"I told you to go see, didn't I? You can't say that I did anything—much—behind your back."
She was right. She had told him, much to Ruth's disgust.
Cookie chewed on her lower lip. "You hated it."
Again, she was right. Giving her a bland look, Chess lumbered to his feet. "I approved it."
It took her a minute to grasp his meaning. Then understanding dawned in her features with a brilliant light. On. It was as though he'd just switched her on. "You did?" She looked up with a big smile.
Brushing some dust from his coat sleeve, Chess avoided her eyes. What made her so damn eager? What was she out to gain? He was almost positive the boost to her own career had yet to occur to her.
"It's a good campaign, with a few reservations." Such as the new name Ruth wanted to give the perfume. "Here." Chess put out his hand.
With her initial cheer dimmed, Cookie let him take hold of her hand.
The feel of her skin against his made him suddenly skip a heartbeat. Yes, something as tame and simple as one hand in another could scatter his control. He looked down and met her eyes.
Something shimmered in her gaze. A reaction to his touch?
Chess's heartbeat skipped again. Was that even remotely possible?
But as soon as she'd scrambled to her feet, she let go of him. "What reservations?" she asked.
"Huh?" No, she hadn't reacted to his touch, or at least not in a positive sense. Given their wedding night, he knew damn well that was impossible.
"What, exactly, are your reservations about the new campaign?" Cookie was all business now, arms folded under her breasts, chin tilted up.
Irritated and disappointed, he was more brusque than he'd intended. "The model, for one."
He immediately regretted his candor. She flinched as though she'd been slapped. "I know." She turned aside. "I tried to tell Ruth I'm not a professional model. It's not the same as acting, but she insisted it didn't matter."
She thought he was criticizing her capability. "Cookie, you misunderstand." He stopped, wondering if it would be wise to assure her she was perfectly capable of giving off vibrations of heated sensuality.
"What do you mean, then?"
The sheer misery in her face had him deciding to give her at least a little honesty. "I think you make a very good model."
"But you said—"
"I said I had reservations, but your professional capability isn't one of them."
"Oh." She ventured to look at him, brows slightly drawn. "Then...you think I'll flake out on you."
"No. Cookie, I—" He absolutely could not give her the truth on this one. He felt hurt. There was no other word to describe it. Cookie was willing to give the world what she couldn't bring herself to give him personally.
But had she ever promised the latter? Certainly not. His pain was completely unreasonable.
So he scrambled for an excuse. "I worry it's going to exhaust you. You already have a pretty taxing job with the play."
"Oh, Ruth and I talked about that." Cookie brightened. "We worked out a schedule. It's really quite doable."
There it was again, her eagerness. He felt shamed by it. While she was eager to help Scents Allure, he resented helping her career. Disgusting. He lifted his palms, smiled. And surrendered. "You've got the job."
She beamed at him. The sun was put to shame by the glow of her smile, its generous warmth and vitality.
Chess reflexively stiffened. From the first day they'd met, he'd taken pains to avoid this particular smile of hers, the smile of boundless joy and affection. From the age of fifteen, she'd been able to use this smile to unwittingly taunt him with all he'd never had in life, with all he'd never get. And now it was directed full on him with nowhere for him to hide.
"Thanks, Chess," she declared. "You won't be sorry."
But he already was, very sorry, for that glow of hers went through him like a burning arrow, searing everything in its path.
An hour ago it hadn't hurt when Ruth had suggested the new name for the perfume. Love? he'd thought, repeating the word as though it came from another language. Love? He had no idea what it meant.
But now, with Cookie smiling at him like the sun, turning his heart on a spit, Chess wondered if he didn't at least have an inkling.
~~~
The Atelier was more crowded than the last time. Nevertheless, Bernard Korman managed to find Kate without the slightest problem. The minute she stepped through the double glass doors, he was by her side.
"I have a booth by the window," he informed her in his deep, rasping voice. He took her elbow in a firm grip. "And...thank you for coming."
She condescended to look at him then. The silver hair on top of his head was still curly. It matched the gray and silver suit he had on.
He gave her a mild, uncertain smile. "You look lovely, Kate. As always."
She refused to acknowledge the compliment. "This had better be important. And you must stop calling me at the office."
Bernard's smile widened. "This way."
A dry sherry was already waiting on the polished tabletop, right beside Bernard's vodka tonic. Through the window behind the booth and twenty stories down, the city rolled its way from Nob Hill toward the bay.
"Why thank me for coming?" Kate demanded as soon as they were seated. She made a point not to touch her drink. "This is still blackmail as far as I'm concerned."
Bernard took hold of his glass and gave the contents a gentle swish. "A man can't be blamed for using the only method you allow to be effective."
Releasing a deep breath, Kate forced herself to relax. He'd gain even more of an upper hand if she acted scared. "What do you want?"
"To talk to you."
"About what?"
"Just...talk."
Kate's anger simmered as Bernard lifted his glass and took a sip of his drink. Just talk. "We've discovered what you've done to Chess's advertising campaign."
Bernard's glass of vodka froze before his mouth. "What?"
"We know how you've stolen the campaign."
Slowly, Bernard lowered his glass to the table. "I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."
Kate scoffed. "Shall I show you?"
"Please."
She thought a moment. With his brows drawn, he was doing a good job of looking innocent. But how long could the disguise last under direct evidence of the crime? "Fine," she decided. "I'll show you." She reached for her purse and the latest issue of Cosmopolitan.
Bernard took the proffered magazine and opened to the correct page. His brows drew down further as he looked at the ad for his own perfume, Temptress. Then his gaze rose from the photograph of wildflowers. "I don't understand. What about this?"
He was playing the role to the hilt.
Kate sighed. She pointed to the ad. "That's Chess's campaign. Wildflowers. Even the little girl sitting in the middle of the field."
Bernard's gaze quickly dropped back to the magazine. "I don't personally oversee my marketing these days. I have no idea when this ad was approved. You say it was stolen from your office?"
"It was."
Bernard mumbled under his breath, "This concerns me."
"Don't worry. We're not going to throw good money down the drain by advertising your product instead of our own. Chess has completely revised the thrust of our campaign." She leaned back in her seat, toying with the glass of sherry. "His ads won't help you."
Bernard looked up at her. "Can he pull it off? A new campaign will take time—and money."
Kate shrugged. "As if you care."
"I care," Bernard stated evenly. "I care about Chess." His eyes lowered to his drink. In a softer voice he added, "And I care about you."
She was so astonished she couldn't say a word. He cared about her?
His eyes came up. "I've wanted to ask for a while now. How are you doing?"
"M-me?" His question was uncomfortably sincere. And, though vague, she knew exactly what he meant. But she pretended otherwise.
"I'm...fine."
He quirked one side of his mouth, obviously hearing the lie. "The first year is hard. For months after Maria died, I used to look up from my seat at the kitchen table in the morning, all set to ask her if there were any more coffee."
Kate felt a lump lodge in her throat. She'd had very similar experiences. Watching a movie on TV and then turning to ask David if he'd heard that last line, only to see an empty chair. Or rolling over in bed late at night and finding the other side empty.
Bernard's voice grew softer. "You did love him, didn't you, Kate?"
She looked away. It was true. She hadn't expected it, but it had happened all the same. With a slow, sure thoroughness, like the first snowfall of winter, David's love had filled her. She hadn't known a man could love until then, hadn't believed it possible of the gender.
Bernard sighed. "I suppose I came to love Maria, too, after a fashion. She was the mother of my children. That sort of thing. But I can't say there was much passion there. Not the way it was between you and me."
Kate made a scoffing noise. "I'm surprised you can remember that far back."
Bernard looked at her over his glass. "I remember."
His deep tone struck a chord Kate didn't like. Automatically, she reached for her drink. Then her hands stopped around the stem of the glass as she remembered she wasn't going to accept his drink.
"We were such children," Bernard went on. "Particularly you. Only seventeen years old, defying your father and everything he held dear. I should have made allowances for that. I was older than you, more experienced, and I should have understood why you had to go away that summer. I shouldn't have blamed you."
Kate blinked. The words were thirty-nine years too late. They shouldn't matter. But they bashed into her emotional wall all the same. Was he apologizing? Determined to brush it off, she shrugged. "Nobody said you had to marry me."
He gave her a dry smile. "One of those things you were too young to understand. Of course I was going to marry you. I'd taken your virginity, hadn't I? More than that, I wanted you."
"If that's the case, then why didn't you ask before I went away?"
"For one thing, I was mad as hell that you hadn't found some excuse to avoid your family vacation. For another, I was still trying to figure out a way for us to get married without both sets of parents disowning us."
"And then, just like that, you gave up." Kate kept her voice light. After thirty-nine years, it shouldn't matter. She lifted her sherry and took a sip, after all.
Bernard eyed her darkly. "Is that how it looked from your end? It's not how it looked from mine. From my end it looked like a very young woman had changed her mind. It looked like she'd decided she didn't want to make her daddy angry. It looked very much as though she didn't want me any more."
Kate felt the sherry stick hotly in her throat. "There's no point in dredging all this up."
"I disagree."
Kate closed her eyes and forced that sherry down. "That summer while I was in Maine, you got engaged."
"You could have stopped the wedding any time you wanted."
"How?" Kate opened her eyes again. "By telling you I was carrying your child? Oh, that would have been lovely. I could have forced you to marry me. I could have had a husband who didn't want me. One who didn't love me—"
Bernard stopped her tirade by setting his hand over hers. "I loved you."
She couldn't help it. She met those sea-colored eyes of his, the eyes so very much like her son's.
But Bernard's eyes weren't cold like Chess's. They showed their sadness. "I still do love you, Kate."
The words went through her like a sword. Thirty-nine years too late.
"Impossible!" Kate's throat ached with the harshness of her voice. "We don't even know each other any more."
"We know each other as well as any two people can know each other. We have a child in common."
She struggled to free her hand, but Bernard clamped down on it tighter.
"Not a child. A thirty-eight-year old man."
"Yes, a full-grown man." Bernard let go of Kate's hand and leaned back in the upholstery of the booth. Outside, the light had gone the pink-gray of dusk. Lights glowed softly down Mason Street. "It makes me wonder why this issue is still so important to you. What are you afraid of?"
"I'm not afraid of anything." Kate drew indignation around her like a cloak, a cloak to hide the utter falseness of these words. Fear was exactly what motivated her. Sheer, unadulterated fear.
"Kate." Bernard leaned his forearms on the table and studied her face. "Please believe that I wouldn't do anything to hurt you."
"Oh, yes. Right." Her hands reached for the fashion magazine, still open to the purloined advertisement. "You've been the soul of indulgent beneficence to us all these years."
Bernard put his palm flat down on the open page. "I have, and you know it."
Their eyes met. Deep down, Kate knew he was right. He could have smashed them a hundred times over through the years. He never had. And, a little bit, she'd counted on that. Maybe, a tiny, little bit, she even trusted him.
"In the meantime," Bernard continued, "I'd like to get to the bottom of this mystery. May I borrow the magazine?"
Kate hesitated, and then decided it wasn't worth engaging in a wrestling match over the thing. He could buy another at any newsstand. She drew her hands away, shrugging. "Be my guest."
"Thank you." Bernard slid out of the booth and stood up. He folded the magazine and slid it into his outer jacket pocket. Was he leaving?
So soon?
Kate blinked at her own wayward thought.
"I'll return this to you on Sunday," he said. "Same time, same place?"
His words, together with her own perverse thought, made Kate go hot. "I'm not meeting you here again."
"Good. Sunday it is." Smiling, he somehow got hold of her hand. He raised it to his lips.
She felt the swift brush of them against the sensitive skin on top of her hand. The touch of a man to a woman. A touch that shivered through her in an unexpected way.
"I look forward to it," Bernard said. And then he was gone.
Kate sat alone in the booth. A strange mixture of emotions roiled through her. Her hand reached for the sherry. In three long, desperate swallows, she finished it.
Her mind scrambled to explain Bernard's actions here tonight. His goal was clearly Chess. Bernard had tried reaching him through the blackmail and then by stealing the ad campaign. Since none of that had worked, he was attacking Kate herself. Making her meet him here again and again.
He couldn't have any true personal interest in her. Not after thirty-nine years. Absurd.
Kate slid out of the booth and searched her purse for her car keys. Unfortunately, she kept seeing Bernard's expression when he'd asked her about David. The concern and wisdom. He understood.
If he only knew, that had been his most seductive moment of all, when he'd held out the idea that she might be able to talk to somebody who understood. Who'd been through the same pain.
Standing by the booth with her car keys in one hand, Kate had to stop for a minute and laugh at herself. Was she believing Bernard Korman?
Her gaze went out the window and over the bay. Lights punctured the varying shades of gray in the buildings, water, and streets. This was the time she'd have been going home with David, at this interlude between afternoon and evening. Sometimes she'd been feeling as if she were living in such an interlude. Not quite in this world.
True, she couldn't believe Bernard Korman, but maybe it wouldn't hurt to meet him here on Sunday, she mused, still staring out the window. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to talk with him and let him pretend to understand such matters as her inability to visit David's grave on the anniversary of his death. Or the thousand other small pains. Oh, that could be...wonderful.
Surely she could keep in mind that none of it was real.
Frowning, Kate turned and walked out of the elegant bar. Yes, she would keep all of that in mind. In which
case, it was all right that she was already, just the tiniest little bit, looking forward to Sunday.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The phone rang while Cookie's hands were full of shredded tuna. "I'll get it!" she called out anyway. Quickly she wiped her hands clean on a paper towel and then grabbed the phone.
Chess had made her wary about this call. All weekend he'd warned her that Kate wasn't going to make it for dinner. With a smug air, he'd assured Cookie that his mother would find some excuse to get out of it.
All weekend Cookie had confidently replied that Kate was looking forward to coming over to her eldest son's house for dinner. She'd pointed out that Kate must be awfully curious about Chess's house since he'd never formally invited his mother there in his life—shame on him.
Chess had retorted that he'd never invited his mother because she'd never have accepted such an invitation. She'd only done it this time because Cookie had twisted her arm. He was betting odds against Kate ever stepping over his threshold. Which was just fine with him. The way things had always been was the way they ought to stay, and Cookie ought to mind her own business in the future.
Chess hadn't, Cookie reflected, been very appreciative of her efforts.
"Hello, Cookie?" It was Kate's voice and already sounding suspiciously apologetic.
Cookie grimaced. "Don't tell me you aren't coming."
"I'm so very sorry for leaving it to the last minute—"
"No," Cookie interrupted. "You weren't listening. I said: don't tell me you aren't coming. As in, don't tell me that. You're coming. In fact, you're on your way over right now."
"No, really." Kate sounded flustered. "I forgot about this Fragrance Society meeting. It missed getting noted on my calendar—"
"Forget it."
"But I really must—"
"No, you really must not." Cookie could feel heat cover her forehead. "There is nothing more important for you to do tonight than come over to your son's house for dinner."
A long pause followed this proclamation. Finally, Kate spoke. "Chess doesn't want me there, and you know it."
Cookie closed her eyes. She was between two rock-stubborn people. Maybe she didn't stand a chance here, after all.
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