Sweeter Than Revenge (21 page)

“What’s that?”

“You were always in the bed with me and my husband. But he’s never been in ours.”

Several long beats passed, and then the tension left his body, even if the doubt in his eyes lingered.

There was no room for doubts between them. Not now. She kissed him, hard, on the lips. “Remember,”she whispered. “Only you. Only you.”

“Maria,” he said, and now there was no doubt—only joy—in those dark eyes. “I can’t believe we’re back. Like this.”

“Neither can I.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you. I didn’t mean to.”

Her heart contracted, remembering the pain. “Why did you leave like that? What did you think would happen?”

He furrowed his brow and she could see that he was searching, trying to explain the inexplicable. Finally he blew out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t know. I can’t really explain it. On the one hand, I felt panicked, like I needed to get away from you before I got so obsessed that I didn’t care about school. Growing up poor, and then getting into a great school, I just…I neededthat opportunity. I couldn’t stay poor. I was too ambitious.”

She nodded unhappily, trying to be understanding about this unneeded reminder that he’d chosen his education and career over her.

“But on the other hand,” he said, “I thought you understood what I needed to do…that it was for us…and you’d wait until the time was right and I came back for you.”

“For us?What do you mean?”

“How could a poor guy like me hope to have any chance with an uptown girl like you? I had to do something to secure my future first.”

“My God,” she cried. “How many different times do I have to tell you I never cared about whether you had money or not—”

“Icared.”

Stalemated, they stared at each other. In his eyes she saw his pride and his absolute immovability on this issue. Somehow she loved him even more because of it.

“We have to do better this time,” she said. “I need you to let me in, okay? Tell me what you’re thinking, so I can understand you. I don’t read minds.”

“I know.”

“You try to keep me from getting too close, and I don’t like it. You never wanted me to see your apartment before, and you’d never introduce me to your father, and now he’s dead and I never got to meet him—”

His face tightened and his eyes went stormy and dark.

“You have to trust me, and I’m not sure you do. You’ve got to know I don’t care about any of that. The money, your family, your roots…none of that matters to me.”

Looking away, he blinked, and she felt him struggling with something. “What is it?”

He looked back, and whatever emotion she’d seen was now safely banked where she couldn’t access it. Raising her hand to his lips, he kissed her palm. “That’s enough for now, baby. We’ll get it all figured out.”

“Will we?”

“Yes.”

His fierce determination stopped her cold, and she didn’t dare question him again. “Well,” she said, reassured but still uneasy, “I guess we’d better get ready to go home, huh? We still have to face Daddy tonight.”

Pulling away, she scooted to the edge of the bed, the covers falling and exposing her to the waist. Behind her she heard his sharp intake of breath, and then his hands caught her around the hips and hauled her back. She squealed with delight as he rolled on top of her and nudged her thighs apart with his knee.

“In a minute,” he said, settling between her legs.

Chapter 18

“Let me get this straight,” Ellis said later that night.

Seated behind the desk at his home office, he stared at Maria from over the top of his narrow reading glasses. Doting father had been replaced by businessman with a killer instinct who couldn’t understand the near loss of a client. His white eyebrows had lowered into a single, furry, angry line over his eyes, like a giant albino caterpillar. Other parents no doubt had an angry voice to let their children know they meant business, but with Ellis it was the quiet, civilized voice that struck terror in her heart. David sat on the sofa in the corner, far away from her chair in front of her father’s desk, but still ringside to the verbal thrashing her father was about to give her.

“I talked with Anastasia earlier. You remember Anastasia, don’t you?” Ellis continued.

Maria really could do without the sarcasm right now.

“She said you told her she’d made an ass of herself on national TV. You called her employees stooges.Oh, and—what was it?—you told her we couldn’t give her book away if there was a toilet paper shortage. And then, to top it all off, you firedher. Does that about cover it?”

Surly though she felt, Maria knew better than to answer her father. She settled for crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him.

“Luckily, she had a reading—” Ellis made quotation marks with his fingers “—and decided the stars wanted her to stay with the firm.”

Maria heaved a huge sigh of relief and heard David do the same.

Ellis pulled his glasses off and tossed them on his blotter. “But she still complained about us to her publisher.”

Maria’s heart sank.

“Not half an hour after I got off the phone with her, I got a phone call from Essex House, telling us the shocking news that they’re not too happy with our services right now and we’d better get our asses in gear.” Ellis paused for a long, nerve-racking minute, and then whistled between his teeth. “That’s quite a day’s work, even for you, Sugar.”

Maria held her head high and said nothing.

“Do you have anything to say in your own defense?”

Maria had hated that question ever since she’d first heard it, when she was three years old and Ellis caught her finger-painting on the living room walls, and she hated it now. Still, she wasn’t going down without a fight.

“Yes,” she said defiantly. “Anastasia Buckingham is an overgrown, semitalented, fake-accent-having diva who wouldn’t be happy if we arranged for her to win the Nobel Prize for literature. I kissed up to her. I flattered her. I read her incomprehensible book. I consulted on her wardrobe and fetched her drinks, cookies, pens and everything else she decided she wanted. I did the best I could for her, but I was notgoing to sit by while she blamed David for something that was her own damn fault.”

Ellis scowled.

“I’m…sorry,” she added, although she didn’t really mean it and knew Ellis knew she didn’t mean it.

“Ellis,” David began.

Ellis held up a hand and silenced David without ever looking away from Maria. “I’m sorry to do this, Sugar,” he said, managing to sound both stern and regretful, “but I think you’ve still got a lot of growing up to do if you can’t even control your temper with a paying client.” He sighed harshly and ran a hand across the back of his neck. “You leave me no choice. You won’t be getting your trust on your birthday. My lawyer is drawing up the papers for me to sign.”

Maria catapulted out of her chair, slammed her palms on the desk and screeched with more fury than she could ever recall feeling. “You have no right to do that, Daddy! This is mymoney, and I have been working by butt off for the last few weeks, doing my best, and—”

Ellis just shook his head. “Don’t kid a kidder, Maria.”

“—you knowI need that money! There’s no way I can survive on what I’ve been making as an account assistant when my spousal support runs out—”

“It’s not as bad as all that.” A conciliatory note crept into Ellis’s voice. “You can have the money this time next year, if you keep working hard. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

Flabbergasted, Maria flapped her hands. “You expect me to agree to this?”

“Ellis,” David said again. “I’m Maria’s boss. Don’t I get any say? That’s what you hired me for.”

Ellis’s gaze, uncertain now, flickered to David and then back to Maria. “Fine.”

David stood up and walked to the edge of the desk. “You’re not being fair. Maria didwork hard. We all did the best we could with Anastasia, but there was no pleasing her. Hell, there were a few times I wanted to fire her myself.”

Maria began to feel better.

“Believe me,” David said. “I know Maria got off to a rocky start, but she’s pulled her act together. She’s a goodpublicist.”

Ellis wasn’t finished yet. “She’s been late,” he told David, ticking off Maria’s many transgressions on his fingers. “She fires clients. Oh, and Anastasia also complained about that book signing. Said Maria didn’t have the right kind of bottled water or the right kind of pens.”

Cursing, Maria rolled her eyes at this revelation, but the men ignored her.

“I’m surprised at you, David. I really am. I brought you in here to straighten her out. I thought you were the man for the job.” Ellis shook his head sadly. “But I know you’ve always had a sweet spot for her.”

“Ellis,” David said, an angry flush creeping over his cheekbones. “Maria is smart, funny, hardworking and savvy. I’ve been gladto have her help dealing with Anastasia.”

“I see.” Ellis stared at David, studying him intently as if he needed the answer to a crucial question and could only read it on David’s face. Comprehension seemed to dawn, and Ellis nodded, his expression grim now. “I see,” he said again. “You’re back together, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” David didn’t hesitate and showed no signs of embarrassment.

Ellis stared hard at David, and Maria could feel him calculating, assessing and, eventually, softening. Finally he nodded once and the familiar twinkle reappeared in his eyes.

“Well, I couldn’t ask for a better man for my daughter. It should’ve been you in the first place, not George. I’m glad you’ve worked things out.” Standing, he held out his hand.

David shook it, but didn’t smile. “What about Maria’s trust? She deserves it.”

Ellis shook his head firmly, signaling the end of the discussion. “Not yet. She’s got a little more growing up to do.”

Maria and David exchanged unhappy looks.

Ellis turned to her and patted her cheek with a wry smile on his face. “I should’ve known you’d land on your feet, Sugar. You won’t need your own fortune, after all, will you? Not when you’ve got David’s.”

Maria didn’t answer for a long moment, certain she’d misheard. Then she looked at David. “What’s Daddy talking about?”

David looked unaccountably flushed and uncomfortable. He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the desk in an obvious attempt to look nonchalant.

“Yeah, Ellis,” he said tightly. “What’re you talking about?”

Ellis’s eyes widened with surprise, but then he laughed. “You haven’t told her?”

David didn’t answer.

“This is the funniest thing I ever heard.” Ellis laughed again as he walked to the door. “Well, maybe Maria doesn’t read Fortunemagazine, David, but I sure do.”

He winked at David and then, still chuckling, disappeared down the hall.

David stared at her and she stared back, feeling bewildered and more than a little disoriented—as if she didn’t know him at all. They’d spent the afternoon together, and she’d loved him, explored him and talked to him. There hadn’t been time for him to tell her every single thing he’d done while he was gone, but he wouldn’t keep her in the dark about something like this. Not after she’d told him how important it was for him to open up and trust her more.

“What—” she began, then had to stop and clear her hoarse throat. “What was Daddy talking about?”

His unreadable expression tightened and narrowed, scaring her. “Does it matter?”

What was this belligerence? Why didn’t he just answer her simple question? “How can I know whether itmatters when I don’t know what itis?”

“Well,” he said, his lips twisting as though he’d swallowed a mouthful of sour milk, “money matters to you, doesn’t it, Maria? Especially now.”

“Money issues don’t matter between you and me. I told you that earlier.” The coolness and distance between them, which seemed to grow by the second, terrified her. She wanted to walk the four feet to where he stood, to touch him, to reassure herself, but she didn’t dare. “Why are you playing games?”

A strange, wild light flickered behind his eyes. “You’re right. Why shouldn’t I trust you with the truth?”

But apparently he didn’t trust her, because he paused and it took him an awfully long time to speak. She waited.

“I…made a little money…while I was gone.”

“A little money?”she said, knowing this was just the tip of his iceberg. “Does Fortunewrite about people with a little money?”

“Twenty million, give or take. I invested in a software dot-com. It went public and then I sold my shares. Now I have a lot of…investments and a charitable foundation for childhood literacy.”

“Oh, God.”

Her legs, wobbly after all the emotional ups and downs of this long day, finally gave out. Overwhelmed, she sank to the sofa, stared down at the Indian rug and tried to think. Twenty million dollars. An enormous fortune. More than the six million held in trust for her—more, even, than her father’s reputed thirteen million. David Hunt, whose father hadn’t married his mother, who’d grown up in an awful, rundown apartment downtown, who’d worked his way through college and graduate school, who used to wear awful, ill-fitting suits, was now worth more than her and her father combined. She couldn’t believe it, but she should have known. David was amazing, and she’d known, from the second she laid eyes on him, that he was a man of power and action, a man who could do anything he set his brilliant mind to.

But he hadn’t told her. Even after they’d made love and she’d told him repeatedly how much she loved him, how she didn’t care about whether he had money or not, and how she needed him to trust her, he’d never mentioned his incredible reversal of fortune.

David came to stand in front of her and she looked up at him. “You didn’t tell me,” she said faintly.

“There wasn’t time and—”

She made an outraged noise, and that, along with the horrified, incredulous look she gave him, shamed him into abandoning this ridiculous excuse.

“Does it matter?” he asked instead. “You said money doesn’t matter, so if it doesn’t matter if I’m poor, it shouldn’t matter that I’m rich. Either you love me or you don’t.”

It hit her then. Staring into his glittering, narrowed eyes, she realized the truth. He still didn’t trust her. He still, in some dark, tormented part of his mind, thought she didn’t truly love him, or that she would walk out on him or, worse, that his financial status would play any role in her decision to be with him or not. And if that was what he believed, then he didn’t know the first thing about her even at this late date.

The growing unease she’d felt for the past ten minutes exploded into full-blown despair, and her pulse stuttered sickeningly. Sudden exhaustion washed over her. Feeling as though she were two hundred and twenty years old, she put her hands on the arms of her chair, pressed herself to her feet and tried to choke back the emotion that clogged her throat.

“The only thing that matters,” she said quietly, “is that you still don’t trust me or believe in this relationship any more than you ever did.”

Blinking through her tears, she stared into his surprised, flashing eyes for a long, sad minute. Neither of them moved. Finally the pain was too much and she turned away, hoping that if she couldn’t see him she’d be able to drag a little air into her constricted chest.

He took a quick step after her. “Maria.”

She kept walking through the hall and up the stairs to her room.

He did not try to stop her.

Early the next morning, Maria, feeling dazed and oddly numb, ran into Shelley, her new best office friend and personal savior, in the hallway near a set of cubicles.

“Thanks again for all your help,” Maria told Shelley.

Help,they both knew, encompassed all the private coaching Shelley had given her over the past couple of weeks: how to write a press release, how to approach a reporter, how to fill out an expense report, how to handle a demanding client like Anastasia…the list went on and on.

Shelley waved her off. “You did all the work. I just got you started in the right direction.”

“Yeah, well, I’d’ve been out on my butt without—” Maria spied Kwasi across the room on the other side of the cubicles, and trailed off. “He’s here,” she cried. “And I think he’s looking for you.”

Shelley gave a tiny shriek and turned her head. “Where?”

“Don’t look!”

Shelley jerked her head back around and shrieked again. “Does he see us?”

Just then, Kwasi turned in their direction, saw them and waved to Maria. She waved back. “He does now.”

“Oh, God.” Shelley smoothed her hair and adjusted her belt. “How do I look?”