Beyond the Storm (9780758276995) (17 page)

She'd been kicked under the table, and none too lightly by Vanessa.

Excising her hand from inside his shirt, Adam awkwardly tried to slip out of the booth, Reva finally letting him, said he had to see a man about a horse.

“I bet you do,” Reva said.

“Ladies, order whatever you want, our tab is taken care of by your most-hated corporate sector,” he said. “Oh, and Reva, I'll need that tie back later, it's my good-luck charm now.”

“You bet it is.”

An alcohol-buzzed Adam bid a hasty retreat from the bar, found his way to the men's lounge, where he passed up the series of urinals for an available stall. He needed to think, to catch his breath. He sat and thought about the crazy night unfolding before his very eyes. The job interview itself made for a good story, but combined with the oversexed antics of Laverne and Shirley out there, well, he'd have a good tale for his buddy Patch's ears. That's when it occurred to him, he should call Patch to maybe help get Vanessa out of his hair. Reva was the wild one, and tonight that's what he was feeling, what he craved. She fit the occasion for a wild roll in the hay, not like Vanessa, the safe choice, someone with whom he shared a checkered history. God, was he even contemplating sex with either of them?
God, I'm starting to talk like Reva.

Just then he heard the wrong tenor of voice inside the men's private den, one so soft and seductive he felt his body begin to react. “Adam Blackburn, where did you go?”

Could that really be the impulsive Reva entering the men's room, come to claim him here? There was an edge of danger to that one, and with too much scotch in his brain, he was excited at such a prospect. Time to go about his business. “Uh, usually I pee in the urinal,” he said. “Regardless, it's still an ongoing process.”

“Hurry. I can't wait.”

“Gee, that's a comfort to my bladder.”

She must have followed his voice to the last stall, because all at once she was knocking on the door. “Quick, let me in. There's a guy at the urinal giving me a strange look.”

Let her in? What the hell? He looked around the intimate stall, feeling stupid even as he did so. Obviously there was only one way in or out of the stall. He didn't want them getting thrown out, so he unlatched the door and grabbed her hand to pull her inside before they were discovered, knowing he looked ridiculous with his pants still down around his legs. Turned out that was the least of his concerns, because the woman in the stall with him was not the sexy Reva. It was the safe Vanessa Massey.

“Vanessa?” he said, rising from his seat.

“Just shut up, Adam,” she said, grabbing at the open folds of his shirt. She kissed him without warning, hot lips on his, her teeth nibbling, pulling, gnawing on his lower lip. He knew he should push her away, but he was slightly drunk and she was more than slightly hot and very aggressive, and besides they did have a history and why else do people study history but because it's a way to remember. He grabbed at her hair, running his hands through it, and he felt her breasts, which easily popped out of the dress she was barely wearing. Licking exposed, ripe nipples, he tried to be quiet but it didn't matter, Vanessa was making noises enough for the both of them to be discovered. He tried to quiet her with kisses, but she pulled back. She unbuttoned his shirt hastily, digging her nails into his hard pecs.

She leaned in, whispered into his ear. “Take me, Adam, take me here and now.”

“Uh . . .” he stammered.

He realized she had produced a small square package in her hand and he also knew what it was and thought about how well prepared she was, like she had planned to get laid and who the chosen one was didn't much matter. With one quick motion she brought the packet up to her lips and tore it with her gleaming teeth. Not even looking where she was going, like she had a map to the treasure memorized, she grabbed hold of him and slid the condom down the length of his growing shaft.

“I said, take me, Adam. Now.”

He stopped for a moment, his eyes locked on hers. She looked familiar, that's for sure, but there was also something different, something . . . primal here. Something beyond the two of them. A new era was dawning between them, not the past and not tomorrow, one that existed in this frozen moment of time. It was almost like he was a different person and so too was she, both of them victims of some crazy possession that had taken them from Danton Hill and from New York, and into an existence where only they breathed. He detected hollowness behind her eyes and an empty soul living inside her body, almost like death had settled inside her.

Don't do it, don't do it
. . . he told himself.

He felt her lips upon his chest. His body surged with heat . . .

. . . and then he plunged inside her.

 

A hungover Vanessa awoke that next morning and hadn't a clue about a lot of things. Where she had slept was chief among them, followed by what time it was, what city she was in, and just how many vodka martinis she drank last night. Her last question was really more a realization, because in the deepest and most fuzzy regions of her brain, she knew she'd had sex and for the life of her she couldn't remember a single detail about the guy she'd done it with. She called out to Reva, who was always there but who wasn't there, and that's when Vanessa popped up from the bed, saw the garbage can beside it, and nearly retched into it based on the sheer convenience of it. Nothing happened, just dry heaves, and she lay back down, hoping that today could suddenly become tomorrow and she'd be that much further removed from a night to remember that no doubt she wouldn't. Reva would have fun reminding her, though.

She stole a look at the clock, the numbers blurry. Her eyes blinked, focused. 10:37.

Not bad, she could go back to sleep and . . .

She bolted out of bed.

“Shit,” she said. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Tossing back the covers, she rushed into the bathroom and looked at the mess that stared back at her from the mirror. She repeated her earlier curse words, tossing in a few harsher ones. She was very nearly late for the real reason she'd come to New York. Twenty minutes until her appointment, that much she remembered. Trouble was, it was uptown and she was downtown (wasn't she?) and more than miles separated the two destinations, especially if she were to make herself presentable. She had a choice, be late and look great or be on time and look like shit.

“Shit, shit . . . shit.”

She tossed on whatever clothes she saw lying around, grabbed her purse, and was down in the lobby of the SoHo Grand Hotel moments later. Outside she hailed a cab and told the driver there was a big tip in it for him if he got her to Sixty-Fifth and Fifth in ten minutes. Fortunately it was Sunday morning and traffic wasn't as bad as it could have been during a weekday and Vanessa reached her destination with two minutes to spare. She tipped the cabbie five bucks.

The pre-war building was one of those fancy addresses along the exclusive avenue that lined the eastern edge of Central Park. Somewhere inside the massive stone building was the very forbidding Eleanor Stillwell-Abramson, wife of the ambassador to some country Vanessa could not recall at the moment; she was lucky she came up with the wife's name. As she entered the building, the doorman inquired whom she was seeing. She could already feel contempt burning from his eyes; she wondered what Mrs. Stillwell-Abramson would think of her appearance if she was getting the stink eye from the doorman.
Great, I look like a party girl who can't control herself and who stays out till late and doesn't take anything in life seriously, so why should I even be considered for a position as this privileged woman's personal assistant?
She could just hear that upper-crusty Fifth Avenue voice and see the pince-nez with her beady eyes wide inside them casting judgment down upon Vanessa. She should just turn around now.

Except she couldn't do that to Reva; her friend had pulled a major favor from a friend of a friend of a friend to secure this interview for Vanessa.

She passed muster and found herself shooting up to the twenty-fifth floor.

“Ms. Massey, please come in,” a waiting Eleanor Stillwell-Abramson said as the express elevator opened up directly onto the penthouse-level apartment. The regal-looking woman with perfectly coiffed white hair standing before her was sixty-ish, smartly dressed in a blue tailored suit with a set of pearls wrapped around an aging neck. Her lips were held tight, her makeup nearly undetectable.

“Thank you, Mrs. Stillwell-Abramson, very kind of you.” Vanessa attempted to get the words out, her tongue's clarity trapped somewhere after the hyphen.

“Dear, it's okay. I know it's quite a mouthful. Why not call me Eleanor.”

“Thank you.”

“Some tea, coffee, water . . . uh, aspirin?”

There was no hint of sarcasm, just kindness.

“Oh, three of those four would be wonderful,” she said, an attempt at humor.

“I assume that last choice is between tea and coffee . . . hmm, let me presume that if you're interviewing for this job you probably have a thing for London and its penchant for afternoon tea, and if that's the case you'll be drinking and serving a fair amount of Earl Grey to thirsty highbrows . . . how am I doing so far?”

“You're reading me very well,” Vanessa said. “I apologize . . .”

“Dear, please have a seat. I'll get the aspirin.”

Vanessa did as instructed, especially since the tender but firm voice reminded her of a school's headmistress. She returned a moment later and the two women settled down to talk as tea was served, as were those promised aspirin. Mrs. Stillwell-Abramson outlined the details of the job: the lucky candidate would live with her and her husband in their stylishly appointed flat in Mayfair, overlooking London's expansive Green Park. She would arrange Eleanor's schedule, get her to her appointments on time, help when it came to shopping, clothes, travel arrangements, etc. Sundays would be her one day off, otherwise, she would be on call 24-7, but she'd be handsomely compensated for her potential lack of sleep. The woman, eyes steely and serious, asked if Vanessa understood and she said yes, shook her head, and said how much she would enjoy the job.

“You're American.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Please, call me Eleanor,” the woman said, then added, “Americans have no taste.”

“Indeed, ma'am.”

“Are you agreeing with me?”

“Yes?”

“Then why would I possibly hire you for a delicate job that requires not just taste but manners?” Her tone had turned chilly, like a wind suddenly sweeping down from the north, off the lake, a feeling Vanessa knew quite well and had experienced recently. “If you're American and Americans have no taste and you are in agreement with me, then it very much implies that you, dear, sweet and pretty and as unkempt as you are even for this interview, have no taste.”

“I had taste enough to answer your ad and to ask Reva Jenkins to get me the interview,” she said, “and quite frankly, I still have the guts to be sitting here in this pretentious apartment on Fifth Avenue, answering ridiculous questions that really have no merit when it comes to the job qualifications. And can I say, you should really be living in Notting Hill, not Mayfair, it's much trendier, way less . . . stuffy.”

“Are you calling me stuffy?”

“You are planning to reside in Mayfair, aren't you?” Vanessa asked, a broad, confident smile widening her curious face.

Mrs. Stillwell-Abramson pursed her lips in a way that made them hard to read. “You're hired.”

“I am?”

“Dear . . . I appreciate good conversation, and even more so I appreciate someone who will challenge me. All the other girls I've met with, they were all raised properly by their parents or their nannies or their Upper East Side schools, so they want to say the right thing, dress the right way. I could do with a breath of fresh air . . . a dose of reality. Not quite a tornado, mind you . . . But, Vanessa dear, keep this in mind. The partying lifestyle you indulge in goes by the wayside. Time to clean up your act. You're how old?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Time to grow up.”

“Yes, Eleanor.”

“You're married?”

“Divorced. Not a good breakup. He was Italian. I was independent.”

“Say no more.”

“I wasn't planning to.”

Eleanor simply nodded.

“So you've been living in London?”

“Yes. But Brussels before that. And Rome and the Lake District when married.”

“A jet-setter.”

“Hardly. Just trying to find where I fit in.”

“A rebel then.” Before giving Vanessa a chance to reply, she asked, “What brought you back to the States?”

“I had some personal matters to attend back home. Upstate.”

“Westchester?”

“No, real Upstate. Lake Ontario, a small town, forgettable.”

“From your expression, what brought you back was nothing to your liking.”

“A funeral.”

Again, Eleanor Stillwell-Abramson simply nodded. “I'm sorry.”

“I'm not.”

The woman waited for more, but Vanessa was done with that line of questioning. She'd offer up no further details.

“In that case, we leave for London next week. My husband is already there, working.”

“I'll be ready tonight,” Vanessa said, and for the first time she smiled since waking up in that disheveled hotel bed with no memory of the night before. She recalled her visit back home and all the awfulness that trip had brought, and then she saw images from last night start to creep back into her memory. Reva, the Standard, running into Adam Blackburn and thinking the sexy man in front of her couldn't possibly be the same boy who had taken her to the prom. Endless drinks, endless innuendo from Reva, and then seizing her moment, begging Adam for sex and feeling him inside her, knowing at once it was the same Adam. All of them had been stupid mistakes that only managed to bring her even further back home, inextricably linking her to Danton Hill for forever despite her continual running away. Then she said, setting down the cup of tea and wishing for two more aspirin, “I can't get out of this city—this country—soon enough.”