“I hid them in the closet. When did you find them?”
“This morning while you were sleeping. I figured you wouldn’t have busted out the wall if you didn’t have a plan drawn out in triplicate for it.”
“And?”
He raised his eyes to hers.
At that moment, Shana would have sworn on her life that the glowing soft lights she saw in his blue eyes were total, absolute love. She had been right. If it was there now, she could build on that. Hope sprang to life inside her like spring flowers.
“Perfection. Just like my girl,” he said softly and then pulled her mouth to his for a deep kiss. He scooched up in the bed and leaned against the headboard and gathered Shana into his arms. While she rested her head against his solid chest, he toyed with a long lock of her hair. “This is so peaceful,” he whispered as if he hadn’t meant for the thought to be voiced aloud.
“It’s as it should be.” She tilted her head back. “Let’s make that promise that from now on, Sundays are sacred. We won’t work. We rest and play. We do what we want to do.”
Justin kissed her forehead. “That’s how it was when I was a kid. We went to church and then on picnics or boating. My mother loved to sail. It’s from her that I have a love of the ocean.”
“That being the case when do you plan to introduce me to this boat you have?” she teased.
“What a great idea! We should go today. I’ll call the harbor master and have a crew go over and swab her down and open her up.”
Shana sat up. “You’re serious.”
“Sure. Why not? It’s mine, isn’t it? I should be…” he shook his head from side to side in rapid whippets that made it look as if he were rattling his brain to straighten out his new course of thinking. “…fun.”
“Fun, huh? Think of that!” Shana joked as she disentangled herself from his arms and put on a long white silk robe with her new monogram emblazoned on the breast pocket. “I’ll be in the shower after your call. Then you can join me.”
“Don’t soap a thing till I get there,” he said chuckling and reached for the telephone.
*****
Four hours later Shana and Justin were sailing on the New York Harbor and then up the Hudson River. It had been years since Justin sailed and to avoid any kind of mishap, he hired a captain to take them out. He wanted the trip to be enjoyable and not a chore.
Shana had ordered rosemary encrusted roasted chicken, cold broccoli salad, French bread and chilled white wine for Justin and sparkling apple juice for herself from the hotel kitchen as their picnic fare.
Enormous white clouds scudded across an azure blue sky as they sailed across the sunbeam riddled waters. The harbor was filled with boats as New Yorkers knew that summer was fleeting. Shana had the time of her life waving to people she didn’t know and shouting greetings to every boat that passed them.
“Are you always like this?” Justin asked sinking his teeth into a drumstick.
“Not really. Sometimes I’m friendly.”
Justin sputtered and spit out the chicken. He coughed and choked. “Don’t do that. I could have died here!“
“Well, you didn’t,” she laughed.
Justin was amazed at how much the sound of her laughter had come to mean to him. It tingled and fell into the air like the sound of tiny silver church bells. It was a sound that he realized had come to mean a lot to him. He’d actually brought her here to day to make her happy. He’d wanted to please her and show her a good time. He hadn’t particularly cared about being on the water because in times past it would have only reminded him of the childhood he’d lost and couldn’t get back. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and pointed out some of the buildings he knew. He talked about the times when he’d sailed in the Bahamas and the more he reminisced, the more he realized he was making plans for the future with Shana.
He told her he wanted to take her to the Caribbean where they would snorkel and photograph exotic fish. She told him she wanted him to see Geneva with her and they both longed to tour the south of France.
When the day was over and the sun sliced it’s way through the tall Manhattan skyscrapers, they were tired but happy as they rode in the hotel limousine back to the hotel.
Justin stopped at the front desk and picked up the Sunday newspapers from Joan, the evening manager. The vague thought that Joan had given him an odd, scathing look when he turned from her, crossed his mind. Shana had been asking him a question about a movie they could watch on pay-per-view and so he hadn’t given a second thought to Joan and her scurrilous demeanor.
****
Justin sat on the down-filled sofa in their penthouse and opened the newspaper to the financial section as was his usual practice. Dispensing with that section, he perused the front page while Shana was in the bathroom combing her windblown hair.
He had just opened the Lifestyle section when she walked into the living room, sat in the chair opposite him and asked, “Anything interesting?”
Then he heard her shriek.
Instantly, Justin dropped the newspaper. “What?”
Shana shot up from her chair and snatched the newspaper out of Justin’s hands. “That’s us!” Shana pointed to a photograph of them cutting their pink and white wedding cake. “How is that possible? Who could have taken that picture?”
His voice was riddled with anger. “This is precisely what I didn’t want! I wanted a quiet affair. No publicity. No cameras. We are not celebrities!”
Shana’s eyes shot to him. “The New York Times thinks you are. Obviously, by virtue of that, so am I,” she said. A thousand thoughts flew through her head about what their hasty wedding might mean to the media. She’d worked with reporters and journalists for years but it was always on the opposite end and on her terms. This was an entirely different situation. Prying eyes and a camera on every cell phone and Blackberry in the city would be focused on them if the media decided they were noteworthy enough to pursue. In all the time that she’d been associated with Justin, becoming a media-darling had never entered her mind. To think that their private lives could be splashed in the newspapers or worse, on television, was nothing short of horrific to her. Simple outings like their sail today would be turned into a circus.
Mercifully, she realized that such over-the-top media attention was reserved for movie stars, politicians and murder cases. All they’d done was get married.
“I suppose they feel they need to announce the fact that you’re off the market,” Shana joked.
Justin wasn’t laughing. “No one knew about our wedding. I had the photographer sign non-disclosure papers. If he sold any of our photographs, it would be actionable. This photo didn’t come from him.”
“Justin, dear. The entire staff knew about the preparations. We created miracles in less than two weeks! It could have been the florist. It could have been someone at the bridal shop when I got fitted.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Justin mused.
Seeing that his anger had ebbed, Shana started reading the article. “Let’s see if they spelled my name right.” Shana started reading the copy and nodded. “Imagine that. They did. And they mention the names of all my sisters and Ethan and Evan. That’s nice. Actually, it’s well written.”
“Either read it aloud or finish so I can read it,” he said staring at the photograph of himself holding Shana’s hand as she slid the long cake knife through the three tiered confection.
“Mrs. Yates is the former Shana Jackson of Oak Creek Canyon, Arizona. She is currently the Director of Operations for the Lux Hotel Chain. Mr. Yates is the son of Peter and Diane Yates, New York City, who has recently inherited the Lux Hotel Chain upon his marriage, which was a provision of Peter Yates’ Will.”
Shana finished the last words of the article and gasped. For a long moment the words swam before her eyes and she felt as if she’d just been plunged into glacial waters. She felt cold and bloodless and everything that had been sunny and happy in her life had just been annihilated.
/> Her arms fell to her sides and the newspaper slid out from her numb fingers. She stared at Justin who sat stock still on the sofa with his eyes boring into hers.
In a flash Justin was on his feet. “Shana. I can explain. I meant to explain.”
He stepped on the newspaper as he wrapped her in his arms. “It’s not like that. They made it sound…they were brutal.”
Her mouth had gone dry and her brain had completely shut down. She was emotionless. Now she knew what it felt like to die.
“How…”
“I don’t know how they could find this out. There has to be a leak. Someone wants to hurt us.”
Shana shook her head. “It’s not true?”
Justin kissed her cheek and realized she’d gone into shock. Her body temperature must have dropped ten digits. He didn’t know anything about being the husband of a pregnant wife, but instinct alone told him this wasn’t good for the baby or Shana. He scooped her up into his arms and took her into the bedroom where he placed her beneath the handmade quilt. Then he crawled into bed beside her and gathered her into his arms. He rubbed her hands and arms to bring her back. He had half a thought to call nine-one-one.
“Tell me… it’s all a lie,” she muttered slowly as she felt blood coming back to her extremities.
“I wanted to tell you about it in my own way. I didn’t want you to find out like this,” he said.
“So, I’m just a clause in some document so that you can become even more powerful than you are. Don’t you have enough money, Justin? In three lifetimes I couldn’t spend all the money you have,” she retorted suddenly feeling her emotions resurrect.
“It’s not the money and you know it. You know how much I have wanted the family hotels.”
“I do. I love them, too.” Shana wrested herself out of his arms and sat bolt upright. Her blue eyes locked on his with laser precision. “Give me all of it, Justin.”
Justin had never allowed anyone in his life to interrogate him, but this time, he figured he had it coming. “The proviso stated that if I didn’t marry within a year, the chain would go up for sale.”
Shana let the words sink in. As much as her heart was breaking and as much as she wanted to plow her fist into Justin’s body, her first thought was not for herself. “What a bastard your father was! Even to the end. No wonder there was no love between you. I’m so sorry for you, Justin.”
Justin’s mouth gaped with astonishment. What kind of a saint was this woman he’d married? Was it possible for a human being to be this selfless? And what kind of lucky star hung over him that had brought her to him? “Shana. I’m the one who should be apologizing. What I’ve done is…”
“Unforgivable?” she offered.
Her sad eyes were shot with pain as they looked at him. He’d never done anything that was unforgivable. But he had now. And he had never felt this wretched.
“I suppose.”
Shana got up from the bed. “I need to be alone, Justin. I have to think. Please leave.”
Justin tossed back the quilt and rose. “I understand, but I think it would be better if we talked this out. If you’d just let me…”
“What?” she screamed finally feeling the anger of a hundred banshees wailing inside her. “You think you can trick me into bed and have sex with me and that somehow maybe my brain will melt and everything will just be the way you want it? Well, no more. I was right all along. This place is what you made it. It’s a sex suite. There’s no love here. There’s only trickery and manipulation. Ha! You must have had a laugh with your attorney and friends about this. They all knew. Didn’t they?”
“No, Shana. It’s not like that.”
“Leon knew. He’s the executor of the estate. I bet Trent knew!”
“Well, yes. But no one else.”
“Well, my former friend, someone bloody well did know because they told it to the papers. Now everyone in New York knows. My mother knows by now!” Thinking of her family, Shana slapped her palms against her cheeks and felt them completely covered in tears she hadn’t known she’d been crying. “How could you do this to me and to them, Justin? How could you?”
Justin took a few steps toward her.
She rammed her palms into the air to stop him. “Don’t touch me. Just go.” She glared at him.
Justin opened his mouth to protest.
“Get out!” Shana screamed again.
Justin walked solemnly to the door and left his wife alone with her tears.
*****
In ten minutes Justin was in his office and had contacted Leon on his private cell phone. “Did you read the Times article about my father’s Will?”
“How the blazes did the Times find out about that?”
“That’s what I want to know. There’s a leak in your office or in mine. I want the best private investigator you know.”
“Chuck Hughes. I have to warn you that he’s above the law sometimes.”
“I don’t care if he’s former KGB, I want the truth.”
****
Shana had locked Justin out of the penthouse and he didn’t blame her. He spent the night in a room on the second floor, which was a waste of time because he didn’t sleep a wink. He was at his desk at seven in the morning slugging back the second half of a pot of coffee when Sara Jorgensen, the front desk day manager called his office.
“There’s some man here to see you, Mr. Yates. He says it’s important.”
Thinking that his visitor was Chuck Hughes, Justin said, “Send him up to the office. And let me know when my assistant walks in the door.”
“Miss Mavery? Of course, sir.”
The man who entered Justin’s office was very tall and pencil thin. He reminded Justin of his mental image of Ichabod Crane. He couldn’t imagine a more conspicuous fellow. How this man could be a private investigator was beyond him. Justin rose to greet the man and held out his hand.
“Mr. Hughes?” Justin asked.
“Not exactly,” the man replied, pulling his right hand from behind his back and rather than shaking hands, he slapped an envelope into Justin’s hand. “Consider yourself served, Mr. Yates.”
“A subpoena? For what?”
“That’s your problem, pal.” The man turned on his heel and left.
Justin tore open the envelope and read the letter from a law firm he’d never heard of. His eyes flew to the name of the plaintiff. “Felicity?”
The essence of the complaint was that Felicity Cummings was claiming that she was pregnant with his father’s child and that her child would be the rightful heir to the Lux Hotel Chain.
Slamming the papers down on his desk, Justin cursed a string of profanities he hadn’t used since he’d walked out on his father.
Peter Yates was still pulling his chain. Pure and simple.
Justin didn’t have to have Leon to tell him that if his father had sired two direct descendants, both would share in Peter’s wealth. Felicity could conceivably tie up his father’s estate in the courts for years making all the work that Justin was exerting worth, at best, only half.
To think that he would be forced to deal with conniving, gold-digging Felicity for the rest of his life was monstrous. She would make every hour a hell.
At the same time, he would battle Lucifer himself to gain control of the hotels and build a future for himself, Shana and his child.
“Shana.”
Justin felt a stab of guilt so deep, he lurched as if he’d been physically lanced. “Sweet Shana. What have I done?”
The telephone rang. Justin picked up.
“Helen Mavery just arrived, sir,” Sara Jorgensen said. “She’s on her way up to your office.”
“Thanks.”
Justin rose from his chair and went to the reception area. He greeted Helen with a smile. “Good Morning, Helen,” he said to his pretty assistant.
A look of surprise crossed her face. “You’re here early. I thought you’d be, well, taking some extra honeymoon time,” Helen said advancing to her desk a
nd placing her purse in the bottom drawer.
“I’m going to be direct, Helen. Did you see the article in the Times about my wedding?”
“Uh, yes,” Helen replied lowering her eyes.
“Obviously, this has upset me and my wife. I believe the person responsible is on staff. I need your help to find out who it is. Get the photographer on the phone. I want all the pictures from the wedding this afternoon. Also, get me a list of the staff who served the meal. Who was the bartender? I don’t remember?”
“It was Antonio Morelli, I believe,” Helen offered slowly.
Justin had the odd thought that Helen was reluctant to give up this information, but he brushed the idea aside. “I want to talk to him. I have an eight o’clock with Leon Turnbull. I’ll be on my cell if you need me. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”
Helen took notes and then looked up. “And Mrs. Yates?”
“She’s not to be disturbed.”
As Justin turned and left the office he didn’t hear Helen say, “I so get that.”
*****
Shana cried non-stop through lunch. She didn’t know what action she could or should take to put the pieces of her life back together. Twice she put on her makeup in order to go to her office. Work would take her mind off her worries. Twice her tears ran her mascara and caused unstoppable sobs.
Shana had never cried like this before, but then, she rationalized, she’d never been in love with a bastard before. “Like father, like son,” she said to herself.
Analyzing Justin’s life was simple. He’d been emotionally abused by his father and so, he got his revenge by using other people to battle his father’s ghost. Justin had done what he thought necessary to secure the hotel chain in his name. She guessed that to an aggressive financier like he’d been nearly all his adult life, getting married was a simple matter.
What she didn’t understand was why he just didn’t make a bargain with her outright. He could have been honest and proposed that they marry to fulfill the Will proviso and then when all the legalities were secure and he was ensconced as the CEO of Lux Hotels, she would go on her merry way.
Billionaire's Love Suite Page 14