by Francis Ray
“You drive well,” she said.
He cut his gaze to her again and Charlotte could have banged her head against the padded dash. Of course he drove well. He was from Boston. He’d have learned to drive in heavy traffic, snow, and ice. Dallas hadn’t seen any appreciable snow in the five years she’d been here, and only one small ice storm that had all melted by the next afternoon. They didn’t even close the public schools, much to Emma’s students’ dismay. Even with the infamous crazy motorists on the expressways, this was a cakewalk for him.
“Thanks,” he finally said.
Charlotte had never considered herself a quitter. “We’ve already discussed the weather.”
This time she got a small smile from him. “Yes, we have. You probably know more than you ever want to know about me, but what about you?”
“Youngest of four daughters from Charleston. Mother was a schoolteacher who quit to have my oldest sister, Ondine. Mama went back when school started in the fall. Since Ondine was late, as she always is, she was only six weeks old. Mama cried so hard at work, my father had to go pick her up. Daddy, a Realtor, took the opportunity to turn the garage into an office and open his own business. Mother became his secretary.” Charlotte twisted toward Vincent as far as the seat belt would allow and smiled at the retelling of the story.
“Turns out it was the best thing that could have happened to the Duvall family. Daddy, as they say, can sell snowshoes in hell. But he’s the most honest, loving man I know. By the time my third sister arrived, Daddy had an office and a secretary with two other Realtors.”
Vincent hit the signal indicator and exited the expressway onto Loop 12. “My kind of man. How did you get into politics?”
“My cousin Jeb, my mother’s youngest sister’s oldest son, ran for city councilman in Charleston, and we all pitched in to help. I was a senior in high school. It was fun, and I found I had a knack for selling too, but what I sold could make the world a better place for people to live. So I majored in political science.”
Vincent pulled up in front of a three-story mansion. Light blazed from every window. A valet dressed in a white polo shirt and dark slacks rushed to open his door. “I take it Jeb won.”
“By a landslide.”
Grinning at each other, they got out of the car.
A butler opened the heavily carved front door. Almost as soon as Vincent and Charlotte stepped onto the three-story foyer with limestone and marble flooring, Sidney was there to greet them. By his side was an elderly woman with coal black hair who was even more petite than Charlotte. She was dressed in a sequined red gown. Diamonds and blood-red rubies encircled her throat, wrists, and hung in shimmering color from her ears.
“’Bout time you got here!” she said by way of greeting.
Charlotte grinned and enveloped the small woman in a gentle hug. “Mary Lou, it’s good to have you back. The spa must have been wonderful. You look sensational.”
Mary Lou waved a hand. A ten-carat diamond winked. “I’m going to live until the day I die.”
“Which will be a long, long time,” Charlotte said, then glanced over her shoulder. “Have you met Vincent Maxwell yet?”
Sidney’s mother held out her hand. “How do you do, Mr. Maxwell. Welcome to my son’s home.”
Vincent took the offered hand and held it as gently as he had seen Charlotte do. “Thank you. It’s a pleasure.” Releasing Mary Lou’s hand, he leaned down to her. “Charlotte hadn’t planned to come, but once she heard your name she couldn’t wait to get here. I can see why.”
Pleased, Mary Lou fluttered her lashes again. “Well, Sidney, it looks like you’ve finally found a live one. What do you do, Mr. Maxwell?”
“Please, call me Vincent.” He looked at Sidney before continuing. “Your son has given me the privilege of being Vice-President of Finance, in charge of reorganizing the financial structure of Ore-Tech, among other things.”
“A number cruncher.” The way Mary Lou said it wasn’t a compliment.
Vincent surprised Charlotte by smiling. “Someone has to see that the lights stay on.”
Shrewd gray eyes stared up at him. “I bet you do it very well, don’t you?”
“I do try, Mrs. Hughes.”
“Call me Mary Lou.” She took his arm and looped her other hand through the curve of Charlotte’s arm. “You’ve already met the rest of the guests. Charlotte can meet them before we go in to dinner. I’m dying to tell her about the young masseur I met in Hot Springs who wanted to be my boy toy.”
Sidney’s mouth gaped. Mary Lou turned away and missed the indulgent smile that followed.
“You think I shocked him, Charlotte?” Mary Lou asked, her steps slow on the gleaming hardwood floor as she led them to a window seat covered in a fresh spring blue and cream plaid fabric near the stone fireplace in the living room. The other guests were enjoying before-dinner drinks on the terrace.
“Definitely,” Charlotte assured. “Vincent even has his mouth open,” she teased.
Mary Lou squinted at Vincent. She refused to wear her glasses and didn’t trust contacts. “Must have closed it.”
Vincent laughed, a rich joyful sound that curled through Charlotte and warmed her like mulled wine. Her heart thumped in her chest. Easy, girl.
“I like you, Vincent.” Mary Lou sat on the seat. Charlotte pushed one of several tapestry footstools scattered through the room under Mary Lou’s small feet. “You won’t be disappointed if I didn’t have a shocking story to tell, will you?”
“I’ll survive.”
“Good. Now, Charlotte, what’s going on with the party and what can I do to help?”
Charlotte told her. Check donations from companies might be illegal, but not from relatives of people who owned the company. Mary Lou had wisely let her son reinvest her money in his company and subsequently she was worth millions.
Fifteen minutes later, Helen announced dinner, beaming proudly as the guests got their first look at her mint-condition eighteenth-century Chippendale dining table and chairs. The lavish dining room offered a beautiful view of the lighted outdoor pool and gardens beyond. The table, set with Baccarat crystal and heirloom china, sparkled as much as Helen in her silver gown. Sidney was visibly pleased and proud.
Dinner was scrumptious. And although Charlotte hadn’t gotten a chance to search out potential donors, she was enjoying the evening. Vincent, sitting to her left, was a good conversationalist and not once had she felt he disapproved of her in some way.
They were almost through with dessert, a marvelous chocolate mousse that Charlotte knew she’d have to work on her StairMaster to get off her hips, when tranquility screeched to a halt. Across from her, Ashley Green, the assistant vice-president of marketing services for strategic accounts, turned green, slapped her hand over her mouth, and rushed out of the room. Her husband ran after her.
Charlotte was already pushing back her seat. Vincent and the other men stood as she did. “I’ll go see if I can help.”
“Thank you,” Helen said, but Charlotte had already turned away.
Charlotte found the couple in the powder room off the hallway near the kitchen. Ashley’s full-skirted lavender-colored taffeta gown was billowed around her. Beside her on his knees as well was her husband, holding her long auburn hair out of her face and harm’s way with one hand and the other around her waist. He looked almost as pale as she did.
Charlotte wet one of the thick hand towels on the black marble vanity and knelt beside them to press the cool cloth to the woman’s face in between her bouts of illness. Mutely, her husband offered his thanks.
Soon there were only dry heaves from Ashley. Still on her knees, she leaned weakly into her husband’s arms. Tears coursed down her pale cheeks.
“Please don’t cry,” Charlotte soothed.
Tears fell faster. “I’m so sorry, Anthony.”
“Shhh, you and the baby are what counts,” he consoled.
“But this position is what I’ve worked for. I’ve only been assi
stant vice-president for a year.” Ashley shook her auburn head in despair. “This shouldn’t have happened. We just bought the new house—”
“It doesn’t matter,” he interrupted, brushing his lips tenderly against her forehead. “Things will work out.”
Charlotte felt as if she were intruding on a very private moment. She pushed to her feet and stepped away from the couple. “Shall I tell the valet to bring your car around?”
“Thank you,” Anthony said.
Ashley’s weak voice stopped Charlotte when she was almost out the door. “Charlotte?”
She turned. “Yes?”
“Please don’t tell anyone.”
“Honey, they’ll have to know sooner or later.”
“Please,” she repeated, her pleading gaze on Charlotte.
Another woman trying to break through the glass ceiling and having a rough time. “I won’t.”
To Ashley’s obvious embarrassment, everyone came out to the car to see her off. She mumbled apologies about something she ate for lunch, then ducked her head. Her husband said nothing, but his tight lips told the story. He wasn’t too pleased with his wife’s not telling them she was pregnant. When they walked back inside, one of the wives mentioned that Ashley had been sick at the barbecue two weeks ago as well.
“Would anyone care for coffee?” Mary Lou asked.
“I’d love a cup,” Charlotte said, catching a thankful look from Helen.
However, as the evening progressed, Charlotte sensed by the preoccupied looks on the other guests’ faces, and their hosts’, that they were all thinking of the possible reason for Ashley’s illness and coming to the same conclusion. These men were shrewd and observant. Ashley’s attempt to conceal her pregnancy had probably been futile. She was only fooling herself.
Charlotte knew she was right when Sara, the wife of the vice-president of human resources, whispered, “I think she’s pregnant.”
Charlotte didn’t have to ask why the middle-aged woman was whispering. The men were in the game room shooting billiards. Mary Lou, spotted ten points, was partnered with Vincent. Helen had gone in to see if they needed anything. The women in the enclosed terrace amid tropical plants that reached the apex of the twenty-five-foot ceiling nodded in agreement.
“Poor thing.” This from Nancy, wife of the president of business markets. She was in her mid-thirties and her balding husband looked to be in his early sixties. He seemed to be as taken with her as she was with herself.
“You make it sound as if it’s the worst thing that could happen to her,” Charlotte said, aware that she was the outsider here, but that had never stopped her from speaking her mind in the past.
“They live off Ashley’s salary. Anthony has been trying to make a profit from that bookstore of his for years.” Nancy Brisby fingered her blond hair behind her ear. The diamond in her ear was as big as a dime. “She could have done better.”
Charlotte clamped down on her lower lip to keep her thoughts behind her teeth. So could your husband.
Sara threw Nancy an annoyed look, but the other woman was gazing in a jeweled compact mirror, putting on an unnecessary layer of plum-colored lipstick, and didn’t notice. “Ashley has another child, David, the cutest three-year-old you’d ever want to see. Her husband didn’t like her going back to work when David was six weeks old, but they adjusted because Ashley has always aimed to shatter the glass ceiling and thought being out longer might jeopardize her job,” Sara explained.
“So, they’ll adjust again,” Charlotte said, but Sara and the other women looked doubtful. Remembering Ashley’s words in the bathroom, Charlotte was afraid the women might be right.
They heard the clicking of Helen’s heels on the hardwood flooring and Sara launched into the latest rebellious act of her thirteen-year-old: wanting to get her eyebrow pierced. Everyone laughed as the women traded stories on the trials and tribulations of parenthood, but from their smiling, proud faces none of them would change a thing.
“None of you work outside the home?” Charlotte asked, although she was reasonably sure of the answer.
They all shook their heads of perfectly coiffed hair. Their reasons were varied, but mainly it was because of the husband’s job. By the nature of their man’s position, they entertained a great deal, and then there were the children. There were just so many hours in a day to get things done.
Charlotte thought it was rather sad that two of the women had given up their own promising careers to be at the beck and call of their busy husbands. Although they were quick to point out they hadn’t minded, Charlotte wasn’t so sure.
It had been her father’s suggestion but her mother’s decision after Ondine was born to stay home. No man was going to dictate to Charlotte that she had to give up her career to stay at home with the children unless that was what she wanted.
As the conversation progressed it became abundantly clear that, though the women might empathize with Ashley, not one of them could truly understand why she just didn’t chuck it all and go home to raise David and his future little brother or sister. Charlotte thought it was more than money. None of them seemed to understand that you might give up on a dream quietly, but if someone tried to take it away, you’d fight with everything to stop them.
With the exception of Ashley becoming ill, Vincent had had a surprisingly enjoyable evening. Charlotte had blended in well with the women. She had certainly been a hit with the men. Even Paul Brisby, who had recently married a much younger woman, couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off Charlotte.
Men noticed Charlotte. Any man who married her would always have to wonder and worry about her, but that wasn’t his problem. For him, life was good. He was settling in nicely at the firm, and he and Sidney got along well. And it appeared he was liked by Mary Lou as well. Vincent shook his dark head and chuckled.
“What?” Charlotte asked, surprised by the sudden sound of Vincent’s laughter and the jittery feeling it sent through her nervous system.
“Sidney’s mother is a hustler. She no more needed to be spotted ten points than the Black Widow.”
“Black Widow?”
“The moniker of women’s world billiard champion Jennifer Chen,” he answered, then maneuvered around an SUV on the five-lane Central Expressway. “It’s a good thing we weren’t playing for money.”
Charlotte’s lips curved upward. “She likes to tease.”
“She likes you. You took up a lot of time with her tonight.”
“She’s fun; besides, elderly people are revered in the South. And if they’re a little unorthodox like Mary Lou, they give the family character and color.” Charlotte chuckled. “We don’t hide our relatives who are different; we enjoy and appreciate them.”
“So I noticed.” Vincent’s friends and associates would have been horrified to have their elderly mother flirting with their business associates, then hustling them at pool. “Nothing Mary Lou did seemed to embarrass or annoy Sidney.”
“Did it embarrass or annoy you?”
Vincent thought he heard a bit of censure in Charlotte’s voice. A quick glance told him he wasn’t mistaken. Her hazel eyes glinted. “No. As you said, she livened things up.” He paused. “It was nice of you to check on Ashley.” At the time he had been surprised that none of the other women who had known Ashley longer had gone to help.
“Anyone would have done the same,” Charlotte said simply.
Vincent wasn’t so sure. Deep in thought, he turned onto Charlotte’s tree-lined street. “Ashley is top-notch at what she does. It would be a shame to lose her.”
“Why would you lose her?”
Vincent favored Charlotte with a look that intelligent people bestowed on those with less than two brain cells to rub together. “The company is going through a transitional phase. We need every key person at the top of their game.”
“You heard her; it was something she ate. She’ll be better tomorrow.” Charlotte hoped she was right. Ashley had looked so desperate.
“She’s bee
n late every day this week, and twice I’ve been trying to work on a report with her and she had to rush to the ladies’ room,” Vincent said. “Doesn’t sound like it’s something she ate that’s the problem.”
Poor Ashley, Charlotte thought. Everyone knows.
“She’s lucky she’s advanced this far. Maybe it’s time she stayed home. Her little boy must miss her terribly.”
“I’m sure she makes up for the time spent away from him and her husband when she’s home.”
“Time lost can never be regained,” he said pragmatically.
“Women can work and take care of their families.”
Vincent was shaking his head before Charlotte finished. “A woman’s place is in the home. Women trying to prove they’re as good as men in the workplace is what’s contributing to the breakdown of the family.”
Charlotte almost bit her tongue off trying to remain calm before speaking. “Then you believe a woman should stay at home and have a gourmet meal and well-behaved children waiting for her husband when he gets home.”
“Exactly.”
“Bull!”
Vincent’s head whipped around so fast Charlotte thought he might get whiplash. It would serve him right for his antiquated way of thinking. “Women have just as much right to a career as men,” Charlotte pointed out fiercely. “What’s wrong with a man cooking a meal or changing a diaper? This isn’t the Stone Age where the woman stays home to birth and raise the kids and the big, strong man protects them and drags home T. Rex’s hindquarter to roast over a spit.”
“Men are supposed to care for the women and the home. My mother never worked. Yours didn’t after your sister was born, and neither will my wife,” Vincent said heatedly.
“With that attitude you probably won’t get one.”
His mouth tightened. “I’m not looking for one.”
“That’s good, because no woman in her right mind would have a husband as antiquated and stuffy as you.” Folding her arms, she turned to look at the window. Opinionated sexist.