A Moment in Time (24 page)

"Very spooky, I know," he said.

"Very spooky," she agreed. "I think you
should dispense with the mask, Wyn. Black, I might add, was a bad
choice of colors for it."

"Maybe I should go for something flesh
colored?"

"Maybe," she said. "Or just get rid of it.
The bandages couldn't look worse."

"Maybe you're right," he said.

"Anyway, then I noticed the scar tissue on
your neck and arms and hands. I thought maybe you'd been in a
horrible fire or something. To top everything off, there was your
secrecy and your gruff attitude. I guess I was prepared for the
worst."

"Gruff attitude, you say?" he said
grumpily.

"For sure," she replied. "You haven't exactly
been the most polite and charming customer up to now."

"Can you blame me?" he asked. "My so-called
friends don't want anything to do with me, even a lot of the
longtime ones. They think I'm some kind of monster now. Hell, even
my wife couldn't stand being around me. She didn't want to have to
look at me."

"Can't say as I blame her," Valerie
joked.

He smiled. "You're a tough broad, aren't you?
You don't pity me at all, do you?"

She shook her head. "I think what happened
was horrible," she said, "but with time and operations you'll be
good as new. Maybe not as handsome as you look in those polo
pictures I saw in the tack room, but I think you'll be fairly
presentable. At least in appearance."

"What does that mean?" he asked. " 'At least
in appearance.' "

"I think you could work on your manners a
little bit," she said. "Maybe not come on to people like some kind
of authoritarian dictator or something."

"Well, you haven't seen the way people react
to me," he said seriously. "I freak them out. They stare at the
bandages or the mask, if I'm wearing it. They stare at my arms and
neck and hands. It makes me feel like . . . well, it makes me feel
like Quasimodo or somebody. Like something in a sideshow at the
circus. And I'm serious when I say my best 'friends' abandoned ship
after this happened."

"That's terrible," she said sympathetically,
"but I don't doubt it. Most people don't want to face the
possibility of what could happen to them. Just look at Christopher
Reeve. A lot of people wish he wouldn't make personal appearances.
He's too painful for them to look at. Part of it's because of their
own fears, I think, and part of it is because it's really not a
pretty sight."

The expression in his eyes was understandably
glum, but he didn't say anything.

"The bright side," Valerie went on, "and
there really is one, is that with a few more operations, as
painful, time-consuming, and tedious as they may be, you're going
to have a lot of your old self back."

"That's what the doctors in New York told me
after the last operation," he said. "But I don't know, Val, I
really don't. It's so slow and painful. Sometimes I feel like
giving up, you know? Sometimes it doesn't seem like it's worth it.
I mean, even when all these great doctors are finished, I'm still
going to look like one big skin graft. My face. My neck and arms
and hands. Some of my chest and thighs. When I fell, that polo pony
dragged me from one end of the field to the other, and after it was
all over I'd lost nearly all the skin on the front of my body.
Down to the bone, Val
. They couldn't even suture me up in
most places because there wasn't anything to suture." He grimaced
with the memory. "My nose ..." he began.

"You'll have a nose," she said. "It's amazing
what they can do nowadays, and it sounds like you've got the best
surgeons money can buy."

He hung his head, staring down into his glass
again. "I know you're right," he finally said. "It's just so damn
hard to have to accept the fact that I'm never going to look like I
used to. To have to deal with walking around with scar tissue and
grafts for the rest of my life."

"Yes," she said softly. "It's not going to be
easy to accept that. In a way it's like aging, Wyn. We have to come
to accept what our bodies inevitably become because none of us, no
matter how hard we fight it, will remain the great-looking
eighteen-year-old kids we once were."

He looked at her. "You really are one tough
cookie," he said.

She reached out and touched his hand, and he
jerked slightly. "And so are you," she said, patting it. "You're
too much of a man to let this defeat you."

From a dark corner of the parking area,
someone had been watching and waiting, biding time. Now, after
seeing them part company, the watcher felt blood boil in heated
veins. From outside, the interloper had listened to part of their
conversation, catching bits and pieces of it, easily filling in
what couldn't be heard. Then witnessed their sweet, reluctant
parting at her Jeep.

Still as a statue, a white-hot anger raging
inside, the interloper saw Wyn make his way toward the house.
Quickly processing this new development, wondering how it might
change things, having to figure a new person into the equation so
carefully worked out, well, it was infuriating and scary, and the
interloper didn't like it at all.

No! I don't like this business one bit, and
I might just have to see what I can do about it. Fists clenched
into tight balls. Goddammit! Nobody's going to fuck up my chances!
Nothing and nobody's going to come between me and what I want. I've
worked too hard to get it!

When Wyn finally disappeared into the house,
the interloper quickly darted down a path toward the woods, mind
already spinning with possible solutions to this problem. It was a
problem that needed to be nipped in the bud.

Chapter Sixteen

Teddy poured himself a few fingers of vodka,
paused a moment and looked into the glass, then drank it straight
down. He shivered from the taste and fire of it and quickly chased
it with a glass of water. "There," he said aloud, almost gagging,
"that's better."

He crossed to one of the big couches and sat
down. A smile came to his lips. On a small mirror on the coffee
table were the two long, thin lines of cocaine he'd cut, along with
the sterling silver straw a friend in New York City had given him.
Although he was alone in the conservatory at Apple Hill, he
instinctively looked around him before picking up the straw.
Bending down, he snorted up both lines, one up his right nostril,
the other up his left.

Dropping the straw, he sank back into the
downy comfort of the couch and took a few deep snorts of air,
making sure he got all the coke up there. Then he let his mind
drift, relaxing after a busy day and grueling dinner.
Whoa
,
he thought after only a few minutes.
This is powerful stuff
.
Seemingly of their own accord, his feet had begun tapping on the
floor and his fingers were beating an erratic tattoo on an
invisible drum.

He looked over at the telephone, then glanced
at his watch. Tiffani surely would be home soon, he thought, and he
could hardly wait. The evening had been a terrible bore. He'd
called Linda and Barry Miller, clients of his who lived up here, to
discuss their stock portfolio. When he let slip that Valerie was
busy and wouldn't be coming over to his place, they'd very kindly
invited him to dinner. He thought the Millers were loathsome, if
cultivated, nouveau riche, and he hated their endless discussions
of art and music and politics and civic responsibility. He'd gone,
however, and been his most charming, of course, because they'd
invested a lot of money with him. And he was after them to invest a
lot more.

Well
, he thought,
at least I
managed to insult that old witch, Colette Richards
. He laughed
aloud. He really didn't care because, although she was one loaded
old lady, he knew he'd never get his mitts on her money. She had
blue-chip, blue-blooded money managers on three continents.

He wondered what she would tell Val about the
call, but then decided he didn't really care about that either. He
could always pull the wool over good, trusting, naive Val's eyes,
couldn't he? Always had, he told himself.

He looked at his watch again, then reached
over for the telephone. He punched in Tiffani's number.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Hey, babe," he said, "where you been? Why
didn't you call me? I've been waiting for you."

"Oh, Teddy," she cooed, "I'm so glad you
called. I just listened to my messages and was getting ready to
call you. I went over to Billy's. You know, the bar where I used to
work."

"Yeah?" he said. "What were you doing over
there?"

She giggled. "Just having a few drinks with
the girls. You know, ladies' night out."

"Yeah?" he said. "Well, what about spending a
little time with a man?"

She giggled again. "I'll be ready and
waiting."

"I'll be over there in about fifteen
minutes," he said.

"I'll be here," she replied.

Teddy went back over to the drinks table and
poured himself another few fingers of vodka.
One good thing
about coke
, he thought,
is that you can drink and drink and
never feel drunk
. He downed the vodka, shivered as before, then
quickly drank a big swallow of water. He set the glass back down on
the table and retraced his steps to the coffee table. He picked up
the mirror, silver straw, and the little plastic bag of cocaine,
and shoved them into his trouser pocket.

He could already feel his body responding to
his excitement about the night that lay ahead. Just the thought of
seeing Tiffani, hearing her voice, thinking about what they'd do—he
never failed to get aroused. He strode to the entrance hall,
grabbed his keys off a console there, and sauntered out to the
Jaguar.

Troubles?
he thought, smiling with
pride at his sleek machine.
What troubles? Teddy de Mornay
doesn't have a worry in the world. Not tonight he doesn't.
He
laughed aloud again and got in the car.
No, siree. He's got a
hot date. That's what he's got.

Arielle put the remote telephone up on the
swimming pool's coral stone coping and turned around to face Lolo,
her arms spread out on the coping, her breasts bobbing on the
water's surface. She looked at him teasingly, her sensuous lips
parting in a smile. "Guess what?" she said, flipping water at him
with a finger.

"What?" he asked.

"Bibi and Joe Whitman are flying us up to
Saratoga," she said. "We're invited to use their guest house as
long as we want."

"Great!" Lolo responded. "When are they
leaving?"

"They're already there," Arielle said.
"They're sending their jet down to pick us up tomorrow."

Lolo swam over and placed an arm on each of
hers, pushing his body up against hers in the water. "You know what
that means, don't you?" he said.

"What? That we have to hurry and pack?"
Arielle asked with a laugh.

Lolo nibbled at her neck. "You know what I
mean," he said. "The jet has a nice bedroom, and we can have fun
all the way to Saratoga."

Arielle laughed again. "I knew you'd be
thinking about all of the really important logistics," she said.
She kicked her legs out and scissored them around his ass.

"That's me, for sure," Lolo said. "Always
practical." He buried his head in her breasts, licking and kissing
her, underwater, then above the water's surface.

"Hmmmmm," Arielle moaned. "That feels so
good, Lolo."

He came up for air and placed his lips on
hers, kissing her hungrily, pushing himself against her, his desire
for her precluding any further conversation.

Arielle threw her arms around his neck,
pulling him against her greedy body, abandoning herself to
pleasure. He was already aroused, and she gasped when she felt his
manhood brush against her nakedness.

Lolo moved his right hand down between her
thighs and began rubbing her there. His breath became more rapid,
his desire mounting as he felt her distended readiness. Putting his
arms under her knees, he lifted her legs, then entered her, and
Arielle trembled all over as she felt him inside her.

Lolo began moving in and out, slowly at
first, teasing her with long strokes of his engorged cock, taking
his time, enjoying the little whimpers and sighs and moans that
escaped her lips as he moved in and out, in and out, until he
couldn't hold off any longer. He suddenly began to speed up,
pumping at her with more vigor, and Arielle began to moan louder,
then begged him for more, her desire for him overcoming any urge to
hold back. She gave herself up to him entirely, her body starved,
and began moving wildly against him as he began to thrust into her
with abandon, his body demanding release.

Suddenly he groaned hoarsely and rammed into
her, virtually impaling her on his throbbing cock as he heaved his
juices into her in explosion after explosion. Arielle screamed when
she felt his release, and her entire body spasmed against him in a
monumental climax, wave after wave of contractions sending her into
an orbit she had never known before. They clung to one another,
gasping for breath and shuddering with pleasure, their lips meeting
again in a kiss before their bodies parted.

When he could finally speak, Lolo said, "See
what we have to look forward to in the jet tomorrow?"

Arielle sighed with pleasure. "Oh, yes," she
breathed. "And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. "

And she thought:
Yes, Lolo, my love.
There'll be plenty of time for this, a whole lifetime. I'll see to
that. But we have a mission, too. Only you don't know it. Not
yet.

Chapter Seventeen

Wyn poured himself a cup of coffee in the
library and began pacing the floor, lost in thought, as he sipped
from the steaming mug. He was still worried about Layla. It was
early in the morning, not long past dawn, but he had already been
down to the stables and checked on the sick horse. She appeared to
be somewhat better, perhaps less swollen and not in as much
distress, but he wasn't really certain.