didn’t you just,” she drawled, delighting at the fury that darkened his eyes.
Joe, standing to one side, frowned at the byplay, seemingly oblivious to the undercurrents.
“Shall we go?” Joe asked Gaby, holding out a hand.
“Whenever you’re ready,” she said lightly, and took the outstretched hand. She didn’t miss Marc’s reaction, and that pleased her too. “See you, big boss.”
Joe seemed as triumphant as she felt, and she darted a glance at him. Well, there was no doubt that he’d grown up in Marc’s shadow. Marc had had to be father and mother to the younger man, and she remembered vividly how Marc wielded that authority. He expected immediate obedience, no delays, no excuses. He’d been rigid, and she’d wondered even then if he hadn’t been too tough on Joe. She’d even mentioned it once, only to have him lash out at her for trespassing in family matters.
“Do you work here too?” she asked Joe.
“Me? Nope.” He shrugged it off. “I have an office at the main supply store. It’s kind of my territory. Besides, Marc and I do better when we only see each other occasionally.”
“I see.”
“How was it, seeing him again after so long?” he asked, pausing at the door to an office that carried David Smith’s name in gold letters.
She grimaced. “Not so bad, I guess.”
“He went up in smoke, did you notice?” He laughed, as if that amused him. “I’ll hear about this, you know. He’ll be all over me. Fraternizing with the employees...”
“Joe, you won’t get in trouble, will you?” she asked nervously. She didn’t want to be the cause of an argument.
“Don’t worry, I can take care of myself,” he told her. “Let him rage. Besides,” he added with a calculating stare at Gaby, “he’s got his own problems. I hear his newest lovely is angling for matrimony.”
“His newest?” she asked softly.
“Lana Moore. She’s a British woman. Very wealthy. Brains and beauty. He’s been her lover for the past year. Who knows, he might settle down at last.”
Gaby felt sick, unsteady on her feet. But she couldn’t let it show; she couldn’t let Joe see how that news affected her. She smiled and acted as if she were on stage. “Think so?” she teased. “What will we give him for a wedding present? How about the engine out of that ’56 Chevy?”
He smiled and looked so relieved that she almost burst out laughing. “You’re terrific,” he said under his breath. “Class all the way. Me, I got so many rough edges, I look like a building under construction, but you’re pure, smooth curves, Gaby.”
“What rough edges?” she said, chiding.
His thin shoulders lifted and fell. “My background shows. So does Marc’s, although he hides it well. It’s hard to go from poverty to money. Hard to leave old friends behind because they can’t share your new interests, can’t keep up with the money. Hard to try to fit into the lifestyle of new acquaintances who have money as a common interest, but you can’t relate to them as well as you can to the old friends. You never quite fit in, you know?”
She shook her head. “I came from money,” she confessed. “I’ve always had it. I guess it would be hard, though. Like having a foot in two worlds.”
“Well put. Come on, I’ll introduce you to Dave.”
He opened the door. A thin, nervous-looking man stood up, smiling at Joe. “Hi, son.” He laughed. He was barely forty, but he must feel fatherly. At least he looked it with his bald head and narrow amber eyes. “This must be Gaby. I recognize you from your photos. You’re doing a great job. We’re getting a lot of attention because of you.”
“I’m very glad, Mr. Smith,” she said, leaning forward to shake the clammy, outstretched hand. “Thank you for giving me the opportunity.”
“We’re happy to have you. Can I show you around?”
“We’ll show her around,” Joe said possessively, and winked as he took Gaby’s arm.
They gave her the cook’s tour, and at the end of it she had a vivid picture of the size of the company. It was monstrous, and she wondered how Marc, even with executives and a board of directors, kept track of all of it.
“The mind boggles,” she told Joe on the way out, all the while glancing around as if she expected that Marc might bound out from hiding. “It’s so...big! How do you keep track of everything?”
“Oh, we have enough employees,” he said easily. “It’s mostly bookkeeping, anyway.”
“Some bookkeeping! I’d go blind staring at so many numbers.”
“The auditors do, I think.” He laughed. He studied her for a long moment as they went down in the elevator. “There’s a party next Friday night at Marc’s apartment. Come with me.”
She felt herself go trembly. She wanted to go. She wanted to see Marc, just once more, to let her eyes have the freedom to look at him, to enjoy the sight and smell and reality of him after all this time. She’d thought that after all these years she’d gotten over him, but now, after seeing him just once, she wanted desperately to be near him again. It was so dangerous, though. The trap was there: she could fall in headfirst; she could give up her soul to him all over again. And this time it would be harder to let go. Despite his betrayal, despite the anguish, a part of her belonged to him and always would.
“I don’t think so,” she said quietly.
“Don’t be afraid of him,” Joe taunted lightly, touching her face. “I’ll be right there with you. He won’t bother you.”
That’s what you think, she thought. She looked up, her green eyes dominating her soft face. “Do you know how it ended between Marc and me?” she asked abruptly.
His eyebrows arched. “Sure. Your parents sent you away to school, to get you away from him.”
She opened her mouth. “Almost,” she told him. She and Joe were friends now, and she liked him. He felt like the brother she’d never had. And that being the case, she didn’t want to hurt him, to disillusion him about Marc. She knew he still looked up to his older brother, and she couldn’t destroy his dreams. She remembered how it had hurt when Marc destroyed hers.
She smiled faintly. “He told you, then?”
“Marc?” He stuck out his lower lip and laughed. “He never tells me anything. I just probed until I dragged that out of him. He wouldn’t talk about you afterward. Not one word. I guess it stung, having you taken out of his life like that.”
Sure it had stung, she thought, but the money had surely taken out the sting. He’d used it to good effect, too, she thought bitterly. She straightened. So he hadn’t told Joe the truth. How odd. Perhaps he didn’t want his younger brother to know what a cold-blooded, mercenary man he really was.
Her eyes grew cold as she relived it. “I’ll go to the party with you,” she said. “It will be an
