“Which one?”
“Which … oh, you mean father or son?” Lyle gave a rueful chuckle. “I must admit it sets me back a bit seeing both you and Sylvia Chatsworth hanging on Rory Campbell.”
“I was not …”
His chuckle became a laugh. “Relax. I’m not giving you a hard time about wanting him. I’m just saying I think la Chatsworth might be worth a second look.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I’m sick and tired of watching the Senator’s daughter snag every man in sight.”
Lyle sobered. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”
The onshore breeze picked up, bringing a taste of salt along with the green scent of fresh-mown golf course. Lyle took off his jacket and draped it around Mariah’s shoulders, its folds making her feel like a doll. They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes
Perhaps to make amends for advertising his admiration of Sylvia, Lyle plucked a pink rose and presented it to her. She planted it discretely in the hollow between her breasts.
“What’s the story on you and Campbell?” he asked.
“Rory and I aren’t …” she began automatically.
“Maybe not, but you sure want to be.”
Mariah sighed, for she did not intend to tell Lyle what happened eight years ago. Let him think what he’d seen between her and Rory recently was a passing fancy.
“I know your fathers hate each other.” Lyle selected a yellow rose and harvested it. “But it seems to me there should be a way for you two.”
On his lips, it sounded reasonable, but he didn’t know what it required. Wipe the slate clean of Rory’s denying her at his father’s behest, of his marrying Elizabeth, dating a dozen women, and never once contacting her in all that time. Inviting her to a party, but secretly, then sneaking away to Big Sur for a fantasy getaway, now hiding out on balconies when he was here with another woman. She was supposed to be satisfied with crumbs when she wanted a banquet?
Lyle fingered the rose stem. “On the other hand, maybe he is toying with you. I keep hearing rumors out of Davis Campbell’s office that Rory’s going to marry Sylvia.”
The aromatic flowers suddenly smelled nauseating.
A chime announced dinner.
They went up the garden steps to find Rory and Sylvia at a patio table. The dark beauty’s head was thrown back, laughing at something he said. Mariah turned away before she could fully see and feel the pain.
The evasion was no use. She wanted to rush up and claim Rory, and knowing she could not without making a scene was enough to make her rage.
Taking a steadying breath, Mariah returned Lyle’s coat. Rory gave her a disapproving look that deepened into a scowl at the rose between her breasts.
The McMillan dining room was as large as the one at Hearst Castle, the single long table seating at least fifty. Hunting tapestries lined the walls. Place cards at each setting directed the diners to their seats. To Mariah’s dismay, she and Lyle were seated across from Rory and Sylvia.
Over lobster bisque, served with a buttery Chardonnay, Mariah became more animated. She flirted unabashedly with Lyle. With the arrival of the main course, medallions of elk with a raspberry Zinfandel reduction, Sylvia fed Rory a taste from her fork. By the time a chocolate crème cake was carried in, Mariah had lost all appetite.
All she could think was that Lyle had to be wrong about them getting married. She couldn’t bear to read another of Rory’s wedding announcements in the newspaper.
As dessert was served, it was all Rory could do to stay in his seat. Across the table, Lyle acted like he owned Mariah, bending close to hear what she whispered, touching her arm from time to time. Just the thought of him slipping that rose into the neckline of her dress made Rory want to mess up his perfect face.
Beside him, Sylvia burbled on, oblivious to his misery. Once you got past the tough girl act, she was a good person who didn’t deserve to be mixed up in Davis Campbell’s schemes. Unfortunately, her fate had been sealed when she was born.
Rory looked down the table to where Senator Chatsworth sat next to Sylvia’s mother. Publicity had informed him that Laura Cabot Chatsworth had the blueblood background and soft polish that came from a southern education at Sweet Briar. Both the Senator and his wife wore the pleasant, practiced expressions of career politicians.
Toward the other end of the table, Davis held court while Kiki picked at her food. With her bright hair and stylish clothing, she could pass for a younger woman, but only at a distance. Rory searched for the face of his mother, but she’d lost it years ago. In her forties, she’d gained weight, and her chin had bloated. By fifty, she’d dieted and found a stringy chicken neck beneath an angular jaw. Last year she’d had the tuck beside the ear and the eyelids lifted. The well-dressed woman looked youthful, but the mother he remembered was gone. Looking at her sitting miserably beside her husband, Rory couldn’t see bringing any woman into the hell his family was becoming.
Mariah had experienced a taste of Father’s cruelty this evening, blindly fleeing the field when she ran into him. What he’d overheard when his father confronted her was disturbing, that business of loans at First California. DCI didn’t bank there, and Davis shouldn’t have known their business. Yet, Thaddeus Walker had been the one to call with the news of John Grant’s heart attack.
Worse was the suspicion that had been growing ever since his father spoke to Mariah of her mother. Everything, from the intensity that strung Davis taut as wire when speaking of her mother’s passion … all of it suggested that John and Davis’s enmity might have begun in a battle over the same woman. The only other time in his life his father had been this unreasonable was the first time Rory had taken up with John Grant’s daughter.
Across the table, Mariah looked as miserable as he felt, prodding listlessly at the chocolate crème. Eyes that Rory knew could be fantastic lacked luster.
On impulse, he slipped off one of his patent leather tuxedo shoes. Reaching carefully with his foot, he first encountered the table leg and then explored further. His sock-clad toes touched the top of her sandal.
He felt her flinch. With a glance at Lyle, she appeared to rule him not guilty. She didn’t appear to consider Henry Sand, the retired developer who sat at her other elbow.
She looked at him; their gazes locked. He expected her to pull away, but she did not.
Sliding his toes up the silky slick surface of her pantyhose to her calf, he explored. How was it possible that just this forbidden touch tightened his groin, while Sylvia no longer excited him?
The color in Mariah’s cheeks rose, along with a pretty flush on her chest above her low cut gold dress. Her lips parted.
Wilson McMillan’s wife rose to signal that dinner was at an end. Rory knew he shouldn’t risk it, but on the way out of the dining room, he caught up with Mariah and bent to her ear. “You’re with the wrong man.”
She speeded her steps and kept up with Lyle.
With dinner ended, one man called for a poker game in the library. Wilson McMillan announced a movie in his entertainment center. Davis and Kiki started a table on the terrace that quickly filled.
Rory sidestepped the group and let Sylvia lead him toward the cool retreat of the rose garden. He didn’t miss that Lyle took Mariah in the same direction. She might be with the wrong man, but she made it clear she was staying with him.
Feeling the need to move, Rory said to Sylvia, “Let’s walk on the golf course.”
“You walk,” she snapped, shocking him. “Or go take a cold shower.”
Rory stopped in the middle of the path. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about playing footsie with Mariah Grant.” Busted, he stood silently while Sylvia ordered, “You stay away from her!”
She was getting cocky, first talking about how Senator Chatsworth approved and now asking for a ball and chain. Well, no matter that Davis, “Larry,” and Sylvia all thought he should conform to their expectations, he couldn’t go along.
; “I’ll think I’ll take that walk,” he said.
Sylvia stormed off toward the castle. He was glad to see her go, relieved of the pressure to keep up his act.
On the way out of the garden, he passed an alcove with a stone bench. Mariah and Lyle sat with their heads close together. Rory hurried his steps, swearing under his breath, not stopping until the Pacific lay at his feet.
His anger at Sylvia began to cool when he realized she was another pawn in the game of powerful men and their offspring. To be fair, he had led her on this evening.
As for Mariah, he didn’t know what to think. When they were younger, there had been no push-pull kind of games. It had been everything, then nothing, when she refused to communicate with him and he … looking back he could see how he’d taken the immature way out in turning to Elizabeth, who’d loved him since their sandbox days.
He backed away from the surf and turned his steps parallel to the steep berm glistening in the moonlight. A walk beside the ocean had always been his release. From his parents’ Seacliff mansion down the steep road cut out of the side of the cliff, he would go down to the sand on China Beach and strike out, walking against the wind. Big combers rolled in and broke, leaving patches of pale foam that looked like ice floes in the chilly breeze. Turning back toward the house where he’d grown up, he’d see the mansion crowning the misty bluff, a castle on a pedestal. Reminding him of the Campbell dynasty, that someday he was expected to rule.
During the summer of Mariah, as he’d come to think of it, he had walked and wondered what he would do with his life. Despite that he’d told her he would as soon run whitewater raft trips as work for DCI, he did know that he loved building.
As the months of June and July slipped sweetly into August, and he and Mariah drew closer with each passing day, he had formulated a plan. Despite their fathers’ enmity, he was going to ask her to marry him. That fateful night on Privateer, he had planned candlelight, champagne, and to surprise her with the question. After college, they would each work for companies other than their family one, training toward the day when John and Davis, out of the same class at Stanford, would both turn sixty-five. Then, the way clear, he and Mariah would merge the companies and command them together.
How had it gone so wrong?
In the peaceful cove at Spanish Bay, Rory walked too close to the surf and got his feet soaked in a foaming wash of wave. After, he was less careful, getting his tuxedo wet to the knee.
He had to admit to his share of the blame in their breakup. The threat of having to drop his education as he was learning the magic of architecture, the specter of not being able to work in the industry he had come to love … But could he have fought harder, called his father’s bluff?
Remembering the implacable look in Davis’s eyes upon finding his son with John Grant’s daughter, he did not think so. He’d never seen his father like that before, and not again in the past eight years … until recently.
No, it wasn’t possible … had Davis’s new vendetta against John Grant begun at about the time Rory had heard Mariah was back in town? Had his father been so worried Rory would fall for her again that he’d taken new and aggressive steps to vanquish his old foe?
CHAPTER 13
Confused and chilled, Rory climbed with wet, sandy shoes toward the castle, intent on getting a stiff jolt of Wilson McMillan’s best brandy. A private gate marked the edge of McMillan’s grounds; he entered and ascended through tiers of garden. Ahead of him on the path, a couple meandered toward the terrace, a blond woman tiny beside a bear of a man.
With an effort, Rory slowed until Mariah and Lyle were up the garden steps and inside. He didn’t want a confrontation, for in his present mood he was likely to make a fool of himself.
Once in the castle, he entered the great room where a party was in progress before the ornate bar. The sight of his mother and Sylvia on adjacent saloon stools decided him to skip the drink.
Halfway down the second floor hall to his room, he realized he had not dawdled long enough. Mariah and Lyle were outside her room next door to Rory’s. The big man looked relaxed, one hand on the wall above her head, the other hooking his jacket over his shoulder. Rory nearly retreated down the marble stairs to avoid a scene, but his shoes squished on the Oriental carpet.
Lyle turned and met his eyes. With a smile that challenged, he murmured something, bent and kissed Mariah.
Rory had always thought the expression “seeing red” was a joke.
Lyle drew back, opened the door, and watched Mariah go inside. A nod to Rory, “G’night, Campbell.” On his way down the hall, he began to whistle.
Rory almost stopped him, but it was Mariah who had made her choice. He watched until Lyle opened another door and went in as though settling for the night.
Once in his own room, Rory kicked off his ruined shoes and socks and dumped them out on the balcony. Next door, a light came on, spilling illumination onto the terrace.
Still heated, Rory took off his tuxedo jacket and pants. He released his ruby cufflinks and dropped them in a porcelain dish. The studs followed. Moonlight from the skylight over the bed struck fire in the stones, reminding him of the exquisite perfection of the Burmese ruby.
When she’d agreed to go to Big Sur with him that weekend, he’d been as high as a man could get without a flying machine. He’d stood on the brink of a brand new world, slipped the ring onto her third finger, left hand; damned irrational behavior for a born-again bachelor. Where was the ring tonight?
Stripping to his skin, Rory went onto the balcony.
Mariah stared at her face in the bathroom mirror. When Lyle had whispered, “Let’s make him think,” she had not realized he was about to kiss her. His lips had toured hers, warm and leisurely, and though he was a catch by any woman’s definition, he had evoked no fire.
Only one man had ever been able to do that for her.
Slipping off her golden gown, she hesitated over the velvet robe Rory had bought her in Carmel. The ring might be in the safe deposit box, but she’d refused to allow herself to be soured on the beautiful, soft wrap. Crimson silk glided over her skin.
Coming out of the bathroom, she noted the drapes stood open, as she had left them.
She went to the French doors and reached for the cord. Through the glass, she saw that Rory leaned on the balustrade, staring out to sea. A silver wash of moonlight defined the long bronze line of his bare back, tapering to pale globes of buttock. Strong tan thighs and calves led to sinewy feet. Looking at him, her head was suddenly filled with the scent of the gingered oil he’d poured on her at Ventana. An olfactory hallucination, made more vivid for seeing Rory naked and vibrant. Her palms felt full with wanting to slide them over his skin.
A small moan escaped her. She didn’t believe he could hear it, and he did not look her way, but she thought his profile changed in the moonlight. It was all she could do not to open the door.
But though he’d gone into the room alone, she had seen Sylvia downstairs talking with his mother. The two women had been laughing together as Mariah and Lyle passed the door of McMillan’s bar. If she went out to a naked Rory and a senator’s daughter found them on the balcony …
Her face flaming, Mariah grabbed the cord and closed the drapes.
Hearing a faint sound, Rory spun and caught the swirl of settling brocade at Mariah’s door. He glimpsed her hand on the drawstring, pale against a dark backdrop of sleeve. Did she still wear the velvet robe, even as she had stripped her hand of his ring? Had she seen him before she withdrew?
When there was no further sign of movement in her window, he looked back toward the ocean. With the party sounds diminished, he could hear the sibilant resonance of surf, a restless cadence pulsing with his blood. He stood for a long time until the night chill drove him into his room.
The click of the latch sounded final.
Shivering, he turned on the shower full and hot. Beneath the flood, he washed salt spray from his hair and skin. As falling water pounded t
he tension from him, he looked forward to sleep shutting out the constant images playing in his head … Mariah naked in the Japanese bath at Ventana, her hair streaming over her shoulders, lying on the bed while his oiled hands defined the curve of her back and buttocks.
He soaped his arousal and groaned aloud … Pressing his lips to her rosy nipple, burying himself in her moist heat … If he were smart, he’d finish the job solo and go to bed.
But she was right behind that wall, through the thickness of marble and sheetrock. Alone, for Lyle had gone to another room. He splayed his fingers and pressed them to the warm, wet stone.
Rory turned off the taps and toweled dry. The last he’d seen of Mariah, she’d accepted Lyle’s kiss. Yet, he could not forget the softness in her eyes this afternoon on the balcony. A heartbeat away from kissing her himself, he could have sworn he was the one she wanted. That is, before his parents showed up to spoil it.
Yet, truth to tell, hadn’t he been the one to ruin it by dragging her back and making her think he was ashamed to be seen with her? And after Lyle came out of her room, hadn’t he spent the better part of the evening making public love to Sylvia to throw it in Mariah’s face?
What if she was also playing both ends against the middle, putting pride above truth?
He slammed his fist onto the bathroom counter. To stay or go was the same kind of no-win chess he and Mariah had been playing since their first meeting. He pulled on his sweat pants and looked out the glass door into the night.
Next door, Mariah lay naked between expensive, soft sheets, feeling as though she were about to jump out of her skin. Thoughts whirled, images of Sylvia with Rory, real and imagined. She saw them next door, playing like puppies in the sheets, along with tortured dreamscapes of surf smashing her father’s house and swirling the lovers away. She strained her ears, but no voices came from his room, though the audio of a TV late movie seeped through from the neighbor on the other side.
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