On swift feet, she fled to the bathroom.
With meticulous care, she turned the taps and waited for the tub to fill. Testing the water with her toe, she dumped in a load of lavender salts. She had ginger-scented crystals, but she couldn’t bear being reminded of Rory spreading Ventana’s aromatic oil over her body.
Sliding into water as hot as she could stand, she submerged everything except her face. It was quiet save for the occasional gentle splash as she moved an arm to adjust her bath pillow or reached with her toes to let water out and replenish it with a fresh flood from the tap.
Tears welled in her eyes, broke the dam, and ran down her wet cheeks. It had all felt so real; Rory accepting a share of blame for their first breakup, the electric intensity in him when they made love, walking through that open house masquerading as husband and wife.
Yet, he must have been faking. She’d seen him toasted and congratulated in McMillan’s dining room. She’d seen the newspaper.
No, it couldn’t be true. He’d just called and talked to her father. John thought he sounded sincere.
But Rory always sounded that way. Listening to him speak, she never detected the dissimulation or evasion she’d heard from people in business and in some of the men she’d dated in the past eight years. Yet, he must have been lying with both his lips and his body, stripping away her defenses even as he removed her clothes. Mariah hoped both he and his father were happy this morning, as Rory achieved the Campbell’s objective of vengeance. For, while her tears mingled with bath water, she knew …
She had the supreme misfortune to have fallen in love with Rory Campbell.
Again.
The first time, she’d been a starry-eyed innocent. This time it came with the exquisite pain of knowing they had no chance for happiness.
From the front hallway, she heard a rasping. Gripping the side of the tub with shriveled fingertips, she pushed upright. Another knock came louder. She sat motionless, listening.
A pounding set up, accompanied by a faint shouting.
From the living room, Mariah heard her father call her. He sounded alarmed.
She jumped up, and water sheeted off her nude body. Wrapping herself in the terry robe, she went out with her hair in damp strings. Beneath her wet feet, the hall floor felt slick.
She skated with care to the front door, rose on tiptoe, and used the peephole.
Rory stood in the rain on the small brick stoop, his shoulders hunched against the downpour, droplets beading the ends of his hair and trickling down his face. “Mariah?” he peered at the peephole. “If you’re there, open up.”
She pressed her palms against the wood. Everything in her said to walk away.
Dark stubble shadowed his jaw. “I wanted to call or come after you last night, but I waited until a decent hour because of John’s illness.”
Was it possible he’d not spent the night with another woman?
“Please. Did he tell you I’m not going to marry Sylvia?” She opened the door a wedge. At least the screen was still latched.
“He told me you’re playing cruel games.” She wanted to hurt him the way last night’s announcement had plunged her into despair.
“This isn’t a game,” he said grimly. “The whole thing was a mistake.”
“If it wasn’t true, how could you let it happen?”
He put his hand to the rain-beaded screen. “They sprung it on me. I knew nothing until McMillan stood up. Father convinced Sylvia I would go along with his dynasty building.”
“From the way he’s always controlled you, he had good reason to think so.”
Rory tried to pull the screen open against the latch. “I told you, it’s off. It was never on. Sylvia’s telling her folks I’m not going to marry her.”
Despite her anger and disbelief, the look of pain on his face tore at Mariah.
Rory yanked at the knob so the screen door rattled. “If you can honestly tell me what’s happening with us isn’t real, that it’s not the best thing that’s ever happened to either of us, then I’ll go.”
“I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
He slammed his fist against the jamb. “Open this door!”
How she longed to believe he wasn’t involved with Sylvia, but Mariah could not trust him. She shut the door in Rory’s face.
At nine that night, Mariah stared at the chessboard, unable to care that her father had her in check. She’d only agreed to play for the distraction.
“Come on, daughter,” he goaded. “Arnold played a better game when he was over this weekend.”
She shoved at the board, wanting to suggest he play with Arnold exclusively from now on. Instead, she made a deliberately obtuse move.
Without his usual victory smile, John moved another piece. “Checkmate.”
Mariah rubbed her arms while he began to set the pieces for a new game. “I’m sorry I’m not better company, Dad.”
“It’s just that your mind is elsewhere,” he finished.
He must have discerned her thoughts of Rory, but she refused to acknowledge the lead-in. With a glance at her watch, she said, “I need to get in to work early tomorrow. Hopefully, the bait I put out at McMillan’s will start to get some bites.”
Her father turned one of the stone pawns in his hands.
She leaned forward. “I know you don’t want to sell anything to the Campbells, but Takei Takayashi was the only one who seemed serious about any of the properties. And he prefaced it by saying he was short on cash. If Davis’s campaign to scare people over safety makes them hold back …”
John sighed. “I keep hoping we can get out from under this without losing Grant Plaza.”
“We’ll try.” Mariah wished she felt more confident.
The chess pieces in place, he inclined his head for her to make the first move.
“I don’t feel like another game,” she said. “As you said, my mind is elsewhere.”
“I’d say that’s also true of your heart.” His gray eyes watched her alertly.
She rose. “We’ve been over all that, Dad. Rory and I might have enormous chemistry, but as long as he works for his father, it can never be.”
Rory sprawled on the leather sofa in his townhouse, wearing his oldest sweats. He stared sightlessly at the TV, where John Wayne pulled his gun with a practiced draw. The Sunday paper, another failed attempt at distraction, lay strewn over the Berber carpet and his ship’s hatch coffee table. The image of Mariah closing the door in his face seemed more real than anything else.
He had an inkling how stalkers felt. No matter the downpour, he wanted to wait in her yard until she ran out of milk or eggs and had to leave the house.
The closing credits of Rio Lobo gave way to the trailer for “On The Spot.” About to jab his thumb onto the “off” button of his remote, Rory was shocked to hear his own name.
“Stay tuned for this evening’s exclusive exposé of one of San Francisco’s most eligible bachelors. Has Rory Campbell’s engagement to Sylvia Chatsworth settled him down? We don’t think so, and we have the tape to prove it.”
Rory had been expecting something virulent from Julio Castillo ever since he beheld the reporter’s angry countenance looking up from the funeral home floor. Still, it shocked him to be the lead feature.
First, he watched a clip of him and Sylvia at a restaurant back in April. “Old news,” he told the screen as she fed him tiramisu from a spoon.
Then he saw himself at Charley Barrett’s viewing in a flurry of shouting, Castillo going down in a windmill of arms and legs. The voiceover made it sound as though Rory had acted on Mariah’s behalf rather than through common decency.
Next was a clip of him leaving his townhouse in the Porsche with Mariah, the day of Charley’s funeral. Castillo said smugly, “Miss Grant’s car remained in Campbell’s garage until they returned together the next day.”
Rory muttered an oath at them saving up clips to use when the story got juicy enough.
The farce went on. “The engagement was
announced at retired developer Wilson McMillan’s palatial Pacific Grove mansion Saturday night, and in the San Francisco Sunday morning Chronicle.”
Rory started scrabbling through the newspaper. Underneath the sports and world news he found what he called “the women’s section.” Mrs. Chatsworth must have phoned it in so it made the final edition.
The photo of Sylvia was years old, from a debutante ball. Daughter of blah, son of, more blah. Campbell attended Stanford University, Kappa Alpha, and his business fraternity. And the clincher … being groomed to take over Davis Campbell Interests.
He crumpled the paper and sent it flying into a corner.
Back on TV, there was this morning’s footage of him standing in the rain before John Grant’s front door. A zoom in and he stood with his hands spread on the screen. Mariah could be seen through the door in her bathrobe. Audio from one of those long-range microphones, “Sylvia’s telling her folks I’m not going to marry her,” he said. “If you can honestly tell me what’s happening with us isn’t real …”
His face flamed.
And finally, “Open this door!” He sounded like a fool. Looked like one hitting the doorjamb with a manly fist.
He’d go down to the station and smash Castillo’s face, but that would make the reporter’s day. He’d call a lawyer and sue for defamation … but everything on the tape was real.
For the second time that day, he watched Mariah shut the door in his face.
His phone shrilled again. Caller ID said his parents. He let the answering machine roll.
“Pick up, or I swear to God I’ll come over there …” his father threatened.
Lifting the handset, Rory clicked on, then off to halt the call. The phone started to ring again. Angrily, he answered, “What do you want?”
“Get over to the house,” Davis snapped, “now.”
Despite that his father’s tone meant there would be hell to pay, Rory decided, “No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“Just what I said.” He gathered courage. “If you come over here, you’ll have to break in. And if you try that, I swear to God I’ll call the cops.” He hung up.
If Father came, Rory would call 911, not so much for protection, but to keep him from taking his own anger at everything out on the older man. Maybe he should go to a hotel and hide out like John Grant had. Yet, that was sure to backfire, for somebody from “On The Spot” must be waiting outside, a minimum wage clod dozing in a vehicle littered with fast food wrappers.
Determined to sleep on his rage before confronting his father, Rory put on his burglar alarm and went to bed.
CHAPTER 17
When Mariah entered the Grant conference room for the Monday meeting, a lively buzz of conversation cut off. Taking John’s chair at the head of the table, she sipped coffee and hoped the caffeine would rejuvenate her. Despite going to bed at nine-thirty when her father had nodded off, she was exhausted. Nonetheless, she pulled her notes toward her, raised her head and looked around the table.
Arnold Benton stared at her with revulsion. She met the challenge in his eyes and felt a ripple go through the rest of the watchers.
Before she could ask what his problem was, he shoved back from the table. “If you’re planning to chair this meeting, maybe you should talk about the conflict of interest with you and Rory Campbell.”
If Arnold had thrown a cup of coffee, she could not have been more shocked. A look toward Tom Barrett found his tousled head bent. April Perry, dressed to kill in a red designer suit, wore a grim expression.
“You must be hallucinating.” Mariah kept her voice controlled. “Rory is engaged to Sylvia Chatsworth.”
“Mariah.” April’s voice bore the quiet of command as she pushed the black plastic rectangle of a VCR tape across the table. “Maybe we should postpone the meeting until you look at this.”
As if April were in charge, the staff filed out except for Tom. Mariah remained in her father’s seat feeling like a suspect under interrogation, while the PR director started the tape on the big-screen TV.
When the “On The Spot” logo appeared on the monitor, Mariah groaned aloud.
“I take it you and John didn’t catch this last night,” Tom said.
The opening scene of Sylvia feeding Rory a bite of dessert curled Mariah’s fingers into fists. The footage of Charley’s viewing made her cringe and cast an apologetic look at Tom. He watched with stolid interest.
Seeing herself at the front door in her bathrobe, Mariah knew how celebrities must feel when they saw their face in grainy newsprint that made them look their worst. Rory tried to force the locked screen.
“Is nothing too low for these people?” she said.
Neither Tom nor April answered. She had the feeling they were thinking, like Arnold, that she had betrayed the company.
The final scene was of Rory after she closed the door. He leaned his head against the screen door and rolled it from side to side like a wounded animal. Mariah gasped and heard it come out as a sob.
April pointed the remote to rewind the tape. Tom kept staring at the TV as though the show still played. It was time Mariah needed to compose her face and choke back the hard ache in her throat.
At last, Tom looked at her. “You told me it was nothing.”
With an effort, she met his disappointed blue eyes. “You saw the tape. It’s over.”
He shook his big head. “You probably even believe that.” At the conference room door, he turned back. “Why don’t we skip the meeting this week?”
Trying to maintain a shred of dignity, Mariah nodded. There was only one thing that mattered any longer, to sell properties and prevent foreclosure. Failing that, Grant Development would need no more meetings.
April’s eyes were on her. In the older woman’s expression lay fierce loyalty to John and censure for the wayward daughter she’d never met before this spring. “Your father doesn’t know about the show?”
“Not unless one of you, maybe Arnold who loves to carry tales, called him after I left for work.”
Feeling the weight of the chore ahead of her this evening, that of showing the footage to her father, Mariah went to the VCR and extracted the tape. “I’d like for this to come from me.”
April nodded, her arms crossed over her chest.
Mariah went on, “Since the meeting’s been tabled, does Ramsey have anything new from the metallurgy lab?”
“Chatsworth’s project should wrap soon,” April assured her. “Then they’ll start running our samples.”
Four blocks down Market Street, Rory stood outside the closed door of his father’s office.
The secretary was not in sight. After sleeping on it, Rory had wakened determined to have it out. His father could no longer match-make for profit, or keep him from Mariah if she’d have him.
He took a deep breath and, without bothering to knock, walked in.
Thaddeus Walker of First California sat opposite Davis, who was behind his lacquered desk. The banker turned with a furtive look on his narrow face, reinforcing the distrust Rory had instinctively felt upon meeting the man years ago.
Davis shot up with the air of a king interrupted by a serf. “Don’t you know better than to walk in when my door is closed?”
Rory flushed.
Walker checked his watch and rose. “I need to go anyway. I’ll let you know about that line of credit.”
“Do that.” Davis sounded as though he was doing the bank a favor.
Rory went to the window while the guest was escorted to the door.
“I’ll make the offer as soon as I hear from you,” his father said in parting to the banker.
A moment later, a heavy hand clamped his shoulder. Rory jumped, for he’d not heard footsteps in the thick carpet.
“You see Grant Plaza out there?” Davis asked with a pleasantness that rang false. The forty-story edifice dominated the area near the convention center. The glazing was almost all in place, making it look close to completion
.
“What about it?” After hearing the byplay with the banker, Rory was afraid he knew what was coming.
“It’s going to be mine.”
Even with advance warning, it felt like a blow. “I’m not surprised a man as small as Walker fits in your pocket.”
“For God’s sake, learn to run with the big dogs,” Davis sneered. “Thaddeus is looking after the best interests of First California by calling Grant’s loans. After the accident, there’s the safety issue.”
“An accident can happen on any site in town. You’re the one playing it up with anybody who’ll listen.”
“You take advantage of opportunity where you find it,” Davis instructed.
“And of course, First California fronts DCI when you try and buy Grant out.”
“You learn fast.”
“I have a good teacher,” Rory said bitterly.
His father’s handsome face twisted. “Then, why haven’t you learned a damned thing? You looked like a fool on television. When Larry Chatsworth called me he was livid.”
“I don’t care.”
“Your prospects are limitless here.” His father waved his arm to include the city skyline. “I don’t understand why you seem determined to sabotage them.”
Rory saw the ugliness: the scheming with the bank, the senator, and God only knew what else. In contrast, there was the clean beauty of Mariah. And there was John Grant, a good man whose greatest sin had been to fall in love.
He glared at his father. “I don’t suppose you’d understand.”
Leaving the office, he moved automatically through the halls of DCI. Men and women smiled with the deference given the owner’s son. He left the building and walked the city streets.
If Catharine Grant had lived to develop a thick waist and a crop of lines around her eyes, would Davis still be obsessed with vengeance? Rory had always known his father as hard driving and competitive, in sailing and hunting as well as business, but this was beyond the pale. The premeditated destruction of Grant Development, John, and Mariah sickened him.
People on the crowded sidewalk must think him mad, a tall man striding fast to outrun his demons. What twisted the knife of pain was the memory of a hard hand covering his on the tiller of his first small sailboat. Riding on tall shoulders, Rory had visited construction sites where workers crowded around and called him Davis’s little man.
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