Indiscretions (15 page)

“We’re not here to talk about my membranes,” snapped Rory, checking the room to see who was with whom. “We’re here to talk about money.”

So that was it. The salary complaint. “What about it?”

“It’s not enough, that’s what about it.” Rory fiddled with the tiny gold spoon on the chain around his neck. It was his only jewelry. Rory had decided against the Rolex on the basis that everybody had one and those who didn’t had a cheap copy. He was still waiting to know what wristwatch would be “in” next, so he could be first.

The girl put the salad in front of him and he gave her his big smile. She thought he surely had great teeth.

“Look, Rory, they’ve upped your money once, you’re getting thirty grand an episode now. That kinda money’s not to be sniffed at.” Bill smiled at his unintended double entendre and Rory glared back at him over his salad.

“It’s not enough. I’m the star of that show, without me it’s down the tubes. All those women—
women
, Bill—on the other shows get more than me.”

It was true, he
was
the star of the show, but the show was still new. All the others—
Dynasty, Dallas
—they’d been running for years. “They’ve earned it, Rory, they all paid their dues in the beginning.”

“Yeah. Well, I don’t intend to wait that long. You can tell ‘em from me, Bill, that I don’t show up for shooting next season unless I get fifty an episode.” He munched on the alfalfa sprouts, wishing he liked the taste more. “I mean it, Bill.”

Bill kept the benign smile on his face, but he was boiling. After all he’d done, the kid was gonna fuck it up now, just because he couldn’t wait awhile—he’d gotten greedy too early.

“Look, Rory,” he said, picking at the sandwich he’d ordered, “all you have to do is lay off for a while, get a couple of good seasons under your belt, and then the company’ll expect to be hit for more money—that’s the way it is these days. They’ll be reasonable when they know the show’s a stayer. You’ll be up there with
Dynasty
yet.”

“Now!” said Rory. “No waiting!”

Bill’s temper boiled over. His smile was just as gentle and he kept his voice low and even, so that nobody at the next tables would ever have an inkling that anything was wrong.

“You little prick.” He smiled. “You’ll do as I tell you. Don’t start giving orders to me and thinking you’re the
star—because you and I know you ain’t, not unless I say so.”

Rory’s brown eyes, set under thick blond eyebrows, met his; his hand, holding a forkful of avocado, halted halfway to his mouth.

“Whadd’ya mean? I’m the guy up there on the screen—there’s nothing you can do about that anymore.”

“No?”

Rory laid down the fork; he knew a threat when he heard one. “It’ll be your word against mine,” he said defiantly.

“My word,” replied Bill, calling for the check, “and Stan Reubin’s. Stan’s one of our most respected lawyers, Rory, you know that, don’t you? They’d believe whatever he said about Jenny’s last night on earth.”

Rory stared at him as Bill carefully placed a three-dollar tip on the table. “So get yourself back to work, Rory. I’ll see you’re taken care of all right. Don’t you worry about that.”

Bill headed for the door and Rory watched him go. Shit, he thought uneasily, wasn’t that whole episode dead and buried along with Jenny? What had Bill meant by that?

“Can I get you anything else, Mr. Grant?” The waitress was smiling at him. She was kinda cute. “I love the Missoni,” she said, touching the sleeve of his sweater.

“Thanks,” smiled Rory. He’d known the Missoni would be a winner.

6

Morgan McBain prowled the upper level of Geneva’s immaculate air terminal, pausing now and then to stare out of the windows at the still-falling snow. It had been coming down for more than three hours now in an ever-thickening white blanket that had brought all air traffic to a halt, closing off Geneva Airport—and himself—from the rest of the world. His plane from Athens had been the last one to land before the storm really took hold and it was impossible to tell how long it might be before the snow eased off enough for plows to clear the runways and his flight to Paris to continue.

Leaning against the gallery rail he surveyed the lines at the check-in counters. Frantic couriers were trying to placate groups of irate would-be skiers who very much wanted to be in their mountain resorts, and certainly didn’t want to waste their time and money in any snowbound airport. Pretty girls in shaggy fur moon-boots and brilliant ski jackets crowded the bar, and Morgan was on the receiving end of many a friendly and interested smile as he stepped over the scattered baggage and lines of
propped-up skis, on his way to buy his third cup of airport coffee. He felt out of place in his dark-gray business suit—and out of touch.

How long has it been since I went skiing? he wondered, recalling the sheer physical exhilaration of the sport, the easy camaraderie of the skiers, and the cheerful charm of those mountain resorts, ringed into intimacy by their snow-capped peaks. Three, or maybe it was four, years?

Whichever, it was too long!

Finding a spare corner, unlittered with skis, he sipped his coffee, eavesdropping on the chatter of “lethal moguls” and “black runs,” of who wore the tightest ski pants and was a rotten skier and why Verbier had the best young crowd, the best skiing, and the best-looking chalet girls. These skiers are
my
age, he thought, shocked by the realization that he had automatically thought of himself as older. I’m twenty-five and, like my father, I spend half my life in transit. It’s not just skiing—when did I last take a
real
holiday? I’m so wrapped up in the McBain enterprises that I leave no time for my personal life—a few days here, a few days there, and that’s all!”

His father’s yacht, the 150-foot
Fiesta
, was right now moored in Carlisle Bay in Barbados with a complete crew and no passengers. Fitz was in New York and might manage to get down for a week later in the season, and Morgan had spent five days on the
Fiesta
last year in its usual Mediterranean summer ports, drifting from St. Tropez to Sardinia. And that was it! He only visited the hotel they owned in the Bahamas to check the management, or discuss structural extensions and alterations. He was so committed to becoming indispensable in his father’s organization and overcoming his personal hang-up of being “the boss’s son” that he never allowed himself time off merely to relax. His days were more often spent on a desert building site in Kuwait or at a refinery in
Galveston than lying on a beach—or gliding down a snowy mountain.

If he wasn’t careful, decided Morgan, setting down his coffee cup, he would become like his father, too driven by his interests in the McBain Corporation to enjoy the rest of life’s pleasures.

He smiled back at the girl in the kingfisher-blue ski jacket and jeans. She had burnished red hair and a turned-up nose with a scatter of freckles, and a very inviting smile.

“You look like a skier,” she said, assessing Morgan’s blond, broad-shouldered good looks, “but you’re not dressed like one.”

Morgan grinned. “Learned the trade on the slopes of Vail and the powder at Park City, Utah.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing until you’ve skied in Switzerland,” she countered, “but I’ll bet you’re a black-run man?”

“Off-piste. I’m the adventurous sort.”

“I’ll bet you are—adventurous, I mean.” She gathered together her skis and her boot bag, surveying him carefully. He wasn’t that much older than she, but he gave an impression of maturity, of knowing his place in the world and being totally confident in it. It was an attractive quality and he was an attractive man.

“Sure you don’t want to get rid of that business suit and come with me?”

A ripple of sexual attraction threaded between them. She was very cute and he’d bet she skied well too.

“Where are you heading?”

“Verbier. It’s where all the Brits go.”

All the Brits … he wondered if Venetia went to Verbier? Funny, he always thought of Venetia as English and yet she was as American as he. Well, nearly.

“Maybe next time. Thanks for the offer anyway.”

“Not at all. Pity, though, it could have been fun.” She
tucked her burnished red hair behind her ears and hefted the skis onto her shoulder.

Morgan watched as she walked across to join her group of friends. There were a dozen of them and they looked very together. An athletic-looking young man put his arm around the girl’s shoulder and drew her into the group. They were very jolly, laughing and excited, anticipating the fun they would have on the slopes and in the après-ski clubs.

Morgan turned back to the bar and ordered a Scotch. He was an experienced enough traveler to know better than to drink when flying, but he suddenly felt left out and lonely. It wasn’t that there was any shortage of women in his life. He met them all the time. In whichever city he found himself there were half a dozen pretty girls he could call, and a dozen charming hostesses only too willing to invite him to dinner. He attended balls in Monaco and galas for the opera in New York. He played tennis with actresses in Los Angeles and took finicky Paris models to dinners they ignored, in elegant nouveaux restaurants that all seemed to offer the same menu, and, more often than he cared to remember, he ate lonely meals in air-conditioned hotel suites that could be in Frankfurt or Abu Dhabi in their anonymous similarity.

He’d bet that that bunch of skiers over there would have more fun in the next week than he’d had in the past five years.

Life, decided Morgan, knocking back the Scotch, had become very boring. Except for Venetia Haven. In the three months since he’d met her he’d found himself making deliberate excuses and even detours so that he could spend time in London. He had often been able to manage only one night in the city, and it had meant a hell of an early start the next morning, but she was worth it. He’d take her to dinner in some quiet little restaurant she knew
and they’d hold hands in the candlelight and he’d find himself unable to stop just looking at her. He didn’t see the resemblance to her famous mother so much, perhaps because Jenny was a bit before his generation; what he saw was a delicately boned, blond girl with eyes that changed their depth of color with her change of expression, lighter and sparkling when she was interested, grayer when she was tired, and deeper with a touch of violet when she was moved by tenderness.

Vennie was a girl determined to establish her independence and yet the same girl whose lips trembled under his when he kissed her … and that’s all he’d done so far, kiss her. Because if it became anything more, with a girl like Vennie it would be a commitment, one he wasn’t sure he wanted to make. He knew that she enjoyed being with
him
and not just with Fitz McBain’s son. Vennie never demanded to be taken to the most expensive restaurant or club; she was happy with the neighborhood bistro if that was what he felt like, where the lights were comfortably dim, the wine list surprisingly good, and the food adventurous.

A message in French that all flights were subject to long delays crackled over the speakers and was greeted with derisive laughter and cheers by the skiers. Suddenly Morgan felt even more alone in the midst of the busy airport. Making his way briskly back to the VIP lounge, he closed the door on the crowded scene. A half-dozen men read newspapers or dozed on comfortable sofas in the quiet, green-carpeted room. A few others caught up with paperwork or made conversation over a drink. A steward came forward to offer the latest information on the storm and the anticipated length of the delay. At least another two or three hours. If Mr. McBain preferred, he could arrange a hotel room.

“I’ll tell you what I’d like to do,” said Morgan, handing him the ticket and boarding pass. “Change my flight
to the next one for London, will you, and get me a telephone. I have to make an international call.”

The steward plugged in the phone next to him and Morgan picked up the receiver and dialed. He wondered if Venetia enjoyed skiing.

The bitter wind had turned the sleet into stinging droplets of ice that reddened Venetia’s cheeks as she battled her way from the car park, laden with her food hampers and baskets. Reaching the shelter of the towering office block she dumped her baskets on the floor of the elevator and shook the melting ice from her hair, drying it with the end of her long woollen scarf. Muzak and warmth enveloped her as she pressed the button for the tenth floor. It had taken two trips to get all her equipment from the car, and she was frozen. The elegant gray Italian boots that she’d bought last week when she’d worked three lunches plus two dinner parties and had felt quite rich were stained from the slush outside—which, she thought glumly, just went to prove either that she shouldn’t buy luxuries she couldn’t afford or that she’d have to become more practical!

The elevator jolted to a stop and she picked up her basket again, smiling at the receptionist cocooned in the taupe and dove-gray carpeted silence of the executive floor of Blakemore and Honeywell, investment counselors and management consultants. The sleek-haired brunette nodded indifferently and went back to filing her long red nails. “Kitchen’s through there, down the corridor on your left.” She offered no help and once again it took Venetia two trips with her load.