visible as he gripped the phone’s sleek ivory receiver. “No … no. Thank you. I’ll be in contact as soon as I hear something.”
While clearly agitated, it was an eerily controlled agitation, his steps slow and measured, his words losing the relaxed edge which had laced them throughout the course of the day, the syllables growing more crisp and uniform as his well-bred WASP accent reemerged. Only the sharp ricochet of the receiver as it was forcefully returned to the cradle indicated just how truly angry he was. I sat frozen, only my fingers moving, carefully pleating my skirt, over and over, as he approached.
“Ava hasn’t checked in.”
“Is it really that bad?” I offered, tentative in deference to the anger that vibrated more strongly the closer he came. “Perhaps she was detained.”
“Or perhaps she’s merely toying with us. She never showed up at the Palm Springs shoot either.”
“Oh.”
A derisive quirk of an eyebrow accompanied his, “Yes, oh.” He dropped to the seat beside me, an explosive sigh escaping. “Damn her.” He shoved a hand through his hair, further disheveling locks that had been at the mercy of the Jaguar convertible he’d somehow procured for today’s adventure. Declaring California sightseeing needed to be open air to make it complete. Another utterly boyish moment thoroughly at odds with the starchy New York high-society side of him.
“She’s letting us know how unhappy she is.”
“With?”
It was merely a breath—a heartbeat of hesitation—but it was enough. “She was unhappy with our decision to hire a female ghostwriter.”
“I see.” My fingers resumed pleating the fabric of my skirt into tight folds. “Were you planning on telling me? Or was it simply going to be a pleasant surprise?”
Dull red splotched the fair skin exposed by the open collar of his shirt, his shoulders twitching beneath the light blue knit fabric as if sunburned. His restless gaze traversed the lobby, as if hoping his cousin would somehow miraculously pop out from behind one of the immense potted palms or whip off a scarf and sunglasses used as a disguise from behind which she could watch Jack squirm, the victim of an elaborate hoax.
No such luck. While there were any number of glamorous young women in oversized sunglasses and Pucci scarves, languorously posing throughout the lobby and hoping to be noticed, not a one was Ava Roemer. Short of actually rising to go check every face hidden behind a magazine or investigate every shadowed corner, Jack was left with no choice but to face me.
“I’d hoped that by meeting you—casually, over drinks with me, she’d relax,” he confessed. “That she’d see there was nothing to worry about. I honestly saw no need to tell you.”
“Lovely.” One hand moved to the looped handles of my straw handbag, ready and wanting … oh, so badly—
“Natalia—”
I forced my grip to relax, to release the bag. Forced myself to not drop my hands to my lap and immediately burrow them within the already wrinkled depths of my skirt. But with nothing to hold on to, I felt weightless, lacking any sort of anchor. My gaze found and focused on the chandelier suspended high above my head.
“You’ve got every right to be angry.” Even at his touch on my shoulder—the awkward fidgeting as he adjusted the collar of my sweater and revealed more than I’m sure he intended—I refused to look at him. “However, in the interests of efficiency, do you think you could be angry at me in my suite?”
Even the somewhat startling request didn’t interrupt my intense scrutiny of the frosted crystal petals of the domed chandelier. Lalique? Once upon a time I would have known at a single glance. What a stupid thing to know with such certainty.
“I want to give you an explanation, but I also have to track down Ava. For that I need to be near a phone. We could order room service.”
“You think I’m so easily enticed?” I asked more of the chandelier. As if it would act as some sort of crystal ball, telling me what to do. Which direction I should take. Sadly, it revealed no pearls of wisdom, leaving me to rely on Jack’s response and my own instincts.
“Only if you need a drink as badly as I do.”
In the elevator, he met my gaze in the mirrored walls. “Look at the bright side. I’ll probably be so preoccupied, I won’t notice when you lace my cocktail with rat poison.”
Maddening, maddening man. “I suggest you not give me any ideas.”
Unfortunately, while drinks and hors d’oeuvres were accomplished easily enough, little in the way of explanations were managed, since the phone began ringing from nearly the moment we crossed the threshold into Jack’s lavish suite. With nothing else to do, I sat on a chaise on the terrace, bare feet tucked beneath me as I sipped wine and watched as Jack paced back and forth as far as the phone’s cord would allow. There were calls to lawyers and loyal family retainers and a brief conversation with one Dante Campisi—Las Vegas hotelier and Ava’s second husband, I recalled—someone with whom she’d clearly maintained some sort of relationship. At least, enough for Jack to contact him. Oddly enough, however, no apparent effort on Jack’s part to contact Ava’s parents or any other family member as far as I could tell. More to file away for future reference.
As the sun was just beginning to edge its way toward the western horizon Jack appeared in the terrace doorway. “We found her.”
I swung my feet to the floor, toes instinctively curling against the cold tile. “Where?”
“Malibu.” He turned and stalked back into the suite, making a beeline for the bar. Following, I watched as he poured a hefty measure of bourbon.
“Malibu?” I parroted stupidly.
“Yes an
d don’t ask why because I haven’t the faintest goddamned idea.” He tossed back the whole of the drink in one impatient swallow. “Come on. I’ve already called for the car.” Setting aside the glass, he reached for my wrist, eyes widening as he felt my resistance.
“Natalia, come on. I don’t have patience for any more games.”
Oh, he had to be rattled. For a man as intelligent and deliberate as Jack Roemer to use that term so carelessly with me? I yanked my arm free. “I’ll be damned if I go any further without some idea of what I’m getting into, which I’m starting to get the impression is a great deal more than anyone has let on.”
His eyes narrowed. “It’s complicated.”
“I have time.” I sat at the edge of a whitewashed cane chair upholstered in a vibrant tropical print. Very deliberately, I crossed my ankles and tucked them to the side, primly smoothing my skirt over my knees and laying my folded hands in my lap with studied casualness.
He shoved his hands into his pockets, mouth tightening into a tense line. “It goes beyond mercurial, you know. Fact of the matter is, Ava’s … different.”
I nodded. “The question is what kind of different?”
The sleek brass clock mounted on the wall marked each passing second with a rhythmic ticking. An insistent heartbeat, as if the room itself was holding its breath—waiting. Into the silence, the clink of a melting ice cube collapsing in Jack’s abandoned glass resonated with a gentle chime.
“Initially I felt it best that Ava meet you, have an opportunity to become comfortable with you. Now, however, I think it would be more to your benefit. That you deserve the right to make the choice.” Taking his verbal cues from the room’s serene atmosphere, Jack’s words came out measured, but gentle. No trace of the upper-crust WASP—just a man. A very tired man. “It’s one thing to pick up impressions from dry facts on paper or based on what we might say about her, but another altogether to experience it. Afterwards, if you want to walk away, you’re free to do so, no questions asked and with full compensation for the project. You’ve earned at least that much for—” He hesitated, then added softly, “Everything.”
It was his tone, more than the words themselves, that had me nodding slowly and following him down to the already waiting Jaguar. Even though he hadn’t really answered my question.
We made the near hour-long drive in silence, welcome especially after we turned onto the Pacific Coast Highway and I was gifted with my first sight of the ocean, the lowering sun bathing the view in a shimmering gold and white veil. More welcome than the view, however, was the smell. Oh, that smell. Clean salt and brine and sheer freedom. Filling me with a renewed sense of determination. In exchange for this? I could put up with a great deal.
“There—” I tugged at his sleeve as I pointed with the hand holding the paper on which he’d scrawled the address and directions. “Hidden Cove Road.”
“Hidden Cove. Hiding in plain goddamned sight. I swear to God, she does this just to try me.” He flicked the burned down stub of his cigarette over the window’s edge before wrenching the wheel to the left, veering off onto the nearly hidden side road, small rocks spitting up beneath the tires and rattling against the Jaguar’s glossy red finish as he caught the edge of the asphalt.
“Jack, slow down, please.” His fingers tightened around the polished wood of the steering wheel as if he wanted nothing more than to pretend he hadn’t heard me. Wanted nothing more than to turn around, floor the accelerator, and leave this quiet shaded street and whatever might be waiting far behind. But he did as I asked, slowing enough to allow me to read the elegantly scripted numbers on the stone pillars standing sentry along the roadside.
“There it is.”
He turned, the crunch of the tires slowly rolling over gravel unnervingly loud as the path sloped sharply into a densely wooded ravine. Only the occasional weak shaft of light penetrated the sudden twilight, a taunting hint that something real might exist at the end of the journey. Despite the numbers on the pillars and the obviously well-tended driveway with its deliberately casual wildflower border, my palms grew damp.
“You don’t think this is some kind of joke, do you?”
“It would hardly be the first time.” He slowed further, pulling his sunglasses off in order to better see.
No … I did not like the way this felt. My heart raced, my breath catching in rapid shallow gasps at the sensation of forging through darkness with no idea what lay on the other side. My fingernails dug into the edges of the seat as I fought the memories.
Just as I was about to suggest that we leave, that we get out now rather than venture further into the nerve-wracking dark, the trees broke to reveal a clearing flooded with light, the path widening into a neat oval drive crowned with the most perfect house I’d ever seen. Or rather, I reconsidered as we emerged from the car, not a house. A fantasy.
Weathered stone and bleached rough-hewn wood gave the impression that it had emerged, bit by bit, from its quiet surroundings while behind the house the ocean stretched in wild, vivid contrast. Jack and I stood transfixed, watching the white-capped waves roar in before suddenly disappearing with a crash and hiss, the occasional fine mist springing up over the cliff’s edge, sparkling against the burnt orange horizon.
It was a scene from a fairy tale.
So of course it seemed perfectly natural that when Jack pushed at the oversized bronze door it swung easily inward—just as in those fairy tales, the innocents unwittingly lured into a trap.
“Ava, where the hell are you?”
“Oh, good, you made it. Come on down.” The voice drifted from the open stairwell leading to a lower level. Lacking a banister or any visible means of support, the stairway appeared to be nothing more than wide, irregular planks floating in space, prompting Jack to grasp my elbow, the two of us instinctively drawing closer together as we took those first tentative steps.
“Jesus …”
I silently echoed Jack’s low-voiced exclamation as we descended. Clearly, this immense glass-walled room stretching the width of the house served as the main living area. While the exterior of the house was evocative of its surroundings, the interior reflected a coolly elegant tropical paradise—filled with flowering plants and glossy wood ceremonial masks and batik wall hangings, brilliant against the white walls. Sleek metal and teak furniture with white canvas cushions clustered in cozy groupings, their creamy expanses interrupted only by the occasional matching throw pillow. But luxurious and dramatic as the décor was, it faded against the room’s shimmering centerpiece: a spectacular indoor pool. Framed by a towering rock waterfall and the wide glass wall, it fooled the eye into imagining it an extension of the outdoors, the ocean rushing into a pristine, isolated lagoon. And rising from the depths like Venus emerging from the sea, a fully nude Ava Roemer Elias Campisi McLaughlin, every bit as exquisite as Botticelli’s creation.
“Hello, darling.” She spared a quick, raised-eyebrow glance past his shoulder. “And how nice—you brought a guest. Not your usual type, though, is she?”
Too late I became aware of the disheveled waves of hair tumbling around my shoulders and the sting of windburn on my cheeks. I fought the impulse to lift a hand to smooth my hair or bite my lips for color. For God’s sake, at least I was dressed.
“Goddammit, Ava, this isn’t funny.” Jack strode to a chaise, tossing a robe in his cousin’s direction.
“Of course it’s funny.” Ignoring the robe, Ava stood at the pool’s edge, twisting her long hair into a coil, water streaming in sinuous rivulets along her skin as if reluctant to let go. “It’s hilarious. You should only see your face, Jack. It’s an absolute study in moral outrage and fury.”
I honestly tried not to stare—attempted to shift my attention to the fiercely scowling masks on the wall or the view beyond the windows—but it was as if Ava was a magnet, drawing all energy toward her, demanding that one’s gaze remain focused on her. Dios mío, but she was almost inhumanly beautiful. Full breasted, wasp-waisted, with a deli
cate porcelain doll’s face framed by a fall of strawberry-blonde hair. And even that, as unrealistically perfect as it seemed, was definitely natural as the only slightly darker-hued triangle between her legs attested. Idly, I wondered if that was what had been behind her choice of this house. Spectacular as it was, it was nevertheless exquisitely simple. The perfect backdrop against which she could shine with no effort.
“What the hell are you doing here? You were supposed to have been in Palm Springs before meeting us in L.A.”
“I changed my mind.” Nudging the robe aside with her foot, she gracefully dropped onto the chaise, reaching for a towel that she used to blot her hair. “Diana called and offered me a spread in Vogue. A shoot in Baja—winter fashions against a beach landscape. They let me frolic in the surf in a full Blackglama mink and nothing else. Doesn’t that sound terrific? And much more fun than stuffy old Palm Springs. The Racquet Club would have never let me get away with wearing nothing but a mink on the courts.”
“Of course. How Puritan of them.” Undeterred, Jack retrieved the robe and tossed it over Ava’s torso. “Did Diana understand that by spiriting you off to Baja you’d be in breach of contract with Harper’s?” Equally undeterred, Ava rolled to her side, propping herself up on an elbow, the robe once again sliding to the floor.
“Don’t be such a stick in the mud, Jack. It’s just one stupid little contract. You can fix it. You always do.” She smiled up at him, goddess transforming to winsome girl for just as long as she imagined it would take for her to get her way before the goddess reasserted herself.
“Now tell me, what do you think of the house? Just built. One of the other models on the shoot told me no sooner had the last screw been turned, the owner decided he wanted to live full-time in Monte Carlo for the time being. Some boring tax thing.” She wrinkled her nose. “He put it up for lease so I called our real estate man right away and had him secure it for the next two years.” Her eyes widened. “Do Mother and Daddy know yet? Are they furious?”
Without waiting for an answer, she rolled to her back, stretching her arms above her head with a satisfied sigh. “Anyway, it’s so beautifully groovy. I adore being out here. Everything’s new and modern with no tiresome history dragging it down. I do think I’ll buy it. Eventually. The thought of Mother and Daddy stewing over the idea of leasing is simply too delicious to let go right away. So nouveau.”
Between Here and Gone Page 17