Chapter 16
“This visit is long overdue. I’m glad you were free.” Nadia Schuller sent a smile across the table to her luncheon guest.
As the setting for this intimate get-together, Nadia had chosen a small, cozy restaurant on Park Avenue. Its menu was unaffected; the decor was country French. Nadia thought the lace panels in the windows were a bit precious for Manhattan, but they contributed to the restaurant’s friendly ambience.
And that was the note she was trying to strike with this lunch—friendliness.
Which was somewhat of a challenge when you were screwing your guest’s husband.
“Thank you for the invitation.” Maris offered a strained little smile and opened her menu, a not so subtle hint that she was ready to get lunch under way and over with as quickly as etiquette permitted.
A waiter in a long white apron approached their table. “What would you like to drink, Maris?” Nadia asked.
“Iced tea, please.”
“I’m having white wine. Would you rather have that?” She made it sound as though she were granting Maris permission to have an alcoholic beverage if she preferred.
Addressing the waiter this time, Maris repeated, “Iced tea, please. Lots of ice and a fresh wedge of lemon.” Turning back to Nadia, she said, “I formed the habit when I was in the South.”
“They drink it year-’round down there, don’t they? That and moonshine.” Nadia ordered her wine and the waiter withdrew. “I heard all about your trip to Dixie.”
“Oh?”
“From your secretary. When I called to invite you to lunch.”
“I thought perhaps Noah had told you.”
“No, I haven’t seen Noah in, hmm… actually, I think it was the night I saw the two of you at the awards banquet.”
They made small talk until the waiter returned with their drink order, then listened to his recitation of the chef’s specials. Nadia requested a few minutes for them to think over their selections. This delay in the proceedings seemed to perturb Maris, but Nadia wasn’t going to be brushed off like a piece of lint.
She didn’t like Maris in the least, and she was absolutely certain that her dislike was reciprocated. Both were successful businesswomen, but their approach to their careers, to men, to life in general, couldn’t be more dissimilar.
Maris Matherly-Reed had enjoyed all the advantages that Nadia had been denied. Maris had been born into a wealthy and well-respected family and had cut her perfectly straight teeth on a silver spoon.
She had attended exclusive private schools and was a frequent guest at the tony parties held in the tony estates in the Hamptons. Her photograph often appeared in the society columns. She had traveled extensively.
Maris had culture out the ass—an ass that hadn’t required painful, expensive liposuction to get it slim and taut. Shapely as it was, however, you couldn’t melt an ice cube on it.
Nadia, née Nadine, had been born poor. Her family’s poverty was forgivable. It was their ignorance and uncouthness she had found intolerable. As early as preadolescence, she determined not to remain in Brooklyn and marry some boorish loser of a husband with whom she would fight over how they were going to house and feed their ever-increasing brood.
She was destined for far better things.
She lost her virginity at thirteen to her first employer, the manager of a novelty store where she clerked in the afternoons after school. He caught her stealing nail polish and lipstick from the store’s stock and had given her a choice between his sweaty coupling or arrest and juvenile court.
Besides the discomfort of being screwed on top of shipping crates in a dank stockroom by someone with clumsy, damp hands and garlic breath, it hadn’t been that bad a trade-off.
That was only the first of many times Nadia bartered sex to get something she wanted or to avoid something she didn’t. She perceived high school as a sentence she must serve, but amused herself by stealing her classmates’ boyfriends.
She didn’t give a fig about the broken hearts she caused. It didn’t worry her that she didn’t have a single girlfriend. As long as there were boys lusting after her, vying for her attention, giving her presents, and taking her places in exchange for doing what she would have enjoyed doing anyway, why should she care?
When her grades fell short of meeting graduation requirements, her rudimentary math teacher agreed to favorably adjust her score in exchange for a blow job. Her world history teacher, a pathetically homely woman, had been tearfully grateful when Nadia professed a secret affection for her. In the span of one rainy evening in the teacher’s apartment that smelled of cat-litter boxes, Nadia’s grade escalated from a D to a B+.
Once she had her diploma, she eschewed higher education. She had no patience for scholastics. Instead, she plowed straight into the workforce, moving from job to job at six-month intervals, until she was hired as a copy editor for a local neighborhood weekly newspaper.
This was the first job that had appealed to her and that she felt was worthy of her. Within weeks of being hired, she resolved that this was the field in which she would re-create herself—beginning with changing her name—and become famous.
Eventually she talked the managing editor into letting her write an occasional article. The negotiation took place in the backseat of his car in the shadow of the row house where he lived with his wife and four children. Nadia had straddled his lap and, working him into a state of near delirium, got his gasping promise to give her idea a trial run.
The Nadia Schuller pieces were gossipy, chatty, anecdotal stories about the lives and loves of people who lived in the neighborhood. It soon became the most popular feature of the newspaper. Nadia was on her way.
Now, twelve years and countless lovers later, she sat across from Maris Matherly-Reed, behaving in a civilized manner but harboring an enormous amount of antipathy for a woman who bested her without even trying. Were Maris to hate her more, Nadia would hate Maris less. What she couldn’t tolerate was Maris’s seeming indifference toward her. As though she merited no notice at all.
For instance, when they met at the entrance to the restaurant, Nadia had remarked on the light tan Maris had acquired while she was in Georgia and rather cattily reminded her how damaging sun exposure was to the complexion.
Maris’s cool comeback had been, “Next time I go, I’ll be sure to take a hat.”
They placed their entrée orders with the waiter. As Nadia passed Maris a basket of bread, she remarked, “Tragic news about Howard Bancroft.”
That elicited a reaction. Maris declined the bread basket with a small shake of her head and her eyes turned sad. “Very tragic. I didn’t learn of it until I returned late yesterday afternoon.”
“How many years had he been at the helm of your legal department?”
“Since before I was born. We were all shocked.”
“Has anyone speculated on why he killed himself?”
“Nadia, I—”
“Oh, this isn’t for ‘Book Chat.’ The facts were in the newspaper account, and it painted a grisly scene. I got the official, sanitized press release from your PR department. It said little about his manner of death and was more about his contribution to Matherly Press.”
Howard Bancroft had been discovered in his car, parked half a block from his house on Long Island, with his brains blown to smithereens and a pistol in his hand.
“The people at Matherly Press are a closely knit group. No one picked up warning signals?”
“No,” Maris replied. “In fact, Noah had a meeting with him just that afternoon. He said Howard was being typically Howard.” She shook her head with remorse. “He was such a well-loved man, especially in the Jewish community. I can’t imagine what drove him to commit such a desperate act.”
Their main courses arrived. As they ate, they switched to a brighter topic—the books Matherly Press had scheduled for its fall lineup. “I predict that it’s going to be a very successful holiday season for us,” Maris told her. “Our best ever.”
“May I quote that in my column?”
“You may.”
Nadia opened her ever-present notebook and asked Maris to enumerate the titles and authors she was especially excited about. After jotting them down, she laid aside her pen and took a dainty bite of grilled sea bass. “Tell me about this project you’re working on in Georgia.”
“I can’t.”
Nadia stopped eating. “Why not?”
“It’s not open to discussion.”
“How positively fabulous. I love projects swathed in mystery.”
“This one is and must remain that way. And even my telling you that is off the record. Don’t use it.”
Nadia took a sip of wine, gazing at Maris over the rim of the glass. “You’ve just increased my curiosity about a thousand times over.”
“You’ll have to remain curious.”
“The author—”
“Chooses to remain anonymous. That’s also off the record. Even my staff doesn’t know the writer’s identity, so it will do you no good to try and trick or wheedle information from anyone at Matherly Press.”
“No one knows who he is?”
“I never said it was a he.”
“Right, right, you didn’t. Does that mean it’s a she?”
“It means I’m not telling.”
“Give me something,” Nadia cajoled. “Friend to friend.”
“You’re not my friend.”
Nadia was taken aback by Maris’s tone. Suddenly, with that terse statement, they were no longer talking about the unnamed writer in Georgia.
She kept her smile in place, saying, “That’s true, Maris. We haven’t been. We’ve been too busy with our respective careers to get to know one another and cultivate a friendship, but I’d like to change that. I’d like—”
“We will never be friends, Nadia.”
Again, Nadia was taken off guard by Maris’s candor. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you want to sleep with my husband.”
In spite of herself, Nadia was impressed. Miss Goody-Two-Shoes wasn’t so goody after all. She had more grit than the girls’ school polish suggested. Dropping all pretense, she met Maris’s level gaze. “You can’t wonder why. Noah is an attractive man.”
“An attractive married man.”
“A distinction that has never stopped me.”
“That’s what I hear.”
Rather than being insulted, Nadia laughed. “Good. I love being the topic of scandalous conversation.”
She took another sip of wine, then ran her index finger around the rim of the glass as she continued to study Maris with a new appreciation. She admired directness but never would have believed the former debutante capable of it to this degree.
But she wondered how cool Maris would remain if she confessed to her affair with Noah. What if she gave wifey a blow-by-blow—pun intended—account of what they had done in bed last night? She would bet that for all Maris’s composure, that would rattle her right down to her Manolo Blahniks.
While that would be fun, it wouldn’t be wise. There was too much at stake. Curbing the temptation to flaunt the affair, she asked, “Have you spoken to Noah about this?”
“Yes.”
“And what did he say?”
“That his interest in you is strictly business-related. That your column is so influential, he can’t risk offending you. That’s why he goes along with your obvious machinations.”
Nadia shrugged. “There you have it. I’ve established myself by using people as sources of information. In turn, they use me for free publicity and promotion. Noah understands the way it works.”
She had managed to dance around the topic without either lying or telling the whole truth, and she hoped Maris would leave it at that. The WorldView deal needed no further complications.
Taking advantage of Maris’s silence, she said, “I’m glad we cleared the air. Would you like a bite of sea bass?”
“No, thank you.”
“It’s delicious, but I’ve had my fill.”
Actually, she was still hungry, but she pushed her plate away. One area of thigh tissue absorbed fat like a goddamn sponge despite the procedure she had undergone. She fanatically counted every calorie. Exercise was the only religion she believed in or practiced, and she worshiped strenuously every day.
Noah teased her about her rigid fitness regimen, saying she even brought it to bed with her. In fact, she counted sex as an aerobic exercise. She knew precisely how many calories were burned with each act of coitus.
Noah knew her well. He could be the sole man on the planet to whom she might be faithful. She didn’t love him, any more than he loved her. Neither of them bought into the myth of romantic love. He had readily admitted that his marriage hadn’t been inspired by amorous passion, but rather his burning desire to become part of the Matherly dynasty via the only Matherly available to him.
He had developed a mentor-protégé relationship with Daniel, but even that wasn’t enough to satisfy his ambition. Becoming the old man’s son-in-law was the next best thing to a blood kinship. Marrying Maris would cement his future, so he had made it happen.
Nadia admired that kind of single-minded scheming and the guts it took to carry out a bold plan. To her, ruthlessness was an aphrodisiac like no other. She spotted it in Noah the first time she met him. Recognizing in him a self-serving ambition that was equal to her own, she had wanted him, and she hadn’t played coy.
Their first business lunch date had carried over into an afternoon spent in bed at the Pierre. To her delight, Noah approached sex with the same self-gratifying appetite and animalistic detachment as she. By the time he left her lying tangled up in the damp sheets, she was raw and sore and exhilarated.
They were also compatible out of bed. They understood one another. Their individual drives to achieve were harmonious but competitive enough to spark arguments and add zest. They were good for each other. They complemented each other. As a team, they would be unconquerable. That was why Nadia wanted to become Mrs. Noah Reed.
Well, that was one reason why.
The other was harder for her to acknowledge: There was just enough of Nadine remaining in her to want to be married before she died. She didn’t want to grow old alone. Somewhere between power lunches and sundown specials, a single woman became a spinster.
Through her twenties and thirties, she had scorned the very idea of matrimony. To anybody who would listen she claimed no interest whatsoever in monogamy and the marriage bed. What a fucking—literally—bore.
But the truth was that, for all the men who had shared her bed, who had sighed and cried and groaned and crowed between her thighs, not one, not a single one, had ever asked her to be his wife.
And, to be brutally honest, Noah hadn’t actually proposed, either. He wasn’t the hearts-and-flowers-and-bended-knee type. She had more diamond rings than she had fingers and toes. How their plans for matrimony had come about was that she had told him she wanted to marry him. And Nadia never took no for an answer.
Now her future husband’s present wife was finishing a cappuccino that she hadn’t wanted. Usually Nadia could sweet-talk or browbeat someone out of a tidbit of information that she could expand into an item for her column, but Maris had remained stubbornly mute about her secret project. She seemed disinclined to talk on any level about the nature of the book or about the writer.
Not that Nadia gave a flip about Maris’s silly secret project. The purpose of this lunch had been to keep Maris derailed, unaware, and blissfully ignorant of what Nadia and Noah were doing with WorldView behind her back.
But Maris had tipped her hand. Noah should be warned that she might not be as malleable and naive as she looked. Nadia hoped her suspicion of an affair had been quelled, because the last thing they needed in these important final weeks was a jealous wife breathing down their necks.
“Anything else, Maris?” she offered graciously. “Another cappuccino?”
“No, thank you. I should get back to the office. I’m playing catch-up after being away, as I knew I would be.”
“Then why’d you come?” The question was out before Nadia realized she was going to ask it. But having done so, she owned up to being curious. Why had Maris accepted her invitation?
“For a long time now, we’ve detested the sight of one another. But we always played polite,” Maris said. “I hate phoniness, especially in myself.” She looked inward for a second, then added, “Or maybe I’m just disgusted with lies and liars. In any case, I thought it was time to tell you to your face that I’m on to you.”
Nadia took it all in, then smiled wryly. “Fair enough.” As they made their way to the entrance, she said, “You’ll still feed me industry news items, won’t you?”
“News. Not gossip.”
“When you’re ready to reveal this mysterious author and book, will you give me the scoop?”
“The author is very publicity-shy. I doubt—”
“Nadia, what a nice surprise.”
Nadia turned at the greeting and found herself looking into the colorless countenance of Morris Blume, the last person on earth she would choose to bump into when Maris Matherly-Reed was standing beside her. She didn’t find the surprise nice at all.
“How are you, Morris?” She extended her hand to him but kept her tone aloof and uninviting. “I recommend the sea bass.”
“And I recommend the martinis,” he said, raising his frosted glass. “In fact, I coached the bartender here on how to make one just right.”
“Stirred or shaken?”
“Shaken.”
Maris had moved to the coat check to retrieve her raincoat, so Nadia felt free to engage in a mild flirtation. It wouldn’t be smart to be too aloof. Her dinner with him at the Rainbow Room had been enjoyable. If she gave him the brush-off now, he would wonder why.
“Gin or vodka?”
“Vodka. Straight up and extra dirty.”
One of her artfully waxed eyebrows arched. “I like the sound of that.”
“Here.” He lifted the pick from his glass and extended it toward her mouth.
Keeping her eyes on his, she touched the tip of her tongue to the olive, then closed her lips around it and sucked it into her mouth. “Hmm. My favorite thing.”
“Join me in one?”
“I’m afraid I can’t, Morris. Rain check?”
“I’ll call.”
She flashed him her most promising smile. It had been mastered after years of practice and was now practically habitual. She told him to enjoy his lunch and turned away to rejoin Maris.
To her consternation, the smile worked too well. Blume trailed her, making an introduction to Maris unavoidable. She executed it with as much casualness as she could affect.
As the two shook hands, Blume said, “I’ve long been an admirer of your publishing house.”
“And a suitor,” Maris remarked.
He grinned disarmingly. “So you’ve read the numerous letters I’ve written to your esteemed father?”
“Along with his replies.”
“Do you agree with him?”
“Wholeheartedly. While we’re flattered that an entity like WorldView is interested in merging with us, we like ourselves the way we are.”
“So your husband told me during our last meeting.”