DrillingDownDeep (16 page)

Of course who was he to talk given his latest mistress,
hired no less?

“So has Tiffany bribed the crew on my plane or something? We
just got back to New York this morning.”

“She doesn’t divulge her secrets to me on that score.” He
nodded his head toward the adjoining door leading into Michael’s secretary. “If
I had to guess, I’d say it was Miss Prentiss. The way she dresses, somebody’s
paying her well.”

“Yeah. I am. And since when has Tiffany ever forged an
alliance with another woman, paid or not?”

“Good point.”

“I’m just amazed you’re still hooked.”

“Addicted. Not in love. There’s a difference.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Are we talking about the hick?”

Michael laughed. “Is that how Tiffany described her? I’m not
surprised. If you’re coming to my father’s party for Samantha this weekend, you
can meet Vanny and decide for yourself.”

“Not before that?”

Michael closed the file on his desk. He couldn’t concentrate
anyway. He’d go back to his apartment and stop pretending. “No. I’m not letting
her out of bed until then.”

“Quite an acquisition you made down in Texas, I’ll say
that.”

“I didn’t
acquire
Vanny,” he snapped.

“Wow. When’d you get so sensitive all of a sudden?”

When his friend’s good-natured jibes started hitting too
close to home, he guessed.

* * * * *

Michael’s apartment in New York was like Michael’s apartment
in Houston. Exactly like it. Big windows. Extravagant skyscraper views.
Hardwood floors and beige leather couches.

Nice if you liked cold and impersonal, which apparently he
did.

The one difference, as far as Vanny could tell, was that
there was a locked room in this one. Nosy as she was, she had searched
everywhere for the key while he was gone, but finally gave up. It was probably
just the room where he hung the heads of his prior mistresses, sort of like a
Bluebeard without the marriage vows.

When he came home after what was evidently a very short day
at the office, she asked him, “Have you ever thought about a couple of throw
rugs? Maybe a picture on the wall that doesn’t look like the finger-paintings I
did as a kid and Pops put on the fridge.”

He pointed to a mess of squiggly lines on a canvas up over
the fireplace. “That’s an original Kandinsky. I paid several million dollars
for that.”

“That just tells me some people have too much money. They
want to pay too much for something to prove how important they are.”

“It doesn’t appear to be working. I have some Renoirs in my
country home. Would you prefer I get those in here?”

“How about something normal?”

He guffawed. “If you say horses, I’m going to say we’ll have
to agree to disagree.”

“Not horses, but how about, I don’t know, a cottage or a
lighthouse.”

“You like lighthouses? You ought to talk to my brother Evan.
He lives in one.”

“In a lighthouse? You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not. He’s my youngest brother. Majored in some kind
of environmental thing—I forget the exact name of it—and has pretty much bummed
around since then. He’s got not only Reynolds money but money from his mother’s
family. One of my father’s rare rich wives. A few years back Evan bought a
lighthouse off the coast of Maine. He’s been restoring it.”

“That is so cool. What’s it like?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been there.”

“You’ve never been to your brother’s house?”

“It’s not really a house.”

“But he lives there. Wow. If I had a brother, I’d visit him
once in a while.”

“I think we originally started talking about art. Could we
go back to that?”

“No. I don’t know anything about art. I was simply pointing
out your apartments seem to be a little sterile.”

“I don’t spend much time at home.”

“Oh? Because in Houston, you almost never left and here, on
our first day, you’re back already.”

“Forgive me for bothering you.” He tugged on his tie but
looked up when the doorbell rang.

And then rang again. Whoever was out there was apparently
rude.

Scrunching his forehead, he looked at her then.

“What? Do you want me to hide or something?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just I usually don’t get
visitors.”

“Maybe it’s a package.”

“They leave those at the front desk and then ring up.”

“Are you in there, Michael?” a gruff voice called out.

Michael went to the door and opened it. “Father. What brings
you here?”

“You do. Leaving the office after half a day. I want to know
what’s going on.”

“I wasn’t aware I was on a time clock.”

Damien Reynolds walked into his son’s apartment as if he
owned the place, which, for all Vanny knew, maybe he did. He was supposed to be
eighty years old, but this patriarch of the Reynolds family sure as hell didn’t
look it. If she had to guess, she would have said more like sixty. And a
youthful sixty at that.

In person, she could see what she hadn’t seen in the
black-and-white photos of the two of them around the Houston office. Michael
looked a lot like his father. Such a close resemblance startled her.

“And who is this?”

Michael put his hands on his hips and, instead of answering
his father, spoke to Vanny with a nod of his head toward him. “Vanny, in case
you can’t tell, this is my father.”

“Vanny? What kind of a name is Vanny? What is that short
for? In my day, people had real names, didn’t pick them up off of cereal boxes
and video games.”

“Vanessa,” she said, surprising herself.

“Vanessa, eh?” The old man looked her up and down, but not
in a lascivious way as she might have expected if she had listened to Michael’s
tales of him, but rather in more of a scrutinizing way, eyes narrowed as if to
focus, mouth set in a line. “Well, Vanessa is a very nice name. Why don’t you
use that?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Vanny is what my dad always
called me. I guess it’s easier to chase around a mischievous little girl
yelling Vanny instead of Vanessa.”

“Mischievous,” he said. Then he smiled. “I have a daughter
myself, you know. She didn’t run around. She was more subtle, but we still had
to chase after her.”

“Subtlety isn’t Vanny’s strong suit.”

“What is?”

Jesus, she hoped Michael wasn’t going to answer that one.
Fucking was probably what he was thinking.

“She’s very in-your-face. And very strong.”

She felt an unreasonable flush of pleasure at the
compliment.

“Yeah? Good. A woman needs that. Well, I’ll get out of your
hair then,” he said to Michael, who muttered, “That’d be a first.”

“I heard that.” He turned to Vanessa. “So we’ll see you in
the Hamptons this weekend then.”

“Uh, no, I don’t, ah…”

“Father’s giving a party, Vanessa, at the family’s compound
in the Hamptons. For my sister. I forgot to tell you about it. Yes, we’ll be
there, Father.”

After he got the old man out, she blurted, “I’m not going to
any party.”

“Of course you are. What else are you going to do? You don’t
know anybody in New York, do you?”

“No, and that’s exactly why I’m not going. I don’t want to
meet a bunch of uptight, snooty rich folks.”

“Neither do I, but I have to go, don’t I? Look, part of the
duties of being my mistresses is to attend social functions with me.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why? Why not? I need a date.”

She shook her head. “I don’t get it. I thought being a
mistress was about having sex with you. What does being your ‘date’ have to do
with having sex?”

“I might want sex at the end of the evening,” he countered.
“As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I will.”

“Well, you can let me know then and we can have it.”

“It’s more convenient if you go with me,” he snapped. “I
usually stay over when I go to the Hamptons.”

“Why?”

“I like the ocean.”

“Is this an order?”

“Why does everything have to be an argument with you,
Vanessa?”

“Don’t
you
start calling me Vanessa. I was Vanny
before I became your mistress.”

“And Shelly.”

“Fine. I’ll go to your father’s stupid party. If you do one
thing for me.”

“What?”

“Open that locked room at the end of the hallway.”

He laughed. “You snoop.”

“What’s in there?”

“None of anybody’s business. That’s why it’s locked.”

“No key. No party.”

He went to the bowl in the hallway and dug his keys out,
proceeding to the room, with her following closely at his heels. When he
unlocked it and ushered her in, it was the last thing she had expected.

He leaned against the door jam. “See? I’m very
uninteresting. Nothing shocking. Nothing illegal.”

“What is all this?”

It was a mass of small parts of some kind, some of them
mechanical, some of them electrical it appeared. Tiny tools were set out on all
the surfaces, a stool here and there.

“I build things sometimes. That’s all. If I don’t lock the
door, the maid tries to clean it when she comes in and I can’t find anything.”

“You build
things
?” She picked up what looked like a
miniature circuit and held it up. “Like what? What’s this?”

He approached, slipping his keys into his pants pocket and
taking the motor from her. “This is nothing yet. But someday I hope it’ll help
operate a prosthesis.”

She looked at him blankly.

“You know, an arm or a leg for somebody who’s lost one.”

“I know what a prosthesis is. What I don’t know is why
you’re building anything related to one yourself. Don’t you have engineers at
your company for that?”

He shrugged. “This isn’t for Reynolds Industries or any of
our other companies.” He put the circuit down. “This is for me.”

She tried to defend against the stab of pure admiration she
felt. So she shook her head and said, “Never enough money, I guess. What, sad
your fortune came from your daddy? Want to make your own someday?”

“As a matter of fact, any patents I do apply for, I donate
the proceeds to charity. Usually a charity for veterans or families of
veterans. They’re the ones who suffer from lost limbs. A lot. You’d be shocked
at the statistics.”

“How do you know how to do any of this? Oh no, wait. Cal
Tech, right?”

His mouth tightened as if the memory of the conversation
after the disarming of the bomb hardened him to her.

“Right. So seen enough?”

She nodded. “So this is your…your what? Your hobby?”

“Every man’s got to have one.” He closed the door behind
them and locked it.

“Don’t most rich guys take up sailing?”

“I like to sail too.” He steered her to the bedroom. “And
then of course, there’s my womanizing. I’d be happy to show you that.”

“I think you already have.”

“Baby, I’m just getting started.”

* * * * *

Vanny looked at Michael Reynolds sleeping naked beside her.
Rich. Gorgeous. Built limbs for veterans in his spare time. The man didn’t even
snore. He was perfect.

She didn’t know why she had ever thought she could do this.
Sleep with a guy—especially a guy like Michael—and not get emotionally
involved. She was probably the latest in a long line of mistresses to fall
hopelessly in love with him before he cast her aside. And it had only been a
week or so.

Not that she was in love with him, she told herself hastily.
More like lust. And serious crush time. And…okay, enough.

He stirred and without opening his eyes, flung an arm around
her waist. “Can’t sleep?” he murmured in a voice more than half asleep itself.

“No. I guess I miss my pops.”

He opened his eyes and sat up on one elbow. “You haven’t
been gone that long. Don’t you stay away from him longer when you’re on a rig?”

“I guess so. But then I’m busy. Things to do.”

“Have you called him?”

“No. He’s left a few messages, but I’ve texted back.”

“Why don’t you call him?” Michael looked around sleepily in
the
not-quite
total darkness, trying to see the lit alarm clock. His
blinds were never closed when they fell asleep, faint light from the moon and
the other city buildings streaming in, a testimony to his
not-quite
phobia of dark enclosed spaces. “I don’t know what time it is, but whatever it
is, it’s an hour or two earlier, I forget which, in Texas.”

“No, I wouldn’t feel right calling Pops while I’m with you.”

He sat up fully and leaned back against the oak headboard
that doubled as a bookshelf. She’d checked out its contents earlier, mostly
books about business or electronics or engineering.

“Why not?”

“You know why not.”

“You’re a big girl now, Vanny. I’m sure he knows you’re not
a virgin.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“What is it then?”

“Ah, I guess because I’m taking money for sleeping with you.
I guess that’s what they call a whore. I gave my dad a check with the money you
gave me, but I’m not sure any dad, and certainly not mine, would be okay with
how I got it.”

“You’re making too big a deal of that.”

She said nothing.

He switched a low bedside lamp on. “Besides, it’s not like
you have to tell him.”

“I didn’t tell him. Not yet. But I can’t lie to my pops
forever. I just can’t.”

“Well, I’m in a shit load of trouble then,” he cracked,
making her smile. “He doesn’t have a gun, does he?”

“He’s in a wheelchair, remember?”

“Protective fathers can be very inventive. You should have
seen my father with some of Samantha’s boyfriends before she married Vik. He
went to a lot of crazy lengths.”

She looked at him sideways. “Well, don’t worry, I’m not
telling my pops about this arrangement if I can help it until it’s long over,
if at all.”

“I’ll take you back to Texas to see him.”