A ruling passion : a novel (14 page)

"Oh." She sat back, shrugging slighdy. "There isn't much to tell. My father died before I was born ... he was an Air Force test pilot and he was killed when his plane crashed. Just that morning he'd sent my mother eighteen roses for her birthday, one for each year, and then she never saw him again. They were married on her seventeenth birthday in a litde church in the countryside, in Virginia; my mother had run away from home to marry him because her parents were insisting she marry someone else, and they hadn't spoken since then, so she didn't even call them when my father was killed; she just pretended they'd died, too, and when I was born it was just the two of us. And we had no money then, either; there was something wrong about my father's insurance, so we had nothing."

Nick was fascinated. First she said there wasn't much to tell and then she spun a fairy-tale fantasy that any young girl would love to believe. He was sure she didn't believe it, either. But what difference did it make? If the truth about her family was too painful to talk about, let her have her fantasy. We all need a pretty story now and then, he thought, to replace memories we'd rather forget.

"What did your mother do when you were born?" he asked.

"Became a dress designer. We lived in Baltimore and she didn't want to work in an office because she didn't have anyone to leave me with. So she became a designer, first in Baltimore and then on the Eastern Shore where the money was. One of her customers helped me with a loan so I could come to Stanford."

Nick remembered Valerie saying Sybille's mother was a seamstress, not a designer; she'd also said it was her father who gave Sybille the money for college. But Sybille wasn't going to mention Valerie. And neither would Nick. It's much better that way, he thought, fighting against the hollow feeling of loss that swept through him every time he thought of her. Don't bring her in; don't think about her. There's no reason to.

"Why Stanford?" he asked. "It's not strong in television."

"I know, but I'll learn when I'm working in it. Everyone will teach me. They'll tell themselves they shouldn't, because they'll think I'm a threat, but they will anyway because they love to show off how much they know."

Nick smiled, but he was a little repelled by the sting of her words. "But why Stanford?" he asked again.

"Oh, no special reason. I'd heard a lot about it; it sounded better than the others."

She had chosen it because Valerie did. Valerie had told him that too. And he was sure that had something to do with it. "But why did you leave before you'd graduated? Even before the end of your junior year."

Sybille looked at her hands. "I didn't leave. I was expelled."

"You were what?''

She kept her eyes down. "One of my newscasts at KNEX had a report about the university that wasn't true. I thought it was true—I'd never, never have used it if I hadn't thought so—but it was somebody's idea of a joke and—"

"You're talking about the apes and the engineering building."

Her eyes came up and met his; their pale-blue intensity gave him a jolt. "I suppose everybody's laughing about it."

"No one is laughing," he said flady. "There was nothing to laugh about; it could have been very bad for the university. I didn't know that was your doing."

Her lower lip caught between her teeth. "It was. It was all my fault. I should have checked it out. It was the kind of story that should be double- and triple-checked and I knew it. But I heard it from someone who said he was there and heard it all, and we were always looking for colorful stories..." She twisted her hands together and waited for Nick to say something. But the silence drew out. Sybille's lower lip began to quiver. "And then I was fired."

"Fired," Nick repeated. He was stunned. As angry as he was at her irresponsibility, and her confession that she had known she was being careless, it wasn't cause to expel her, he thought, or to fire her. Unless someone needed a scapegoat and Sybille was it: young, and a woman.

But still, he could not believe it. "How could they expel you.> Universities almost never expel students. They discipline them, or suspend them; they do everything they can to avoid—"

"Don't, please don't!" Tears ran down her cheeks. "I can't talk about it, I can't even think about it. I can't bear it, it hurts so much, I can't, I can't..."

"I'm sorry," Nick said. "Of course we won't talk about it if you don't want to."

There was a long silence. Sybille's tears stopped. She took a deep breath. "I was proud of that news show. It was mine, at least when they let me produce it, and I did a good job, everyone said so. That

meant more to me than anybody could imagine. It was all I had to make me feel happy with myself." She saw Nick's swift look. "I mean, I'm happiest in my work, when I feel I'm getting where I want to be. I want so much; sometimes I feel like I'm going to explode with wanting... That probably sounds silly to you, but I really can't stand the waiting because I know what I want and I'm willing to do anything to get it, but things are so slow, people are so slow. And then things happen. When I got the job at the station I felt as if my life had really started, I was finally moving, not just standing still in college hcmg young. And then it was gone. I made one litde mistake, that's all, and they took everything away from me. Just when I was beginning to think I was really special, going to Stanford, being a television producer, they took it all away. They don't care about ripping up people's lives, getting them fired and kicked out of school, they're so smupi —"

Her face was almost ugly with anger. Abruptly, she went to the sink and turned on the water. "I forgot to make the coffee." Her voice was choked. "I'm sorry; I'm usually a lot more efficient..."

Nick followed her and put his arms around her, stilling her hands as he held her against him. Her head barely reached his chin and he leaned his cheek on her black hair. 'Tou're very special," he said quietly. 'Tou're a special person, and I don't believe any of this is going to stop you. I think you'll get what you want. You'll learn from what happened and you'll use it, but you won't let it hold you back."

Sybille turned within his arms and looked up at him. "How can you say that? You don't know me."

"Not yet, but I can guess that much." He smiled, watching her face change as he did. She was so hungry for approval; hungry for a smile, a friendly comment, a word of praise. Hungry for love. He ached for her neediness. It affected him even more strongly after months of being close to Valerie's supreme self-confidence, the laughter with which she faced the world...

Once again he pushed away the image of Valerie, angry at himself for weakness. He had always believed he could control his feelings and focus his attention; those were his strengths. But he hadn't found a way to keep Valerie from his thoughts, even though he told himself each day, each night, that she was not the woman for him and, obviously, he wasn't the man for her.

"And I'll know you much better after we call each other for dinner a few times," he said to Sybille. "We can take turns." He smiled again. "We're going to get to know each other very well."

Sybille reached up and brought his face to hers. Briefly he was sur-

prised at her assertiveness, but he forgot it in the yielding softness of her mouth. It opened beneath his; her tongue met his with something like coy reluctance before submitting to his demanding one. Her body seemed to flow and curve into the shape of his; her arms embraced him as if clinging for support.

But as yielding as she was, there was something devouring in her, and instinctively Nick pulled away, breaking the kiss. Instandy, her face clouded over.

"I want to get to know you," he said gendy, thinking with a flash of humor that, traditionally, that wasn't the man's line. And as he thought it, he knew he could have shared that moment of humor with Valerie but that Sybille would not find it amusing. Still, at that moment, even her lack of humor seemed beguiling to him; he was sure it came from being young and vulnerable, and deeply hurt, and having no one on whom to rely. If she had security, she would find laughter.

He could not escape the tug of so much need.

And there was something else that drew him powerfully to her: she had the same singleminded determination about work that he had, the determination that had annoyed Valerie. Sybille wouldn't be annoyed; she would understand it.

She was interesting, intelligent, and attractive; she shared his feelings about work; and she had powerful needs. It was an irresistible combination, he thought, and promised himself he would go slowly. He put his arm around her and held her to him. "How about that coffee?" he asked.

By the beginning of June, the university had emptied out. The school year was over and the summer session had not yet begun; the campus seemed to sleep. In the stillness, Sybille walked fi-om one end of the campus to the other. Except for her brief visit to the engineering building, when she had found Nick and invited him to dinner, it was the first time she had been back since being expelled three weeks earlier, and she felt more of an outsider than ever. It was as if she were allowed on these sacred grounds only when everyone else was gone. "The hell with them," she said aloud. "The hell with everybody." She sat cross-legged beneath a cypress tree near the administration building. Not quite everybody. Not Nick Fielding, who was warm and smart and sexy and interested in her, even though he still hadn't been in her bed and they'd been together three evenings since their first dinner. But she wouldn't push it. She'd let him set the pace, however peculiar it seemed; there was plenty of time, as long as he stayed sym-

pathetic and protective. She knew that was what attracted him right now, more than her body or her brains, even more than her cooking, though he'd mentioned more than once how nice it was to have someone cook for him.

Not that she wanted to be known as a cook; it was low on her list. But it was nice having a man eat at her table, and she'd found that she could cook a whole dinner while her thoughts went their own way: to finding another job in television; to Nick, and where the two of them were going; to Nick and Valerie and why they'd broken up.

What if Valerie had dropped him.> I don't want Valerie's leavings, she thought. I've already been through that: all those years when her mother gave me clothes Valerie was tired of, and I had to smile and be grateful. They were fantastic clothes and I looked wonderful in them after my mother altered them—from tall, slim Valerie to short round Sybille always trying to lose weight—but they weren't mine. They were always Valerie's, and I hated them.

If Valerie dumped Nick, I don't want him.

"Sybille?" A shadow fell across Sybille's knees and she looked up, shading her eyes.

"Lenore," she said and folded her arms as if in self-protection. She'd been hoping she would see someone she knew, but at the same time she was afraid. She wanted to know what people were saying about her, but she didn't really want to hear it. And now she would, because Lenore was a part-time secretary in the personnel office and an expert in gossip.

"I heard about your troubles," said Lenore, sprawling beside her. She was tall and angular, a perennial student always a few months fi-om finishing her degree, with a long, melancholy face that made her a natural for the dissemination of bad news. "Bad news," Lenore said, shaking her head. "A lot of bad feelings all over the place."

"About me," Sybille said.

"Sure, but you aren't the only one. There's been plenty to go around."

"I didn't hear anything. I'm so out of it..."

They were magic words; Lenore could not resist a listener who knew nothing. She stretched her long legs in front of her and leaned against the cypress tree. "Well. First off, Jackson withdrew the money. Said she'd give it someplace where she'd be taken seriously. Much tearing of hair, guzzling of tranquilizers, saying of prayers, until she calmed down. They told her you were gone and you'd never be al-

lowed to darken our door again—and whafs-his-name at KNEX, the guy you worked for, was also gone, booted out—"

"Oh!" Sybille cried. There was some justice after all.

"—because he was executive producer and ultimately responsible for what got on the air and so on and so forth. So all the baddies were punished and there was Jackson holding her money in her hot little fist and the powers that be convinced her it was best to give it to the university and give herself the happiness of giving it. Something like that. So she did."

There was a pause. "That's all?" Sybille asked.

"Hardly; it keeps on bubbling away. The president blames the mess on Larry Oldfield, and Larry blames it on your boss, former boss, and your former boss is mad at that gorgeous creature who does television once in awhile, you've seen her around, Valerie Ashbrook, because he heard from Larry that she spilled the beans about you at a dinner party and they used what she said to get rid of your former boss. By the way, did you make it up? I've heard so many versions, you wouldn't be-Heve..."

Lenore's melancholy voice droned on and on, but Sybille had stopped hstening. Valerie. Valerie. Rage swept through her. We have a witness. That's what Oldfield had told her when he called her into his office. Someone who knows you were perfectly aware of the true story but distorted it, manufactured parts of it, for your own purposes. It was out-and-out fraud and we can prove it and you have forfeited all rights to be a part of our university community.

Valerie. The name pounded inside her, and an image flashed from her memory: Sybille and Valerie sitting at a table on the terrace of the Student Union, and Valerie listening—so damned sweet and friendly—egging Sybille on to talk about the way she wrote that story. I was so excited, Sybille thought, and she was so interested, and I told her everything. That bitch. She probably thought it was all very frmny, something to gossip about so she could be the center of attention.

Her hand closed around a rock and she clenched her fingers against its cold roughness. That bitch, that bitch, that bitch.

... spilled the beans at a dinner party. Oh, that made it worse. One of those parties in town. The kind Valerie had condescended to take her to. Once. Only once.