* * *
Daniel Matherly finished reading the last page of the manuscript. As he lined up the edges and stacked the pages, he said, “That’s all you’ve got so far?”
Maris nodded. “I haven’t received anything from him since I returned. I’ve called several times to give him a pep talk, but I’ve spoken only to Mike, his aide. According to him, P… the author isn’t writing much these days.”
“I wonder why.”
“He’s sulking.”
“His muse has flown.”
“Nothing that mystical. He’s being his stubborn and mule-headed self. Like any mule, he requires prodding.” She hesitated before adding, “So I’m going back.”
“Really? When?”
“I’m on my way to the airport now.”
“I see.”
“I only stopped by to check on you, tell you good-bye, and to hear your opinion of what you’ve read so far.”
She had postponed her departure for a week. After catching Noah in Nadia Schuller’s apartment, it was a foregone conclusion that she would return to Georgia and see Parker again.
Her husband’s affair had given her a green light to examine her ambiguous and conflicting feelings for Parker. But in order to be fair to him, and to herself, she had delayed going until she had thought it through from every angle. She didn’t want her return to be a knee-jerk reaction to a rapid series of shocking developments in her life. She didn’t want it to be the reaction of an angry and vindictive wife. Rather, she wanted it to be an action taken after days of careful consideration.
For the past seven days, she had thought of little else.
She had been terribly angry at Parker the morning she left, but the truth of the matter was she hadn’t wanted to leave. She could admit that now. And every moment since her leaving, she had wanted to be with him again.
Initially, guilt had burned inside her like a live coal. She was married. She had made a commitment at the wedding altar, and she had regarded it a lifetime pledge. All her marriage vows she had taken seriously.
But apparently she had been the only one standing at the altar that day who had. Noah had broken his vows. For all she knew, Nadia wasn’t the first woman with whom he had cheated. He had certainly had no shortage of girlfriends prior to his marriage. It was possible he had never changed his pattern of behavior from that of a bachelor to that of a married man. He had willfully chosen to be unfaithful to her. She would just as willfully choose to end the marriage. By taking a lover, he had squandered the right and the privilege to be her husband.
But even if she hadn’t caught him with Nadia, she would be leaving him. That night on the sidewalk in Chelsea, Noah had revealed an aspect of himself that appalled, repelled, and frightened her. She would not live another day with a man who hinted at violence so effectively that she believed him capable of it. Their marriage was over. Noah Reed was her past.
What she needed to determine was if Parker Evans was her future.
She could no longer ignore or deny her attraction to him. It wasn’t strictly his intellect and talent that appealed to her, as she had tried to delude herself into believing. She was attracted to him, the man. Countless times she had fantasized kissing him again, having his hands on her, having her mouth on him.
She didn’t even know if he was capable of making love in the conventional sense, but it didn’t matter. She wanted to touch him and to be touched. She wanted to be intimate with him on whatever level and by whatever means it could be achieved.
While married she never would have acted on that desire. During her courtship and marriage, she had never looked at another man or thought of one in a sexual context, which had made her spontaneous attraction to Parker all the more disturbing.
During her return flight to New York, she had convinced herself that the island was responsible for the romantic yearnings she had experienced there and that once she was back in familiar territory, they would stop. By the time the plane touched down at La Guardia, she had persuaded herself that the rift between her and Noah was curable, that the temporary lull in their marriage had left her open to fanciful daydreams that would vanish the moment their dozing passion was reawakened.
She had talked herself into believing that with a little ingenuity on her part she could revive their love life and feel again the exhilaration and excitement she had when she left the church on Noah’s arm as his bride.
What a naive strategy that had been!
It made her angry now that she had been willing to assume all the responsibility for their marriage being out of sorts. How could she have been so gullible? Did everyone except her know about Noah’s affair? The people with whom they both worked every day—had they known? Was she a comically tragic figure, the last-to-know wife? The staff must have thought, Poor Maris, as she toiled away at book publishing while her husband periodically slipped out for an illicit rendezvous with his mistress.
Noah had his adversaries among the staff, but he also had his allies, people he had pirated from the publisher with which he’d been formerly affiliated. Divorcing him would be easy compared to disassociating him from Matherly Press.
Which brought her to the next hurdle she must face: informing Daniel of their split.
She would postpone it for as long as possible. It would come as a double blow for him. He would be losing not only his son-in-law, but his protégé. Maris was confident that her father was strong enough to handle it, as he had handled all the other setbacks and disappointments in his life, but she saw no point in upsetting him prematurely. However, until the time came when it was necessary for him to know, it was going to be a challenge to keep up the pretense that everything was normal.
He was watching her now with his unsettling intuitiveness. It was hard not to squirm under the direct gaze. “So what do you think, Dad?”
“About the book? I think it’s very good. Speaking as a publisher, I would prod the author to complete it.”
“Then I guess I’m off.” She stood up and began pulling on her raincoat.
“What does Noah think?”
“He hasn’t read it yet.”
“I wasn’t referring to the manuscript, Maris. What does he think of your going away to spend more time with this writer?”
“I don’t need his permission.” Seeing that he was taken aback by the sharpness of her tone, she amended it. “I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“Apology accepted. I don’t presume to interfere with your personal life. It’s just that…”
“Don’t stop there. You’ve come this far.”
He reached for her hand. “It’s just that I remember well when you fell in love with a book, and then with the author.”
She gave him a faint smile. “Is that what you’re thinking? That I’ve got a schoolgirl’s crush on this writer?”
“It wouldn’t be for the first time.”
“I’m older and wiser now.” She stopped herself from saying, I’ve learned my lesson. “This book, this author, have nothing to do with Noah and our marriage. Nothing whatsoever.”
That was the truth. Her marriage was over whether or not she ever saw Parker Evans again. Had she never heard of Parker or Envy, her marriage would have ended. It would have ended because her husband was false and their marriage a sham.
“So Noah’s agreeable to your going?”
Noah’s feelings on the matter seemed very important to her father. But they wouldn’t be if he knew the whole story. She was tempted to roll up her sleeves and show him the bruises on her arms that even a week’s time hadn’t faded. She could tell him how she’d spat blood for an hour after biting her tongue. What if she repeated Noah’s harsh threats, using the same sinister inflection that had been almost more alarming than the words themselves? Her father would be as shocked as she had been. He would be ready to find Noah and mete out punishment with his own hand.
That’s why she wouldn’t expose Noah to him now. She would save it for a day when she had things more sorted out in her own mind, when she wasn’t on her way out of town, when she had a workable plan for Matherly Press as well as her personal life. Until she had answers already in place in her own mind, she wouldn’t detail the problems to her father.
Instead, she looked him straight in the eye and, for the first time in her life, lied to him. “Yes. He’s agreeable.”
He took her face between his hands and kissed her on both cheeks. “What time is your flight?”
“I’ve barely got time to make it.” Plagued by guilt for lying to him, she embraced him tightly. She squeezed her eyes closed and wasn’t surprised to feel tears in them. “You’re my best friend, Dad. I love you very much.”
“And I love you, Maris.” He set her away from him so he could look into her face. “More than you could ever know.”