Dangerous Alliance Page 16

  “Cathy.” It’s as if he can’t get enough of saying her name. He’s chanting it like a prayer.

  She whirls around, this time reaching forward and grabbing his lapel. “Are you leaving her?” she asks, all sarcasm gone. “It’s been so many years. Surely by now—”

  “Nothing’s changed,” Travis says dully. “I can’t divorce her. The risks are too great.”

  “The risks?” she asks weakly, and then, with building frustration, “You’re afraid of the risks. And to think that I once thought you were fearless.” She straightens her posture, rolls her shoulders back. “Well, then, I suppose our personal business has come to a close.”

  “If you could just listen—”

  “No, I’m done listening. I’m done with the subject of us.” She puts her hands on her hips and holds her chin high like a comic book queen. “Your candidate?” she says. “Sam Highkin? He’s nothing more than a pathetic puppet for you and your Wall Street buddies. I’m going to support his opponent. And that’s no small thing, Travis. I’ve been known to raise an obscene amount of money for candidates, and the supporters I can bring to the table will have the moral high ground. The supporters you can bring to Highkin represent everything people hate about the one percent. I know how to exploit that. I don’t know or care what this man has promised you in exchange for getting him into office, but it’s a moot point because you’re not going to be able to get him there. Let’s see how you deal with disappointment for a change.”

  “Fine,” Travis says, sounding more tired than I’ve ever heard him. “If that’s the battle you want.”

  She turns to leave and I quickly get the door open to the bride’s room, jumping inside, but before I can close the door I hear Travis’s voice again. “Cathy, I want you to know that I can forgive you for anything, do you understand?”

  The click of Cathy’s heels stops. “Really, Travis, I don’t see the point—”

  “Anything,” he interrupts, “save one thing. I cannot forgive you for not taking care of yourself.”

  There’s silence. In my mind I imagine her pivoting toward him, perhaps reaching for him again.

  “What’s wrong with your eyes, Cathy?” he asks, his tone even, insistent.

  “Well, he has to be around here somewhere!” The sound of his father’s voice coming from a minor distance (perhaps moving from the men’s lounge back to the banquet room) ends the conversation immediately. In an instant I hear Cathy’s heels start to click again. I don’t get the dressing room door closed in time but it doesn’t matter, she just hurries past without ever noticing me. Rushing not toward the banquet hall but toward one of the exits. As soon as she’s out of sight I quickly pull myself up, count to five, and then walk to Travis.

  “There you are,” I say with a relieved sigh. “Jessica is out of the ladies’ room. She’s taken a few Valium so I think she’s okay now.”

  Travis doesn’t even look at me; his gaze is still where Cathy was.

  “Of course,” I say, casting my eyes down to the floor, wringing my hands, “she doesn’t know what . . . what you and I are going to do tonight.” I bite my lip, bashful, timid, everything that Cathy is not. “Where shall I meet you tonight?” I ask softly. “To . . . well . . .”

  “Not tonight,” Travis says.

  “But I thought—”

  “I didn’t hire you to question me, Bell,” he snaps.

  “Oh.”

  Just then Edmund appears with Lander by his side. They’re both striding toward us, practically in lockstep. Even from a short distance I can see something that almost looks like camaraderie between the two of them.

  It’s disconcerting.

  “Where the hell have you been?” demands Edmund. “Your wife is back at the event. She seems better now, but it’s your job to control her and smooth things out with the donors, or have you forgotten your family obligations?”

  “No, I have never been able to forget my family obligations.” He glares at Lander, who responds with a winning smile.

  “There was something I needed to handle,” Travis continues. “That’s done now. And the Valium will handle Jessica. We can get back to the festivities. After all,” he adds as he starts walking briskly back toward the banquet hall, taking the lead, “we have to reassure Highkin that we’re a family he can rely on. I’m going to get this man a victory even if it means stuffing every damn ballot box myself.”

  I glance at Lander as we follow Travis back. He’s still walking right by his father’s side. He doesn’t say anything to me, but I recognize his smile. It’s a smile of triumph.

  chapter nineteen

  * * *

  When Lander and I get back to his place he’s radiating a new kind of energy. “Genius,” Lander says as he takes off his jacket and tie, dropping them over the back of his sofa. “Inviting Cathy Earnest was pure genius.”

  “She’s Cathy Lind now,” I remind him, “and I thought you’d like it. The opportunity to get her there sort of fell into my lap.” I find a place on the sofa and sink into it, my mind whirling at a hundred miles an hour.

  “Perfect, and the fact that she’s married makes it all the better,” Lander replies. “And in the face of Travis’s meltdown, I was able to gain a little more of my father’s trust. To listen to him for a moment there you would have thought that I was the favored son.” Lander laughs in a way that implies the idea is both ridiculous and delightful. “I didn’t realize the woman had that kind of hold on Travis! I was away at college for the bulk of that relationship. I would have thought after all this time things would have faded . . .” His expression grows a little more serious as he ponders this. “It’s odd. I know my father wasn’t a fan of hers, but if Travis wanted her that much I would have thought he would have found a way to have her.”

  “Oh, he definitely tried,” I reply, thinking about his rejected offer to make Cathy a mistress. “Why didn’t your father approve of Cathy?”

  Lander sighs and waves his hand in the air dismissively. “She doesn’t come from a family of influence or money and she’s strong willed, so she can’t easily be controlled. As far as my father is concerned, a woman who can’t be controlled is barely a woman at all. It’s something he always takes into account before approving someone’s admittance into the family.”

  I look up at Lander, wondering if he’s aware of what he’s suggesting about his mother. But if he is, he doesn’t appear to be bothered by it. He’s currently pacing around the room, like a lion itching to hunt.

  “That’s it?” I press. “That’s why your father didn’t want Travis with Cathy?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “And what about Jessica?”

  Lander pauses, takes a moment to study me. “You think that Travis married her in exchange for her testimony against your mother.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “It’s possible,” Lander admits, some of his excitation fading into a reassuring calm. “But that’s not a definite, Adoncia. My father had me believing that your mother was guilty, that testifying against her was a good thing. Jessica was even younger than I was at the time. It’s not a stretch to believe that they convinced her of your mother’s guilt too.”

  “Jessica lied about when she heard the gunshot.”

  “That, or someone manipulated her memory,” Lander counters.

  “Are you defending her?”

  “No.” He holds my gaze for a moment and then looks toward the window, although I suspect he’s really looking into the past. “I’ve made mistakes, Adoncia. I trusted my father and my brother. My mother paid a price for that.”

  “My mother did too.”

  “She certainly did.” He takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “There has never been a woman who has loved a Gable man who hasn’t lived to regret it. Even when we don’t mean to, we always end up crushing whatever heart has been handed to us.”

  The words hover in the air, dense and ugly like toxic smog. I hold my breath, trying not to breathe it i
n.

  “Maybe it’s not just women,” Lander continues thoughtfully. “Maybe the only reason Travis, my father, and I are still standing is because there isn’t enough love between the three of us to be used effectively as a weapon.”

  “You don’t think your father loves you and Travis.”

  “No, no, he does . . . But it’s not the kind of love you think of existing between a father and his children. He loves Travis and me the way some men love their sports cars. When tended to and polished correctly we make good status symbols. And when properly managed and properly driven we can take him where he wants to go.”

  I think of Jessica and how she likes to pretend every once in a while that Travis values her. I think of Cathy and how she railed against the suggestion that she could be kept. “If you think of someone as a possession . . . that’s not a different kind of love. It’s not love at all,” I say slowly. “At best you can value them, but again, that really isn’t love.”

  Lander turns back to look at me, his eyebrows slightly raised. Apparently this is a revelation for him. It’s funny, there are probably more songs, books, and movies written about love than about any other subject, yet despite being inundated with information on the topic, most of us still have a hard time distinguishing love from its many imitators.

  He sighs, looks back to the window. “Look at us, we had a successful night. Things actually went the way we wanted them to, and yet even now we keep coming back to our sad little stories.” He shakes his head. “There will be no more of that tonight. Tonight isn’t about that.”

  “It’s about victory?” I offer.

  “And other things.” He turns to me again, studying me for a moment. “Stand up,” he says softly.

  I smile, sensing where this is going. I slowly get to my feet. Lander’s eyes fall to my shoes, traveling up my body with a slow and sensual appreciation. “In that dress you are the essence of femininity and beauty. You say that this isn’t you, but you’re wrong. It isn’t just another costume. This is part of you, the part of you that is a princess.”

  I drop my gaze to the carpet, suddenly self-conscious. “I’m not a princess, Lander.”

  “If you insist. But if America had a princess, the title would go to someone like you. And . . .” He steps forward, slides his hands on either side of my waist. “There is no one else like you. You shouldn’t have been at a dinner tonight, not looking like that. You should have been at a ball.”

  I peer up at him, unsure of how to respond.

  “Perhaps,” he says slowly, mischief lighting up his eyes, “I can make up for that error.”

  “What . . .” But Lander pulls away before I can get in a question, disappearing from the room. I stand there, looking out at the sparkling view, wondering what he could possibly be up to.

  And then, out of nowhere, music fills the air.

  I didn’t even know there were speakers in this room, but now I’m surrounded by the soft sound of a piano, followed by a slightly rough woman’s voice singing a haunting, bittersweet love song.

  “Adoncia,” he whispers in my ear, and I whirl around, startled. I hadn’t heard him reenter the room. He smiles and gently takes my hand. “My beautiful warrior princess,” he says softly, “may I have this dance?”

  I look down at the hardwood floors, then at my feet, still strapped into my patent leather heels. “I . . . I haven’t danced in a very long time.”

  “Well, then,” he says softly, “I think it’s time.”

  With hesitant, self-conscious movements I position myself a little closer to him and put my hand on his shoulder as he lifts the hand he holds as if we’re about to begin a waltz.

  “Really, I don’t know how to do this,” I say, as his other hand slides to the small of my back. “The last time I danced with a boy I was still a teenager . . . and drunk. Very, very drunk.”

  Again Lander laughs. “Don’t worry.” He brings his lips right to my ear and whispers, “I’ll lead.”

  And as the music slowly builds we begin to move. I shuffle my shoes against the floor, giggling as I keep my eyes on my feet, trying to keep myself from stepping on his. This is how I am, always limber, never graceful. But Lander puts his hand gently under my chin, lifts my gaze to his. And something in the way he’s looking at me stops the giggles. We stop too for a moment . . . and then we move. His hold on me is now firm as we glide across the floor. He’s urging me on, his body leading mine, coaxing it to respond to his wishes.

  This isn’t like the comical attempts I’ve made at dancing at raves or bars where everyone is too inebriated or high to notice how ridiculous they look. It’s not like the school dances where the boys clumsily try to cop a feel while slow dancing in the center of the dance floor. This is something new. Lander is speaking to me with an exotic and silent new language as we increase our speed. For a moment it doesn’t even feel like my feet are touching the ground as he leads me, brings me to this new place . . . the place of being a princess.

  And his eyes stay with mine. We whirl across the floor with the lights of the city behind us, blurring together until they’re nothing but streaks of white, like a thousand shooting stars.

  And I laugh again. But it’s a different kind of laughter now. He’s making me feel joy.

  And as I spin under his arm I think I might lose my balance, that I might fall, but then Lander has me in his arms again, holding me up as he continues to move me, allowing me to fall into a dip, only to pull me back up so quickly that some of my hair comes loose and falls over my shoulders.

  I’m Cinderella. For this unlikely sliver of time I’ve truly been transformed from a dark angel to a perfect princess, my glass slippers filled with magic and enchantment as my prince looks at me and sees not the neglected scullery maid, but a woman, a good woman . . . the woman who will be his wife.

  And when he lifts me into his arms, it feels right.

  More than that, it feels perfect.

  With a steady gait he brings me through the hall, to his bedroom, and there’s music here too. And candles—on the nightstands, the dresser—and a fire burns in the fireplace. All of it here, waiting for us. Waiting for me.

  It’s all a gift for me! The room blurs and I realize that for the first time in my life I’m crying tears that have nothing to do with sadness or anger. I didn’t know I could.

  And before I know it, Lander is spinning me again as fire dances around us. I hold on to him tightly, laughing through these wonderful tears as he picks me up again and swings me around before gently bringing me back down onto my feet.

  As he lowers his head and touches his mouth to mine, I wonder if he knows what he’s done to me, that he’s changed me. I close my eyes and try to hear his thoughts.

  But I only hear music. I hear a bass that beats only a little slower than his heart.

  And as the kiss grows deeper, his tongue parting my lips, as his arms hold me tighter, so that there isn’t room for even a sliver of light between us . . . it feels like love.

  My hands move from his neck to his shirt. A little frantically they work on the buttons, opening his shirt, placing my hand on his heart, trying to read it as if it was tapping out some Morse code. I close my eyes as he measures the length of my neck with his mouth, sucking gently on the skin that dips subtly below the collarbone.

  He’s made me a princess.

  I pull his shirt from him completely, looking at him the way he has so frequently looked at me, drinking him in, honoring him with my eyes. I step forward, my hands fumbling with the button on his pants, and then I step back as he removes them. He looks almost savage as he stands before me, wearing nothing but the thin cotton of his boxer briefs. This man who was raised with caviar and opera looks like he could tear the world apart with his bare hands. Everything about his body speaks of dominance and strength.

  Then he takes those powerful hands and places them gently against me. And then, there, in the light of the primal fire, the silk of my gown pressed against his bare skin, we begin
to dance again.

  I have never felt so feminine or delicate as I do now, whirling around being held by this graceful, gorgeous beast.

  The music changes. This time it’s a man’s voice, a little more urgent, the melody a little more poignant. Again he kisses me. His fingers lace into my hair as my grip on his shoulders tightens. His heartbeat is so strong now, strong enough for both of us. He turns my back to his chest, finds the hidden zipper of my dress, and slowly lowers the fabric to the ground, then carefully helps me out of each of my shoes. It feels as if we’re still caught up in the music. And when he picks me up in his arms and lays me on the bed while kneeling by my side, I know what it means to be royalty. The fire flickers and crackles as he removes my bra and then leans down to kiss my calves and the soft skin of my inner thigh.

  The music is building.

  His fingers move up and pull my panties down, exposing me to his gaze and then to his tongue as he makes delicate circles around my clit, causing me to shudder. My hands are in his hair as he tastes me, as his finger finds my core, sliding inside. The aching in the singer’s voice matches the ache of my body. His tongue moves back and forth quickly now as I arch my back, giving in to this passion. His finger continues to move, one, then two, and the pleasure shoots from my core down to my toes, up, up through my lungs so that every breath is marked by desire.

  He pulls away from me and removes what little is left of his clothes. But there is no recovery time. The music keeps building as I turn my head toward the window and see the artificial stars of the city slide as Lander drags me along the mattress, lifting my hips so they meet his. Desperate to hold him, to keep him, I lift my legs and wrap them around his back even as I prop myself up so I can see him, supporting my weight with my arms, which are stretched behind me.

  He’s watching me, holding me firmly in place with his eyes, as he grabs hold of my thighs and thrusts inside me.

  We’re still dancing.