Honey Moon (51 page)

They parted automatically. It had been so long since she had been kissed, and he was so very beautiful, right to the center of his soul. His thumb outlined her bottom lip, touched the bow at the top. He dipped his head, and his thick, dark lashes fanned his cheekbones.

She felt the warmth of his mouth draw nearer and was pierced with a longing so fierce that she knew if she gave into it, she would have committed such an unforgivable act of betrayal that she could never again live with herself.

Just as his lips were about to settle over hers, she jerked away. "No! No, I won't do this! I won't betray my husband."

She had never seen anything as sad as the expression on his face. His eyes shimmered with pain that pierced her to the very core, and he seemed to collapse into himself.

"I'll bet you would have kissed the clown," he whispered.

She ran from him then, fleeing his presence and the sweet, sad seduction she had almost not been strong enough to resist.

Eric stood next to the coaster long after she had disappeared into the trees. His eyes were dry and scratchy. He told himself he had been living with pain for so long that a little more wouldn't make any difference, but logic couldn't ease the anguish. As the night wind whipped the trees, he found himself remembering the child she had been, the way she had followed him with those puppy-dog eyes, begging him to pay attention to her. Even then, something about her had drawn him in.

Now she was a woman, and he loved her. Despite her hostility and her rejection, he knew that she understood him in a way no one else ever had.

Although she had never had a child herself, she understood the depth of his love for his children. And her fierce, disciplined drive to finish her coaster—no matter how much it might alarm him— mirrored his own obsession with his work. She even seemed to know why he had to live in other people's skins.

Despite the differences in their backgrounds, despite the lies and deceptions, she felt like the other half of himself.

And she didn't want him. Instead she wanted a dead man.

A fresh attack of pain began to rush at him, howling and yipping, ready to sink its teeth in. Before that could happen, his mouth gave a savage twist, and he flung up his shield of cynicism.

He was the Prince of Studs. Women came after him, not the other way around.

All he had to do was snap his fingers and they lined up for his pleasure. He could have them any way he wanted: blond, brunette, old, young, big tits, long legs, step right up and let the big star take his pick. The women of the world were his to command.

Upside down?
Certainly, sir.

Two for one?
We aim to please.

But this woman didn't understand the rules.

She didn't understand the most basic fucking rule of the universe! She didn't understand that big movie stars
were entitled to any woman they wanted!

This woman didn't care that he might be the best goddamn actor of his generation. He could be a bricklayer for all the difference it would make to her.

She didn't care that he was a millionaire twenty times over, or that she was the only person in the world he had ever spilled his guts to. And she didn't even read goddamn
People
magazine, so how could she know that he was Sexiest goddamn Man Alive?

Eric turned away and headed back to the Bullpen to pack his things. As he left Black Thunder behind,

he knew that he had done a lot of stupid things in his life, but the stupidest thing he'd ever done was to fall in love with the grieving Widow Coogan.

Into the

Station

1990

29

"Daddy!" Lilly jumped up from her living room couch where she had been resting from her unpacking chores and raced across the black and white marble floor to her father.

"Hello, darling." In the seconds before Lilly was encompassed in Guy Isabella's arms, she noted with relief that he looked as handsome as ever. His thick, silvered-blond hair gleamed in the late January sunlight that streamed through the windows. A cantaloupe-colored sweater lay knotted over the shoulders of his Egyptian-cotton shirt. His pleated linen trousers were baggy and stylishly wrinkled. When he'd visited her in London four months earlier, she'd suspected he'd had a face-lift, but he was secretive about the exotic cosmetic treatments that kept him looking closer to forty than fifty-two, and she hadn't asked.

"I'm so glad to see you," she said. "You don't know how horrible everything's been." Drawing back, she gazed up at him. "You have an earring." She stared at the small gold hoop in his earlobe.

His eyes crinkled at the corners of his tightly stretched skin as he smiled. "You noticed. One of my lady friends talked me into it not long after our visit in London. What do you think?"

She hated it. There had been enough changes in her life recently, and she wanted her father to stay the same. Still, she wasn't going to ruin their reunion with criticism. "Quite dashing."

His tawny eyebrow arched as he regarded her critically, taking in the long red knit sweater that hung too loosely from her shoulders over a pair of silky black leggings. "You look terrible. Didn't you say you were going to spend New Year's in St. Moritz with Andre and Mimi? I thought you'd be rested."

"Hardly," Lilly replied bitterly. "The new nanny quit so I had to take the girls with me. Becca wasn't a problem. She doesn't talk very much anymore, but Rachel was uncontrollable. After the first day, Andre and Mimi were aching to ask me to leave, but they're much too polite, so Mimi contented herself with helpful comments about my shortcomings as a disciplinarian. Then Rachel deliberately knocked a glass

of grape juice on Mimi's Daghestan rug, and Mimi reverted to her fishwife roots. It was dreadful. We

left for Washington two days later."

"Did your visit with your mother go well?"

"What do you think? Rachel has always exhausted her, and Becca—You know mother. She's not good with any sort of imperfection."

"I can imagine." He began to look around him, rubbing his hands together.

"Where are my granddaughters? I can't wait to see Rachel again. And Becca, too, of course. I'll bet they've grown like weeds."

"Like nasty little weeds," Lilly murmured under her breath. Guy looked at her quizzically. "I called a service to get a sitter for the afternoon. She's taken them out for pizza and then to the park. I told her to keep them there for a couple of hours, but I doubt that they'll last that long. Rachel will attack another child or Becca will wet her pants or there'll be some other disaster and they'll be back."

"You need to discipline Rachel, Lilly."

"Don't you lecture me, too." She turned away from him and walked toward the windows. "How am I supposed to discipline her? She's hostile and difficult, and if I try to punish her, she runs away. I lost her for three hours last fall. After we found her, she went into my closet with a pair of scissors and deliberately cut up my new evening gown."

"I was hoping things would get better."

"How can they get better? She hates me, Daddy." Lilly crossed her arms over her chest and, biting her bottom lip, murmured, "And sometimes I hate her."

"You don't mean that?"

"No, of course I don't," she said wearily. "Except sometimes I do mean it. She makes me feel like such a failure." She reached down for the cigarette pack she'd left on the table that sat between the windows.

"You're smoking!"

Her hands faltered as she opened the pack. She hadn't intended to smoke in front of her father. He might sometimes be a bit too liberal in his use of alcohol, but he was a fanatic when it came to tobacco. "You have no idea of the strain I've been under."

He eyed her with such disapproval that she set down the pack. He walked over to the couch and carefully tugged on his trouser legs as he took a seat. "I can't understand why you're putting such pressure on yourself. I know you love to travel, but you've had so many addresses in the past nine months even I can't keep up with you. You're obviously exhausted. But I won't lecture you anymore, darling. At least you've had enough sense to come home so I can look after you."

"I'm only here for a few days. Just long enough to clear up some business affairs, and then we're going back to Paris."

"That's ridiculous, Lilly. You can't keep on moving around like this. Why do you have to leave so soon?"

"Eric's in town."

"All the more reason to stay. The way you've let him abdicate responsibility for the girls baffles me. You know I never liked him, Lilly, but I still can't believe how he's turned his back on his daughters."

Lilly looked away so she didn't have to meet his eyes. She had never told him about Eric. She was too ashamed. "Fatherhood was just another acting role for him. Once he mastered the part, he got tired of it."

"It's still hard for me to understand. He seemed to care about the girls so much."

"He's an actor, Daddy."

"Even so—"

"I don't want to talk about it."

He stood and came over to her. "But Lilly, you can't keep running. It's not good for the girls, and it's not good for you. You've always been high-strung, and it's obvious that raising Rachel and Rebecca by yourself is too much for you.

You're as thin as a rail and you look exhausted. You need some pampering, darling." He gave her a smile that gently crinkled the creases at the corners of his eyes. "How about a few weeks at a spa? There's a new place near Mendocino that's wonderful. I'm going to send you there as soon as possible.

It'll be my Christmas present."

"You've already given me a dozen presents."

"Nothing's too good for my baby." He drew her into his arms, and she pressed her cheek against his smoothly shaven jaw. As he held her there, she began to feel nauseated. She took a deep breath, waiting for the comfort his presence always gave her, but the musky smell of his cologne seemed to make her even queasier. Disturbed, she pulled away from him.

"Is something wrong?"

"Jet lag, I guess. I feel—It's all right. My stomach is just a little upset."

"That settles it. I'm taking the girls home with me tonight."

"No, really—"

"Not another word. Every time I offer to take them, you put me off. Do you realize that you've never once let me have my granddaughters? Not once since they were born. And I can't count the number of times in the past nine months that I've asked you to fly them to California to stay with me for a few weeks, but you always have excuses. No more, darling. You're under enormous strain, and if you don't get some rest soon, you'll be ill."

A headache had begun to throb at her temples. "They're too big a handful, Daddy."

"That's what you always say."

"Becca's been wetting the bed, and she's having so many problems with her speech that it's hard to understand her. Rachel gets more rebellious all the time; she won't do anything she's supposed to. I'd put her in a school somewhere, but I don't want Eric—" She broke off. "Anyway, you're not used to young children. They'd be too much for you."

"Not for a few nights. That won't be a problem at all. And don't forget that I raised you, Princess."

Lilly's stomach began to roll again, but before she could say anything, she heard the sound of the front door crashing open.

"I'm not one bit sorry!" Rachel shrieked in that loud, determined voice that made Lilly want to cover her ears. "It was my swing, and that boy tried to take it!"

Lilly pressed her thin fingers to her temples to try to keep her head from blowing apart. The argument between her daughter and the sitter who was supposed to have kept the girls occupied accelerated.

Rachel stormed into the living room, her dark hair flying wildly around her face. "You're a stupid baby-sitter! And I'm not doing anything you say!"

The sitter appeared with Becca in tow. She was an elderly woman, and she looked frazzled and angry. "Your daughter deliberately attacked a little boy,"

she announced. "And when I reprimanded her, she cursed me."

Rachel's light blue eyes were hostile, her mouth set in a mulish line. "I only said the S word, and he took my swing."

Guy stepped forward. "Hey, sweetheart. How about a kiss for your grandfather?"

"Grandpa Guy!" Rachel's hostility evaporated as she raced toward him. He hoisted her into his arms.

Her legs were long, and her sneakers banged against the knees of his linen trousers. Lilly felt something horrible uncoiling inside her chest at the sight of her daughter in her father's arms. She suspected it was jealousy and she was ashamed.

While her father talked to Rachel, she got rid of the sitter and pulled Becca out from behind one of the neo-Roman chairs where she had gone to hide. To her disgust, she saw that Becca's pink corduroy

slacks were wet.

"Becca, you wet yourself again."

Becca sucked on her thumb and watched her sister and grandfather with dull, disinterested eyes.

"Daddy," Lilly said nervously. "Don't you want to say hello to Becca?" Guy reluctantly set Rachel down and turned toward her.

"She's W-E-T," Lilly warned.

"Mommy just told Grandpa you wet your pants again," Rachel announced to her sister. "I told you not

to be a baby anymore."

"Well, now, accidents happen, don't they, Rebecca?" Guy patted Becca on the head but didn't pick her up. Lilly's father was no more comfortable with Rebecca than her mother, Helen, but at least he was more discreet about it. He pulled some cinnamon candies from the pockets of his linen slacks and handed them to the girls, just as he had done with her when she was a little girl. The familiar sight of those candies made her feel queasy again. She wondered if she were coming down with the flu.

"Unwrap it like this, Becca." Rachel extended her own candy toward her sister and showed her how to pull on the ends.

"Here, let me help," Guy said.

"No, Grandpa. Becca has to do things for herself or she won't learn. That's what Daddy says. Everybody keeps doing things for her, and it's made her lazy." She splayed her small hand on her hip and glared at her sister. "Unwrap it yourself, Becca, or you can't have it."