Forbidden Fruit (15 page)

“I see,” Sister Marguerite said. “Thank you. We'll check on her there.” The nuns started for the door, but Sister Marguerite stopped when she reached it and looked back at Liz. “Aren't you supposed to be in the office this hour?”

“Yes, Sister,” she murmured, almost light-headed with fear. “I was just going back. But I…I have to wash my hands.”

“I'll see you in a moment, then.”

“Thank you, Sister.”

The moment they cleared the door, Glory popped out of the stall. She raced over to Liz. “You were great,” she whispered. “They believed every word you said.”

Liz held out her hands. They were trembling. “Poor, but, smart scholarship students have a lot to lose. I was so scared. I was sure they'd know that I was lying.”

Glory hugged her. “But, you were so great. The best.”

“Then why do I feel like I'm going to pass out?”

Glory laughed. “Hang with me, I'll teach you to thumb your nose at danger. Before long, you'll even like it.”

“Not me. I never want to—” Liz brought her hands to her cheeks, suddenly remembering the office, her job and Mrs. Reece's copies. “Oh, no! What time is it?” When Glory told her, Liz groaned and started for the door. “I've got to go.”

Glory followed, catching her arm. “Liz, wait. I wanted to…to thank you for helping me out just now. Nobody's ever…done that for me before. It…meant a lot to me.”

Liz smiled. “Forget it, Glory. The way I see it, I still owe you.” She started through the door.

“Hey, Liz?”

Liz stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Yeah?”

“I like you, too. And I think…I think it would be pretty cool to be friends.”

Beaming, Liz darted into the hall.

F
rom that moment on, Glory and Liz were inseparable. They met between classes and ate lunch together, at night they talked on the phone, and in the morning they rendezvoused at the streetcar stop five blocks from school so they could walk the rest of the way together.

Glory shared with Liz her most intimate secrets, her hopes and her fears; as Liz shared hers. Their approaches to life, their families and backgrounds, differed in the extreme. Yet they understood each other so completely that one would only have to look at the other to know what she was thinking or feeling.

Having a real friend was a new and heady experience for Glory, and she reveled in it. She had never imagined having a friend would make her feel so good about herself; she had never imagined it would be so much fun. And she hadn't realized that until Liz, she'd been lonely.

But Glory also lived in fear that her mother would disapprove of Liz and find a way to end their friendship. Or find a way to turn Liz against her. Glory didn't know what she would do if she lost Liz's friendship. She couldn't go back to living the way she had before.

Glory need not have worried. Hope was well aware of her daughter's friendship with the scholarship student. Little happened at the academy that Hope didn't know about. She had done some checking and learned all she needed to about Liz Sweeney—she was soft-spoken, polite and a conscientious student; she was also painfully shy and rather plain, not the type to be chasing boys or to have boys chasing her.

But, the thing Hope liked best about Liz was her tenuous position at the academy—her scholarship could be revoked at any time and for any reason the administration saw fit. As one of the academy's largest benefactors, Hope knew that, if need be, she could control her daughter's friend by threatening her scholarship.

She hoped, of course, that resorting to such measures would never become necessary.

For the time being, Hope decided, Liz Sweeney was a good influence on her daughter. Indeed, since the two had become friends, Glory's behavior, grades and attitude had improved. Hope gave the friendship her blessing. She made her feelings known by inviting Glory to have her friend over to the house anytime.

Anytime at all.

P
hilip St. Germaine sat at his massive desk. Over eighty years old and made of Louisiana cypress, the desk had belonged to four generations of St. Germaines. Back when his grandfather had had this desk fashioned, all fine furniture had been crafted out of imported mahogany, walnut and cherry. Cypress had been considered junk wood.

But, his grandfather had insisted on using the native cypress. When you have the choice, his grandfather had always preached, never stray far from home for what you need. For home is where your heart is, and there you will find your strength.

Home. Heart. Philip ran his hand over the desk's smooth, polished top. No paperwork littered its surface, no file folders, catalogs or reports. They rarely did. Home was for family. That, too, he had learned from his father who, in turn, had learned it from his.

Several framed family photos graced the desktop, and he scanned them, his gaze stopping on one of Hope from the early years of their marriage. Bitterness rose like bile inside him. What had happened to that soft and sweet-tempered young woman? What had happened to the girl who had made his heart sing, the girl who had made him believe in flesh-and-blood angels?

He had lost all his starry-eyed illusions about his beautiful wife. He supposed they had begun to slip away the day she had rejected their newborn daughter. He had managed to convince himself, for a time, that everything would be all right, had managed to convince himself that his perfect life and wife had not begun to disintegrate before his very eyes.

Those times were long gone.

Looking at the photo hurt, and Philip swiveled his chair so he faced the window directly behind his desk instead. The window and the dying garden beyond.

He didn't love his wife anymore. He hadn't in a long time.

Even so, she still had a powerful hold on him. A hold he had been unable to break free of.

Philip pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, then dropped his hands to his lap. He leaned his head against the chair back, self-disgust replacing bitterness. Her hold on him had nothing to do with trust or love of family or even respect. No, it was more base than that. It was sexual. It was a gut-wrenching, adolescent lust that he couldn't shake loose of or outgrow.

He had tried. He had slept with other women, had even had an affair. Not because he was bored with his wife and their sex life; on the contrary, because he had hoped having another woman would free him from the sexual stranglehold Hope had on him.

But other women hadn't satiated his hunger for his wife. If anything, they had made him more ravenous for her, more desperate for the pleasures she offered.

Philip fisted his fingers. Dear Jesus, even Hope's stomach-turning abuse of their daughter hadn't killed his desire for her—though it had killed all else.

Including his self-respect.

When it came to his wife, he was less than a man, weak and impotent. Because of her, because of his inability to break free of her sexual grip, he had lost not only his self-respect but his daughter's love and respect, as well.

Glory.
Philip brought the heels of his hands to his eyes once more, wishing he could block out the truth. He loved his daughter beyond measure. He longed for their relationship to be as it had once been, longed to have her look at him as if he were more than a hero.

But those times were also long gone. Now, she only tolerated his company. Now, she hardly looked at him. And when she did, he saw anger in her eyes. And, he thought, pity.

She, too, knew that he was less than a man.

Philip stood and crossed the room, for no other purpose than a need to move. He stopped at the open study door, then turned and crossed back to the desk. Again, he gazed down at its clutter-free top. At least through it all, the horror and heartbreaks, he'd had the St. Charles. It had been his, a place in which to lose himself and forget his failures, a success to pride himself in.

And now he faced losing the hotel, too.

He dragged his hands through his hair. He realized they were shaking, like a woman's might, or a baby's. He swore and straightened his spine, furious with himself. He had perpetrated the mess he was in. He couldn't point a finger at Hope or anyone else. He had ignored the things his father had taught him, important things, about not overextending or relying on credit, about investing cautiously and never depleting personal funds.

But when he had started renovating the St. Charles, New Orleans had been experiencing a renaissance of sorts, a financial boom the likes of which the city had never seen before. The oil and gas industries had been thriving—the price per barrel had reached a new high and exploration was up. The World's Fair had been right around the corner, promising a flood of tourists from all over the world.

Everyone had been making money. Lots of money. The all-afternoon–Dom Perignon lunch had become the norm. Philip, like many others in the city, had taken to being driven about town in a limousine. Anything worth doing had been done to excess.

At the time, sinking half a million dollars into a complete renovation and updating of the hotel had seemed a simple and risk-free venture.

And a necessity. The pressure had been on. With the fair in the offing, new hotels had sprung up almost overnight—the Sugar House, Le Meridian and Hotel Intercontinental, to name only a few. All were elegant, luxury hotels, all could offer guests what the St. Charles could not—the best of what “new” had to offer, a location in the midst of both the action of the fair and the French Quarter. He'd felt he had to compete or die.

Some had cautioned him, but those, his failing father included, had been in the minority. More than a dozen lenders had been eager to make the loan.

He'd had it all figured out—he would simply repay the loan with the hotel's increased revenues, both from higher occupancy and increased room rate.

He'd had it all figured out, all right.

Philip sank back onto his chair. Only he had no increased revenues with which to repay the loan. Who would have guessed that the bottom would drop out so quickly or so completely? OPEC had all but disintegrated, and the market had been flooded with oil. The price per barrel had fallen straight into the dumper, and oil and gas exploration had come to a screaming halt.

To top that off, the much-ballyhooed New Orleans World's Fair had been a financial disaster of epic proportions.

Philip shifted his gaze to his hands, laid flat on the bare desktop. Businesses were closing daily, layoffs were slicing deep, paring to the bone. High-paid oil executives and their families were fleeing Louisiana at the speed of light and tourists were staying away in droves. Instead of increased revenue at his newly updated St. Charles, occupancy had fallen to thirty percent and less.

Philip dropped his head into his hands. The loan had come due twice before. Both times the lender had agreed to roll over the loan. This time they had refused. They wanted their money. He didn't have it.

“Philip?”

He lifted his head. Hope stood in the doorway to the study. She was wearing a silky wrap robe in a deep purple, her matching slippers peeking out from beneath the gown's hem. She'd freed her hair from her customary chignon and brushed it to a high shine; it floated about her shoulders like a black halo.

The sheer fabric of her garment combined with the bright light of the hallway behind her illuminated the sinuous outline of her body. He stared at her, his mouth dry, his body stirring.

With a muttered oath, he tore his gaze away.

“You've been holed up here for hours.”

“Have I?”

“You know you have.” She entered the room, crossing to its center. “What's wrong?”

He looked at her, then away. “We're in trouble,” he said emotionlessly. “Financial trouble.”

She paled. “What do mean, we're in financial trouble? How can that be?”

“The loan on the hotel's renovation is due. The lender won't extend. We don't have the money.”

She brought a hand to her throat. He saw that it trembled. “How much?” she asked.

“Five hundred thousand.”

“But that's not so much. Surely we have that. Somewhere, we must have…that.”

Philip stood and crossed to the window. He gazed out at the darkness a moment, then swung to face her once more. “We don't.”

“We don't?” she repeated, as if she couldn't quite comprehend—or believe—what he was saying. She took another step toward him. “But surely there's something we can liquidate. Bonds or notes or whatever those things are called. Surely one of the bank accoun—”

“There's our home,” he said, cutting her off. “Your jewelry. The art. Various pieces of property around the city.” He tipped his face toward the ceiling, thinking of the bad deals he had made over the last several years. “I invested heavily in real estate. In commercial property, mostly. Commercial space was leasing for as much as eighteen dollars a square foot. Eighteen dollars
a square foot,
Hope! Even so, the buildings were at ninety percent, or more, occupancy.

“Of course, I paid top dollar for the properties, I leveraged us to the hilt. Now, most of those buildings have a lower occupancy than the hotel.”

He dared a glance at his wife. She looked shaken, devastated. He realized he had never seen her look that way before.

“Sell them, Philip,” she said softly. “Sell them, now.”

“Do you really think I'm so stupid that I wouldn't have thought of that?”

“In the light of this conversation, do you really want to ask me that?”

He gazed at her a moment, heart thundering. “They're not worth what I paid for them.” He turned back to the window. One moment became many. “A venture capitalist has offered to pay the renovation debt in exchange for half ownership of the hotel.”

“Oh, my God.” Hope grasped the back of a chair. “The things people will say about us. We'll be the laughingstocks of the entire city—”

“I told him, no.”

“You told him…no?” She shook her head, as if confused. “Then what are we to do about the loan?”

He faced her fully once more. “The hotel is everything, Hope. We can't lose it. Not any part of it. It would be the ultimate shame.” He came around the desk and crossed to her. Stopping before her, he looked her straight in the eye. “There are your jewels. The art collection and the Rolls. Our home. The summer house. Those things we own outright.”

She began to shake. “What are you saying?”

“We have to liquidate what we can.”

“Dear, God.” She drew in a sharp breath. “How will I face our friends? What will I tell them?”

“I don't give a damn what you tell our
friends!
”

“Don't you yell at me, Philip. I was not the one who got us into this mess.”

“Of course, you didn't,” he snapped. “Not Mrs. Holier-than-thou St. Germaine.”

“You said you'd take care of me, Philip. How can you stand here and talk of selling our home and my jewelry? Where will we live? And what of Glory? What of her future?”

Her words cut him to the quick. He swore and swung away from her. He strode to the desk and stared down at it for long moments before turning back to her. “I have taken care of you. I've taken care of Glory. And I will continue to do so.”

“How?” She lifted her chin. “By selling our home?”

“We wouldn't sell it outright, simply mortgage it. We're not going to be thrown out in the streets.”

“Until you can't make the payments on that loan, anyway. And how long will that be, Philip?” She closed the distance between them, and fisted her fingers on his chest. “Two weeks? Two years? Ten?”

He stiffened. “That's enough, Hope.”

“How could you have let this happen?” she demanded, curling her fingers into his cashmere sweater so tightly her knuckles went white. “You stupid, ineffectual man. How could you have been so…careless? So shortsighted?”

Philip felt her words like a blow. He caught her hands and covered them with his own. He narrowed his eyes. “Have you forgotten your wedding vows, my darling?” He tightened his fingers over hers. “Wasn't there something in them about love and honor, in good times and in bad? Better run right off to confession. Your eternal soul's going to go up in flames any moment.”

“Go ahead,” she said softly, “blaspheme. I'll pray for you, anyway, Philip.”

He made a sound of disgust. “We will mortgage the house and sell the summer place. The Rolls has to go, and if necessary, we'll take a look at the art collection and your jewelry. We don't have another choice.”

He released her hands and turned away from her.

“What about the venture capitalist? Couldn't we—”

“No, Hope.” He dragged a hand through his hair, feeling older than his fifty-one years. Much older. Burned-out. Used-up. “Good night.”