Inheritance

by Judith Michael

1 Starrett, who had taken to drifting in and out of Chicago like a If southern breeze: unexpected, warm, and embracing. They * were still getting to know each other, because Ginny couldn't

  bear staying in any one place for long, but by now Laura knew she would be back after every excursion to some part of the world, and soon she found herself looking forward to Ginny's return as much as she did Currier's. And in between, she had her privacy. The best of all worlds, she thought, and was taking a croissant on her plate when the butler came to the door to say there was a telephone call for her from Chicago.

  As soon as she picked it up. Clay began talking, his voice pitched high with excitement. "Listen to this. We just had a call from Felix's office. They thought we might be interested

  Judith Michael

  in making an offer on the New Yoric Salinger. They're ready to come here to talk to us about it."

  Laura closed her eyes for a brief moment. He came to me. He's asking me to buy Owen's hotel. She smiled.

  "What is it?" Currier asked.

  "Felix thinks OWL Development might want to buy the New York Salinger." She tilted the telephone away from her ear so he could listen. "Did you make an appointment?" she asked Clay.

  "I said Thursday morning. Is that okay? I thought we shouldn't sound like we were jumping at it."

  'That's fine. It gives me time to take a look at the hotel and fly to Chicago Wednesday night."

  Currier stirred and started to say something, then changed his mind and contemplated the view.

  "I'm sorry," Laura said as she hung up. "I know this was supposed to be our vacation, but I can't pass this up. You wouldn't want me to. Would you? Wes, you know how long I've been thinking about it."

  "Since the day the Chicago hotel opened."

  "Even before that. I didn't make a secret of it."

  "But you kept it in perspective. You had a job to do, and you concentrated on it."

  "And I did it."

  "You're through with Chicago? You have nothing more to do there?"

  "I could always find more things to do. But why should I?" Caught between puzzlement and anger, she gestured toward the Chicago newspaper. 'This says we've done something right, and I can hire a top manager to keep it up. Why not? I've watched you make plans for a new project while you were still finishing an old one and your staff was researching a dozen more; why is it all right for you to look for ways to get bigger and more powerful, but not all right for me? You've known from the beginning that I wanted all four of those hotels, and now, when one of them almost falls in my lap ..." She gazed at his tight hps and felt her anger spark. "You thought I'd be satisfied with one. Am I right? You thought I'd get it out of my system, and then marry you and travel with you and spend my time and energy on Wes Currier

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  instead of something as unimportant as a little hotel in Chicago."

  "I never said it was unimportant."

  "You're right; I take that back. You helped me; you made the whole thing possible. But now that it's a success, you want me to walk away from it and forget everything else I want to do. Why should I? You're not changing your plans; why should I?"

  "Because my plans, as you call them, are a solid business, and yours are dreams and fraught with risks. Because I can take care of you—^"

  "If they are dreams, they've started coming true, and I'm not afraid of risks."

  "You don't build a life from one success."

  "You did. You told me you arranged one merger and then staked everything you had on funding your own company."

  "It was a long time ago, and now it's behind me. All the groundwoiic, the scheming, the anxiety about success or failure, the crazy hours and priorities . . . it's all in the past. Why should you waste years going through the same things when you don't need to? I can take care of you, I can spend as much time with you as I want, we can go anywhere in the worid that pleases us. The struggle is over. I don't want to go through it again; there's no reason to."

  "No reason to," Laura echoed. "You don't want to go through it again. Isn't that too damn bad!" She shoved back her chair. Tense with nervous energy, she walked around the room, picking objects up and putting them down. "Your struggle is done, so I don't need mine—or the victories either, of course! You thought it was all right for me to have one success—how generous of you!—but that's it; now I'm supposed to let you take care of me. And you're going to spend all the time with me you want. My God, how flattering! What if I don't want to spend that time with you? What if I want the struggle and the anxiety and the crazy hours? What if I like the priorities I've set for myself? What do you think I am, a company you're planning a merger with? You set up a time schedule, you decide who does what and when, and then at the proper time you announce it and wait for the troops to fall into line."

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  "Sit down," Currier said calmly. "When are you going to leam to control that temper? If you're not careful, you'll fire me, the way you fired the chef, and then you'll be in terrible trouble."

  "Will I? What makes you so sure?" Breathing rapidly, her head high, she stood near the window, challenging him. Behind her were the pale winter sun and the rooftops of New York; in front of her were Currier's starkly elegant dining room and his commanding presence. It seemed to Laura that she stood between two choices: the city where she wanted to make her mark and the man who wanted to make her his.

  "You're being exceedingly foolish," Currier said. His voice was not as calm as before; Laura heard an edge in it that could have been impatience or worry. "I can't force you to do anything, not even to live a life of luxury instead of struggle. And I don't set time schedules for you; on the contrary, I've been following yours since you told me you wanted to buy that hotel in Chicago; it doesn't seem too much to think you might follow mine for a while. I've backed you from the beginning, I believed in you and I proved it, and I have a goddam right to ask—^" He stopped.

  "Right?" she echoed coldly. "Right? Because of money? We are talking about money, aren't we? Even though we decided a long time ago it was never going to be part of our personal relationship?"

  Currier threw down his napkin and went to her. "I'm sorry." He put his arm around her but she took a step back, and he let out a sigh of annoyance. "Damn it, listen to me. What I meant was, I'm part of your life now, part of everything you do, and I expect to be consulted when you're maJdng new plans. I won't be ignored or bypassed, Laura. I'm saying that as an investor and your lover and your husband—^"

  "You aren't my husband."

  "I will be; you know it as well as I do."

  "No." Involuntarily she took another step back. "I won't marry you, Wes. I've never said I would, but you pretended I just needed time—^"

  "I knew you needed time, and I didn't mind giving it to you. But I know how brutal business is, and I knew once you found out for yourself, you'd be ready for the kind of life I could give you."

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  She shook her head. "You just won*t understand. I want the brutal part. I want it all. Damn it, I have a right to it if I want it! Why do you think men are the only ones who can struggle ind win, or lose and get up to struggle again? What do you iiink you're protecting me from? A few bruises? Fve had them; I can survive a lot more if I have to. This is my dream, Wes, mine and Owen's, and I don't see any reason why I'd turn my back on it just because you tell me life can be a lot easier. I'm going to Chicago Wednesday night, and on Thursday I'm going to do my damnedest to buy the New York Salinger, and as soon as I do, I'll be back here to start work on renovating it and to find an apartment I can afford in Manhattan—and that's probably going to be the hardest thing of all."

  Reluctantly, he chuckled. "Probably. But I can help you; I lenow some management agents—^"

  "Wes, I'm trying to tell you I'm not asking for your help; I don't want it."

  "That's idiotic. Of course you do. This has nothing to do with marriage or even living together. We're partners in OWL Development, and I inte
nd to protect my investment. We're also friends, and I'd like to protect that. In any case, you need me. How do you expect to buy the New Yoric Salinger? You won't get a bargain, the way you did in Chicago, and you've borrowed to your limit; you couldn't get the money to buy it at any price."

  "No, but we have people who want to be investors." She gave him a clear look. "You told me about them a couple of months ago; did you think I wasn't paying attention? Some bankers and developers, you said, who want to buy into a Beacon Hill chain."

  He nodded. "But they came to me, not you, because they trust my judgment and they know I'm behind the corporation. Do you think they'd offer you the same money and the same terms?"

  j "One of them might. And then the others would follow; it would be the same as following you. I haven't talked to any of them yet, but now that Felix has called, I guess I'll have to get my act together. I think I can swing it: the balance sheet is good, and the auditor's report was excellent; you were the one who said what a good year it's been since that first weekend."

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  The room had darkened as a bank of clouds obscured the sun. Snowflakes flew past the window, blown straight up and sideways in an erratic dance. Currier moved to a wall switch and turned on a row of ceiling lights. "Did I teach you that confidence?" he asked.

  "A lot of it. But mostly it was the success of the hotel: the letters I get, and the comments firom people when I talk to them in tiie lounge and the restaurant, and our occupancy rate —a few times we've had the highest in Chicago. And the people who come back. It makes me feel appreciated."

  "Loved," he corrected.

  "Appreciated." She smiled. "You make me feel loved."

  He raised his hands and dropped them in exasperation. "You're the danmedest woman. Why the hell do you get on your high horse and force an argument? You could have married me and had fifty hotels; I would have given you everything you wanted."

  "I don't want to marry you," she said with an honesty that Currier admired and loved, even as he felt he'd been struck in the gut. "And I don't want you to give me everything. I really do want the struggle, Wes. I want to win. It wouldn't be the same if you dropped all the victories into my lap, ready-made."

  He contemplated her for a long moment, then returned to the table and took the coffee carafe from its warming plate. "More?"

  "Yes. Thank you."

  "How about this?" he asked casually, filling their cups and not looking at her. "When you move to New York, you'll hve here. It's empty most of the time, and you might as well use it. ril help you talk to those investors; we'll put together a financial package for the New York hotel and build into it something we can draw on for the other two as soon as we can get them. For the rest you're on your own. We'll expect the New York Beacon Hill to be as successful as the one in Chicago; you'll submit the same monthly reports to us as you do now, and keep us advised of major upheavals, such as the firing of a chef, or any security problems, or adverse reports from guests. And you and I might dine together now and then or go to the theater, if the mood strikes us." He handed her the fiill cup. "Is that satisfactory?"

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  Laura held herself back from going to him and putting her aims around him. "You*re a good friend, Wes,** she said quietly. 'Thank you." She smiled wryly. "I really didn't want to go to any investors without you. Fm so gratefril . . ." She went back to her chair at the table and he joined her there. "But I can't live here. I know how crazy that sounds, to turn down any apartment in Manhattan, much less a palace like this, but I think I'd better live alone. I'd love to have dinner with you, and go to the theater; I want us to go on being friends. But not lovers."

  After a moment, he put his hand on the table and she put hers in it. "We'll see how that works out," he said, and they sat quietly, finishing their coffee and watching the papery snowflakes whirl faster and more thickly in the gray light. It was good enough. Currier thought. He'd gotten past the worst of it, when she was ready to throw everything to the winds and rush off on her own: they were still working together, they'd see a great deal of each other, and she'd still be largely dependent on him. And they'd go on from there.

  He was no longer as surprised as he had been at his persistent desire for her, but he hadn't expected that his desire would grow as his own successes multiplied. In the complex arena of international mergers and acquisitions where he maneuvered and manipulated, he went from triumph to triumph, skillfully satisfying both sides in every negotiation, and delighting stockholders. He would fly home to Laura with satisfying memories of arranging people and their money into new patterns, like an artist designing a mosaic; but then, in her apartment, he would discover anew that while he could arrange others, he could not arrange her. He could not even fit her into a predictable pattern. She veered from affection to aloofness, warmth to reserve, carefree laughter to stubborn determination. And Currier, accustomed to leading the way, found himself following her, because it was precisely her stubbornness and aloofriess that he loved the most, even as he wanted to tame them, or at least tone them down.

  Laura stirred in her chair. "You still think I'll give it all up," she murmured.

  He smiled. "No. It's hard to hold on to that kind of blind belief when you keep knocking it down."

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  I

  "What do you think, then?" she asked, and he thought it was almost as if she were asking him how a book would end.

  "I think we'll find a way of pleasing each other," he said, and at that moment he believed it with the same kind of assuredness that had won him an international reputation. "I won't ask you to give everything up, and you won't ask me to be a friend who loses out on a vacation because you decide to buy a hotel. One way or another, we'll work it out."

  She glanced at him. "Are you in a hurry?" —■

  "Of course not," he said promptly. "Take your time." And^' they laughed together, more relaxed than they had been all morning.

  Of course. Currier mused, there was the question of other men; neither of them had brought it up. But if she was living alone, not engaged, not even pledged, she was free to see anyone she liked. Not if I can help it, he thought. Not if she's so busy she doesn't have time. Not if she's with me much more than she anticipates.

  "How about an inspection visit to the New York Salinger?" he asked. "We can pretend to be young lovers looking for a morning toss in the hay."

  Laura laughed. "More likely they'll think we're narcotics agents with a lousy cover story. But I do want to go; I've only seen the lobby so far."

  Currier stood. "Another thing," he said casually. "I'd like to invite Flavia to dinner one night. She's probably more upset about that robbery than she's admitting, and it's a good time to get her together with friends. No more than twenty or thirty guests; will you be my hostess?" When Laura hesitated, he added, "I know you'll be finding your own apartment, and I won't pretend to anyone that we're more than friends. But Flavia likes you; I'm asking you to do it for her sake, not mine."

  She laughed again. "My generous Wes. Of course I'll do it, for Flavia and for you." She stood with him. "I do like to be with you, Wes."

  He nodded and put his arm around her. He was counting on that.

  Felix had not looked at the New York Salinger for years. He'd never liked it, and once he began building towers of

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  glass and steel in other cities, it rankled him that the Salinger name in Manhattan was on a nairow old building of dark brick, stuck like a sliver between two office buildings in the shadow of the Plaza Hotel. Owen had built it when he was young, and it was in the grande dame style of its day, but after Iris died and he withdrew into his grief, the hotel settled into middle age, like a respectable matron who reminds everyone of another generation. That was when architecture was turning to stark, unomamented facades, towering skyscrapers that reflected the passing clouds, and lobbies like train stations, where conventions could come and go and still leave room f
or business travelers and a few families. The New York Salinger slipped into obscurity. Even when Owen returned to the company, there was too much to do to keep up with other hotel chains at a time when everyone was reaching for modernism as if it were the golden fleece.

  (Still, he never abandoned the old hotels; they were impeccably maintained, and after a while the New York Salinger gained a permanent listing in Manhattan guide books as a comfortable, relatively inexpensive hotel for visitors or busi-nesspeople on a tight budget. It never lost money. Its location near the Plaza made it an easy walk to theaters, shopping, and major office complexes; there were always people looking for a low-cost, pleasant room in the center of town; and, after Owen's death, Felix cut back on staff and services enough to ensure a profitable operation until he could get rid of it. |{ But it hadn't sold, partly because for a long time no one 'thought a one hundred and ninety-room hotel could make money, especially in Manhattan, and partly because mortgage rates had gone up. Felix could have lowered his price, but he had paid an exorbitant amount for land on the West Side, near the new convention center, and his board of directors was growing concerned about what some of them were beginning to call overextending themselves. He was reluctant to lower the price, anyway; he balked at the idea of giving away a hotel in one of the most desirable locations in Manhattan. So he waited, growing more impatient, worried that his board might try to slow down the rapid expansion he had vowed he would undertake the day his father died. And finally, bypassing his real estate agents, he had one of his staff call OWL Development in Chicago.

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  It was a piddling company with only one hotel—that had been a Salinger hotel, too—but Felix knew Wes Currier was the financial backer, which meant their money was good, and, probably, their aim was to expand. And soon he was congratulating himself on his good instincts: OWL's offer was below what he'd thought he'd have to settle for, but in the negotiations he got them to go up enough to make a satisfactory deal. By the middle of February, much sooner than anyone had predicted, the New York Salinger had changed hands. An item in The Wall Street Journal reported that the hotel, now called the New York Beacon Hill, would undergo extensive renovation and open sometime the following December. But Felix barely noticed; it was off his hands. He celebrated by taking Leni and Ben and Allison to Loch Ober's for dinner, and was more expansive than usual in talking about business outside the office.