“You can stay as long as you like,” Teddy said, then leaned toward Rory and whispered, “She does windows.”
Rory chuckled and whispered back, “Think she’ll come over and do mine?”
Thankfully, Teddy had warmed up to him as dinner had progressed. In fact, they had quickly established—or rather, reestablished—quite a rapport. Still, Teddy had balked earlier when Rory asked her to come to a meeting tomorrow of new volunteers for the home health-care service.
Izzy sipped her coffee and watched the subtly flirtatious body language being exchanged by Teddy and Rory as they talked, apparently having forgotten she was there. The process of establishing intimacy with someone was so delicate and thrilling... and potentially heartbreaking.
Clay still hadn’t called.
All you’d have to do is call. But six weeks had gone by, and he hadn’t.
He’d called her mother. Several times. And her mother had called him. He’d gone golfing with her father twice, after the weather warmed up, and even played boccie ball with him and his pals at Kissena Park. He’d been to dinner at their house more than once, Izzy knew; she’d seen some of the presents he’d brought over for the kids. But she hadn’t so much as caught a glimpse of Clay. Her folks were always careful to avoid inviting them both over at the same time.
What was so amazing about this was not that her family was embracing her estranged husband, but that they were embracing him after finding out that he was not, after all, the father of the child Izzy had lost. She and Clay had agreed that she would fess up when she moved in with Teddy, and she had. But far from being outraged and despising Clay for his subterfuge, as he’d always feared, they’d adored him even more for having come to the aid of their Isabella in her time of need. They’d rallied around him, bombarding him with unconditional love and enveloping him in the warm cocoon of Fabrioni family life. And they all thought she was insane for having left him.
Was she?
No. What was insane was having married him. Leaving him was only correcting a mistake that never should have been made.
“Izzy, did you hear me?” Teddy was asking. “I wanted to know if you’ve applied for that job with the ski magazine.”
“A ski magazine?” Rory asked. “Sounds like it’d be right up your alley.”
“I found the ad online,” Teddy said. “I pointed it out to her, but she still hasn’t sent in her résumé.”
“Pointed it out?” Izzy said. “You’ve been like a dog with a bone about that job. A veritable pit bull.”
“It’s a good job.” Teddy turned to Rory. “Art director for a new magazine. What was it... East Coast Skiing? She’d be a shoo-in after redesigning The Rush.”
Izzy swallowed down the last of her coffee. “First of all, Aunt Teddy, there’s no such thing as a shoo-in when you’re talking about a graphic arts job in New York. The competition is unbelievable. Second, it’s not just a matter of sending in my résumé , or even just my portfolio. They’re going to want me to come up with a look for the magazine and submit layouts—the ad said so. That’s a lot of work, with no guarantee I’ll get anything out of it. And third, and most importantly, the address in the ad just happens to be the address of Mercer-Hest Publications.”
“So?” Teddy shrugged her patented Italian-American shrug.
“Mercer-Hest,” Izzy said, leaning forward. “These are the people who are trying to steal Clay’s readership with that new extreme sports magazine. I’d feel... I don’t know. Like a traitor or something if I worked for them.”
Teddy rolled her eyes, “Even Clay understood why they went into competition with him. They’re not the Evil Empire, Izzy. They’re just a magazine publisher, and one of the biggest in the world. It’s a good opportunity. You should pounce on it.”
Izzy smiled slowly. “I’ll make you a deal, Aunt Teddy. I’ll apply for the Mercer-Hest job...”
“Thank God.”
“If—” Izzy winked at Rory “—you’ll go to Rory’s meeting tomorrow.”
Teddy glared at Izzy, two spots of pink blossoming on her cheeks.
Rory was laughing. “Great idea.” Reaching over, he took Teddy’s hand and lowered his voice. “Say yes, Teodora. I need you.”
The pink spread to encompass Teddy’s entire face. She cleared her throat. “All right.” She met Izzy’s gaze. “But you have to apply for the job tomorrow.”
“Done deal.” Izzy rose and began collecting dessert plates and coffee cups, waving her two dinner companions back into their seats when they offered to help. “The cleanup will take me about five minutes. You two relax. Catch up on old times.”
Izzy stretched the five minutes to about thirty, handwashing all the dishes that wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher, and scrubbing and rescrubbing every available surface. When she returned to the dining room, the table was empty. They weren’t in the living room, either. She looked toward Teddy’s closed bedroom door, thinking, No...
A flicker of movement through the multipaned glass door leading to the balcony caught her eye. Two figures stood out there in the dark, facing each other. They were holding both hands and talking. After a few seconds, the taller figure leaned down toward the shorter one.
Izzy’s eyes stung with tears as she watched Teddy accept Rory’s brief kiss. She touched her mouth, remembering the warm tickle of Clay’s lips on hers, and other things... the cloudless blue of his eyes, the way his shirts always smelled like an herb garden.
Why hadn’t he called?
She backed up into the kitchen, sat at the table, and buried her face in her hands, sobbing.
IZZY GOT OUT OF THE SUBWAY at Lex and Fifty-third and walked over to Park, trying to ignore all the things about Manhattan that she’d never been able to stomach—the noise, the press of humanity, and especially the smells.
It was only mid-May, but already warm enough for the faint aroma of cooked garbage to have added its unique nuance to the atmospheric bouquet. She compared it in her mind to the homey scent of pine and woodsmoke and cinnamon that had so enchanted her the first time she visited North Moon Bay’s town square. The comparison almost drove her back into the subway, but she steeled herself and continued on, keeping a tight grip on her portfolio, which contained proposed layouts for East Coast Skiing. The last time she was in New York a kid on a skateboard had snatched her pocketbook right off her shoulder.
Izzy’s destination—375 Park—turned out to be a looming tower of smoked glass with two enormous fountains in front of it. She checked her watch. It was 1:52 and her interview was for 2:00. With a weary acceptance of the inevitable, she trudged into the lobby, checked in with security and took an elevator to the fourteenth floor.
The reception area was four times the size of Aunt Teddy’s apartment—all glass and steel and black leather. Huge metallic letters over the receptionist’s desk read: Mercer-Hest Publications.
The stylishly dressed receptionist glanced at her portfolio. “Are you here for East Coast Skiing?”
“That’s right.”
“Have a seat. Someone will be right with you.” She punched a button on her phone and murmured something into it.
Izzy was too wound up to sit. Instead she paced the big room, studying the posters on the walls: blowups of the covers of various Mercer-Hest magazines. There was none for Testing the Limits, the new extreme sports magazine; it must not be in production yet.
“Ms. Fabrioni?” Izzy turned to find a young blond woman with glasses beckoning her from a doorway. “I’m Sandra. Will you come with me?”
Izzy followed the girl through a maze of white hallways, thinking, This is a termite mound. How am I ever going to be able to work here? Sandra led her into a conference room and left her there, saying, “They’ll be with you in a moment.”
Izzy laid her portfolio on the mammoth black lacquer conference table and crossed to the back wall, which was entirely smoked glass. Below her, cars and pedestrians crawled along Park Avenue like so many insects. I can’t do this. I should le
ave now.
But she couldn’t leave. She needed the job.
I’m such an idiot. What am I doing here? I should be back in North Moon Bay with Clay.
She thought about their last night together. Just sleep with me, he’d said. I just want us to sleep together. And they’d done just that, drifting off in each other’s arms. Then, during the night, they’d awakened and made slow, wordless love. It had been sweet, but so incredibly sad. When it was over, he fell asleep inside her. She remembered listening to his breathing become regular as his body grew heavy with sleep, yet he’d remained buried within her, as if unwilling to give her up so soon.
“Hey, coffee bean.”
Izzy stopped breathing. She looked up and saw her reflection in the dark glass, her eyes wide at the sound of Clay’s voice.
She turned around slowly. He stood in the doorway, wearing the navy suit and silver tie he’d worn for their wedding, and looking quite literally like something out of a dream.
He smiled. “Aren’t you going to say hello?”
No, she wasn’t. She didn’t seem to be able to talk.
Someone elbowed past him through the doorway. “Izzy! You are here!” Harry circled the big table and caught her up in a bear hug.
Izzy found her voice. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”
Clay started to speak, but Harry held up a silencing hand. “After the Wolf Peak avalanche, I decided to tell Clay I couldn’t work for him any longer—not if he was gonna continue to try and kill himself for the sake of the magazine.”
Izzy’s jaw dropped open. “You quit The Rush and came to work for Mercer-Hest?”
Clay stepped into the room. “Turned out he didn’t have to.” She noticed something about Clay then. He seemed to quiver with suppressed energy. Beneath his polished exterior thrummed an undercurrent of excitement.
Harry settled into one of the chairs and crossed his feet on the table. “I came into the office that Monday—the day after we got back from Colorado—all psyched to give him my notice. Only the big guy never shows up for work. I called him around noon. He answered on the first ring. He didn’t say hello. He said, ‘Izzy?’”
Izzy looked at Clay. He held her gaze.
“He told me you were bailing out, too,” Harry continued, “and that you were gone when he woke up. So, being the supportive, nurturing kind of friend I am, I went right over. No one ever had to tell me how to get in touch with my feminine side.”
Clay moved further into the room. “Cut to the chase, Harry.”
“You should have seen him when I got there,” Harry said. “He was still in his robe, at one in the afternoon. His robe and gym socks, and he hadn’t shaved, and his hair looked like a fright wig. At first I thought he was drunk, ’cause he was talking a blue streak, but he was actually into his second pot of coffee. Turned out he’d just gotten off the phone with Jack Mercer.”
Izzy frowned and spoke to Clay for the first time. “I thought Jack Mercer stopped calling you after he issued that press release about Testing the Limits.”
“He didn’t call me. I called him.” Smiling, Clay approached her slowly, as if afraid she would bolt. “I asked him if he was still interested in buying The Rush. He said, ‘Definitely!’ I told him he could have it for the last offer he’d quoted to me—plus a kind of unique condition. He said, ‘Sold!’”
Izzy blinked. “So... you don’t publish The Rush anymore?”
Clay grinned. “It’s Jack’s baby now. I started a new magazine for garden-variety nonextreme skiing.”
“East Coast Skiing,” she said.
“Right. No more loony stunts. Half my readers won’t even be off the intermediate slopes.” He shrugged. “My heart hadn’t been in the extreme scene for a long time, anyway, Izz. You just helped me do something I’d wanted to do for a while.”
“But wait a minute,” Izzy said. “East Coast Skiing is a Mercer-Hest magazine.”
“Wrong.” Clay took another couple of steps in her direction. “You just think it is because you had to come here for this interview. That was my condition for selling The Rush to Jack. I had to be able to use his editorial offices to recruit staff for my new magazine. I told him I didn’t want to make people come out to North Moon Bay for interviews.”
“North Moon Bay?”
“East Coast Skiing will be headquartered there,” Clay said. “In the old town hall, right there on the square.” Izzy remembered the quaint old building with its arched windows and columns. What a wonderful place that would be to work—light-years from this steel-and-glass insect colony.
Harry sat up, grinning. “But that’s not really why he made Jack let him recruit from here. He was afraid you wouldn’t apply for the job if you knew it was his magazine, and a NoMo address would have blown his cover.”
“I wasn’t sure how thoroughly you’d washed your hands of me,” Clay said. “I’m still not.”
Izzy shook her head, as if that would make all the confusing little elements settle into some kind of order. “What made you so sure I’d even see the ad? Or that I’d apply for the job, even if I did?”
Clay grinned cockily. “I deputized Teddy to take care of that.”
Izzy smacked her head. “Of course. No wonder she was so bullheaded about it.”
“Well.” Clay rubbed his hands together. “Let’s see your layouts.” He unzipped her portfolio, flipped it open, and said, “They’re great. I love them. You’re hired.”
“You didn’t even look at them,” she said, and narrowed her eyes as a thought occurred to her. “Are you even interviewing anyone else for the job?”
Harry cleared his throat. “When they call, we tell them we’re sorry, but the position’s been filled.”
Izzy looked back and forth between the two men, shaking her head. “What if you don’t even like my layouts?” She went over to the portfolio and began pulling sheets out of it and spreading them over the table. “You should at least look at them.”
“Does that mean you want the job?” Clay asked, his eyes glittering. She noticed that intensity again, just beneath the surface.
“I guess that would depend on what this is really all about. Why you sold The Rush and started this new magazine.”
Clay turned to Harry. “This is your cue to split, buddy.”
“Ooh... buddy.” Harry shivered as he levered himself up out of the chair. “I just adore male bonding.” He gave Izzy another big hug and slapped Clay on the back. “Don’t blow it, Kemo Sabe,” he muttered as he left.
Izzy and Clay looked at each other, laughter bubbling from both of them. “‘Kemo Sabe’?”
Clay reached out and stroked her cheek. “It’s so good to see you laugh. Hell, it’s so great just to see you.”
She returned his smile, but then turned and pretended to inspect the layouts. “I kept thinking you would call.”
He came up right behind her. She felt his presence, his heat. “I kept thinking you’d hang up on me if I called before I’d gotten you your guarantee. You know—that I wouldn’t give in to temptation and do any more daredevil stunts for the sake of The Rush.”
She turned to face him. “That’s really why you sold out to Jack Mercer? To give me that guarantee?”
“Of course. Why else?”
A little twist of discomfort unwound inside her. “You loved that magazine.”
Clay stepped forward, backing her against the table as he wrapped his arms around her. “Trust me, I love you lots, lots more.” Glancing over her shoulder, he murmured, “I’ve developed quite an unhealthy interest in big tables lately. Every time I pass one, I get this raging hard-on.”
He kissed her, pressing his hips to hers to prove his claim. She lost herself in the kiss, so much so that she almost didn’t notice when he lifted her onto the table and raised her skirt.
Almost. “Whoa.” She closed her hand over his, halfway up her thigh, and nodded toward the wall of smoked glass. “Half of Manhattan could be watching us right now.”<
br />
“That’s the great thing about smoked glass. We can see out, but they can’t see in.” He slid her toward him on the table so that he was standing between her legs, and glided both hands up to her hips.
She could feel his subliminal jumpiness through every part of her that he touched. “What’s with you?” she asked. “You seem so... jazzed up.”
“Adrenaline.” He rubbed her hips and thighs beneath her skirt. “I haven’t felt it this much in years. Ever, if you want to know the truth.”
“Why?”
“I’ve never had this much on the line. This is probably my last chance with you. Give me a word of encouragement. Tell me I didn’t blow it already with this—” he indicated the table and her state of dishabille “—caveman routine.”
She couldn’t help smiling. “I like cavemen sometimes.”
His blue eyes smoked over. “So I’ve noticed.” He kissed her. “And tell me I’m not a complete schmuck for selling The Rush just for you.”
“You’re not a schmuck,” she whispered, and kissed him. “You’re wonderful. And you didn’t do it just for me, you did it for us. And I love you for it. You can’t imagine what it means to me.”
She kissed him again, and he returned it with enthusiasm. “Gee,” he said breathlessly, “this is going pretty well. Listen, while I’m on a roll, tell me you won’t have any objection to getting married again, in the church, by Father Frank.”
Stunned, she nodded mutely.
He brought his mouth to hers, murmuring against her lips, “And tell me you’ll wear a long white gown and a veil. Oh, and baby’s breath in your hair.”
“Baby’s—?”
“And that you’ll let me make love to you every night from now until the end of time.” He stroked her breast lightly, sending little chills of pleasure throughout her.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“And sometimes in the morning, too. And when we come home for lunch.” He closed his mouth over hers again and kissed her deeply, luxuriously. “And tell me we can leave those condoms in the drawer. Tell me you’ll have my baby.” He touched her stomach through her dress. “I want to put my baby right here. As soon as you’re ready, that is.”
The Marriage Arrangement Page 19