her soul mate beside her, sharing it with her.
WITH HER NEWFOUND RESOLVE still burning inside, Lisa approached her tenth wedding anniversary the following week with optimism. She checked in on Willie that morning, satisfied that he’d come through his second surgery better than they’d hoped, and then took the rest of the day off. She had some primping to do.
Stopping at the mall on the way home, she wandered through a couple of exclusive lingerie shops until she found just what she was looking for—a black pure-silk teddy. Marcus was a sucker for silk.
“Will there be anything else, Mrs. Cartwright?” the saleswoman asked when Lisa handed over her charge card.
“Is that lavender bubble bath?” Lisa gestured toward the display beside the counter.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s not too overpowering, though, and it’s full of moisturizers. I use it myself. Would you like to try some?”
“Sure, why not?” Lisa said, feeling a little decadent. These days she rarely had time for more than a quick shower, let alone a leisurely bubble bath, but her husband had always liked the scent of lavender. And she’d bet he could think of a few interesting things to do in a lavender-scented tub. He was wonderfully inventive.
She hurried home and stayed there only long enough to pack a few things for herself and a bag for Marcus. Telling Hannah not to bother with dinner, she jumped back in her car and headed out of New Haven. She knew exactly where she was going. Haven’s Cove, the beautiful private resort on the coast between New Haven and Milford. It was the perfect place for her and Marcus to celebrate. If the memories they’d find there didn’t remind them of all that they were to each other, nothing would.
She spent half an hour or more reacquainting herself with the grounds, glad to see that little had changed since the last time she’d been there, and then whiled away the afternoon in the salon, treating herself to the works. She was going to bring the hungry look back into Marcus’s eyes.
At five o’clock on the nose, she sent a telegram to Marcus: MEET ME AT HAVEN’S COVE. I NEED LOVIN’. And then she waited.
Some of the best hours in Lisa’s life had been in the cabanas at Haven’s Cove. It was where Marcus had first told her he loved her. Where, months after they’d become lovers, she’d finally seen the knowledge of her love for him dawn in his eyes. Where he’d asked her to marry him.
And now she hoped he still believed in them enough to join her.
MARCUS WAS BEAT when he arrived back at his office. He’d just come from an afternoon meeting that had lasted twice as long as it should have. The Rhode Island department-store venture had to be pulled into the nineties if it was going to have any hope of surviving, and George Blake, the old gentleman who sat at the helm of the family business, while seemingly agreeable to every suggestion Marcus and his team made, was having a hard time letting go of the only way of life he’d ever known.
Marcus didn’t have to take the time to consider the man’s feelings. Not legally. But he couldn’t just take over a man’s life’s work and leave him with nothing. He wanted Blake to understand the changes, to be able to continue to sit at the helm of his company after Marcus had him set up and running again. So he was taking the time to teach the man what it had taken himself four years at Yale, and three times as many in business, to learn. Or at least an abridged version thereof.
He’d realized halfway through the meeting what day it was. He’d been putting in so many long hours for Cartwright Enterprises the past couple of weeks that the days had all started rolling into one. Not that he minded. To the contrary. The only time he didn’t have doubts about himself these days was when he was working.
But he still didn’t know where the first half of the month had gone. Someone had mentioned a golf date when they’d taken a break for lunch, and it had suddenly dawned on Marcus that it was the middle of June. The sixteenth to be exact. His anniversary.
Or maybe it hadn’t suddenly dawned on him. Maybe he’d been unconsciously trying to forget. He wasn’t sure there was much to celebrate. Not for Lisa, anyway. Not anymore.
He’d had coffee with his wife early that morning and she’d read the paper just like every other morning, not giving any indication that she’d remembered what day it was. She sure as hell hadn’t wished him happy anniversary as she had all the other years since they’d been married. And when he’d tried to call her at lunchtime, he’d been told she wasn’t expected in her office at all that day. Which meant she was either out exhausting herself in the free clinic or volunteering her time at the hospital. Anything to stay away from home. Not that he blamed her. The emptiness there mocked him, too.
“A telegram came for you about an hour ago, and your other mail is there, too,” Marge, his secretary of thirteen years, said as he let himself into his suite of offices on the top floor of Cartwright Tower in downtown New Haven. She’d been with him since his sophomore year at Yale, when he’d begun working his way up the ranks at Cartwright Enterprises. She’d been working for him the year he’d met Lisa; had been at his wedding, too. “There’s also a stack of letters for you to sign, and Paul Silas wants you to give him a call.”
“Thanks, Marge. Give yourself double overtime this week and go home. You don’t owe me all these late nights.”
“It’s okay, Marcus. The twins left a couple of weeks ago to take summer jobs at the University of Connecticut—they’re getting ready for their freshman year—and the house is so quiet it’s depressing. I’d just as soon be here as home.”
“Where’s James?” Marcus asked.
“He’s in Florida for a month, overseeing the construction of a new shopping complex outside Orlando. I almost wish he hadn’t been promoted to project manager.”
Marcus smiled at his middle-aged secretary’s uncharacteristic grumbling. “You don’t mean that, Marge. You’d have to give back that boat he bought you last summer.”
Marge grinned. “You’re right. I don’t mean it. But I’m telling you, Marcus, for once I think you and Lisa have the right idea.”
“About what?”
“About not having children. It hurts bringing them into this world, they take years off your life with all the worry they cause, and then they just up and leave home, not caring that they’re breaking your heart as they go.”
“And if you could, would you trade away any of the past eighteen years with them, Marge?” he asked softly.
She smiled, her pretty features lighting up. “Of course not. Don’t mind me. I guess. I’ll go home and bake some cookies. I promised the boys I’d send them some before the weekend.”
“So why not take tomorrow off and deliver them yourself? Storrs is only an hour away, and you’ll feel a lot better once you’ve checked up on them.”
“Am I that obvious?”
“Maybe I just know you better than most,” Marcus said, envying her sons. He wasn’t even sure his folks had known he was gone when he left the family home for a dorm room at Yale.
“But what about the Rhode Island group?” Marge asked, frowning. “Aren’t you all meeting here tomorrow?”
Marcus
