Children of Dynasty (45 page)

Rory rushed to her, fragments of mirror and bottle crunching beneath his shoes. He slipped one arm beneath her shoulders and the other behind her knees, carried her to a leather couch, and laid her down. Swiftly, he checked her back and bare feet for cuts. Thankfully, there were none.

He became aware of Mariah beside him, her fist pressed against her mouth.

From behind him, John said, “My God.”

Rory heard Mariah’s footsteps and the gurgle of running water as she wet a bar towel with cold water and brought it to him.

He wiped the smear of blood from Kiki’s cheek. “Mom.”

She stirred and opened her eyes. “Rory.”

“You have to leave him,” he said.

“Leave me?” Davis said from the door to the interior hall. Still wearing his European cut suit and Italian silk tie, he surveyed the wreckage. A hundred tall men seemed to march off in all directions where the remaining bar mirrors faced against one on the other wall. To Rory’s relief, he sounded sober and he looked as though he’d just gotten home.

When Kiki spoke, Rory realized she wasn’t drunk, either, as he’d thought. “Yes, leave you.” She pushed herself up to a sitting position on the couch. “I always stayed, because I thought someday you’d get over your precious Catharine, that no living woman could ever hope to equal.” A fat tear streaked down her cheek, leaving a darkened trail in her face powder.

Rory got between his father and his mother, a deep trembling in his chest. From the corner of his eye, he saw that John had his arm around Mariah as though to insulate her.

Kiki’s voice gained strength. “I got a call from a florist today, one I’ve never used. It seems that Chez Paris has a new employee, one who made the mistake of calling your home instead of your office to ask about your weekly order. My God, you’ve sent flowers to her grave every week for nearly thirty years.”

“Respect for the dead,” Davis replied.

Rory wanted to slug him. “Show some respect for the living. Mom and I have been here for you, all those years.”

“Haven’t I been there for you?” His father pointed an unsteady finger at him. “I taught you to sail, to build … I wanted you on the executive floor with me. If I was tough on you, it was because I wanted you to do well.”

“You mean all the times you’ve given me a hard time, you thought you were being a stern taskmaster?” Rory raised his voice and felt a hand on his shoulder.

John restrained him. “Davis always has been a perfectionist. Whether he was sailing,” he pointed to a shelf of prominent gold cups, “hunting,” he gestured to the world record trophy animals, “or working, he has to have things just so.” He looked at Davis. “Am I right?”

“You’re right,” Davis said with a trace of wariness.

“And isn’t it true,” John went on, “that you love your son? From the time he was a kid on that sailboat and you taught him how to steer?”

Davis made a gesture of impatience. “Of course I love him.”

Rory went still inside, but he couldn’t help his reply. “Your delivery could use some work.”

Kiki pushed up from the couch and faced her husband. “I always dreamed someday you’d come to love me. Do you have any idea what it’s like to go on living day after day, without hope?”

The silence that fell seemed as vast as the Pacific outside the wall of windows.

Rory developed an urge to clear his throat and suppressed it.

The moment lengthened, while his parents searched each other’s eyes in a manner he suspected they had not for years.

Finally, Davis spoke in a voice that sounded thick. “I love you, too.”

“Then why can’t you let go of the past?” Kiki’s voice cracked.

Davis glanced at Mariah. “Whenever I see her, looking so much like Catharine, it brings up the possibilities I dreamed of and never had.” He took a step toward his wife. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t choose you. I remember how the setting sun caught fire in your red hair on the banks of the Zambezi. How …?”

“Ancient history,” Kiki drilled. “What about that bitch that called you on the phone in the Marin Club?”

“I swear to God it was Thaddeus Walker’s assistant Louise arranging a meeting. I would have told you, but after you threw your wine at me I didn’t even try.” He drew a shaking breath. “As for the stories about women, the paparazzi make things out to be more spicy than they are.”

“Amen to that,” said John.

Davis shifted his gaze to him. “You were right that seeing Mariah grown dredged up a desire to make you pay for stealing Catharine … especially when you knew I loved her.”

John left Mariah’s side and took a step toward Davis. “You know very well that I couldn’t steal what you never really had. The other day I said I would never apologize, but I was wrong.”

Davis cocked an eyebrow.

“I am sorry for the way things happened. If I had it to do over, I would never have married her until after you came back from Africa. I’d have insisted Catharine meet with you and tell you in her own words what her desires were. Then, maybe you could have found a way to remain my friend, perhaps we could have worked together instead of at cross purposes.”

Davis strode toward the bar, sidestepped the mess of glass and liquor and took down a bottle of scotch. He pulled down a glass, poured two fingers and tossed off one.

“You’re apologizing to me?” he said in disbelief.

“Not for loving Catharine, not for marrying her,” John said firmly, “but for doing it in a way that inflicted maximum pain.”

Davis stared at him for a long time. The silence was once more absolute in the great, high-ceilinged room. Rory watched the two men and realized he was holding his breath.

Finally, his father nodded. “I suppose that’s as good as I can expect.”

He reached to the bar shelf and took down another glass. He poured scotch into it, picked it up, and gestured with it toward John. His arrogance had been replaced by what looked like regret.

John took three steps toward the bar and stopped.

Davis brought both glasses and met him halfway. “We could have made a hell of a team.”

John took the drink and knocked it against Davis’s. Both men drank.

“Of course, that will never happen after this morning,” Davis went on.

“What happened this morning?” Kiki asked sharply.

He turned to her. “It was on the news. I thought when I walked in that you’d heard.”

“Heard what?”

“Rory and Mariah got married yesterday in Lake Tahoe.”

Kiki gasped and swiveled her head. Her green eyes glinted at Rory and then shifted to Mariah.

“And they found a way to pressure me out of the company.” In a transparent effort to save face, Davis went on, “John’s out, too and the kids are going to form one company.”

She looked from Rory to Mariah. “They’re married?”

“It was a sound business strategy, so I suppose I did teach him a thing or two,” Davis said grudgingly. “And I guess you taught your daughter well, John.”

Mariah moved, her heels rapping the slate floor. “Business strategy?” she echoed. “Business strategy?” She came to Rory’s side and took his hand. “I’ll have you know I happen to love your son.”

Though Rory had hoped she loved him, and been ready to tell her himself this morning, her words sent him spiraling. Hoping and hearing it were two different things, and the roller coaster they’d been on hit a new high.

Before he could tell her and the whole room he loved her, Mariah focused on Davis.

“The reason I came here this evening is to apologize to you as well. We found out today that the hoist fell due to a design flaw. I was wrong to believe you were behind the accident.”

“I’m sorry about that, too, Dad.” Rory used the name he’d called his father when he was a boy.

Davis drank off the rest of his scotch, set down the glass with a clatter on an end table. He sighed. “Thank you for that much.”

Kiki got to her feet. “I don’t understand all this. You and John, Rory and Mariah taking over … are you talking about the accident at Grant Plaza?”

“I’m afraid we are,” Davis replied. He turned to the others. “I think my wife and I need some time to sort things out.”

“Of course,” John said.

Rory looked at his mother to gauge her reaction. Her tears, that had dried, once more brightened her green eyes.

He went to her, bent and kissed her cheek. “Is that okay with you, Mom? Should we go now?”

Davis had said he loved her, and Rory wondered how long it had been since he’d told his wife that.

Kiki put her arms around Rory. “Go ahead,” she whispered. “And remember he said he loved you, too.”

Despite that his father’s delivery needed work, the content sounded like a good start.

At nine that night, Mariah sat beside Rory in his Porsche as he pulled into his townhouse garage. They’d left Davis and Kiki alone and had dinner with her father. It had not taken much persuasion on his part to convince them to go to one of their places for privacy.

“I’m glad we came here,” she told Rory. “I don’t want to spend another night in my apartment.” Though it was not time to forget Charley — that would never happen — she needed to move on.

Inside Rory’s home, her home now, they passed through the kitchen and living room and took the stairs to the second floor. Dusk was falling outside his bedroom and when he reached for the switch, Mariah stayed his hand.

“The view is beautiful.” She was glad he’d left the drapes open.

They walked past his king-sized bed to the window. From their vantage point high on Vallejo, the vista was of the higher Telegraph Hill to the northeast and the slope down to the Embarcadero and the Bay.

Rory stood behind her and slipped his arms around her. “I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted.”

“It’s been a tough day, well, more than a day.”

“Do you think there’s any hope for our fathers?”

Mariah’s eyes filled with tears. There was no telling how a truce might work, but this first step made her feel that mountains were not too much to scale.

She stroked Rory’s hand on her waist. “I hope they can put some things behind them.”

She and Rory needed the wisdom of both these men if they were to make a go of CGI. “You remember telling me the chairman of First California said it was a shame John and Dad would be lost to the developers’ community.”

“Hmmm,” he murmured at her neck.

“What if they’re not lost? What if they both sit on the CGI board of directors?”

Rory straightened and pondered. “I know I could use the help.”

“Let’s ask them.” The idea of their fathers finding reconciliation might be too much to hope for, but she dared to wish they’d made a start.

“I just hope my folks …” Rory broke off.

“Maybe they can work something out. He did say he loved her.”

“She’s pretty upset over Catharine and those flowers,” Rory countered.

Mariah pulled away and turned to face him. “It’s not just the flowers. She’s a woman who feels beaten out by a ghost. It’s amazing how they all act as though she died only yesterday.”

He was silent for a moment. “Think about it. It was eight years ago when we met, and I can see you on that dock in the rain as if it were this morning.”

He took her hand and tugged her toward the French doors to his balcony. Outside, the June air was soft.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Rory said urgently. “In a lot of ways, I’ve been as big a fool as Dad was.”

She put her fingers to his lips. “You don’t have to …”

“Shhh,” he caught her hand and kissed it.

His warm mouth sent a melting feeling through her. Her heart set up a deep pounding that she felt whenever something important was about to happen.

She looked up at him, at his familiar tall frame and warm brown eyes that promised everything he had when they were younger, yet so much more.

“Mariah, I know now I was afraid to let myself feel. I don’t know why I’ve held back and lied to myself about it. You’ve been a part of me all these years, but I buried it. It all came back the day I heard about the accident and ran down the streets looking for you.”

Putting her hands into the silky hair at the nape of his neck, Mariah whispered his name.

It reminded her of the first time he’d held her, but there was so much more. Instead of the tremulous passion of discovery, there was her deep and complex caring for the man she’d married.

“I love you,” he said close beside her ear.

A floodgate opened, a willful desire to be swept away if Rory was truly no longer afraid of commitment. “Oh, Rory, I love you, too.”

He pulled back and smiled at her. “I’ll never let you forget you told my father before you told me.”

She tapped his breastbone with her index finger. “Don’t give me that. You knew I loved you last night after we got married.”

His grin widened. “Busted. I was going to tell you this morning, but after your dad called, the mood wasn’t right.”

He dragged her back against him and she felt a shift in him, to awareness that her body was against the length of his. She felt it, too, as the banked embers of their last lovemaking began to smoulder. Soon, those sparks would flare into a conflagration.

She turned her eyes toward the sea. The Golden Gate spanned the narrows, a ribbon studded with the lights of people going places. It reminded her of the evening she’d stepped out onto Davis’s terrace, just before Rory and she were reunited. Oceangoing ships headed out to sea, but Mariah no longer wanted to escape on one.