The Daughter-in-Law (26 page)

“I don’t think so,” Nicole shouted back.

“Why not? It’s going to be wild!”

“That’s why not,” Nicole answered.

Tisdale was on her as soon as she entered the tent. He was going back out to the motor yacht for the fireworks. “Best place to see them. They’re really exciting when they boom right over your head.”

“I’m no good on boats,” she lied. “I’d probably get seasick.”

He moved his place card so that he would be next to her for dinner, and took her totally into his care. The anatomy of a lobster was suddenly his field of expertise. He explained the philosophy of getting all the meat out of the shell, and then took her plate so that he could do the shell-cracking for her.

“You know, that big yacht hardly rocks at all. In calm seas like tonight, there’s no way you could get seasick.”

She said that just the sight of a boat could bring on her symptoms.

“And the ride out in the tender,” he went on, not allowing himself to be interrupted, “is only a few minutes. You won’t have any problems at all.”

Again, Jack was eavesdropping on the conversation, and grinding his cigar as he controlled his anger. Tisdale was hitting on his
daughter-in-law as if she were just another young social climber. But Nicole was his to watch over, a desperate widow who had wandered into his castle and traded her freedom for his protection. No true friend would treat her as if she were in play. He waited until Alexandra was distracted with a housekeeping matter, and then eased around the table to sit on Nicole’s other side.

“Jack,” said Tisdale, unaware that his intentions could possibly bother his partner in greed, “I was just telling Nicole that the only place to see the fireworks is out on the water. Maybe you can convince her that she ought to join me out on one of the yachts—”

“No,” Jack growled. “I asked her first. We’re going to watch them from the porch of the house.”

Tisdale looked hurt. Why would his friend spoil his chances to claim the prize of the party? It wasn’t as if he were trying for Jack’s wife, or his daughter.

“Isn’t that right?” Jack asked Nicole.

She nodded toward Tisdale. “He did ask me,” she confirmed, “and I really do get seasick on boats.”

It suddenly struck Joe Tisdale that Jack wasn’t just concerned with protecting the young woman’s honor, or saving the widow from the evil advances of the real-estate baron. His friend was harboring his own secret lust. Jack was enamored with his daughter-in-law, a passion that he hid with gestures of fatherly concern. He might not be able to have her for himself, but he certainly wasn’t going to share her with his friends. Why you dirty old man, he thought with amusement, and he became all the more determined to beat Jack to Nicole’s affections.

FORTY-THREE

T
HE LOBSTER
carcasses were carted off by the waiters and replaced with servings of Italian ice, scooped from a mold of the Statue of Liberty. Alexandra returned from her duties and signaled to Nicole that this might be a good time for them to sit together. Nicole left the two men staring at one another, both embarrassed that their feelings had proven so transparent.

“How are you enjoying Joe Tisdale’s attention?” Alexandra asked as Nicole slid in beside her.

“He wants to take me out to sea so that we can enjoy the fireworks.”

“Not very original of him.”

Nicole laughed. “I accepted that invitation once, but I was only fourteen at the time.”

“It’s an annual ploy. A couple of years ago he got drunk and invited two women out to a yacht. His problem was that they were mother and daughter. It was the only time that he actually did see the fireworks.”

They wasted a few minutes praising the party and commenting on the conduct of the guests. All in all, they judged, Pam had created a fantastic affair that promised to get even better as the weekend progressed. But then Alexandra got to the topic that both of them were waiting to address.

“We’ll never really be friends, will we?” Alexandra asked.

“Too much blood already spilled,” Nicole offered as the reason.

“Too much alike,” Alexandra said as her counter offer. “We both have strong ideas about what we want, and we both open all the throttles to get there. There’s no house big enough to keep us from crashing into one another.”

Nicole sighed. “Mrs. Donner, I never wanted to live in the same house with you. I wanted to live with Jonathan. The closest we
would have gotten was one Sunday dinner a month, and maybe a few summer weekends here in Newport.”

“If only that was all that you wanted.”

Nicole thought about jumping up and leaving, but sooner or later she would have to face down her mother-in-law. Maybe it would be easier here, at a crowded party, where she wouldn’t want to make a scene in front of her friends.

“What
do
you want?” Alexandra added.

“Just what’s rightfully mine.”

“And exactly how much is that? More, I take it, than my husband has offered?”

Nicole thought about her answer. “Much more!” she decided.

“For what? A few weeks of your time? You must be very good at what you do.”

“Your son thought I was priceless. So you see, it’s not just more. It’s different. The more money you put on the table the more insulting it becomes. Is it possible for you to understand that?”

“Of course I understand. You want respectability. But I don’t think that even Jack has enough money to buy it for you. That’s something you sold a long time ago, and from what I’m learning, at a ridiculously low price.”

Nicole shook her head in a gesture of despair. “Is this why you asked me here? To drive us even further apart?”

“No. As a matter of fact I didn’t know what I was going to say to you when we met. That’s why I warned Jack that it would be better if we didn’t meet. But now I think I do know. I think I ought to warn you that I have investigators working in every place that you’ve ever been, turning over every rock that you’ve ever lived under. And I’m getting closer. It won’t be long before I’ll know just who you are and exactly what it is that you’re after. So, if you hope to get anything, I wouldn’t waste another minute. I’d take the money and run.”

“God but you must truly hate me,” Nicole answered.

“Worse than that,” Alexandra finished. “I truly know you.”

Jack had wandered off pretending to check on the timing of the fireworks. Actually, he had slipped down to the dock and told the launch officer that under no circumstances was his daughter-in-law to be taken out to any of the yachts. He brought the launch officer
with him to the edge of the tent so that he could point out Nicole, but he arrived just in time to see her storming away from the table.

“What in hell did you say to her?” he demanded of his wife when he reached the table.

“Say to whom?”

He leaned over her. “To Nicole. She fired out of here like she was shot from a cannon.”

“Just how much I was enjoying getting to know her. She’s quite unbelievable.”

There was a sudden clipped explosion, and the sky instantly turned a deep red. The barge had just fired its warning shot.

Jack walked toward the house, the direction where Nicole had seemed to be heading. He caught a glimpse of her on the porch steps and then saw her silhouetted against the light from the front entrance. She opened the door and went inside. He went after her moving past the guests who were rushing to the water’s edge to watch the fireworks.

He glanced about the ground floor that seemed vacant. Even the servants had gone out on the porch to watch the display. Then he started up the steps, hesitantly, until he saw the light under Pam’s door. He continued up to the hallway, listened for a moment outside the door, and then tapped gently. When there was no answer he knocked again, this time a bit louder. He turned the handle and eased the door open. Nicole was standing at the window, looking out at the gaily lighted party but holding a handkerchief to her face to stifle her sobs. She wheeled around when Jack stepped into the room. There was a smear of makeup wiped across her eyes.

“Oh God,” he said, his despair coming through clearly. He rushed to her and caught her as she fell into his arms. “Jesus, what’s the matter? What’s wrong?” He already knew the answer.

“Alexandra ...” she managed to get out through the aftereffects of crying. Before she could say anything more she was crying again.

“What did she say? What did she tell you?”

Nicole was shaking her head as if it was too terrible to repeat. Jack clutched her even tighter. He could feel her body blend into his embrace.

“She’s crazy,” he said. “Her grief has pushed her over the edge.” It wasn’t an accusation, but rather an explanation. Then Jack felt his own eyes welling with tears.

“She said awful things,” Nicole managed. “That I was just a whore . . . asking too much . . . for ...”

“Oh God,” he groaned. He raised her face and kissed her cheek. He saw her eyes close and felt her face press harder against his. He closed his own eyes and brought his lips to hers. He felt her pull closer and return his kiss with soft, yielding lips. She seemed hopelessly vulnerable, totally dependent on him for her very next breath.

The windows flashed with light from a salvo of starbursts exploding over the water. There was a loud gasp from the guests gathered along the shore. Jack and Nicole held their embrace, winding it ever tighter. A rocket whistled outside and then flashed into white light. There was applause from the onlookers and shouts of excitement.

Jack loosened his grip, and backed away a half step. Nicole seemed suddenly frightened at being left alone. He backed up to the door, never taking his eyes off her. She drifted over and then slowly sunk to the edge of the bed. She was still focused completely on him. He reached for the door handle and pressed the lock. He waited, perfectly still, watching Nicole as if he were staring down a deadly jungle cat.

She slid along the edge of the bed toward the night table, reached out and turned off the bedside lamp. For an instant the room was total darkness. Then it flickered brightly as another round of shells exploded in the sky. He could see her plainly as she fell across the bedspread.

God, but she was gorgeous. And he was the only one who could save her. He went to the bed, sat beside her, and with his fingertip traced the line of her face. In the flicker of the fireworks he could see fresh tears. In the moments of darkness he was aware of her breathing. His hands moved slowly, almost as if he were lifting the wires from a terrorist’s bomb. They touched her breast. The sky crackled and the room filled with deep blue light. He settled down next to her into the darkness.

They made love with great need, discarding clothes along the way. And then they lay in each other’s arms, oblivious to the artillery raging just over their roof. It was the quiet at the end of the fireworks display that suddenly alerted them. Jack got up quickly, fumbled for
his clothes in the dark, and then bumped his way into the bathroom. Nicole tucked herself under the sheets. She heard water running, splashing, and flushing before Jack stepped out, dressed as before in slacks and shirt, his yachting blazer over his arm.

“Nicole, I. . . I think ...” In his entire competitive career, Jack had never been at such a total loss for words. His body was leaden and his mind was flooding with guilt. He had just denounced his wife as a madwoman, and taken his son’s wife in his daughter’s bed.

“I have to go and be with my . . . guests.” He couldn’t bring himself to say “wife.”

Nicole held out a hand for him to take but he made no move toward it. Instead, he edged around the foot of the bed toward the door. “We’ll have to . . . talk,” was all he was able to get out.

“Jack, thank you. I would have died if you didn’t love me. I was so desperate. So alone.”

He opened the door a crack so he could peek out into the hall. He listened to be sure there was no one on the stairs. Then he stepped out, glanced around furtively, and walked quickly to the back steps that led down to the kitchen. He didn’t want anyone to see him coming down from the second floor.

Nicole showered, put on her pajamas and got back into the bed. She lay awake, realizing the import of what had just happened. Jack Donner, the iron-handed master of the financial world, had left himself completely vulnerable.

FORTY-FOUR

J
ACK CAME
out of the house, trying to hide the guilt that seemed more obvious to him than any of the starbursts or skyrockets. As he passed his guests, their smiles seemed more like knowing leers. “Great show!” someone said, patting his back. Jack wheeled angrily until he suddenly understood that he was being complimented for the fireworks.

“Where’d she go?” It was Joe Tisdale’s voice. “I’ve been looking all over for her.”

“I don’t know,” Jack said, sure that his lie was transparent. “Might have gone with Pam and her friends.”

Tisdale winced. “She wouldn’t be wasting that magnificent ass on some college boy, would she?”

Jack’s fist shot out from his side and hit Tisdale squarely on the jaw. The builder blinked in disbelief and dropped to his knees, then toppled sideways at the feet of the onlookers who gathered instantly. At the moment Tisdale began to fall, Jack had realized, to his horror, what he had just done. He fell to the ground and lifted his friend’s head off the grass. “Joe, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it . . .” Tisdale’s eyes opened but they looked in different directions.

“What happened?” a new arrival at the circle asked.

“Jack just coldcocked Joe Tisdale,” a voice answered.

A woman gasped. “Is he all right?”

A man’s voice wondered, “What started it?”

“I don’t know. Tisdale came up to Donner. They talked for a second and then POW!”

The real-estate developer was recovered now, more dazed from the amount of alcohol in his system than from the minor concussion. “Jesus, Jack. That’s a hell of a way to treat a friend,” he said. His fingers brushed across his mouth as he felt for missing teeth.

“Joe, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I lost my head.”

Jack helped Tisdale to his feet and put a steadying arm around him. “Let me get you a drink,” he offered.