His eyes narrowed. “You’re choosing him over me?”
“No. But I think you’re wrong in what you’re trying to do, and if you won’t stop, then I have to help him fight you.”
Black fury gathered in him, sparking out of his pale eyes, but he held it in. “Is it asking too much for you to trust me in this?” he rasped, watching her carefully.
“The same way you trust me?” she shot back. “You told me yourself, just a moment ago, that you’re trying to bankrupt us! Is that supposed to reassure me?”
He gave a derisive snort, the fire in his eyes turning to ice. “I should’ve known! You spouted that garbage about loving me, then you asked me so sweetly to ease up on Preston. You’re good in the sack, baby, the best I’ve had, but you don’t have that kind of a hold on me.”
“I know,” she whispered blankly. “I’ve always known that. But I wasn’t trying for any emotional blackmail. I think…I think you’d better go.”
“I think you’re right.”
As he moved past her, she blinked at him with eyes suddenly blurred by a film of tears. He was going, and she knew he wouldn’t be back. “Goodbye,” she choked, feeling herself shatter inside.
He gave her a grim look. “It’s not goodbye, not yet. You’ll be seeing me around, though you’ll wish you weren’t.” Then he was gone, lightly taking the stairs with graceful bounds. Slowly she followed him, and she reached the door in time to watch the red flare of the Blazer’s taillights disappear as he rounded a curve. She shut the door and locked it, then methodically moved about and made certain the house was secure for the night. She even sat down and watched the late movie until it went off, then realized that she hadn’t absorbed any of it. She didn’t even know the name of it, or the names of the actors. She hadn’t been thinking of anything, just sitting there, her mind numb. She wanted it to stay numb, because she knew that when the numbness wore off, she was going to hurt more than she could bear.
She went through the motions of going to bed; she showered and put on her nightgown, moisturized her face, neatened up her bedroom and put her discarded clothing in the laundry basket. Then she lay in bed until dawn, her eyes open and staring at the ceiling. He was gone.
He was gone! It was a litany of pain that echoed through her endlessly, an inner accompaniment to the gray, dreary days that followed. The sun could have been shining; she simply didn’t know. But she couldn’t see any sunshine, and she functioned only through instinct and sheer grim determination. She’d kept going after Vance’s death, and now the same steely determination kept her upright even when she wanted nothing more than to collapse in a corner of her bedroom and not ever come out again.
She’d had to accept the bleak truth of Vance’s death because she had seen his lifeless body, had buried him. It was worse with Cord. He was gone from her, yet he seemed to be everywhere. They met at several functions, and she had to act as if it didn’t almost double her over with pain to see him. He was usually with Cheryl, of course, though she heard that he wasn’t limiting himself to the other woman. She had to see him, had to listen to him say all the polite things while his icy eyes cut her, had to watch him slide his arm about Cheryl’s waist, had to imagine him kissing the other woman, touching her with his hot, magic fingers, drawing her beneath him in his big bed at the cabin.
To stay sane she drove herself at work every day, working longer and longer hours, working frantically with Preston in an effort to raise enough cash to pay off the loan without seriously weakening the corporation. It was an impossible task; they both knew that if Cord chose to attack them again, they wouldn’t be able to meet his demands.
Quietly, without letting Preston know, Susan sold some prime property in New Orleans that Vance had left her and added the proceeds to their cash fund. Preston would have died rather than let her sell off any of her personal property, though she knew he’d been heavily liquidating his. Sometimes, when she thought about the fact that Cord was deliberately forcing them to sell off land that had been in the family for generations, she hated him, but always that hate was mingled with love. If she hadn’t loved him so much, she wouldn’t have felt so betrayed by his actions, wouldn’t have been so deeply angry when she saw Preston, without complaint, destitute himself personally in order to keep the corporation out of bankruptcy.
This had shaken Imogene, too, to the very basis of her foundations. Since the night she and Susan had argued so violently, she had been a little quieter, as if some of the spirit had gone out of her. Perhaps she had sensed then that she couldn’t fight Cord, that by the very act of returning he had won. Always before, Imogene had been actively involved in any corporate decisions, but now she let Preston and Susan carry the weight. For the first time she was showing her age.
At last it was done. They had enough to cover the loan, and though Susan and Preston shared a moment of relief, it wasn’t without worry. They had used every ounce of spare reserve they had, and another blow would be too much. Still, the relief was strong enough that they celebrated in the French Quarter that night, in a far noisier restaurant than the one Cord had taken her to. But she was glad of the noise and distraction, and for once she ate a good meal. In the time since Cord had sauntered out of her house she’d lost several pounds that she hadn’t been able to spare. It was as much overwork as depression, or so she told herself every morning when she frowningly examined herself in the mirror, noting that her clothing was too loose to fall correctly on her increasingly slender body.
On the drive home Preston startled her by apologizing. “You’ve broken up with Cord because of this, haven’t you?”
There was no denying it, no use in concocting a lame excuse that they simply hadn’t gotten along, so she simply murmured, “Yes,” and let it go at that.
“I’m sorry.” He cast her a frustrated glance. “I should be glad, because I didn’t like you being with him, but I’m sorry that you’ve been hurt. I didn’t want you in the middle like this.”
“I made my decision. He insisted that I choose sides, and I simply couldn’t watch him cost a lot of people their jobs without trying to do something about it.”
“I hope he knows what he’s lost,” Preston said violently, and returned his attention to his driving.
Even if he knew, he wouldn’t care, Susan thought dully. He certainly wasn’t pining away for her; he looked better every time she saw him, his hard, dark face becoming darker as the late-spring sun continued to bronze him. Had he finished clearing off the land down by the creek? Was he doing any more work on the cabin?
When he had pushed her out of his life, he had left her lost and desolate, without any emotional focus. She wondered if the rest of her life would be like this, a dull misery to be endured as she went through the motions of living.
Chapter Ten
If she had known what awaited her when she walked into the office three days later, she would never have gone. Beryl was already there and had a fragrant pot of coffee brewing. “Good morning, Beryl. Is Mr. Blackstone in yet?”
“No, not yet. Do you want a cup of coffee now?”
Susan smiled at the young woman. “I’ll get it. You look like you have enough to handle right now,” she teased, nodding at the stacks of paperwork that littered Beryl’s desk.
Beryl nodded ruefully. “Don’t I, though? Mr. Blackstone must have worked until midnight last night. He left all of this, and enough tapes on the Dictaphone to keep me typing through the weekend.”
“Really? I didn’t know he’d planned to come back to the office last night. He left when I did, and I can’t think of anything that would have been so urgent.”
She poured herself some coffee and carefully balanced the cup as she went into her office, keeping a cautious eye on the sloshing liquid. She placed the cup on her desk and walked around to pull the curtains open, letting the brilliant morning sunlight pour into the room. The day was hot already, with a sultry feel to it that had dampened the back of her neck with perspiration even before she’
d left the house that morning. She was beginning to think of taking a vacation, finding a beach somewhere and doing nothing more strenuous than lying in the sun. Somehow, sweating on the beach didn’t sound nearly as hot as sweating at work.
After fingering the blossoms of her favorite geranium, she went to her desk and sat down. It wasn’t until then that she saw the thick manila envelope lying there with her name printed on it in big block letters. Frowning, she opened the sealed envelope and pulled out a sheaf of papers. On top was some sort of legal document, and she turned it around to read it.
Immediately she went deathly white, not having to read further than the front page to know it for what it was. Cord had bought up another loan and called it in.
My God, he was going to do it. They couldn’t weather this. They couldn’t pay, and the shock waves he was going to make would reverberate throughout the corporation and the banks they were involved with. Their credit would be ruined. They simply couldn’t pay this and keep operating.
Where was Preston? She wanted to run to him, wanted to hear him say that he would be able to work another little piece of magic and somehow come up with the money they needed. It was selfish of her, and she controlled the urge. He would have to know, yes, but let him have a few more hours of peace, of not knowing.
How had the envelope gotten on her desk? The office was always locked when they left, and Preston had worked late the night before….
Then she knew, and she felt sick. Preston already knew about the loan, and he’d left the envelope on her desk.
She flipped through the legal document, and behind it she found a letter to her, in Preston’s handwriting. His usually elegant style was a scrawl as if the letter had been written in agitation, but the writing was unmistakably his. She read the letter through carefully, and when she was finished she let it fall to the floor, tears searing her eyes.
If Cord had wanted only to defeat Preston, he’d won. Preston had gone. His letter was both defeated and desperate. He’d done all he could, but he couldn’t fight Cord any longer. Perhaps, if he left, Cord would let up. By taking himself out of the picture, Preston hoped that Cord would cease his vengeance.
Cord had had the legal paperwork delivered to Preston at home, by special messenger, an act that chilled Susan with its calculated cruelty. Preston had then returned to the office, methodically finished all the work currently on his desk, left the letter for Susan, and disappeared.
She couldn’t blame Preston for leaving; she knew that it was his last-ditch effort to save the corporation, to keep Cord from putting it under. He hoped that when Cord found that Susan was running the corporation he wouldn’t call in the loan, knowing that his prime target had fled and that now he was attacking only a woman he’d previously been very interested in.
As if that would stop him! Susan thought despairingly. Then her spine stiffened. As if she would run crying to him now, asking him to have mercy on her!
She’d begged him before, for Preston’s sake, for everyone’s sake, and he’d turned a cold shoulder to her. She wouldn’t beg him for herself now.
Susan didn’t recognize the fierce anger that seized her, but she wasn’t going to just give up. If she had to fight him until she didn’t have a penny left, then that’s what she would do.
She picked up the telephone and quickly punched out a number. She wasn’t surprised when Imogene answered herself.
“Imogene, do you know where Preston is?” she asked directly, not wasting time with polite greetings.
“No. He only told me that he was going.” Imogene’s voice sounded tired and a little thick, as if she’d been crying.
“Do you know why he left?”
“Yes. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen. He just wouldn’t listen,” she sighed. “He thinks that this is the only way he can get Cord to stop. What…what are you going to do? Are you going to see Cord?”
“No!” Susan said violently. She inhaled swiftly, searching for control and finding it. “I’m not going to tell him anything. I’m going to fight him with everything I have, and I need your help.”
“Help?” Imogene echoed blankly. “What can I do?”
“You’ve been involved with this corporation for years. You have a lot of contacts, and you know everything that’s going on even if you don’t come to the office. There’s too much to do on an everyday basis for me to handle it by myself and fight Cord, too. Will you come? Do you want to fight him?”
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone, and Susan waited tensely, her eyes closed. She really needed Imogene’s help. She didn’t fool herself that she’d be able to carry on for long by herself. The burden would break her. But Imogene hadn’t been herself, and she wasn’t sure what her mother-in-law would do.
“I don’t want to fight him,” Imogene finally said softly. “This insanity has gone on long enough. If I thought it would stop him, I’d sign everything I own over to him this minute just to bring peace to our family. I have to share in the responsibility for this mess, and I’m not proud of it. I shouldn’t have turned on him; he’s family and I forgot that. I regret it so much now, but regrets don’t do any good.”
Susan’s heart sank. “You won’t help?”
“I didn’t say that. I’ll be there as soon as I can get myself ready and make the drive. But it’s not to fight him, dear. It’s to help you, and to do what I can to keep the corporation out of bankruptcy. That’s the only important thing now, and when it’s over, I’ll crawl on my hands and knees to Cord if that will satisfy him and stop this war.”
The thought of proud Imogene being willing to humble herself in such a way left Susan fighting tears again. “I’ll be waiting,” she whispered, and hung up the phone before she embarrassed herself by sobbing into it.
If she had worked before, it was nothing compared to the way she drove herself now. She arrived in the office shortly after dawn and often remained until nine or ten in the evening. On the surface, it didn’t seem possible that she would be able to meet Cord’s demands, but she didn’t give up. Imogene was on the phone constantly, calling in favors, trying to arrange a loan that would keep them going. But even old friends were suddenly wary of the Blackstone Corporation, for the business grapevine was remarkably sensitive, and word had filtered through that they were on shaky financial ground. Their common stock was trading hands rapidly, and in desperation Susan put some of her own stock up for sale. Preston and Imogene had already sold some of their stock in order to replace the money they’d embezzled from Cord, hoping to buy more when their cash flow had improved. But Cord had kept them on the ropes and hadn’t let the pressure ease at all. At least the price of the stock was holding up, due to the brisk trading, but Susan knew that she had to take even more desperate measures.
She had stock in other companies, blue-chip investments, and ruthlessly she turned them into cash. She kept it secret from Imogene, knowing that Imogene would be as horrified at the idea, as Preston had been. Imogene was holding up wonderfully, attacking the work with increased vigor, and as she settled into it she began to display a wonderful panache for the job. Susan didn’t want to do anything to throw the older woman back into the mild depression that had held her in its grip lately. She knew that Imogene worried about Preston and fretted over the absence of her only living son; that burden was enough.
Every morning when Susan looked in the mirror she realized anew that she was living on her nerves, and sometimes she wondered how much longer she could keep going. The shadows under her eyes seemed to have become permanent fixtures that she carefully disguised with makeup. She always left the house now before Emily arrived, and she was too tense to prepare breakfast herself and eat it. There was always a meal left for her when she got home at night, needing only to be warmed, but more often than not Susan was too exhausted to eat it. She was existing on pots of coffee and hasty bites taken out of sandwiches, sandwiches that were seldom finished and instead left to grow stale while she worked.
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The steamy weather further sapped her strength, the heat and humidity weighing her down like a smothering blanket. She couldn’t sleep at night, even with the air-conditioning on, and she would lie watching the flash of heat lightning, hoping that the bursts of light meant thunderstorms and rain, but the clouds never came and each day dawned hotter than the one before.
Lying on her bed in the thick, humid nights, the light cover kicked down to the foot of the bed because even a sheet was too oppressive, she thought of Cord. During the day she could resent him, hate him, fight him, but when the nights came she could no longer hold the memories at bay, and she would hug her pillow to herself, keening her pain almost soundlessly into the pillow. He had been on that bed with her, his dark head on the other pillow; he had wrapped her graceful legs around him, linking her to him with a chain of flesh while he drove deeply into her body and her heart. She wanted him so much that her entire body ached, her breasts throbbing, her thighs and loins heavy with need. She wanted just to see him, to watch his beautifully shaped mouth quirk into one of those devastatingly wicked smiles. Whenever she dozed she dreamed of him, and she would jerk herself awake with a start as she reached out for him. Sometimes the impulse to go to him was almost too strong to ignore, and in the hot, heavy nights she suffered alone.
She heard, through the grapevine of gossip that always yielded an astonishing amount of information, that Cord was gone again, and this time she didn’t wonder if he’d ever come back; now she wondered what new weapon he was readying to use against her. No, not against her personally, but against them all in general. Though she wasn’t able to pinpoint the exact date when he’d left, she knew that it was about the same time Preston had gone; it was possible that he didn’t know Preston had bowed out and left the corporation in her lap. As far as all their acquaintances were concerned, Preston was on a business trip. That was the tale she and Imogene had decided to put out, rather than trigger a flood of gossip that would grow larger and wilder with every turn.