Woman in Black (60 page)

If she'd been fishing to see what his reaction would be, she wasn't disappointed. “You're wrong about that as well, Lila
jan
,” he said, wearing a serious expression. “As you can see, I'm still very much present.”

“Does that mean …?” Her heart was beating so hard, it felt as if it were going to knock a hole through her chest.

In response, he opened his arms. As she stepped into them, she caught the acrid smell of soot mixed with sweat, and thought she had never smelled anything sweeter. When he kissed her, there was no room for conscious thought or makeshift barriers. There was only the softness of his mouth and the gritty feel of his skin against hers. If their destinies were written, she thought, she didn't want to know how the story ended. All that mattered was that in this moment, she was happy. Happier than she could remember being in a long, long time. Maybe that was all she'd ever have. A series of moments like this one, strung together like a strand of pearls, one made all the more precious by the knowledge that it could break and scatter should she ever grow careless, as she had with Gordon in allowing herself to lose sight of her priorities. Maybe that was all anyone had a right to expect.

“I could get used to this,” she murmured.

“Good, because I have every intention of spoiling you.” He drew back to grin at her, his teeth startlingly white against his soot-dusted skin. “Why don't I start by taking you to dinner? Have you eaten yet?”

“No, but there's a frozen lasagna turning to mush in my car,” she said.

He tipped her a wink. “I think we can do better than that.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“I promised my cousin I would come see him before I decided whether or not to accept his job offer. I was planning to drive up tonight. If you would care to join me, we could stop for a bite to eat along the way, then have a proper dinner tomorrow night at Ahmed's restaurant. It's traditional Afghani food, not fancy—prepared the way our mothers used to make it. But if you haven't tried it, I think you'll like it. Have you ever had
pilau?
I promise you, it's a most excellent dish.”

“You're talking food, and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the idea of us driving all the way to Rhode Island,” she said, smiling and shaking her head. “Are you seriously asking me to come with you?”

“Do you have other plans?” He eyed her questioningly.

“No, but …”

“In that case, I see no reason for you not to accompany me. You don't have to be back at work until Monday, which leaves us the whole weekend.” He put a finger under her chin, tipping her head up to kiss her lightly on the lips. “I think it's the least you can do, since I'll be turning down my cousin's offer.”

She felt her spirits soar briefly before coming back down to earth as her thoughts turned to Neal. Tonight was to have been their last night together. He was leaving in the morning. She'd tentatively planned on driving him into the city tomorrow and maybe taking him and his new roommate to lunch. But now she had a decision to make. Should she continue to play the devoted mother, even if it meant denying herself … or follow her heart and see where it led?

Any hesitation she felt vanished when she looked into Karim's warm brown eyes and saw the promise there. The promise of a life that would include, if not solely depend on, a man who loved and respected her. A man who would not necessarily make her complete—she'd already gotten a good head start on that herself—but would give her life a dimension it lacked.

With a full heart, she said, “When do we leave?”

21

“This may come as a shock to some of you …” Abigail, standing at the head of the conference table, paused to take a breath before continuing, “but I'm stepping down as CEO, effective immediately.”

The initial moment of silence that greeted her announcement seemed louder than the collective gasps and exclamations that came from the assembled department heads in its wake. Smiling, she held up a hand to silence them. “I didn't say I was resigning! I'm well aware that this is about brand, and since we all know I
am
the brand—” She wasn't boasting, merely stating a fact—“there's no question about my maintaining an active role.” She went on to explain that she'd still be involved in all creative decisions and that she'd be keeping up with her book and media appearances. “I'll do my best to make this as smooth a transition as possible. Now, I'm sure you have questions, so fire away.” She waved a hand to open the floor.

Charlotte Rutledge, head of advertising, cut right to the chase. “Who's going to be the new CEO?” Slim-hipped and athletic, Charlotte ran marathons and was just as competitive in other ways. Clearly she was hoping a successor hadn't yet been appointed and there was still a chance that the job could be hers.

Abigail gestured toward her executive director, seated on her right. “Ellen will be taking my place at the helm. And, as you all know from when she was acting head during my leave of absence last year, she's more than up to it.” Ellen had run things so well, in fact, that Abigail had been left wondering how she could ever have thought
she
was indispensable.

“How will this affect the bottom line?” asked Doug Mignorelli, who ran the book division. He always made Abigail think of a choirboy, with his apple cheeks and the swoosh of baby-fine brown hair he was forever raking off his forehead, as he was now, never mind he was closer to her age.

“I see no reason why it should have any effect, negative or positive.” It was one of the advantages of the company being privately held, she went on to point out, grateful now that she'd made the decision not to go public. “As far as merchandising goes, the products will still have my name and face on them, so as far as the consumer knows or cares, it's business as usual.”

“We're still recovering from the cutbacks in personnel,” grumbled Fred Haines, head of human resources, his dour expression a match for the conservative gray suit he wore.

“Cutbacks that
had
to be made in order to keep us afloat,” interjected her trusty CFO, Hank Weintraub, with his usual dry, no-nonsense delivery. “But if you take a look at our net gains for this last quarter, I think you'll find that the overall picture isn't so gloomy.” He directed everyone's attention to the latest quarterly report, a copy of which sat on the table in front of each person's place in a clear plastic binder. As they began flipping through it, Hank provided the overview. The fire and subsequent rebuilding of the factory in Las Cruces had caused crucial delays, he said; delays that had resulted in a substantial loss of revenue, yes, but with Tag's successful launch of the Abigail Armstrong bed-and-bath-linen line in January—a launch timed to coincide with Tag's annual chainwide white sale—profits had nudged them back into the black. He expected a full recovery by this time next year.

After more questions and answers, mostly having to do with matters of protocol and job security, Abigail rose once more to conclude the meeting. “This wasn't an easy decision for me, as I'm sure you might imagine,” she said in closing. “I don't have to remind you that a good deal of blood, sweat, and tears went into making this company what it is. Not all of it mine,” she added with a self-effacing smile, to the accompaniment of knowing chuckles. “As a result, I've had to make certain sacrifices in other areas. Now I think it's high time that I answered the question, which I'm sure more than a few of you have wondered about yourselves, as to whether or not I have a life outside of work.” More knowing chuckles. “For my sake, I sincerely hope I do.”

It was a rare moment of candor for their boss, and the laughter that ensued carried a ripple of unease, as if those around her had just learned that there was some flaw in the infrastructure of the building itself. Even those of her employees to whom she was closest (with the possible exception of Hank Weintraub) had never before heard Abigail express doubts or show any kind of regret about the choices she'd made thus far. But if this new move was unprecedented, it wasn't entirely out of the blue. Most had noticed subtle changes in Abigail over the preceding months. She was more patient and less apt to become irritable. She was, in a word,
nicer
. If “nice” was a word that could be used to describe their CEO (now
former
CEO), who at times had played the evil twin to her cozy public persona.

“That went well, don't you think?” remarked Ellen after the meeting had adjourned and they were heading back to their respective offices. Abigail noted that she'd dressed down for the occasion, in a plain, almost drab black pantsuit and no jewelry except the small gold hoops in her ears. Knowing Ellen, she'd probably done so deliberately, so as not to upstage Abigail in her final hour at the helm or cause dissension among the ranks by calling too much attention to herself. Ellen's diminutive stature and the spray of freckles on her snub nose might have fooled some into not taking her seriously, but Abigail knew she was one smart cookie. She didn't doubt she'd chosen well and that the new CEO of Abigail Armstrong Incorporated would be a fitting successor.

“If you mean no one stood up and cheered, then yes, I suppose it went well,” she replied with a small, ironic laugh. Ellen would never know how much she'd dreaded making that announcement. But now that it was over, Abigail felt a curious sense of relief. She wondered if she'd have felt the same way after having jumped off a cliff, knowing it was too late to change her mind.

Except this just might end up being her salvation. It had occurred to her not too long ago that after decades in the fast lane going ninety miles an hour, the horizon was no longer limitless. She was still young, but ten years from now she'd be fifty-two, officially middle-aged. And, seeing as how the last decade of her life had gone by in the blink of an eye, it no longer seemed like such a distant prospect. After that, how many more years of health and relative youth would she have left? She'd already missed the boat, to a large extent, where her daughter was concerned: The time for playing soccer mom was past; once Phoebe started at Vanderbilt in the fall, Abigail would see her only on school holidays. But what was still possible, still within reach, she'd decided, was a life for herself—a life outside work. If she even remembered what that was.

You'll figure it out
, she told herself. Still, after decades of scaling the proverbial ladder, it felt strange and scary to be descending it, if only by a few rungs. “The truth is, it's been so long since I've had any free time to speak of, I'm not sure I'll know what to do with myself,” she confessed.

“You won't sit idle, that much I know.” Ellen shook her head, smiling. Chief among Ellen's responsibilities in the months to come would be making sure her former boss didn't worm her way back into the CEO's chair, in all but name. For Abigail didn't doubt that there would be times when she'd feel that old tug: the urge to be back in the roiling thick of it all. “You should take a trip,” Ellen suggested. “When was the last time you went anywhere except on business?”

“I have the Mexico trip coming up,” Abigail reminded her.

“Right. How's that going?”

Abigail brightened. “Believe it or not—and this has to be some kind of miracle, given all the hoops we had to jump through—it looks as if we're actually going to open on schedule.”

She was talking about the free clinic in Las Cruces, funded in part by the sale of Rose Hill. (Kent had been generous enough to kick in a large portion of his share. How could he not? A cause as worthy as this was right up his alley.) Maybe the reason there had been fewer headaches in getting it off the ground than with the factory, she thought, was because it had been a true labor of love. More than that, some days it had been the only thing that had kept her from sinking into despair, during that period when she'd had the one-two punch of her divorce and the ordeal with Phoebe. Abigail felt a glow of satisfaction whenever she thought about what the clinic would mean to the people of Las Cruces. It wouldn't bring Concepción's daughter back, but it would hopefully save other lives down the line. It seemed fitting that it be named the Milagros Sánchez Clínica de Medicina.

Alone in her office, she sat idly gazing out the window instead of tackling the paperwork on her desk. She wasn't thinking about all the things she was going to do in the months to come that she'd never had time for in the past. She was thinking of the postcards tucked away in a desk drawer at home, from various exotic locales, the most recent from Iceland (a photo of a hotel lobby in Reykjavik, so sleekly modern it might have been situated in New York or LA), where Vaughn was currently on R & R with his crew after a month at sea filming a documentary on the remote islands of the North Atlantic.

He'd written, with his usual haiku-style brevity,
Don't know that I'll ever warm up again, but the sun is shining and I'm feeling good. The only thing missing is you. Love, V.

All his messages were like that—brief and to the point, always ending on a breezily affectionate note. When he had access to a computer, he would e-mail her. Each time an entry from Vaughn popped up in her inbox, it was the highlight of her day. And each time, it brought a sharp pang of loss. She wondered now if she was only torturing herself by allowing even this minimal contact. It was like stitches being continually ripped from a wound, keeping it from healing.

Now she thought,
I miss you, too. I wish
…

But what did it matter what she wished for? She wasn't going to get it. Not with Vaughn. He was never going to settle down; that would be like trying to turn a cheetah into a house pet. Even if he could change, she wouldn't want him any different—he wouldn't be the man she loved.

She had to face facts. This was the most she'd ever have with him—e-mails and postcards, the occasional get-together when he was in town: visits she always anticipated with such pulse-fluttering eagerness that saying good-bye was almost a physical ache when the time came. Usually they met for drinks or dinner, and the previous season they'd gone to a few of the ballgames she'd gotten him tickets for. But though they'd slept together on more than one occasion, she'd never spent the night with him at his hotel room. Any extended contact, she knew, would be the death of her. Weren't her memories alone difficult enough to cope with? She'd replayed them so often, she was no longer sure what was real and what was embellished.