Attraction (37 page)

As he drove through the streets of San Francisco, there was nothing more that Heron
wanted to do but to dial Riley’s number on his cell phone.
For a few days, Heron wrestled within himself back and forth, from wanting badly to call
Riley to hotly denying that he felt anything for her. The debate within himself was so heated and
violent, that he became much preoccupied, no matter what the hour of the day was, no matter if
he were in his office, in a meeting, or alone at home. People began to regard him with puzzled
looks, because it took a few proddings to get his attention, or that they found him staring
intensely at nothing but empty space. Often, when he was alone, Heron would realize that he was
staring at nothing with his mind a complete blank. He would curse himself and force himself to
concentrate on his work.
Finally, disgusted that he was on the verge of a behavior of a lovesick cow, he managed
out of sheer revulsion to force the internal struggle from his mind, shutting it completely from
the forefront.
However, as successful as in forcing Riley out of his mind, his own behavior took a turn
for the worse. Of course, a large part of it was due to not getting more than a few hours sleep
every night, because mostly he was at his office far into the night and then getting in before
dawn the next morning.
His temper was beginning to suffer, as well. He found himself being short with his staff
and colleagues, taking a person to the carpet for some transgression that was often
inconsequential in the long run. This was throwing his staff into stupefied shocks, because he
was normally quite even tempered, at the very least reasonable, even if he was aloof and distant
with most of them.
People in Heron’s personal life were also receiving his increasing impatience and dark
moods, his butler, Canton, being the recipient of the brunt of them. For the normally mildmannered servant whose life consisted of endless days of placid calm and tranquility, it was
rather shocking and unnerving to be given sudden and unexpected outbursts from his employer,
from whom he never recalled ever receiving a word of disapproval, even if mild.
One morning, Canton, never dreaming that his master would issue any words of
complaint, much less a harsh dress down, presented to Heron a freshly pressed silk shirt in pale
pink to go with a navy blue suit.
“I thought I told you to take that to the cleaner,” Heron had said sharply.
Canton stared at his employer, stunned. “I…I did, sir.”
“Then why does it look like you just dragged it through one of the rain puddles outside?
Take it back.” Heron had turned and walked into his closet to choose his own shirt, leaving his
butler to stand in the middle of the bedroom, holding the shirt, looking quite dumbstruck.
Another time, Canton was in the kitchen cutting some flowers that had just arrived from
the florist, when he realized that from somewhere around the penthouse, his name was being
bellowed. At first he thought he had not heard right, because he had never heard any yelling in
all the years he had serviced the large penthouse. It was a shock to his system to realize that it
was his employer who was doing the bellowing, when Heron Wait was normally not the type to
bellow anything.
“Canton! Canton! Where the hell are you,” Heron demanded. “Canton!”
Canton rushed out to the hall and down to his employer’s office, thinking something
calamitous had happened. “Here, sir. Is there something the matter?”
Heron looked harassed, his hair mussed, and frustrated, his face looking heavy and
haggard from the lack of sleep, his hands scrambling around his desk, searching. “Yes, there is
something the matter. The papers on Drewry case, where are they?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Heron looked up with impatience. “The Drewry case that I’ve been working on. They
were here yesterday. Now I can’t find them.”
Canton blinked at him. “Am I…Sir, are you requesting that I help you search for them?”
Never had Heron before made such a request, because he never misplaced papers.
“Yes, yes, of course, I am. Don’t just stand there being useless. Search for them.”
But Canton couldn’t help but stand where he was, because he had no idea where to begin
searching for the lost papers. Feeling extremely uncomfortable and uneasy, he began to fumble
around the office, gingerly picking up papers, not at all knowing what he should be looking for.
After nearly ten minutes of a futile search, Heron picked up the phone and dialed his
office and began to issue sharp questions to his secretary about the lost papers.
“They’re there? Fax them to me at my home,” he ordered tersely.
Canton realized his employer had completely forgotten about him and left the office, not
a little shaken by the untoward impatience and frustration that had been leveled in his direction.
Heron’s parents managed to bully, bribe, and blackmail their oldest son to attend family
dinners, they had cause for second thought on their insistence. For he was more than usual
reserved and detached, keeping his thoughts to himself, and showing little inclination to engage
in any conversation with anyone.
“I swear, Mother, your eldest is more and more resembling some Gothic character with a
slightly sinister twist,” Beth Anne muttered. “I think painting himself as such is even surpassing
what Emily Bronte had wrought on the English moors.”
Alana eyed Heron, who was standing alone at a window, staring down at the garden, a
drink in his hand. “I’m afraid my medical scare might have given him quite a jolt, of which he
has yet to get over.”
“And you don’t think it affected the rest of us just as badly?”
“No, I’m not saying that. It’s just, with Heron, it just takes a bit longer to get over life’s
shocks.”
“You mean for us normal people who aren’t control freaks and expect to have all our
ducks in a row all the time, we’re more prepared to face the hardships of life,” Beth Anne
observed sardonically, earning a reproving look from her mother.
“That’s not what I mean at all.” Then Alana nodded with guilty reluctance. “Well, yes, it
is.”
The cancer scare was indeed part of what caused the inner turmoil inside Heron. His
trying to deny his feelings for Riley was the second factor. Just as he had never experienced
serious illness or death in his family, he had also never experienced unrequited need for a
woman. And the experience was seeming to gradually wreck havoc on his sanity. He was a
person who had never come across a problem that he could not solve. Even more, he was not a
man who never had to deny himself what he wanted or needed.
If Heron’s days were plagued by a festering need to see and hear Riley, his nights were
more and more encroached incessantly with physical need to have her, rendering him sleepless,
tossing and turning with lust, and frustrated and disgusted even more with the situation. This was
the third factor of his personal tumult that he was unfamiliar with, as well, and just as
unwelcome.
On top of being bombarded with whole new sensations of longing was Heron’s own
anger with himself that he did not see this coming. He now realized that he had been a complete
fool to think that when he ended the affair with Riley, that that was the end of it. He had thought
that he could deny to himself that Riley having feelings from him mattered to him. And he had
thought that he could put it all behind him by not seeing her. He hadn’t wanted things to get
complicated, he had told himself.
But, by then, things were very complicated.
At one point, the thought struck him that with strong physical attraction between them, as
such that he never felt for any other woman, it would stand to reason that an affair with Riley
promised to be complicated from the very beginning. But Heron instantly pushed that thought
away, because to him, that was edging toward love at first sight, something he never he thought
he was capable of.
Had they known, his family would have been shocked that the usually controlled,
unflappable Heron started to take to drink. But if anyone had been aware of the Leviathan
struggle that he was engaged in internally, one would have perfectly understood. And would
have forgiven him. For Heron, it was the only way to ease the hunger and the ache that seemed
to be constantly competing for placement inside him.
One morning, he was having a meeting with Tanner in his office, going over banking
contracts that they were negotiating with the European Union. They sat at the small conference
table a few feet from Heron’s desk for an hour or so, both more or less silent as they
concentrated on reading carefully the contracts, every once in awhile marking a particular
passage for discussion or clarification.
“When did you first realize you were in love with Roberta?”
It took Tanner awhile to realize that Heron had asked him the question. He looked up
from his papers. “What?” Then he looked wary, thinking that, here, at last, was the dreaded
confrontation over Roberta.
“When did you first know that it was love that you felt for her?”
Tanner couldn’t help smiling, remembering that first time he walked into his father’s
office and saw the sunshine color of her hair and the clear warm blue of her eyes. “I think inside
of ten minutes after I met her.”
“How were you so sure that it was love?”
“I don’t know. I just knew. I never felt like that with any woman before.”
Heron set down the papers he had been pretending to read. “The first time I saw
Roberta’s sister, I disliked her instantly. She was nothing like Roberta. Or any woman I’ve ever
known.”
Tanner looked at his brother. He realized that Heron’s line of questioning had nothing to
do with Roberta or him, but her sister. Then Heron’s first question hit him. “Are you saying…”
Heron suddenly got to his feet and began to gather the papers, signaling that the meeting
was over. “I’ll have these over to your office tomorrow.”
Tanner got to his feet, too. “Wait…”
Heron looked at his watch. “I have to get to court right now. I’ll see you tomorrow,
then?”
Without waiting for his brother’s response, Heron gathered his briefcase and left the
office.
For a few weeks, Heron buried himself in his work, staying at his office long into the
night, and going there often on weekends. He didn’t see anyone, and ignored calls from his
family and friends. When he attended the monthly conference with his father, brother, and the
other board members of the bank, his father was surprised to see Heron looking so haggard, his
face losing some of its color, dark circles under his eyes, and lines of exhaustion deeply etched
on his face.
“You look like hell, Heron,” Roy said bluntly.
Heron returned his father’s stare. He knew what he must look like. Spending weeks and
weeks on little sleep and working constantly eventually took its toll on a person’s body. “Thank
you father. Now, if we can start with the meeting. I have a tight schedule today.”
Tanner said, “By the way, Heron, have you heard? Riley just agreed to a contract with the
investors to open up a bar up here in the city.”
“Yes. She’s going to be in town today to sign the contracts so your mother and I, and
Tanner and Roberta are taking her out to lunch at the Equis,” Roy said. “Come and join us. We
know you’re no longer seeing Riley, but she’s still your sister-in-law, and it would be good to
support her.”
“I’ll pass, Father” Heron said coldly. “I have no intention of being involved in the
establishment of another sex club, when there is already a problem of the trafficking of illicit sex
in this city.”
Roy watched his son as Heron turned away to greet a board member. He observed to
Tanner, “Your brother seems to be in a mood. Lately. Would you happen to know what
particular bee might be buzzing in his bonnet?”
Tanner smiled. “That’s quite an image, Dad, a big strapping man like Heron wearing a
bonnet.”
“Well, we are in San Francisco,” Roy said archly. “Is he still upset about you and
Roberta?”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t really know what’s got into him.”
A few minutes later, everyone sat at the conference table to begin the board meeting.
Most of it went as it usually does, quietly with small little rituals of bringing up current month’s
issues, going over the points, then voting on them with little disagreement. The last item on the
agenda, however, unexpectedly touched off a small dispute. The topic was the replacement of a
board member who was retiring later in the year. One member, Marion White, who had inherited
her seat when her husband, a banker and a longtime friend of Roy’s, had died, was pushing for a
congresswoman, who also happened to be her daughter-in-law. At least about half of the
members were inclined to agree or, at least, not raise any strong objections over the appointment.
Roy himself remained quiet on the subject. The political viewpoint of the potential candidate was
known to them and was not so extreme as to feel her a threat for the business.
Heron, however, was the one voice raising arguments against it. “I would rather field all
the candidates who are available before we make a final decision. There are several out there
with excellent qualifications that we should consider.”
“And why should you think that Representative Redding wouldn’t be qualified,” Marion
asked huffily.
“She has never worked in big business, in any kind of business. She worked as a full –
time housewife, raising three children, and decided that she wanted a political career after her
kids went off to college.”
“But she is in Congress,” one male board member pointed out. “She could be quite
valuable to us in Washington.”
Heron said, not bothering to hide his contempt, “This is her first term, and she only won
because her husband’s mother used the family’s vast fortune to outspend all the other candidates
versus winning because of any outstanding personal or political qualities.”
Shocked silence descended over the room. Even Roy stared at his son with surprise. Only
Tanner had to fight to hide his smile. Heron’s sharp and direct words were not the norm during
these meetings. Any objections were couched much more diplomatically. No one ever openly
confronted another member, especially in front of the others. And it was Heron who observed
this unspoken rule most diligently. In fact, he was usually the one who spoke the least in the
meetings, more inclined to observe, listen, and take down notes. If he had any objections, he
usually saved them for outside the board room, usually going over the issue with his father
privately, and the two personally addressing their points with the particular board member with
whom they were at odds.