A Ruling Passion

by Judith Michael

  Shocked, Valerie pulled away from him. "Have you really done that? How depressing that would be; it could make me give up sex. Why did you.> Do you know.>"

  "I do now; I didn't then." He held her face between his hands. "I didn't realize you were in my blood. I didn't know that the harder I looked for love, the more you filled my head and heart, and I couldn't even pretend I was content with anyone else. I thought I'd brushed off the past, but it was so stubborn, it always got the best of me."

  Valerie gave a small laugh. "How clever of it. It's not easy to get the best of you..." She bent over him, her mouth opening his. "I don't ever want to forget the past; I want to make it part of us again."

  "Tonight. And all nights," Nick said, and lifted her off him and laid her back on the bed. He took her breast in his mouth, his tongue caressing the nipple, and Valerie lay still, her blood singing. The room was filled with a rushing sound, swelling and receding, like the ocean heard inside a shell. And the golden light from the lamp spread over them, and through the room, like sunrise.

  Nick's lips moved down the silken ivory softness of her skin, and he parted her legs as his tongue found her sweet, warm, musky darkness and thrust inside. Valerie said his name; her fingers were in his dark hair. Nick put his hands beneath her, holding her, consuming her, until she cried out, arching against his mouth. Swiftly, then, he lay on her, taking her in his arms, sliding into her. Joined together, they lay still for a moment, waiting for their bodies to awaken together. And that was what they discovered and rediscovered that night, just as they had discovered it in their matched steps during the day. Valerie said it much later, when a real sunrise began to brighten the room. They were

  lying on their sides, kissing, both of them sleepy and slow but moving with a beat as steady as their hearts. "We don't even have to think about it," she murmured, 'Ve just move perfecdy together."

  Salvatore Scutigera had come home to an apartment in a Gothic palace in Siena. The palace showed a blank face to the dark, narrow street lined solidly with other stone buildings that seemed to be leaning inward, pinching the slice of blue sks above. But within the stone walls of Scutigera's palace was a courtyard where a cluster of olive trees grew, and a riot of tangled rosebushes, their stems thick and woody with age. Scutigera sat among them in a wheelchair in the hot morning sun, wrapped in a bathrobe, a blanket over his knees. Rosanna stood beside him, her hand on his shoulder, her face stern.

  "They must stav there, no closer," she said as the cameraman and the director walked in behind Valerie and Nick. "And you'll sit here; I had a chair brought out. I wasn't expecting two of you." She had glanced at them briefly as she gave instructions; now she took a sharper look through narrowed eyes, and Valerie knew that Rosanna had recognized the sexual glow that lingers after a night such as she and Nick had shared, and that cannot be wiped away just because it is time to go to work.

  "This is Nicholas Fielding, the president of E8cN," she said to both Rosanna and Scutigera. "He was in Rome on business and asked to watch the interview."

  "I hope you'll allow it," said Nick, shaking hands with Rosanna. He bent to Scutigera and held out his hand. "I was impressed with your first interview; I'm glad you're giving us another."

  "It was a show," chuckled Scutigera. "I told some cute stories."

  "But they were true," Valerie said, starded.

  "True. Sure they were true. They just weren't everything." He coughed, ending in a long wheeze. "I used some I knew you'd like."

  "Which ones will you use today ,>" Valerie asked lighdy.

  A manservant brought another chair, and, when Valerie was seated, Nick sat a litde behind her. The cameraman had begun filming as soon as he was told where to stand; the director, having clipped microphones to Scutigera's bathrobe and Valerie's suit collar, stood beside the camera; the technician squatted unobtrusively in a corner, running his equipment. Bees flew lazily among the roses; a cat stretched on a stone bench in the sun. Scutigera held out his hand and Rosanna placed a glass in it. And then he began to talk.

  For thirty minutes he talked about almost everything and said almost nothing. Nick watched as Valerie kept after him with new questions, probing, circling, suggesting, letting silences stretch out, then abruptly taking a different tack. She even switched without warning to high-speed Italian, which brought a gleam to Scutigera's eyes. She was intelligent, quick-witted, knowledgeable: a superb interviewer. Nick was filled with admiration, but he also felt her frustration, because Scutigera was wilier than she, and he gave nothing away.

  At the end of the thirty minutes, Rosanna put up her hand. "That's all the time I promised you. Turn off the camera."

  Valerie knew when she was beaten. Without hesitation, she leaned forward and shook Scutigera's hand. "I hope you feel better soon."

  "I'll be in the grave soon." He lifted his wizened face to her as she stood up. "I like you, missy. If I talked to anybody, I'd choose you." He peered across the courtyard, saw the cameraman putting away his camera, and turned back to her. "You thought I'd babble to you because I'm dying. But I've got family all over the world, running the business, taking care oi their families. I wouldn't mess that up by blabbing to you. We don't work that way."

  Valerie stood very still. "What would you mess up?"

  "Come on, missy, you're too smart for dumb questions. Why are you here if you don't know the answer to that?"

  "I don't know anything," Valerie said coldly. "I have some guesses."

  Scutigera grinned. "Guesses we can live with. It's when you people get facts that we get nervous. Goodbye, missy; I hope you feel better soon."

  At that last jab, Valerie turned without another word, and left the courtyard. "I shouldn't have let him see how angry I was," she said to Nick when he caught up with her at the front door of the palace. "But damn it, he really got to me. Hoping I'd feel better soon!" She stepped into the cool, shaded street. The two cars she had hired were parked half on the sidewalk, to leave room in the street for traffic, and she walked to the one in front. Standing at the door, she turned to Nick. "Would you mind if I drove?"

  "Of course not," he said. "I'd enjoy it; I can look at the scenery."

  The cameraman, director and technician came out behind them. "Val," said the technician. "The tape was running."

  She spun around. "After the camera was turned off^"

  He nodded.

  "I'm glad to know that," she said. "May I have a copy when we get home?"

  "Sure thing."

  "Thanks." She looked at Nick. "ShaU we go?"

  "Yes. We have a plane to catch."

  She drove off the sidewalk and down the street, and, once beyond the walls of Siena, on the open highway, she put down the gas pedal. Nick had forgotten how fast she drove and for a moment it unnerved him. Her hands were loose on the wheel, her body relaxed; and he knew she'd slept no more than an hour during the night. But after awhile he sat back. She drove surely and well. She was not reckless; she looked away from the road only for brief glances at the farmhouses and casdes on the crests of verdant hills; and she seemed to be wide awake. He began to enjoy the drive, free to study the play of light on olive trees and towering dark-green cypresses. He and Valerie were comfortably silent, close together but absorbed in their own thoughts.

  "Nick," Valerie said when they were approaching Florence, "I want to follow this story."

  "What story?" he asked.

  "Scutigera, of course."

  "But what story is it that you'll follow?"

  "The one he hinted at. There is a story there, something he doesn't want known. You heard him say it."

  "I heard him drop some hints. But I'd also watched him play with you for half an hour. That may have been his last joke."

  "I don't believe that," she said slowly. "I'm sure he intended me to know I wasn't wrong. I want to know what he was talking about, what he's hiding; I want the rest of the story."

  'Tou have nothing to go on."

  "Not yet. I haven't worked on
it."

  "Research has."

  "I want it more than research does." There was a silence. "Nick, it's my story; I want to finish it."

  He looked at her profile. "You want to use it for 'Blow-Up.'"

  "Of course."

  "And become a full-time reporter."

  "Of course."

  "But there are other stories. We wouldn't stop you from moving up if you didn't have this one."

  "I've got a start on this one."

  "You have nothing on this one. We don't waste time on stories that don't look promising."

  "This one does."

  "Since when? You've been tinkering with it for four months, and you have nothing new."

  "I haven't been able to put a lot of time on it."

  "You've given it enough time and thought to know it isn't worth any more. We have more story ideas than we know what to do with; we're not in the wild-goose business."

  "Are you telling me I can't work on it?"

  "I wouldn't do that; those decisions are up to Les."

  "But you'll tell him I shouldn't do it."

  "I don't tell him what to say," Nick said coldly. "But you might give some thought to how he makes his decisions. He has to allocate the time and talents of the people who work for him."

  "I don't care what he has to do; I want to finish the story!"

  ^^ou want" Nick said contemptuously. "Thafs all that matters, isn't it? Don't you get tired of saying that? I should have believed you when you said you hadn't changed. I can't imagine how I could have been so wrong."

  "As I recall," Valerie said icily, "one of those absolute judgments you used to make about me was that I had no ambition. Now that I want to do something that could be important, you treat me like a child crying for a toy. There's no way I can please you, is there? You're so convinced I can't do anything worthwhile."

  "That's ridiculous, and you know it."

  Valerie did not answer. Her face set, she concentrated on driving. The traffic on the outskirts of the city was heavy and chaotic, with drivers cutting each other off in their tiny cars as if they were in an amusement park, and she was as good as the rest of them, sliding the Fiat into impossibly small spaces, speeding ahead, pulling around a motor scooter to pass buses and vans, then hitting the brakes to avoid serenely oblivious pedestrians. It was the last time, Nick thought ruefully, he would quarrel with her when she was driving.

  Their silence lasted through the afternoon. They packed in their separate hotels and met again when the limousine Nick had hired drove them to the Pisa airport. Still silent, they boarded their plane and took the seats Nick's secretary had reserved, next to each other.

  Valerie looked at a magazine. She was as conscious of Nick as she had been all the previous day and night, but she could not speak. Disappointment and frustration gnawed at her. For the first time in years, she knew exactly what she wanted, and she'd been so sure it was within reach. But then, in Scutigera's courtyard, she had felt it receding, and, without thinking, she'd grabbed for it. And Nick hadn't un-

  derstood at all; he'd acted like an employer, as rigid and narrow-minded and judgmental as she'd always thought he'd been. Damn it, she fumed, feeling hollow inside; how did we let this happen to us?

  "Buonasera," said the steward. "Madame would like a cocktail?"

  Valerie ordered wine, then gazed out the window. Nick ordered a drink and opened his book. The words blurred together. It was astonishing, he thought, how many kinds of silences there were, and how badly two adults could behave. After the perfect closeness of the day before, and last night, that they could have failed each other so completely was unbelievable to him. Valerie had been childish, and he'd been harsh. So what had they learned in the last thirty-six hours?

  We don^t even have to think about it; we just move perfectly together.

  He felt hollow with the loss of the moment when she had said that. That perfect moment; that perfect night. What we learned was that we don't move perfecdy together. And maybe we never will. Maybe there's something about us that can't...

  For God's sake, it was only one quarrel.

  But there seem to be a lot of quarrels, he reflected. What is it that makes some people smooth and easy together, while others start snapping, the way we did at dinner at Sabatini, and on the drive from Siena?

  We don't seem to be able to accept each other as we are; we keep trying to remake each other. But I loved what she was yesterday and last night; I wouldn't have asked her to change a thing.

  It was only one quarrel. We could get past it if we wanted to.

  The steward placed their drinks on the tray inset in the armrest between them. Nick sipped his and found himself meeting Valerie's eyes as she turned away from the window and picked up her glass of wine. "You should sit in on this week's 'Blow-Up' planning session," he said casually, as if they were continuing a conversation, "so you can choose which projects you want for yourself. Each reporter works on two or three at once."

  "I'm not a reporter for 'Blow-Up.'"

  "Les thinks you could be; we've been talking about adding another one. It's up to him, of course, and the producer, but if you want it, you should go after it."

  Valerie gazed pensively at her wine glass. "Thank you," she said quietly. "What kind of projects are they thinking about?"

  "More than we'll have time for." Nick felt himself relax. Probably she wanted a truce as much as he; if so, they'd share it, as they had

  shared so much in Florence. They would carefully avoid the subject of Scutigera—she would have to resolve that one with Les—and talk instead about the other work she could do as part of E8cN: something else they shared. He felt a sudden surge of happiness. It might be all right after all.

  "Which ones?" she asked again, and he realized he had lapsed into thought.

  He began to talk about the ideas the "Blow-Up" staff, the producer and Les fed into a thick file each week for the research department to evaluate. Through dinner and a bottle of wine they discussed them: politicians, entertainers, contractors, corporate executives, political fund-raisers, art collectors, officers of multinational companies, arms dealers and publishers, all of whom, it appeared, might have more to them than their public image indicated.

  "I'd like to do a few of those," Valerie said as the steward refilled their coffee cups. "And I have another that I'm especially interested in. I'd like to do a program on Lily Grace."

  "Lily," Nick repeated thoughtfully. "Could we find something to say about her that every producer in America isn't saying about tv evange-Usts?"

  "I think she may be different. She fascinates me because she doesn't seem to fit into any category. I don't really know anything about her, but I don't believe she'd knowingly be part of a deception, or anything criminal. There's something more to LUy, and I'd like to find out what it is."

  "Have you ever met her?"

  "A couple of times. She's extraordinarily young and sincere and... pure. It could be that we'd learn something about television ministries through her that we haven't learned through the others because everyone's been concentrating on corruption."

  "But what would be the story?" Nick waited for her to become defensive, as she had before, when he challenged her on Scutigera.

  "I don't know," said Valerie, and this time there was no defensive-ness; only a rueful laugh. "I'm just learning to think about a whole story, not just a terrific idea for one. But I was at Graceville a while ago, and it's very big business. In fact, it doesn't seem to have any limits, as long as people keep sending in money, huge amounts of it, obviously. I'd like to know more about it, especially how the money is used, and I can't imagine that Lily is anything like the Bakkers; it ought to be a different story."

  'Tou said you didn't diink she'd knowingly be a part of what's been going on. Do you think she's being used?"

  Valerie thought about it. "I don't know. She seems very much her own person. But if she is..."

  "It would be Sybille who's doing it," he said when
she hesitated. "In which case, Sybille would be involved in Graceville."

  "She says she's not."

  "I know. There's often a chasm between the truth and what Sybille says. If she's part of Graceville, then this could be a story that goes far beyond religion. Sybille never cared much about the condition of people's souls."

  "But Lily does."

  "Probably. Are you sure you really want to do this story .> You'd get no cooperation from Sybille; she'd think you were the enemy."

  "Only if she's using Graceville for her own purposes, and I have no evidence of that, or any reason to think she is. I'm far more interested in Lily; it seems to me she's almost a symbol of what television is, or maybe the best that it could be." She smiled. "I don't know what to think of her, not yet. But I do think it could make a terrific program."

  "And what if it turned out that Lily would suffer because of it?"

  Valerie shook her head. "You're making assumptions. I told you, I don't think she's corrupt."

  "That doesn't answer my question."

  Valerie hesitated. "If I had enough to think it was an important program, I'd go ahead with it."

  "And if you found Sybille was corrupt? Using Graceville, as you put it, for her own purposes?"

  She looked at him steadily. "If it was important, I'd go ahead with it. Not to hurt Sybille—that would be a disgraceful thing to do—but because I'd be doing something important. Anyway, I think Sybille's real interest is in Lily; I think she likes having someone dependent on her who's young and impressionable." She hesitated again. "I don't know where this story would lead, Nick, but I'd like to follow it. It fits in with every headline these days, and Lily is incredible; I'm not the only one who's fascinated by her; everyone is, who meets her."

  "It sounds all right to me. We'll talk to Les about it." Nick took her hand, easily, naturally, feeling at ease from the companionship of their talk, forgetting that he had decided to tread warily until their stormy drive from Siena receded to the past. For a moment Valerie's hand was unresponsive, then her fingers twined with his, and he felt a surge of