Wife Wanted

by Christine Rimmer

  Erica didn’t flinch. “That’s exactly why I’m here.”

  “What led you to believe I needed checking on?”

  “Nathaniel.”

  Jake took in a long breath. “Dear brother Nate. Scheming as usual.” He spread his arms and looked down at his body—at his impeccable jacket, his perfectly creased trousers and his polished, glove-soft shoes. “Well, as you can see, I’m getting along just fine.”

  Erica shook her head. “Jake. I do read the papers.”

  He dropped his hands and gave his wife a stare that would have had a lesser woman shaking in her Norma Kamali shoes. “Don’t presume to understand the choices I make for Fortune Industries.”

  Erica smiled then, a smile so cold it sent a chill through Natalie. “No, Jake. Don’t worry. I won’t presume to understand anything about you. Ever again.” She turned to Natalie. “I think it’s time we were going. It’s obvious that coming here was a complete waste of time.”

  “Oh, and your time is so damn precious, isn’t it, Erica?” Though Jake spoke the words under his breath, they were perfectly clear.

  Erica gasped. Natalie shot a glance at her mother and cringed at the stricken look on her face.

  Aside from her modeling career, which was long behind her now, Jake had always insisted that Erica dedicate her life to him and the raising of their family. For him to taunt her now because she had no important work to do was dirty fighting in the extreme.

  And Erica clearly wasn’t going to take the blow without retaliating. She whirled on her husband, her eyes bright with wounded fury. “Why, you—”

  But before she could say one more outraged word, Natalie stepped forward and took her arm. “Mother. Don’t.”

  Erica froze and shot Natalie a quick, reproachful glance.

  Jake spoke again. “Yes. She’s right. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Still Erica said nothing, only glared at her husband.

  “I…apologize,” Jake said.

  It was a major concession from a man like Jake. Beside her, Natalie felt her mother relax just a little.

  Erica nodded. “Very well.” The fire in her eyes had turned to ice. “We’ll be going, then, as I said.”

  For a moment, Jake just stared at his wife. Then his glance slid away. “Yes. I think that’s for the best.”

  But Erica didn’t move.

  So Natalie gave a small tug. “Mother, let’s go.”

  It was enough. Erica went with her, through the doors that remained open onto the hall.

  Once they’d left, Jake waited, standing absolutely still, until he was sure they wouldn’t return. Then he strode to the double doors and pulled them shut.

  After that, assured of privacy, he headed straight for the liquor cabinet—and the crystal decanter he sought. He poured himself a generous three fingers of Scotch and knocked it back in two throat-burning swallows.

  His second drink he took more slowly. By the time he had it down, the knot in his gut had eased a little.

  There was nothing to worry about. He had handled himself well enough. Erica and Natalie had left thinking he was okay. Nate might have sent them here hoping to put more pressure on him, but he’d fooled brother Nate.

  Jake caught a glimpse of himself in one of the beveled glass panes of the liquor cabinet doors, and quickly turned away. He didn’t like what he saw when he looked into his own eyes lately. He didn’t like it one damn bit. Sometimes he wondered who the hell he was, anyway. Because, as that blackmailing bitch Monica Malone had so gleefully pointed out to him, he was not who everyone thought he was.

  With a low growl that sounded like a noise a trapped animal might make, Jake returned to the desk, where he dropped into the big chair and stared broodingly at the carved double doors that led out onto the empty hall.

  Monica.

  He couldn’t get her off his mind.

  Sometimes he wondered whether everything—everything that was pulling his family and his world apart—began and ended with her. The fires at the labs. Kate’s death. Allie’s stalker. All of it. Every damn insurmountable difficulty, caused by Monica Malone.

  Lately, the scandal sheets had been full of stories of how she had loved Ben Fortune. Was that it? Thwarted love, turned bitter and murderous over the years?

  If she had loved Ben, that would explain a lot. Lovers whispered things to each other, after all. They revealed secrets they’d be wiser to keep to themselves.

  And Monica Malone knew plenty of secrets. The bitch had an inside track on too much. She knew things she had no damn right to know. Like the fact that Jake was not really Ben Fortune’s son…

  Damn. What sick pleasure she’d taken in telling him all about it. In pointing out that he’d been born just six months after Ben and Kate’s wedding—and such a big baby, too. She’d described how his real father, some nobody G.I. named Joe Stover, had died on a battlefield in France before Jake was even born. How Ben had been so in love with Kate that he promised to raise her bastard as his own.

  Oh, and Ben had kept his promise. Jake had never been told about the man who’d really fathered him. He’d been treated as Ben’s oldest son in all the ways that mattered—even if deep in his heart he’d sometimes felt that he didn’t really completely belong. Still, the lie had been passed on to the next generation. Jake’s children had grown up adoring their wonderful grandpa Ben.

  Ben and Kate had gone to their graves with the secret. It was never to have been revealed.

  But somehow, Monica Malone had known. And six months ago, she’d made sure that Jake knew, as well. And now she was bleeding him and his company dry as the price for not revealing the truth to the world.

  Yanking his tie loose, Jake leaned back with a sigh. The cut-crystal glass he still held in his hand was empty.

  He wanted another.

  But he wouldn’t have one. He would get to the damn office by noon and show his back-stabbing half brother that he could still hold it together. Whatever new trick Monica Malone had up her silken sleeve, he would deal with it. He ran Fortune Industries, and that wasn’t going to change.

  He’d given up his own dreams years ago to follow in Ben Fortune’s footsteps. He wasn’t going to hand over his position now; it was all he had left, after all.

  He closed his eyes. For a moment, on the dark inside of his lids, he saw Erica. Erica smiling, reaching out her soft arms to him, as she used to do, before all the garbage between them got in the way.

  And then her silvery image faded—to be replaced by Monica Malone, grinning that evil come-hither grin of hers. The woman was capable of anything. Anything.

  Before she started blackmailing him, she’d actually tried to seduce him. God. She had to be in her sixties. A decade older than he was, at the very least. But still beautiful. Beautiful, and hard as nails. They didn’t make them meaner—or craftier—than Monica Malone.

  Low and crudely, Jake swore. Something was going to have to be done about her. Very soon.

  His fingers tightened on his empty glass.

  One more. Just one more. And then he’d call for the car and be on his way.

  Erica didn’t stay long after she and Natalie arrived back at the farmhouse. She kissed her daughter and thanked her for going with her to see that Jake was all right.

  “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “Yes, Mom. You could have.”

  “Not without saying things I would have regretted.”

  Natalie didn’t argue that point. “Well, it’s done now.”

  “Yes. And I do feel a little better, knowing Jake’s not all that bad off. I promise you, the way Nathaniel talked, I really thought he was becoming an alcoholic, or worse.” She laughed her brittle laugh. “Ridiculous, isn’t it?”

  Natalie agreed that it was. Since the rain had cleared off by then, she stood by the front walk, watching as her mother drove away much more sedately than she had arrived, not fishtailing once or throwing up any gravel at all.

  Then she turned and w
ent into the house, which was empty; Toby, Bernie and Rick wouldn’t return for hours yet.

  Natalie tried to sit down with a book on innovative teaching techniques that she’d been meaning to read, but she couldn’t concentrate. She felt edgy.

  Maybe it was uneasiness about her father.

  Though she hadn’t wanted to worry her mother, Natalie wasn’t at all sure that Jake was okay. His eyes had looked so haunted. And in hindsight it seemed that his self-assurance and cool control had been more an act than the real thing. As if he had been somehow playing the part of himself. Going through the motions of being the Jake Fortune his wife and daughter had always known.

  “Ridiculous.” Though there was no one there to hear, Natalie used the same word her mother had used.

  She’d be wise to stop thinking about her father, unless she intended to try to find out what was bothering him—which would put her, once again, right in the middle of all the family turmoil she kept telling herself she wanted to escape. And which Jake wouldn’t appreciate at all. One of his and Erica’s problems had always been that he wouldn’t share his feelings with his wife. And if he wouldn’t share them with Erica, then he certainly wouldn’t reveal them to Natalie.

  No, Natalie told herself. There was nothing she could do about whatever was disturbing her father. She just had to stop worrying.

  In the great room, she stood at the bank of windows and stared out at the lake, wistfully wondering how late it would be before the Lady Kate came back—and then despising herself when she realized what she was doing.

  She reminded herself of her last two encounters with Rick. Early this morning when he’d come pounding on her door to yell at her about her underwear. And then, after that, when he’d managed to make asking whether he could take Bernie out on the boat into a hostile encounter. She truly was a doormat extraordinaire, to be longing for the return of a man who shot her surly looks when she passed him in the hall and only spoke to her to tell her what she was doing wrong.

  Maybe she really should move out. Not across the lake. No, after today, she could see that would be a big mistake. She could stay at her mother’s—but even the thought of that had her shaking her head. Lindsay and Frank would welcome her. But they had such a busy life; she’d feel she was in the way.

  A hotel would probably be the best choice. And she wouldn’t have to live there for long. It was less than a week until her departure—which, really, was hardly any time at all. She turned from the window and saw Toby’s garage made of blocks, on the coffee table. She smiled a melancholy smile. She would miss Toby. A lot.

  And, to be fair, most of the time she and Rick managed well enough. The house was big. If she only made an effort to avoid him for a few more days, everything would work out all right.

  She’d be off to see the world. And when she returned, Rick and his darling little boy would go back to Minneapolis where they belonged.

  Resolutely she marched over to the phone and called up a friend who lived in Travistown. They made a date for that night. An early dinner at the local inn. Natalie would be out of the house before Rick, the boy and the dog came in from the lake.

  At about the same time Natalie was making plans, Sterling visited Kate in her Minneapolis apartment.

  “We’ve found the leak on the tabloid story about Ben and Monica Malone,” Sterling said.

  “Who was it?”

  “The Malone woman herself. Gabe was able to have a little talk with a certain day maid that Ms. Malone just fired.”

  “And?”

  “The maid named the reporter and the date she visited Monica’s mansion, which was two days before the story appeared. Evidently, all Monica asked was that she not be named as the source.”

  Kate sat perfectly still as the news sank in. Then she said very softly, “If there was ever any doubt, there’s none now. She’s out to destroy us.”

  Sterling said nothing.

  Kate thought about Jake. Ben had promised to raise her oldest child as his own. And he had. He’d done well by Jake. No one had ever known that Jake wasn’t his son.

  But if Ben had betrayed his wedding vows, what else might he have been capable of? It cut Kate to the heart to think it, but could Ben have committed the ultimate indiscretion? During some moment of forbidden intimacy, had he whispered the truth about Jake’s parentage to Monica Malone?

  And was Monica now using what she knew to get Jake to dance to her tune?

  “Something has to be done about her,” Kate said.

  “Yes,” Sterling agreed. “The question is, what?”

  The doors were locked when Rick, Toby and the dog came in from the lake.

  Toby looked up at Rick, and Rick read the question in his eyes.

  “Looks like she’s not home.” He dug the key from his pocket and opened the door. Toby, who reeked of the panfish he liked to catch and then throw back in the lake, slipped in ahead of him. “Bath first, then dinner,” Rick instructed, before the boy could escape to his room.

  Toby stopped, turned and looked at his father. His glance said both Okay and I know what to do, Dad. Then he and the dog headed off down the hall.

  Rick carried the cooler into the kitchen and unloaded it. Then he found the remote and turned on the set in the great room, planning to keep an eye on the news while he was fixing dinner.

  He was switching channels, looking for some national news, when he landed on a station that was airing “Hot Copy,” a syndicated pseudonews show. The current sound bite concerned the Fortunes. Rick paused with his finger on the button that would change the channel and listened to another quick recap of all the things he’d already heard—from continued speculation about the relationship between Ben Fortune and the ageless Monica Malone to all the questions surrounding the new Fortune heiress, Tracey Ducet.

  There was a brief interview with the Ducet woman, who really did look a hell of a lot like Natalie’s aunt Lindsay. “I’m hopin’ that, as time goes by, the family will learn to accept me,” Tracey drawled. And Rick almost felt sorry for her. If she was a fake, she was a very appealing one. She had a nice, shy smile, and somehow the corn-pone accent and the bad clothes made her more sympathetic—a poor, lost little girl trying to play games way out of her league.

  Next, there was a brief mention of the rumored rift between the older generation of Fortune sons, Jacob and Nathaniel, and then a description of the current upheavals within the Fortune companies. A photographic montage of the Fortune family history ended the story, starting with pictures of Kate and Ben as newlyweds during the war, and concluding with aerial shots of the demolished plane in which Kate Fortune had lost her life. There was actually a shot of Natalie, as a little girl, in a red velvet dress with a white lace collar, posed along with all the other Fortunes around a giant Christmas tree. Her name wasn’t mentioned, but Rick would have known those big, soft brown eyes anywhere.

  A commercial came on. Rick switched the channel. But then, instead of getting up, he stayed crouched in front of the big set, staring blankly at the screen and thinking about Natalie.

  He felt guilty about his behavior that morning. The way he pounded on her door and read her the riot act had been more than a little out of line.

  The problem was, she was driving him crazy. He’d been thinking about her and telling himself not to when he went into the laundry room, headed for the pantry closet to get another box of the Super Wheat Crunchies Toby liked. He’d seen those little scraps of silk and lace spread out there on that damn towel.

  The first thing that had come to mind was what she might look like wearing such things. His mouth had gone dry and his jeans had gotten too tight. And then he’d had to wonder what lucky S.O.B. had seen her like that. And at that point, something inside him had snapped. He’d rolled the things in the towel and marched up the stairs to tell her just what he thought of her leaving her underwear around for anyone to see.

  When she opened the door and stood there, all shiny and sweaty in her clingy leotard and little b
lue shorts with the stripes on the sides, he’d wanted to grab her, pull her up hard against the part of him that seemed to ache all the time lately and bring his mouth down hard on hers.

  Of course, he couldn’t do that. She’d drawn the line on stuff like that.

  So he’d told her off instead.

  And then later, when she came downstairs to get her breakfast and Toby beckoned her over to admire his building-block garage, he hadn’t been able to keep himself from watching her. From watching the way she was with Toby, so sweet and tender and good. As he’d noticed that first moment he set eyes on her in her silly spangles and ridiculous platform shoes, she looked damned enticing from behind.

  She’d turned around before he could look away, and caught him gawking at her like some kind of lovesick teenager. At least she hadn’t looked down. If she had, she would have seen the effect she had on him. As it was, he didn’t think she’d noticed. Still, he’d felt like a fool. So he’d made a big deal out of asking her whether he could take the dog out on the lake, even though they’d tacitly agreed early on that the dog was more or less Toby’s for the summer.

  He should be nicer to her. He knew that. She was a nice woman. And, apparently, the old boyfriend had hurt her pretty bad. He had no right to blame her for not wanting to get involved with another man right now.

  He had no right—but he did. Because he wanted her. And it was a wanting that seemed to get stronger with every day that passed.

  He wasn’t dealing with it well.

  Just as he hadn’t dealt well with his marriage to Vanessa.

  He’d messed up with Vanessa, he knew that. She’d been beautiful and spoiled. And used to having what she wanted. She’d made it clear from that first night he met her that she wanted him. He’d just started at Langley, Bates and Shears. A kid from a working-class background, ready to design shopping malls and steel-and-glass offices for a white-collar world.

  Vanessa had been from a good family. She’d been raised in a nice neighborhood in Louisville by a mother who involved herself in community affairs. Her father, deceased when Rick met her, had owned a small chain of drugstores. Rick had married her because he thought she’d make the kind of wife he needed.