Hot Shot (50 page)

"Get hold of him and tell him I want my old Blaze back," she said. She didn't care if she was being illogical. She'd had enough changes forced upon her in the past month, and this was one she could control.

Helen nodded and then told her she had a call from Mitch. Susannah picked up her phone. "A nude review? Couldn't you have done better than that?"

"I'm an engineer, not a poet. I thought I told you not to come in to work until tomorrow."

"Too much to catch up on."

He hesitated. "Susannah, I'm afraid I've got more bad news. I don't like hitting you with everything on your first day back, but I just got a call from Sacramento."

She rested her forehead on the tips of her fingers, bracing herself for the next disaster.

He said, "The people we're dealing with in the state government got wind of the rumors that SysVal is up for sale, and that tipped the scales in favor of FBT and the Falcon 101."

She rubbed her temple with her thumb. A multimillion-dollar contract was lost; Sam wanted to sell the company. A month ago they had been sitting on top of the world. Now everything was coming apart.

She spent the next two hours on the phone to Sacramento, talking to everyone she could reach and trying to convince them that the rumors were untrue. The officials were polite but unbending. They had made the decision to go with FBT's Falcon 101 instead of the Blaze III, and that decision was irreversible. She turned to her computer and began crunching numbers, trying to determine how this financial setback would affect the new Blaze Wildfire project.

Sam came to her office around five. She sensed his presence in the doorway before she looked up.

"Hi, Suzie."

For so many years every part of her had jumped alive whenever she caught sight of him, but now she felt numb. She swiveled slowly in her chair and for a few brief moments saw him as others did, those who hadn't fallen under his spell. He looked tired and nervous.

He needed a haircut, and his slacks and shirt were wrinkled, as if he'd fallen asleep in them.

"Did you go over to the house?" he asked as he walked into her office.

"I stopped in to pick up my things."

"You can't run away if we're going to get this worked out."

Now that she had left him, he finally wanted to work out their problems. She could almost have predicted this would happen, so why was it so hurtful? "We're not going to get our problems worked out. It's over, Sam. I've had enough."

He drove his hand through his hair, plunged his fist into the pocket of his slacks. "Look, Susannah. I'm sorry. I fucked up real bad. I know that. But it doesn't have to be the end of everything. If I'd known it was going to be such a big deal to you—"

"I don't want to talk about it!" She fought for composure. Years of bitter experience had taught her how easy it was to get caught up in Sam's twisted logic, and her emotional control was too fragile for her to argue with him now. "These are business hours, Sam, and we're going to talk business."

Rising from behind her desk, she forced herself to come around to the front. "Mitch just told me that we lost the contract with the state of California because they heard a rumor that we're going to sell SysVal. Tell me why you sandbagged us like this."

He flopped down in a chair, stretching his legs out and hunching his shoulders like a sullen schoolboy. "It's obvious, isn't it? It's time for us to sell. The economy is heading for a recession, and companies are going belly-up all over the Valley. We've been lucky, but I don't think we should push it. That contract with the state was fool's gold, anyway."

"And so, without consulting any of your partners, you took it upon yourself to approach the rest of the board about selling SysVal."

"What was I supposed to do?" he replied belligerently. "You'd run away, remember?

How was I going to consult you?"

She wouldn't let him draw her into a fight. "What about Mitch and Yank? They didn't run away."

"Mitch and Yank don't understand things, not like you do. Listen, Susannah, this may seem like it's come out of nowhere, but everything's going to be okay. We can take all that we've learned and start a new company—something a lot better than SysVal. We've gotten too big too fast. This time, we'll keep ourselves even leaner and trimmer. Think how much we know about manufacturing. We can automate everything. Robotics is exploding. We'll save millions in labor costs. With our track record, we'll have every investor in the country standing in line to back us."

He was saying the right words, but the energy wasn't there. His eyes weren't shining with any mystic vision of the future. She sensed that he was throwing up some sort of elaborate smoke screen. Stalling for time, she walked over to the window and gazed out on a small, grassy courtyard. It was pretty, but uninspired compared to the elaborately landscaped grounds at FBT's Castle.

"What's this really about, Sam?" she asked quietly. "Are you trying to get back at me? Is that what you're doing?"

"No! God, don't you know me any better than that? What kind of a shit do you think I am?"

She didn't say anything.

He got up from the chair, looked down at the carpet and jabbed the leg of her desk with the toe of one of his custom-made Italian loafers. "Suzie, don't do this. Don't throw everything away because of what happened. I got rid of Mindy. I didn't think you'd want her around, so I fired her. And I went back to the shop and got that painting you wanted."

He was laying small gifts in front of her like a child who had misbehaved and wanted to make up with his mother. The betrayed wife in her felt a vindictive satisfaction that Mindy had been fired. The female corporate president noted the injustice and knew she would have to correct it right away.

She wasn't going to discuss their marriage, and she certainly wasn't going to discuss Mindy. "Why do you want to sell SysVal?"

"I told you. We've made a fortune, and we need to get out now. You have to listen to me, Suzie. It's all going to crash down. I can feel it. We need to get out while we can."

The old passion was back in his eyes, and it stirred a sense of apprehension within her.

"You know something that you're not telling me."

"When did you get so goddamn suspicious? There aren't any hidden secrets here, Susannah. Just look at the fucking economy."

"We're not selling SysVal."

"The hell we're not. The rest of the board will go along with me. They're bean counters, Susannah. They don't like it when I get nervous. In the end, you won't have any choice.

You'd better trust me on this, because if you don't, you're going to end up looking like a fool."

"I don't think so. I think you're the one who'll look like a fool."

"We went into this together, and I'm going to see to it that we go out together." He strode past her toward the door. "Don't fight me on this one, Susannah. I'm warning you. If you fight me, it'll be the last big mistake you make with this company."

* * *

At three o'clock the next afternoon, when SysVal's Board of Directors convened, Mitch, Susannah, and Yank were conspicuously absent. Sam paced the floor of the boardroom while one of his assistants scurried to locate them. The assistant returned with the news that Mitch had made an emergency trip to Boston and that Susannah and Yank were nowhere to be found. The board overruled Sam's objection and voted to postpone their meeting.

Sam stalked out into the corridor. He couldn't believe she was defying him like this, that she was being so goddamn stubborn about everything. He should have known she would freak if she ever found out he slept with other women. She didn't understand that sort of shit didn't mean anything. She didn't understand that she was the only woman he wanted to spend his life with.

When he reached his office, he pushed through the line of people waiting in the reception area to see him and told his assistants they had fifteen minutes to find out where she was.

Then he shut himself in his private office. She wanted a baby. Okay, he'd tell her a baby was okay. Maybe having a kid was what he needed. Maybe it would settle him down.

He realized he was sweating. Jesus, he was scared. Everything was happening so fast.

Somehow he had to convince his partners to sell SysVal. And he had to get Susannah back. Not because of the company, either. Because of him.

Now that he was seeing things a little more clearly, he realized that it wasn't all her fault he wasn't happy. Maybe most of it was his fault. But she knew how crazy he got sometimes. She should have understood that he was just going through a hard time. She knew he loved her. He needed her. And if she left him, she was going to take all his missing parts with her.

"I don't mind coming with you, of course," Yank said to Susannah as they explored the empty bedroom of a newly built, multimillion-dollar luxury condominium that came complete with indoor pool, solarium, and a spectacular view. "But I don't need a babysitter. I wish you had trusted me to make myself unavailable this afternoon."

Susannah glanced at her watch. It was four o'clock. The meeting should have broken up by now. She gave Yank an apologetic smile. "I couldn't afford to take a chance that you'd get distracted today and forget the time."

He didn't return her smile. He merely gazed at her, his expression inscrutable.

Feeling uncomfortable, she looked away. There was something so mysterious about Yank. She never knew what he was thinking. She doubted anyone did.

The realtor had left them alone so Susannah could go through the house a second time.

This afternoon had seemed as good an opportunity as any to find a permanent place to live. She gazed unenthusiastically through the arched windows to the mountains beyond.

"I guess this is all right."

"It seems adequate. Furnishings will add a lot, of course."

Susannah thought of the gaudy gilt and brocade interior of Yank's house, a decorating scheme favored by one of his early girlfriends.

A noise sounded below—the bang of the door being pushed open and then slammed shut.

She caught her breath as she heard a pounding on the stair treads. Yank frowned.

Sam burst into the room. "I can't believe this. It's like I don't know who to trust anymore."

Susannah's control snapped. "Don't you talk to me about trust."

"You have a house, Susannah!" he exclaimed. "My house. Our house. You don't need another one."

"I don't want to talk about this now, Sam. I want you to leave."

He stalked toward her. Yank stepped forward, moving without any appearance of haste, but effectively blocking Sam before he could reach her. "You'd better leave, Sam," he said quietly. "Susannah doesn't want you here."

"Get out of my way!" Sam punched at Yank's chest, trying to push him aside. But Yank was wiry, and although he swayed to the side, he didn't budge. A vein in the side of Sam's neck began to pulse as he shouted, "I thought you were my friend. You should have been at the board meeting today. Instead, you were helping my wife leave me."

"Yank came with me because I asked him to," Susannah said. Sam's rage was embarrassing. Once again she had a sense of detachment as she studied him, a feeling that she was seeing him with newer, wiser eyes.

"I'll just bet he jumped all over himself trying to help you out," Sam retorted nastily.

Yank pressed his eyes shut and his mouth twisted with pain. "I think I'm going to have to give up on you, Sam. Susannah and I—we're both going to have to give up on you."

Sam winced and for a moment his face seemed to crumple.

"I saw a lawyer this morning," she said quietly. "Nothing you do now will make any difference." Clearing a wide berth around him, she walked out into the hallway.

"Don't do this, Susannah," he called from the doorway. "Come home with me right now."

But she wasn't going into battle with him, and she walked away.

Instead of returning to SysVal, Sam found himself driving to his mother's house. She was sunning herself in the backyard, wearing a bikini in some shiny bronze fabric that didn't look as if it had ever seen water. The headset of a Walkman was strapped over her ears, and her eyes were closed beneath a pair of sunglasses with the gold script letters A.G.

glued to the bottom of one lens.

Even though he had offered to buy Angela a new house anywhere she wanted, she had refused to move out of the old neighborhood. She said she liked living here because she knew all the neighbors and her old ladies depended on her. He'd told her that she didn't have to work anymore—he had more money than he knew what to do with—but she said she liked her independence. He'd even offered to buy her a first-class salon that she could run any way she wanted, but she'd said she didn't want to work that hard.

As he reached down and shut off the Walkman, her eyes snapped open. "Hi, baby." She pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and sat up a bit. Her stomach wrinkled a little as she moved, but she still had a great body for someone who was forty-nine.

"Don't you look snazzy," she said, as she always did. "If anybody had told me when you were eighteen that you'd be running around someday in eighty-dollar neckties, I'd have told them they were crazy."

He took the webbed chair next to her, noticing as he sat that rust had formed around the screws on the arms. "Clothes aren't important."

"Try giving them up."

He stretched out his legs, looked up at the sky and closed his eyes. "Did you talk to Suzie?"

"She called me yesterday."

"She's got this stupid-ass idea that she's moving out."

"Uh-huh."

"Well?"

"You want some spaghetti?"

"So what did you tell her?"

"I didn't tell her anything. Suzie's a grown woman."

"So what did she say to you?"

"She said she's leaving you, Sammy."

He pushed himself out of the chair. "Yeah, well that's what she thinks. See, she wants a kid."

"I know. She wants a husband, too. You're getting what you deserve, kiddo. I've been trying to tell you that for a long time."

"You know, you really piss me off. You're my mother, not hers. You're always taking her side. Right from the beginning."