Notorious (9 page)

Silence stretched on the other end of the line. “I’m sorry, Mallory.” James’s tone was gentle. “I was way out of line.” He paused. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but the day after you left there
was a big spread in
The New York Times
about your departure from New York and the film in Sedikhan. It … worried me.”

Her hand tightened on the receiver. “Why?”

“Gerda went by your apartment to check out your tenant and discovered—”

“That it was trashed?”

“You know about that?”

“It’s nothing to worry about. It was probably just some hoodlums.”

“Maybe. But the police haven’t arrested any of those mobsters Ben owed money to yet.” He went on quickly, “Anyway, Gerda and I didn’t like the idea of every nut in New York knowing where you could be found. You understand that we only want what’s best for you?”

Warmth surged through her. “Yes. And this
is
best for me. Nothing can happen to me here. Don’t worry, Sedikhan is actually very civilized.”

“And you’ll call me as soon as you reach Marasef?”

“The first day. Give my love to Gerda.”

“I will.” James was silent again. “Take care of yourself.”

“Good-bye, James.” Mallory hung up the receiver.

“You’re frowning.” Carey stood up. “I take it Delage wasn’t pleased?”

She shook her head. “He was really upset, and he’s usually so calm. I feel guilty. I should have called him earlier.”

“It’s water under the bridge now. You weren’t to blame for getting ill.” He grinned. “But Sabin will hold me to blame if I don’t get you in to dinner and get some vittles in you.”

She smiled. “Vittles?”

He took her elbow and propelled her toward the door. “Not a Harvard term. Something about you draws me back to my roots.”

“And where are they?”

“The mountains of West Virginia.”

“I’ve never been there.”

“You’ve missed white lightning and granny medicine?”

“To my supreme regret.”

“I guess I’ll just have to tell you about them.”

“Not now, Carey.” Sabin stood in the hall a
few yards away. His gaze shifted to Mallory. “Did you make your call?”

“Yes.”

His grasp was light but firm as he took her arm from Carey, and his face expressed only friendly politeness. “Good, now we can forget New York and concentrate on the pleasures at hand.”

“What pleasures?”

He smiled. “You persist in misinterpreting me. I was speaking of dinner, conversation, and Monopoly.”

“Monopoly?”

“After dinner. I’m good at it.”

“It’s a game of luck.”

“Then I’m lucky.” He slanted a grin at Carey. “Right?”

Carey nodded gloomily. “He always wins.”

“Not always.” He didn’t look at Mallory as he ushered her into the dining room. “But I make sure the percentages are on my side.”

The next afternoon and every afternoon thereafter Sabin came for Mallory and took her to his
room for a nap. She came to think of those periods of rest as a serene oasis in a scorching journey through a desert of sensuality. At all other times Sabin had no qualms about exerting his sexual charisma. And she was finding it increasingly difficult to resist him, but, strangely, he never tried to seduce her in this place where it would be the most easy to succumb. During those hours he was a simpler, less guarded man. By the time a week had passed, the afternoon hours she spent in bed with Sabin seemed as easy and comfortable as if they had been married for fifteen years.

“You’ve gained a few pounds.” Sabin leaned against the headboard and regarded her critically. “Maybe five.” He grinned. “Pretty soon you’ll be too fat to photograph well. What will you do then?”

“Lose it.” She settled on the bed beside him. “Thanks for calling my attention to it. A two day’s fast should take care of it.”

His smile vanished. “The hell you’ll lose it. I was joking. You were too thin before.”

“Not before the camera. Now hush and let me sleep.”

“You won’t fast.”

“We’ll see.”

“No.” She felt the mattress shift as he slid down to lay beside her. “You won’t fast. It’s got to be—No.”

“You brought it up.”

“I just wanted to see if I could ruffle your feathers. You’re so calm all the time. I didn’t think you’d take me seriously.”

“My appearance is part of my job. I have to take it seriously.” Her gaze narrowed on his face. “Why are you so upset? A two-day fast won’t harm me.”

“My father’s third wife was an anorexic. She died of heart failure brought on by dieting and pills.”

Mallory went still. “How terrible. Were you close?”

Sabin shrugged. “I liked her better than the others. She was nice to me, and she didn’t have to make the effort. My father never married his wives for their maternal qualities.”

“Why did he marry them?”

“Money and sex. Except my mother. He married her to get an heir. He always wanted a dynasty
and was disappointed by Margaret, his first wife. He divorced her after three years. My mother proved more fertile.” His lips twisted. “Unfortunately, she wasn’t as good in bed as the next candidate for his hand, so, after he paid her off for signing over custody of me, she faded away into the sunset.”

“Faded away?”

“It seems a suitable term. She married a college professor and apparently lived happily ever after in Ivy League heaven.”

“How many women did your father marry?”

“Five. Ben’s mother was the last to occupy my father’s bed.”

“Your father evidently liked variety.”

“He was a realist. He knew no relationship lasted forever. When the glow faded, he cut his losses and went on to someone else.”

Mallory felt a wrenching pang as she looked at Sabin. “And that’s the way you feel, too, isn’t it?”

He met her gaze. “It’s dangerous to imagine anyone’s irreplaceable. People change.”

“But that’s the challenge,” Mallory said. “Growing together, instead of apart. My mother and
father would have stayed together for the next fifty years if they hadn’t died in that car crash.”

“How do you know?” Sabin smiled crookedly. “Maybe if they’d lived, your father would have found some teenager who made him feel young again and your mother some kid who—”

“No! They loved each other.” Mallory’s eyes were bright with tears. “They would have loved each other forever and ever. I remember how my mother would look when my father walked into the room. It wouldn’t have changed no matter how old they grew. It wouldn’t have—”

“Shh.” Sabin’s fingers gently stroked the soft hair at her temple. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Maybe your parents were the exception to prove the rule.”

“And the rule is that no relationship lasts?” Mallory shook her head. “I can’t believe that.” She raised herself on one elbow and looked down at him. “But you do. What does last, Sabin?”

“Work. Purpose. Character.”

“What about friendship? Carey’s been your friend for over thirteen years. Are you going to walk away from him someday because you’ve changed and he’s stayed the same?”

Sabin frowned. “I don’t walk away from my friends.”

“Then you’ve just invalidated your argument.”

“Friendships are different. It’s relationships between men and women that are dangerous.” He shook his head. “You can’t keep a sloop moored in a rotting pier. Someday it will just pull free and drift away.”

“And is affection the rotting pier or the sloop? Either way the metaphor is
wrong.”

“I refuse to argue with you about this,” Sabin said quietly. “If I had had any idea it would disturb you, I wouldn’t have started the discussion. I should have known you’d argue with me. It’s a no-win subject like religion and politics.”

“Yes. It’s a no-win argument.” She closed her eyes so that he wouldn’t see just how upset she had become. It was clear Sabin had been damaged from a childhood dominated by a father who traded in wives as if they were cars, and held neither hope nor illusion. That knowledge shouldn’t have brought on a feeling of melancholy, a sense of something lost. In two weeks she would go to Marasef, and her time with Sabin
would be at an end. She would
not
feel sorry for that child, even though no one had taught him that anything beyond work had lasting value. He was occupying entirely too many of her thoughts these days as it was.

“No fasts.”

She opened her eyes. “What?” She had forgotten for the moment how the discussion had started, but it was like Sabin to cling tenaciously to what he wanted, undeterred by anything else in his path.

“I’ll see when I get to Marasef.”

A frown furrowed his brow. “I don’t want to hear—” He broke off and the frown faded. “That’s two weeks away. I’ll keep my mouth shut, and maybe you’ll forget it.”

“I don’t forget,” Mallory said. “Sometimes I wish I did. It would be easier.” She closed her eyes again and flowed toward him and into his arms with incredible ease. Outside the room Sabin was a danger, a threat, but here he was safety and strength. “Let’s go to sleep, Sabin.”

His arms tightened around her, and his lips brushed her forehead. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“That I can’t believe what you believe.”

The Sabin outside this room would have been too armored to say he was sorry, she thought. “There’s no reason to be sorry. We’ve disagreed on many things before,” she whispered as she settled her cheek more comfortably on his shoulder. “This is just another one.”

“But I think this is more important to you.”

His voice was beautiful. She usually loved to lie here with her eyes closed and listen to the deep rich timber, the precision with which he enunciated each word, but she didn’t want to hear him speak now. His words were causing a hollow ache within her, stronger than anything she had ever felt before. “I don’t want to talk about it. I want to go to sleep.”

“All right.”

The dusky intimacy of the room enclosed them with its shadowy silence, and they spoke no more.

But for the first time since he had begun bringing her here, neither of them slept.

“I like you in that red silky thing you’re wearing today.”

“It’s a halter top, and it’s not red, it’s maroon. I never wear red.”

“Why not? With your dark hair it would be striking.”

She settled closer to him. “It’s too showy.”

“And you’re not an exhibitionist.” Sabin’s voice was thoughtful. “Actually, you’re shy. Those tapes must have been hard for you to make.”

“Yes.”

“But you made them anyway.”

“You don’t allow fear to keep you from doing something you believe worthwhile.”

“They were beautiful.
You’re
beautiful.”

She was silent, unconsciously stiffening against him.

“You don’t like me to say that. Interesting.”

“You have that dissecting note in your voice again. I think it’s time for me to go to sleep.”

“Not yet. Why don’t you like me to tell you how beautiful I think you are?”

“Because I’m more, dammit.”

He levered himself up on one elbow, trying to see her expression in the dimness of the room. “Such vehemence.”

“Ever since I was a child whenever someone saw me they’d pat me on the cheek and say, ‘Oh, my, what a pretty girl.’ Never, what a bright girl or nice girl or talented girl. They only saw what was on the surface. That’s all anyone ever sees when they look at me.”

“I imagine in your career your looks have been an asset.”

“Yes and no.” She grimaced ruefully. “James says I have a face as memorable as the Mona Lisa. A face like that opens doors, but how many roles do you think are out there for a Mona Lisa? It’s a real world, and the audience wants to identify with real people on the screen. So I have to work harder to make everyone forget my looks and realize I’m approachable.”

He chuckled. “I never found myself put off by your face.”

“But have you ever thought about me as a person? I’m a good actress. I play the piano badly, and I usually end up by giving more than I can afford
to the Humane Society because those pictures they send in their letters hurt me so terribly. I’m fairly literate and intelligent, and I’m loyal to my friends. I’m
more
than what’s on the surface, and I hate not being—”

“I believe you.”

She stopped, looking up at him in surprise. “You do?”

He nodded. “Absolutely. Evidently when you look in the mirror you don’t see what I see.”

“What do you see?”

“Character, intelligence, humor, warmth, determination.”

“All of that?”

“Don’t you know that’s what makes you special? Why people turn and look at you on the street? It’s not that wonderful bone structure or your eyes or the way you move. It’s
you.”

She blinked. “That’s quite … eloquent.”

“I have an idea you need eloquence. I think some of those people who patted your cheek when you were a kid got through to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You try to believe you’re more than a pretty face, but you’re not really sure.”

“No?”

“No.” His finger gently traced the line of her left eyebrow. “But I’m sure. When you get old and gray and wrinkled as a prize bulldog, you’ll still be as interesting and worth knowing as you are right now.”