Masquerade (14 page)

Lately, though, they'd kept more and more to his apartment. He'd thought it would help. He'd thought he could handle this . . . affair they were having. He'd thought he could use her, the same way she was using him. But how many times during the day did he have to make himself stop thinking about her? How many times had he sat at his desk, staring at reports and visualizing her slender white body lying beside him, the gold flecks—like rays of sunshine trapped in her hazel eyes—glittering with desire just for him?

Yet none of it would last. He knew that—and that knowledge was his shield.

Cole introduced Remy to the ship's captain, Peder Van der Horn, a ruddy-cheeked Scandinavian with yellow-gray hair. After a brief tour of the vessel—limited mainly to the galley, the officers' quarters, and the bridge, due to the constant activity on deck as the ship was loaded with its first cargo for the company—the captain left them on the deck of the bridge for a few minutes, giving Remy an opportunity to observe the highspeed lifting cranes as they transferred the specially designed containers onto the ship to be stowed in the cellular grid of the below-decks compartments.

Alone with her, he became aware of the silence—if it could be called silence, with the noise of the cranes and the shouts of the longshoremen. He moved to stand beside her at the rail, deliberately focusing his gaze on the activity on the weather deck.

"The
Lady's
operating costs are going to be substantially lower than those of the
Dragon,
the ship she's replacing. Not only does she require a proportionately smaller crew, which cuts our labor costs, but those containers reduce the risk of pilferage, which decreases the insurance rates. And using containers means she can be unloaded and reloaded in a matter of hours, so less time is spent in port, again lowering the cost of the crew—and she can also make more trips, which adds up to more profit for the company," he said, talking to fill the void between them. "As the captain explained when we were on the bridge, the higher-than-average service speeds she's capable—"

"Enough," Remy broke in, holding up her hands in mock surrender, then laughing and shaking her head. "It's no use, Cole. I'll never be able to tell a container ship from a tanker."

"That isn't exactly something to brag about," he chided, faintly amused.

"That's no brag—it's a fact." She turned her back to the rail and leaned her elbows on it, letting the breeze play through her hair. "Now, if you want to talk about porcelain, that's something else."

Her remark served to remind him that she was porcelain and he was ordinary river clay. Neither fact was he likely to forget, even if she pretended to. His glance strayed to the ferry in the distance, plowing its way across the swirling channel waters to the landing on the opposite bank. Cole turned from the rail to watch it.

"The ferry's making its run to Algiers." He nodded his head in its direction, pointing it out to her, then watching as she turned to look, pushing back the strands of tawny hair that blew across her face. "That's where I grew up—in a ramshackle house off Socrates."

Properly it was called Algiers Point, the origin of its name long ago lost. During French and Spanish rule, slave pens had been built there to hold newly arrived blacks from the West Indies and Africa. Although separated from it by the Mississippi, Algiers was a part of the city of New Orleans, called black Algiers by many, and not because of its origins.

"Some say Algiers is where the blues got their start," Remy said, gazing at the jutting point of land. Then she turned her head and fastened her eyes on him with typical directness. "Have you been there lately? There's some marvelous renovation and restoration work going on. In fact, it's becoming a fashionable place to live."

Cole sensed immediately that that was more than just an idle comment; it had some other overtones in it. "Are you suggesting I could become fashionable?"

"I don't know," she returned lightly, a tiny smile teasing at the corners of her mouth. "Do you think you could be a candidate for renovation and restoration?"

"No."

She laughed. "I didn't think so. And truthfully, I can't imagine you being anything other than what you are. 'Take it or leave it'—that's you." She pushed away from the rail and swung to face him in a lithe, graceful move, then slid her hands up the front of his shirt without any interference from his suit jacket, since he'd left it in the backseat of his car, along with his tie. "And I'm so glad I decided to take you."

He stopped her hands before they crept around his neck. "The question is, where do you plan to take me, Remy? Your family doesn't approve of this—affair—we're having."

The faint smile never left her face, but her fingers stopped their caressing play on his shirt as she withdrew from him and stepped back. "Has someone said something to you about us?"

"No." But he wasn't surprised by that, either. "Your father is in an awkward position. I may be good enough to run the family business, but I'm not good enough for his daughter. I can't pass the blood test—the one that checks the amount of 'blue' blood in a man's veins."

"Why do you keep bringing up this nonsense?"

He saw the anger slowly building in her expression, and ignored it. "Because it's true, whether you want to admit it or not."

"Do you want to know what's true, Cole Buchanan?" It flared hotly then, yellow fire flashing in her eyes. "It's true you were raised in Algiers and I come from the Garden district; you were poor while I had plenty; you struggled to survive, but for me, life was yachts on the lake, summer dances, and Carnival balls; you worked your way through college and I attended an expensive one; you've fought to get where you are, and I haven't! And I say, so what? My God, do you think I judge a man's worth by where he's from or what he was?"

She said it now—with the same heat, the same outrage, remembering it clearly, both the words and the emotions. Hearing her, Cole again felt that surge of feeling breaking through his restraint.

That time, those months ago, she had abruptly turned from him. But he hadn't let her stalk away in anger. He'd caught her arm and spun her around, needing to see her face, needing to see she'd meant it. Then he'd kissed her, there on the dock, amidst the whistling approval of the longshoremen, and her anger had turned to a loving passion.

The urge was in him to replay the rest of the scene to its former conclusion—and the desire was there in her eyes too. But he'd believed her then, he'd believed she was different, he'd believed— and he'd paid the price for it, a price that might still go higher. No, too much had changed, too many things had changed. He wasn't a believer anymore—and, more damning than that, neither was she.

Cole watched the light of desire fade from her eyes, and he never moved, never reached out to keep it there. Maybe he ought to. Maybe she'd forgotten. Maybe she never would remember— except he knew her family would see to it that she did.

The morning breeze blew a lock of hair across her cheek. She brushed it back, breaking eye contact with him in the process. "I remember that moment," she said quietly. "That is what happened, isn't it?"

"Yes." He sounded curt, and he knew it. Trying to cover it, he glanced at his watch. "I have to be at the office in ten minutes. You'd better come with me, and I'll arrange for a taxi to take you home."

Remy shook her head. "I can walk."

"Not at this hour, and not in this area." Taking her arm, he steered her away from the dock. She briefly stiffened in resistance, then abandoned it and let him guide her to his car.

As they drove away from the wharf area, Remy sat silently in the car. When she'd left the house this morning, she'd hoped she might remember something. She had. She'd found another piece of her memory—in many ways a beautiful memory. Yet . . . afterward, she'd had the strongest feeling that she'd lost something. Why? Why did she think that? Why did she feel it?

She stole a glance at Cole. Even in profile, his strong-featured face wore that same cold and forbidding expression he'd shown her on the dock. It was as if he hated her—this same man who'd made love to her so fiercely, so desperately, so thoroughly, only a day ago. Why had he changed? What had she done? Or—was it something
he'd
done?

She felt herself tensing, straining to recall, and immediately tried to make herself relax. Her memory wasn't something she could command to return, as she'd so painfully learned.

Seeking a diversion, Remy fixed her attention on the business district of New Orleans, rising before her with its canyonlike streets running between lofty buildings, an eclectic collection of architecture, with examples of nineteenth-century styles intermingling with the concrete-and-glass towers of the twentieth century. She waited for Cole to turn on Poydras Street and enter the heart of it. Instead he made the jog and turned in to the entrance to the International Trade Mart.

"What are we doing here?" She directed her bewildered frown at Cole when he opened the passenger door and offered a hand to assist her from the car. "I thought you had to be at your office."

"This is where the corporate offices for the Crescent Line are located," he replied, waving a hand in the direction of the thirty-three-story building as she stepped out of the car without his help.

"I don't remember that." Why? she wondered. "Have they been here long?"

"Since early in the sixties, shortly after the building was completed. I understand it was your grandfather's decision to move the company headquarters here." He took her arm and guided her toward the entrance. "A smart move, considering that some twenty-eight foreign consulates and trade offices are located in the Mart, as well as a number of import-export businesses, barge lines, and other shipping companies."

She would have commented on this rare expression of approval for something one of her family had done, but she was still bothered by the discovery that the company offices were in this building. She didn't dispute him, exactly; she just had a vague feeling there was something he wasn't telling her—something she
almost
remembered for herself.

"There's a taxi pulling up now." His hand tightened on her arm.

When he started to steer her toward it, Remy pulled back. "No. I don't want to go home yet. I want to see the offices."

He opened his mouth as if to argue with her, then clamped it shut and swung toward the building.

When they reached the fifteenth floor, she saw the company logo on the door, gold lettering edged in black below it spelling out the name THE CRESTCENT LINE. The world map showing the major ports and shipping lanes that dominated one whole wall of the reception area was too typical of a decor associated with shipping. So were the models of racy clipper ships and sleek, modern vessels.

She followed Cole down the wide hall to the executive office area. She responded automatically to his secretary's greeting but didn't pause by her desk when Cole did.

"Have they arrived yet?" Cole asked as Remy wandered restlessly around the outer office, searching for something familiar, trailing a hand over the armrest of the leather sofa, wondering if it was the one Cole had set the framed print on to inspect it for damages, then moving on when it failed to strike any chord in her.

"Not yet, Mr. Buchanan," the painfully slim secretary replied, adding, "I put a stack of letters on your desk that require your signature."

Remy paused in front of the door to his corner office, vaguely aware of Cole's saying, "Miss Jardin will be leaving shortly. Make sure there's a cab waiting downstairs to take her home."

"I'll see to it right away."

Remy's hand reached for the doorknob as she realized it was imperative that she see inside. She turned the brass knob and gave the door a push, letting it swing open. She hesitated, then walked slowly into the room, the heels of her boots sounding loudly on the hardwood floor until they were muffled by the cushion of the thick Tabriz rug.

The morning light coming through the large windows gave a lustrous glow to the paneling, revealing the mahogany's rich patina—a patina that her mind told her couldn't be achieved over a few decades. A century, perhaps, but not mere decades. The wine leather chesterfield and wing-backed chairs in the small sitting area showed the wear of many hands. And the massive kneehole desk was clearly an antique—Sheraton, she thought.

More bewildered than ever, Remy turned and found Cole watching her from just inside the door. "I don't understand. This office is . . . old."

"Yes. Your grandfather moved the company headquarters but kept his office. It was dismantled in sections—floors, walls, and ceiling," he said, thumbing a hand at the coffered mahogany ceiling above them, "and then reassembled here, with allowances made—grudgingly, I'm told—for the Mart's larger windows."

"Subconsciously I must have been remembering how very old this office was—without remembering it had been moved here." She reached down and gave an antique globe a turn in its Chippendale stand, wondering if she'd played with it when she'd come here to see her father as a child.

"If you've satisfied your curiosity, or whatever it was, I have work to do," he stated, abruptly and briskly crossing the room to his desk.

Remy looked up, well aware that he wanted her to leave and doubting that his reason was solely the press of business. "I do have one other question."

"What is it?" There was a hardness in his expression, as if he was setting himself against her, as he'd done at the docks.

"Why did you leave the airport last night without a word to me or anyone else?"

"I have a question for you: why didn't you come after me?"

"I don't have an answer for that."

"And maybe that, in itself, is an answer."

"Maybe it is." As she moved away from the globe, the light from the window glared on a framed picture, obscuring the subject and drawing her attention to it. In her mind's eye she had a fleeting glimpse of a silver-haired man, stiffly posed in a boxy jacket with wide lapels. "Grand-père." She immediately identified the brief image. "Is that his portrait?"