Attraction (35 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE
For the next few weeks, Riley and Heron continued with their affair as they had been,
seeing each other one or two times in a week when their work allowed them. Then the few weeks
became a couple of months, with little change in their mostly sexual relationship.
One morning, while they were getting dressed, Riley told Heron that she was on the
verge of signing a contract with the investors to open a second dance club and bar in San
Francisco.
“So, you’re going to be running both of them,” Heron asked, standing a few feet from the
bed, dressed in his pants and dress shirt, tying his tie.
“No, actually I was thinking of letting Joe Monterey run the one in Santa Rosa, and I’d be
running the new one here in San Francisco.”
He stopped with his tie for a moment. “That means you’d be down here more often.”
“Looks that way. I’ll have to start looking for an apartment pretty soon.”
“Why don’t you move in here with me?”
For moment, Riley’s face whitened, as it had that evening when Heron’s mother had
asked her if she were in love with her son. Fortunately, Heron did not see her because he was too
busy with his tie again.
“Are…are you serious,” she said, trying to sound casual.
Heron turned away to grab his suit coat. “Yes, I am. Why not? I’m always haranguing
you to come up here. And the penthouse is pretty large. I think it’ll be comfortable for two
people to move around in without getting in each other’s way too much.” Completely dressed in
his business suit, he turned back to Riley. “What about it, then?”
“Let’s talk about it later,” she hedged.
“Alright. Come on, get dressed so we can go down and have our breakfast. I need to be at
the office for a client at nine o’clock.”
“Go ahead down there and start without me. I still need to take a shower.”
Heron threw his robe at her. “Here, you can put this on and come down with me. You can
take a shower later after I’m gone.”
“What if I don’t want breakfast right now,” Riley grumbled as she put the robe around
her, which was ridiculously too big for her.
To stop any further argument, Heron picked her up in his arms and carried her out of the
bedroom. “Then we can have our coffee.”
He put her down at the top of the stairs. He didn’t really want to admit to himself and to
Riley that their time together at the morning table before he went off to work had become
important to him. He had come to enjoy sitting across from her the next morning, after having
spent several hours the previous night fucking each other long and hard, both of them sipping
their coffees, not talking most of the time, each reading the newspaper, she munching on her
English muffins spread liberally with melted butter, and he eating his two pieces of toast lightly
spread with marmalade.
Over the next several weeks, the discussion of Riley moving into the penthouse never
came up, and the two went on with their lives, and their affair, as they had before. In fact, both
seemed to have forgotten about the topic. Riley was getting more and more pre-occupied with
the preparations of opening another club in San Francisco, and Heron’s workload was
demanding all of his attention when he was away from her.
The one person who was getting impatient with the unsettlement of Heron and Riley’s
affair was Alana Wait. She hated it when things went on unresolved indefinitely. She felt the two
were wasting their time by insisting on maintaining a relationship that held little future for both
of them. Both needed to come to their senses and realize how they felt about one another and
begin planning for a life together and for a family.
Feeling she had every right, Alana paid her oldest son a visit in his office to try and get to
the bottom of his affair with Riley Calderon for once and for all.
“Hello, Mother,” Heron greeted with puzzlement. He looked down at his calendar. “Did
we have an appointment this morning?”
Alana sat down in one of the chairs in front of her son’s desk. “Since when does a mother
need an appointment to see her own children?”
“That’s a very loaded question, so I won’t bother to answer that,” Heron said ironically.
“What is it, Mother?”
“I want to invite you and Riley to Palm Springs for the weekend.”
“I don’t know about Riley, but that would be fine for me.”
“Well, then, why don’t you call her right now and check with her?”
“I think she might be still asleep. I’m not quite sure she’s available for the next two
weeks, in fact. The new club is taking most of her time.”
“When will you see her next?”
“I’m not quite sure.”
Alana made an impatient sound. “Heron, I wish you would stop this cavalier conduct of
yours with this relationship with Riley. Now, for once and for all, what are your intentions with
the girl?”
Heron gave her a polite stare. “I’m sorry, Mother, but are we suddenly in the eighteen
hundreds?”
“It is still a mother’s duty to knock some sense in her child’s head when she sees that he
is being a complete knucklehead.”
Heron blinked. “A knucklehead?”
“That’s what a man is when he refuses to see what is in front of his very nose.”
Heron thought for a moment. “Are we still talking about Riley?”
“Yes, of course we are. Who else would we be talking about?”
“Okay. So, what am I missing about Riley?”
“She’s a wonderful girl.”
“Okay.”
“She’s not a woman that a man should treat so casually. She deserves much more than
that from a man.”
“Okay.”
“And a man only gets one or two chances in life to meet a woman who is perfect for
him.”
“And you think Riley is perfect for me.”
“Why you haven’t been able to figure that out yet is beyond me. Everybody else has.”
Heron shifted slightly in his seat, an indication that he was trying to keep his impatience
back. “Mother, with all due respect, this is none of your business. And you’ve always respected
my private life in the past. Why are you interfering now with Riley?”
“None of your women have ever been Riley Calderon.”
“What makes her so special?”
Alana sat back in her seat and eyed her son challengingly. “Why don’t you tell me?
You’re the one who’s going out with the girl.”
Heron pinched his nose. “This parlor game does neither one of us good, more of which I
don’t have the time.”
Alana suddenly rose to her feet and gathered her purse. “Oh, I should have known I
wouldn’t get anywhere with you. Harvard sure trained you well as a lawyer for the courtroom,
but when it comes to your personal life, they failed miserably. Any child without an advanced
education could see what was going on. But you’re too smart, aren’t you, to realize it.”
“What is there to realize?”
Alana turned to stare at her son, shaking her head pityingly. “You have no clue, do you?
You have no idea what you’re doing to Riley. And you have no idea the way she feels about
you.”
“Jesus Christ, Mother! The hell are you talking about?”
“Riley, you idiot. You’re not only a clod but a clod with a debilitating short term
memory. I’m talking about Riley, as I have always been talking about. All this time, while she’s
been eating her heart out for you, you’ve been blithely going on with your life, thinking that this
was just another temporary affair, that when it ends, which surely it must, both of you will be
able to walk away unscathed.”
“Why would Riley be eating her heart out for me?”
“Oh, you are pig-headed, aren’t you. Because, you idiot, she’s in love with you.”
Heron froze and his face went white. “Did she tell you that?”
“More or less, yes. You know, dear boy, I was going to ask you out to lunch, but I’m so
upset with you right now, that I think it’s best if save it for another day. For now, I’ll take my
leave of you, before I’m driven to thump you over the head with my Gucci purse.”
Alana slammed the door after exiting through it. But Heron did not hear it. He was in too
much state of shock. He wasn’t even aware that he was left alone in his office. He sat in his
chair, staring sightlessly at his closed door for a long time.
Several minutes later, he came to the present, realizing that he had been sitting at his
desk, staring at nothing. He stretched his arm to reach for some papers, but then, he ended up
getting to his feet. Thrusting his hands in his trouser pockets, Heron paced back and forth in front
of his desk. One minute he was going over and over in his mind his mother blurting out to him
that Riley was in love with him. The next minute, his shock would make his mind go blank and
he’d be pacing not unlike a zombie. He’d realize what he was doing, throw himself back in his
chair, but would only end up just staring down at the rug. He’d snap out of his trance again, get
to his feet and pace some more. Then he’d lower himself again to a chair, but in one of the
guest’s chair that faced his desk, and he’d be staring at his own empty chair, as if invisibly facing
his own self.
No love was supposed to ever enter his affair with Riley. Ever. He didn’t want it to. He
never wanted Riley to love him. He certainly never wanted to love her. When he had taken up
the affair with her, he had been smarting acutely from Roberta’s spurning him in such a manner
that she did. He had always believed and, to some extent, he still did believe that Riley had
influenced Roberta’s defection. He supposed that he had wanted his own back at Riley.
Somehow, he had thought, to make her pay for what her sister had done to him.
By drawing Riley into an affair, Heron had wanted to prove something. He was never
quite sure what it was, though, that he needed to prove, and to whom. In his life, he had never
been rejected by a woman. It had been the biggest shock he could ever remember experiencing in
his life. He hadn’t liked the experience at all.
Like everything else in his life, such as his work, his education, his family, his social
network, Heron had always felt in control of his personal relationships with women. Every since
he met Riley, he had lost that sense of balance and control, not quite feeling as if things were on
even keel in his relationship, even though that relationship was with Riley’s sister. But,
somehow, he had always sensed that losing control of his relationship with Roberta was
intimately linked with Riley. That was why his rage had been more directed at Riley than at his
own fiancée.
At the time, it seemed perfect that in his need for revenge he should take his nemesis as
his lover.
That’s why it seemed so ridiculous to Heron that she would tell his mother that she was
in love with him. He didn’t want her love. He wanted her pride because she had been behind the
injuring of his. But he couldn’t imagine ever wanting her love.
It didn’t matter that he might still want her physically. In fact, he still craved for her, and
could only think about when he wasn’t working the next time he would be drawing her into his
arms, and when next he could devour her lips, when next he would be slipping into her tight
glove. But, surely, Riley wasn’t the only woman he had felt that way about. Heron was sure of it.
He just couldn’t remember the woman just right then.
And Heron was sure that Riley wasn’t the only woman his family took a liking to. They
took a liking to Roberta just as much. If his family barely tolerated all of the other women, that
wasn’t his fault. He might enjoy being with Riley outside of bed almost as much as he did inside
of the bed. That only stood to reason, since she was a very intelligent, insightful, humorous,
honest woman. There had been plenty of other women he had seen whose company he had
enjoyed.
But none of that meant that Riley should be in love with him.
Heron took Riley out for a late dinner in San Francisco. During dinner, she noticed that
he was silent more than usual. It wasn’t that he was ever very loquacious normally. Or, even, that
he was a particularly warm person to be with in the first place. Heron lived his life being
detached from those around him. Riley had gotten used that.
But that night, she noticed that he seemed absent minded, pre-occupied with something
that was weighing on his mind. Riley felt as if she might as well have dined on her own for all
the attention he was paying to her.
After dinner, Heron drove her back to his penthouse and took her to bed. If he had been
detached and unavailable at dinner, in bed, he was completely the opposite. There, they spent
hours making wild and passionate sex, staying entwined whether they were resting from the last
bout of sex or during it. Sexually, Heron was just as hungry and savage as he always was,
holding nothing back from her, and wanting everything from her.
Riley awoke the next morning alone in Heron’s bed. When she showered, dressed, and
went down stairs, she was informed by Canton that his master had left for the office an hour ago.
Close to three hours later, Riley arrived at her home to find a message waiting for her on
the answering machine from Heron to call him. When she called him, his voice was oddly
formal, as if he were discussing a business decision that he had just made.
“I think it’s better that we end this between us,” he said stiffly.
She did not say anything for several seconds. When she did, her voice was cool, almost
as detached as his. “Alright. Then, I guess we can consider it ended.”
She hung up, went upstairs, undressed, pulled on her sweatpants and tee-shirts, slipped
into her bed, pulled the bed covers over her head, and wept hard and violently for several hours.
When it was time to get up and get to work, she made herself get out of bed, take a shower,
scrubbed the layers and layers of tears from her face. After stepping out of the shower, she
packed an ice pack, laid back on her couch, and put the ice pack over her eyes in an attempt to
ease the swelling of her eyes.
Riley did not tell anyone that Heron had broken their affair off. She simply went about
her life, using up all of her waking hours at her club and to go over the contracts and plans to
open up her new club in San Francisco. When she went home and laid in her bed, the tears would
fall again as she stared in the darkness.
Heron did not tell anyone either of his decision to end things with Riley, and went about
his own life, which mostly consisted of work. He seemed little affected by his decision to stop
seeing her. He seamlessly picked up the life he had been leading before her. On nights that he
was not working or was not exhausted from work, he took out various women to dinner and
theaters and galas, as he had before.