by Neesa Hart
Sidney had fully suspected that Colleen’s failure to deliver Max’s message about his emergency trip that weekend of the house party owed more to her resentment of her brother than a miscommunication.
Max was pacing now, his face an expressionless mask. Warren finally broke the silence. “Look, this is all very uncomfortable.” He glanced at Sidney. “I see you were, uh, engaged for the evening. Maybe Colleen and I can go home and—”
“No.” Colleen rose from her chair. “I’m not going back to that apartment, Warren.”
Warren reached out a hand to her. “Honey—”
“Stop it.” She stalked away from him. “Stop being so damned agreeable. It’s why we’re in this mess to begin with.”
“What mess?” Max faced his sister. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“And what?” Her expression turned distinctly unpleasant. “You’ll write a memo detailing your response to the matter?”
Sidney ground her teeth. As if he sensed her frustration, Max flashed her a bleak smile. “I haven’t always been such a jerk, have I?”
Warren rose to his feet. “This has nothing to do with you, Max. I’m the one she’s angry at.”
Colleen muttered something under her breath and started toward the door. “This is going nowhere.”
Max curled his fingers around her forearm and halted her progress. “You wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t want something from me. Now that Warren’s here, I want answers.”
Warren looked nervous. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “Colleen has been regretting, lately, that she didn’t marry a man like Paul Wells—a man with ambition.”
His wife sent him a cutting glance. “At least you admit that.”
“That I have no ambition?” Warren shrugged. “I like what I do.” He looked at Max. “Paul is the high-achiever type. No one was surprised when you made him a vice president.”
“Least of all Natalie,” Colleen said.
Max’s fingers tightened on her arm. “Stop that.”
“What?” She jerked her arm away. “Stop criticizing your precious little sister? Give me a break, Max. There’s not a soul who knows you who isn’t aware that you think Natalie walks on water. I wonder what you’d do if you knew just how Natalie and Paul played you for a fool. Didn’t you ever wonder why Paul, an extremely ambitious member of your acquisitions team, suddenly found himself swooning over your sister? Give me a break, Max.”
Abruptly, Max released her arm. “That’s enough.”
Warren nodded. “That’s not fair, Colleen. Just because you resent me for not being more like Paul doesn’t mean you can attack Natalie.”
“Oh, God forbid anyone attack poor, defenseless Natalie.”
Sidney’s dislike was growing thicker by the second. She took a step forward, a blistering retort ready on her lips. Only Max’s cautioning glance stopped her. He shook his head slightly before he looked again at Warren. “Warren, you want to tell me what this is all about? I’m losing my patience.”
“It’s about the fact that Paul is one of your vice presidents, and he’s very good at what he does. He likes what he does. Consequently, you pay him well and he and Natalie live the kind of life she grew up with. They have a condo on the upper West Side. They have a home in the Hamptons. They have an investment portfolio and a house full of staff, and a social life that lands them in the pages of Town and Country Magazine.
“I, on the other hand,” he gave his wife a rueful glance, “am a drafting engineer. I like what I do. I love what I do, but drafting engineers don’t make the kind of money that executive vice presidents make, and because I wasn’t about to let you give me some fabricated executive position simply because I’d had the good sense to marry your sister—”
“That’s not why I offered you a job, Warren,” Max said.
Colleen swung her gaze to Max. “You did?”
“He did,” Warren said. “And I turned it down.” His expression turned sorrowful. “I like my colleagues. I like my company. It’s not that I think I would have been miserable working for you, Max, it’s just that I like the idea of having built the reputation and career that I have at a company I’ve worked for since I got my graduate degree.”
Max nodded. “I understood that, Warren. I wanted you onboard because I respected and admired your abilities and your integrity.”
“Thanks.” Warren nodded. “But the truth is, because I chose this path, Colleen and I live in an apartment, and we don’t have closets full of designer clothes. The only Caribbean holiday we’ve had is the cruise you gave us as a wedding gift. Our social life is dinner and a movie every other week. We appear in Town and Country Magazine only when one of us gets caught in a picture with you or Natalie. Colleen doesn’t like it. She thinks if I had more ambition, we’d have a better life. She’s probably right.” He dropped into his chair with a dejected sigh. “The thing is, I love Colleen.” He looked at her. “I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true. I love you. I just can’t be the person you want me to be.”
Max looked at Warren for long, tense seconds. Colleen kept her gaze fixed on a spot somewhere beyond her brother’s shoulder. “Colleen?” Max finally said. “Do you have anything to say?”
She turned her angry eyes on him. “You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
“Try me.”
Her facade of anger finally began to crumble. Sidney decided that Colleen had either missed an opportunity for a lucrative and successful stage career, or that she genuinely possessed the heart they’d all thought missing. “Max,” Colleen said quietly, “you can’t imagine what it’s like to know that you and Natalie and Greg never worry about the future.”
Max’s lips twitched. “I worry about the future every second I’m awake.”
“You know what I mean.” She dropped into a chair. “Natalie and Greg were so young when Mother and Father died—they don’t remember. But I do. I heard the arguments. I knew that Father had run the company into the ground. And I knew that by the time you finished wrestling with the shareholders after Father’s death, you barely had two pennies to scrape together.”
Max’s frown deepened. “I had no idea.”
Colleen dabbed her eyes. “Yes, well, I’m not the idiot you all thought.”
Warren nodded. “That’s true enough. If it weren’t for Colleen, God knows what would have happened to our household finances.”
His wife gave him a bland smile, that, at least lacked its earlier malice. “Thanks, Warren.”
Her husband squeezed her hand. Colleen shrugged as she looked at Max once more. “Things were awful, and I knew it. You tried so hard to keep us from knowing what kind of stress you were under, but if it hadn’t been for the success of those damned dolls—” with an elegant wave of her hand she indicated the Max doll on the bookcase “—we’d have lost everything.”
“It’s true,” Max said gravely. “I risked everything on AppleTree Toys, and rebuilt the rest of Loden Enterprises with the capital I earned from the Real Men collection. As corny as I think it is,” he continued ruefully, “Who Gets To Marry Max was more than just a slogan. It was a lifesaver.”
Warren shook his head. “Who would have thought that the family fortune was riding on plastic dolls?”
Max shrugged. “I just knew. I can’t explain it. I knew it would work, and it did. But I never wanted Colleen and Natalie and Greg to have any inkling how close we came. Our father had bled the company dry. I didn’t want you to remember him that way.”
“I didn’t,” Colleen insisted. “Father was a good man, and he was good to us. I knew that. But I heard him arguing with Mother, with the lawyers, with everyone. I knew how bad things were. For a while, I wondered if maybe the accident that killed them wasn’t an accident.”
Sidney looked at Max, startled. The flash of pain in his eyes told her that he’d entertained the same suspicions. Colleen seemed lost in her memories. “There was enough insurance money to stake your risk on the Real Men collection. Isn�
��t that right, Max?”
“Yes,” he said gravely.
“It was our last chance and I knew it.” She wiped a hand through her hair. “God, you can’t imagine what those weeks were like for me. I was terrified. You were an adult—out of college—but what was going to happen to the rest of us? Where would they send us? What would the creditors do if the whole thing went under?”
“I wouldn’t have let anything happen to any of you.” Max jammed his hands in his trouser pockets. “You have to know that.”
“I do now, but I was nineteen and scared to death.” She paused. “And I swore to myself that I’d never live like that again.”
“Until she married me,” Warren said miserably.
Max shook his head. “My God, Colleen, if you were having money problems, why didn’t you tell me? I knew Warren wasn’t pulling down an enormous salary, but I didn’t think—”
“We don’t have money problems,” Colleen said firmly. Sidney looked at her in surprise. Max’s sister straightened in her chair. “We have a perfectly normal middle-class existence. We don’t have debt. Warren makes a decent living doing what he’s doing. He works hard.” She gave her husband a slight smile. “I never meant to infer that I doubted that.”
“That’s not what it looked like earlier,” Max said tightly.
Colleen shook her head. “You don’t understand. I told you that you wouldn’t.”
“I’m trying—”
“I know,” she said curtly. “The point is that while we don’t have money problems, I don’t exactly feel safe. If Warren lost his job, if something were to happen to him, I’m not sure what I’d do. I don’t have any training. It’s not as if I could get a decent job anywhere. And I couldn’t stand to sit around and let you take care of me. I’d turn out just like Mother.” She sighed. “When I look at Natalie—at Paul—damn! It’s not that I’m jealous, Max, it’s that I’m terrified. Perpetually. And I can’t take it anymore. Warren doesn’t understand why I need a house, with a yard that I own that no one can take away from me. He doesn’t understand why I want enough insurance to make sure I’m not going to end up living off you. I need to know that we have a stock portfolio, and a series of mutual funds that are earning interest above the prime lending rate. It doesn’t have a damned thing to do with Natalie’s baby shower being featured in Town and Country Magazine, and everything to do with the way I saw my mother stashing loose change in her lingerie drawer the week before she died.”
Warren looked shocked. “I didn’t know.”
“Neither did I,” Max said, his voice somber.
“Well, I can’t take it anymore. While Natalie lives out her fairy tale and meets every one of your expectations, I can’t do it. Face it, Max—you may have Natalie and Greg under your thumb, but you’ve never had me. I cannot live like this anymore, and if you hate me for it, well, tough.”
“Hell.” Max scrubbed a hand over his face. “Warren, who’s handling your financial portfolio?” Warren blushed. Max shook his head. “No one apparently. Damn it, I cannot believe no one told me this was going on.”
Colleen frowned at him. “You don’t have a right to know every detail of our lives, you know.”
“I could have helped you,” Max insisted. “I would have.”
Warren flinched. “I can take care of my wife, Max.”
“No one is saying you can’t, but even I don’t try to manage my own investments without help.” Max drew a calming breath. “All right. Here’s what we’re going to do.” He walked to the desk in long, ground-eating strides. Sidney stepped out of his way. Max rounded the desk and jerked open the top drawer. He pulled out a business-size checkbook. “You probably don’t know this, Colleen, but Loden Enterprises recently hired Warren’s firm to consult for us on construction of a major processing facility we’re building in St. Thomas.”
“You did?” Warren said.
“Are you serious?” Colleen asked.
Max’s nod was short. “Yes. Paul managed the bid process. If you have questions about it, you’ll have to ask him. I didn’t even know until yesterday.”
“You didn’t tell me,” Colleen said to Warren.
“I didn’t know.”
“Anyway,” Max started making out a check. “As part of the arrangement, we’re sending a drafting engineer down to the site to preview it and report on its suitability. It may be advisable to relocate to San Quentin depending on our goals and the general topographic needs.”
“That could be true,” Warren added. “If you’re doing processing, you’ll need maximum square footage.”
“Precisely.” Max continued writing the check. “Naturally, when Paul informed me that we’d chosen Warren’s company for the job, I requested Warren as the head of the project.”
“I’m flattered.” In actuality, Warren looked shocked. “You could have had someone a lot higher up the ladder. Hell, for what you’re paying, you probably could have had the owner of my firm.”
Max raised one shoulder in casual disregard. “I told you. I’ve always had enormous respect for professional expertise. Your boss informed us that you could handle the project load. I believe he was supposed to give you the news this afternoon or tomorrow.”
“He hasn’t talked to me yet.”
“I’m sure he’ll make the announcement soon. Probably tomorrow morning.” Max scrawled his signature on the bottom of the check, then looked at his sister and brother-in-law. “So, I’d like the two of you to travel down there together—at my expense.”
“Max—” Colleen frowned.
“Consider it an anniversary present, Colleen. Your twelfth anniversary is next week, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Warren said. “The fifth.”
“That’s what I thought. Take a cruise down there, survey the site and report what you find.” He extended the check. “Normally, I would have had Paul handle the signing bonus and expense advance, but since you’re here, I might as well do it tonight.”
Warren accepted the check, then gave Max a shocked look. “This is for twenty-five thousand dollars!”
“It’s a standard five percent bonus plus five percent expense advance.”
Colleen gave her brother a shrewd look. “Max—”
He held up both hands. “You can check it out with Paul if you want. Or with Warren’s boss for that matter.”
“There’s no way we’ll spend this much money,” Warren insisted.
“That’s why it’s called a bonus,” Max said blandly. “So what I suggest you do is take a week or so to go down there, spend some time together, and when you get back, come see me and we’ll set up your stock portfolio.”
Colleen studied Max through narrowed eyes. “This isn’t going to change things, you know.”
Max’s expression turned conciliatory. “Will the two of you at least agree to spend the next few weeks talking about this, and then we’ll see where it gets us.”
“I’m willing if Colleen is.” Warren pocketed the check, then looked at his wife. “I’m sure we can work this out, Colleen. Please, just give it a chance.”
She visibly wavered. “I don’t know—”
“If nothing else,” Max said smoothly, “you can have the satisfaction of knowing that Natalie has never been to St. Thomas.”
“Natalie,” Colleen interjected, “is afraid to fly and afraid to sail. She’d have a tough time getting to any island.”
“My point exactly,” Max said. Sidney searched his expression, but learned nothing. This, she imagined, was the man who reportedly brought corporate giants to their knees by sheer force of will.
Colleen hesitated a minute longer. “All right,” she finally said. “We’ll try it.”
Warren looked noticeably relieved. “And I’ll get the report to you as soon as possible. You won’t regret this, Max.”
Max looked at his sister. “Are you all right?”
“It’s not a simple problem, you know. You can’t send me off with a pat on the head and expect it t
o go away. Not even a twenty-five-thousand-dollar pat.”
“I’m not trying to patronize you.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” She studied Warren for several seconds. “I’m willing to talk about it.”
He nodded. “That’s all I ask.”
“But I’m calling Paul,” Colleen warned. “If you’re making this up, Max, I’m going to be furious.”
“You do that,” Max said. “Whatever you need to feel reassured.”
Warren took Colleen’s hand. “Can we go home now?”
She hesitated, then laced her fingers through his. “Yes.”
“Thanks. Good night, Max.” He led his wife to the door.
When the library door shut behind them, Max fell back in his chair with a low curse. “That woman is going to be the death of me.”
“She’s, uh, volatile. Isn’t she?”
“You could say that.” He slid the checkbook back in the drawer. “Natalie is as calm as a breezeless day on the ocean. Colleen is more like a tropical storm front. You never know what the hell she’s going to do.”
Sidney smiled at him as she rounded the desk. “That was a very nice thing you did.”
“What?”
“That little story about the contract and the check.” She sat on the edge of his desk and put her hands on his shoulders. “I had no idea you were so good on your feet.”
“Sidney—”
She leaned forward and kissed him soundly. “It kind of makes me wonder if you’re good in other positions, too.”
“Hell.” In one swift move he dragged her off the desk and pulled her onto his lap. “When did you develop this talent for conversational grenades?”
She laughed. “I’m hoping to make it up to you that you never got to try my dessert.” She bit his earlobe.