Her Man Friday

by Elizabeth Bevarly

  Schuyler twisted his lips in distaste. Where the museum was pristine and beautiful and in very good shape, the school Chloe attended was… He sighed again. Was in shape that was considerably… less good.

  Thinking back, he supposed he probably should have checked the place out before enrolling Chloe, but the Van Meter Academy had come so very highly recommended by everyone he'd spoken to. And besides, he really hadn't wanted to be bothered with the matter of the girl's education any more than he had to be. Still, for what he was paying for this place, it ought to be gilded in gold, its steps encrusted with precious gems. He couldn't imagine where the money would be going otherwise.

  He uttered a sound of discontent, then tapped on the smoked glass separating him from his driver. "Claudio," he said, "I'm ready to go in now."

  Within seconds his door was swept open from outside, and Schuyler unfolded himself into the warm-hued, red-tinted light of early evening. He buttoned up his jacket as he went, his gaze still fixed on the Romanesque-looking structure before him. "Keep an eye on things, will you?" he asked the driver, as he always did whenever he left the security of his limo.

  Claudio was, of course, much, much more than a driver, as anyone who gazed upon the hulking six-foot-six, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound man would probably surmise. His various roles, in addition to chauffeur, included bodyguard, navigator, storyteller, shrink, astrologer, meteorologist and, at the odd moments when the occasion arose, he made a damned fine margarita. Schuyler would be lost without him. Claudio was almost as important to the billionaire as Lily was.

  Almost.

  "No problem, Mr. Kimball," Claudio replied.

  He closed the door behind Schuyler and followed him up the stairs, buttoning his own double-breasted blazer as he went. To the untrained eye, the two of them might well have been visiting educators or fathers of two of the students. Except that educators didn't usually wear Ungaro suits, and fathers of students didn't generally carry MAC-10 pistols under their jackets.

  Not that Schuyler was armed. Good heavens, no. He paid other people good money to be armed for him.

  Six o'clock marked the end of the working day for most people, but evidently not for Mrs. Caroline Beecham. Because six o'clock was the time Lily had designated—no, threatened—Schuyler should show up at the woman's office. Actually, what she had told him was that if he didn't attend this meeting with the headmistress—he savored the word as it unrolled in his mind—then Lily would, quite simply, emasculate him.

  Of course Lily hadn't actually said she'd emasculate him. Oh, no. She'd used infinitely more colorful language than that. Sometimes he wondered why he kept her on, the surly wench. Lucky for her she was so damned darling. Not to mention essential.

  He found Caroline Beecham's office easily enough, seeing as how it was right inside the front door, straight ahead, with a sign that looked freshly painted proclaiming director in big, black letters. So Schuyler strode toward it, indicating Claudio should wait for him on a bench outside, one normally reserved, he supposed, for recalcitrant gifted children.

  As he lifted his fist and rapped three times in quick succession on Mrs. Beecham's door, Schuyler wondered how many hours Chloe had passed on that bench. Probably not as many as he'd spent on a similar one when he was fourteen. Of course, he hadn't been able to attend some tony school for gifted kids when he'd been a gifted kid himself. No, he'd had to make do with the public school system instead. No one had even realized, when he was fourteen, what he was capable of accomplishing. No one had cared to find out.

  In fact, no one had given much thought to Schuyler at all in those days. Not until he'd been tested just before college. And even then, no one had really encouraged him beyond filling out endless reams of scholarship applications. It wasn't until, oh… all that wonderful money had started flowing in, that people began to pay him much mind. But once they'd all begun to understand exactly what he was capable of creating, once they'd realized his inherent value could potentially rise right into the ten-figure range… Well, by golly, then suddenly everybody was interested in Schuyler Kimball.

  Lily, of course, hadn't been like the others then. Nor was she now. Her interest in him had far predated any kind of promising future he might have. And her interest in him had never been financial in nature. Well, not really. Not the way the others had been interested.

  The door opened then, and Mrs. Caroline Beecham greeted him with all the enthusiasm of a dirt clod. "Mr. Kimball," she said, taking a step backward. "I'm pleased—and not a little surprised—that you could make it this evening."

  He tugged at a shirt cuff that refused to behave itself. "Yes, well, Lily said if I didn't come she'd take a meat cleaver and hack off my…" He hesitated. Lily had also made him promise not to say anything sexually suggestive. Not that what she'd threatened to do to him was by any means sexual, but it had sort of involved his—

  "She said if I didn't come," he continued quickly, "she'd… do mean things to me."

  Mrs. Beecham blushed furiously, but pretended not to. Then she stepped formally aside, extended her hand formally toward the interior and said, quite formally, "Won't you come in?"

  The last time he'd seen her, Schuyler had thought she dressed with remarkable blandness. Now, he realized he'd been wrong in that assessment. In fact, Caroline Beecham dressed with remarkable invisibility. Had she not spoken, he might not have seen her at all. The dress she wore wasn't quite beige, nor quite brown, but something blindingly unattractive in between. Its high neck, long sleeves, and hemline well below the knee hid the better parts of her body, and her big glasses hid everything that was left.

  Well, not quite everything, Schuyler noted, dropping his gaze just below her neck. He smiled with what he was certain was utter licentiousness. There wasn't much she could do to hide those, after all.

  Why a woman who was built the way she was had pursued a career in education, of all things, when she could have been making a fortune taking off her clothes in Vegas, Schuyler would never know. There was just no accounting for some people's ambitions, he supposed. He wondered how she could sleep at night, having passed up all that.

  Then he noted again the smudges of purple under her eyes, and he realized that, in fact, she didn't sleep at night. Not well, anyway. And he found himself wondering what kind of nighttime ruminations would haunt a woman like Caroline Beecham, curious as to whether they were anything like his own.

  He doused the heat of his smile until it was a mere cocky grin, then, with a final nod to Claudio—who unbuttoned his jacket enough that his shoulder holster showed—Schuyler entered Caroline Beecham's domain. It was a boring domain, he noted right off, with boring brown carpet, boring brown drapes, and boring beige walls. Even the books lining one wall all seemed to be bound in brown and gray and black. He felt as if he'd just stumbled into an old sepia-toned movie, so lacking in color was the room—and the woman who rushed to put her big, ugly brown desk between them.

  Damn, he wished he'd gone to Happy Hour at Ciboulette instead.

  Caroline studied Schuyler Kimball from behind what she had hoped would be the safety of her big brown desk and felt her heart sink. She had told herself that in having him on her own turf, she would be able to manage the situation better, might, in fact, be able to actually control it. She bit back a brittle laugh. That was a good one. Being in control of Schuyler Kimball. She wondered if there was a creature on the entire planet who'd be able to manage him.

  Ah, well. She had his attention for the moment—not to mention an alarm button on the floor behind her desk that rang in the school's security office, should she need someone to help her subdue an overly difficult student or billionaire.

  "As I said, Mr. Kimball," she began experimentally, proud of herself for keeping her voice on an even keel, "it was good of you to come."

  He chuckled without humor. "And as I said, Mrs. Beecham, I had little choice in the matter."

  She studied him thoughtfully for a moment, trying to pinpoint what had gone w
rong the last time the two of them had been alone, and how to keep it from happening again. But all she could think about was the fact that he had the bluest eyes she'd ever seen in her life, and that his mouth was so full, and so ripe, and so inviting, that it made a woman want to completely forget about herself and her position and her future and her past, and just—

  "Mr. Kimball," she tried again, reining herself in before she ran headlong into disaster—or Schuyler Kimball. Whatever. "As we discussed not long ago, Chloe's not doing well at school. Not because she isn't up to the demands of the curriculum, but because she simply doesn't seem to give a damn about the curriculum. Or herself, for that matter. And I wondered if you might be able to enlighten me as to why she isn't receiving more support at home. Because I think even the smallest indication on the part of her loved ones that they do indeed care for her could make all the difference in the world where her performance is concerned. Both at school and in other areas of her life."

  "How do you know she isn't receiving any support at home?" he asked. But, as always, his expression remained completely impassive, and she had no idea what he might be thinking. "What makes you think her loved ones don't show her that they care?"

  "Well, for one thing, you don't seem to be home much, do you?" she pointed out.

  He dropped a hand—and his gaze—to his necktie, focusing on rearranging what looked like an already perfect Windsor knot. "What would my presence at Ashling have to do with Chloe's performance at school? There are plenty of other people who live there," he added, glancing up again.

  For some reason, though, it struck Caroline that he sounded rather pained when offering the observation. As if the other people who lived at Ashling belonged there, and he didn't. Then the import of what he'd said hit her square on, and she stared at him open-mouthed, wondering if he was just taunting her, or if he was really that stupid. "There are those, Mr. Kimball, who believe that a parent's input where their offspring's education is concerned, is rather, shall we say… important."

  "Yes, we can say that," he agreed amiably enough. A little too amiably, Caroline thought. "What we can't say are the words 'parent' and 'offspring.' Because it seems to have escaped your notice—again—Mrs. Beecham, that Chloe has been assigned by the courts as my ward. Not my daughter."

  Caroline nibbled her lip thoughtfully as she considered how to proceed, but when it appeared that Mr. Kimball was taking far too great an interest in the action, she stopped. "I think, Mr. Kimball," she began, "that a brain like Chloe's comes along only once in a generation. Am I making myself clear?"

  He shook his head. "Not really, no."

  "To deny that she's your daughter is pointless. There could be no two people with brains like yours who are unrelated by blood."

  "Ah, so you're an expert on genetic analysis now, is that it, Mrs. Beecham?"

  "No, I'm not," she confessed readily.

  "You must be an expert on me, then."

  She chose her words carefully before speaking. "When Chloe came to Van Meter," she began cautiously, "I, of course, already knew who you were. One would have to have been living in a closet for a decade not to know you. But since meeting Chloe, I've read whatever I can find that concerns you. So yes, I suppose you could call me an expert—"

  "Or maybe a groupie."

  She ignored his interjection and continued, "Chloe may not resemble you in physical features—except for her eyes, of course, which are exactly like yours, Mr. Kimball, something I doubt even you would deny—but her brain is… Astounding. That didn't come from her mother. It came from you."

  "Or some other unsuspecting sap," the billionaire bit off grudgingly. "And by the way, Chloe's mother wasn't nearly as brainless as you people seem to want to make her out to be. She could scheme and plot with the best of them."

  "But then, we were talking about Chloe, weren't we?" Caroline continued, refusing to deviate from the course.

  The billionaire sighed heavily, though she had no idea how to interpret the sound.

  "Would you like to see Chloe's classroom?" she asked impulsively, wondering what possessed her. After all, Chloe herself was so rarely in the room, it could scarcely be called hers. Still, she was starting to feel a little restless, and walking seemed like a very good idea at the moment. It would prevent her from acting on other impulses that not only made absolutely no sense, but which were totally inappropriate to boot.

  "It occurs to me," she went on as she moved back around to the front of her desk, not waiting for a reply from Schuyler Kimball, "that, although Chloe's just begun her second year here at the Van Meter Academy, you've never visited the school, have you?"

  "Yes, well, as you pointed out yourself, Mrs. Beecham, I'm not home very often." He lapsed into thoughtful silence for a moment. "I suppose I could pay someone to visit the school for me from time to time…"

  "You're here now," she pointed out unnecessarily, ignoring his jibe. "Why don't the two of us take a walk, and I'll tell you a little bit about the school?"

  He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, clearly none too thrilled to have to undergo a tour. In spite of that, he said, "Wonderful. Maybe you can tell me where all my money is going. Because it certainly isn't going toward the upkeep of this place."

  "No, it's not," she agreed readily, something that clearly surprised him. "Oh, don't worry—the building is perfectly safe. But we're not overly concerned with cosmetic perfection here, Mr. Kimball. Every nickel we can squeeze goes toward the edification of our students. And as expensive as you think the tuition is, I assure you, it's scarcely enough to cover costs. Education comes at a high price in these days of technological wonders. And an institution like ours can't afford to be left behind."

  She extended her arm toward the door, indicating Mr. Kimball should precede her, but he only glanced back at her with an expression that said, You've got to be kidding.

  Then he extended his own hand toward the door and said, "I never forget my manners, Mrs. Beecham. After you."

  As if she believed that for even a second. In spite of his alleged courtesy, Caroline really didn't like the idea of walking ahead of Schuyler Kimball. Mainly because she knew he'd be back there ogling her. It wasn't any misguided sense of vanity or conceit that made her feel that way. Simply because Caroline didn't have any vanity or conceit. And even an eccentric like Kimball should be interested in something other than a too-rounded woman in an unattractive, colorless dress. But Schuyler Kimball was obviously the kind of man who went for anything in estrogen.

  "When Chloe first came to Van Meter," she said as she exited the office and tried to pretend she didn't notice the huge man with the gun who stood up to shadow Mr. Kimball. She should have realized a man worth that much money would have a bodyguard… or pet gorilla." She seemed as if she would do fairly well. For the first week or two, she seemed to be a pretty enthusiastic student. But gradually, she seemed to lose interest, In school, in the few friends she'd made, in herself."

  "And what, pray tell, Mrs. Beecham, would be your explanation for such a thing?"

  Caroline ignored the petulance in his voice and decided to instead be heartened by the fact that he'd at least asked a question about Chloe. Maybe he wasn't quite so cold-hearted as she thought.

  Maybe.

  "I've thought about it a lot," she said, "and I'm inclined to believe that, when Chloe first came to Philadelphia from Las Vegas after her mother's death, she really did want to start her life anew. There's no doubt that she was terrified of the prospect of coming to live with you, Mr. Kimball—"

  "Me?" he asked incredulously, his steps faltering as he did. With no small effort—and very little success—he tried to cover his gaffe. "Why would she be terrified of me?"

  He seemed to be genuinely puzzled, Caroline marveled. Unbelievable. "Well, just a shot in the dark, Mr. Kimball, but maybe because she was leaving everything she knew, everything that was familiar—regardless of how dubious the comfort of those things might have been—and going to live with a ma
n whom she'd never met before in her life, a man who had never once illustrated any desire to make her a part of his life."

  "I didn't even know about Chloe until I was notified of her mother's death," Kimball told her, his voice edged with resentment. "How the hell could I have, when her mother never said a word to me about her?"

  It was as close as he had come to admitting Chloe was his daughter, Caroline noted. And something in his tone when he spoke suggested that perhaps he wasn't quite as convinced of his nonpaternity as he let others believe.

  "Regardless," she continued, softening her own tone when she did, "the girl was scared. Yet she seemed to be honestly willing to start over."

  Kimball eyed her warily, but Caroline sensed he really was starting to take an interest in Chloe. "Why do you say that?" he asked.

  "Because of some of the things she said to her friends and teachers—and to me—I sincerely believe she wanted to put her past behind her and use this opportunity to… reconstruct herself, if you will. I think she was hoping that you would acknowledge her as your daughter, and that by doing so, she might be able to claim an identity other than the one to which she'd been forced to mold herself, thanks to other people's perceptions of her. But no one here—no one in her family, at any rate—seemed willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. You viewed her from the start as a troubled, difficult adolescent girl who had little hope of changing, so that's what she decided she would be."

  "And I suppose your teachers only reinforced that," Kimball surmised.

  "Not at all," Caroline countered. "Our teachers are the best in the country, Mr. Kimball. We pay them well in the hopes that they'll stay on here at the school—that's part of where your money goes. In addition, however, we have a cooperative program here that invites considerable teacher participation. Despite our efforts with Chloe—and I assure you we have made efforts—she has slipped beyond our sphere of influence."