He turned his head a little and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. It was a gesture uniquely his, and ten years earlier it had had the power to stop her heart. Jessica discovered, with a sinking feeling of dismay, that it still did. She took a breath, looking her fill. She could now see the fine lines bracketing his eyes and mouth, the assured carriage of his dark head and the authority in his manner. The boy she had known was gone, replaced by this purposeful, enigmatic stranger.
Ransom cleared his throat, obviously wondering what the hell was going on between his two clients, who were staring at each other like combatants in an O’Neill play. Jack glanced at him, as if remembering his presence.
“Ransom,” he said in greeting, and his voice was older, like the rest of him.
The lawyer stepped forward. “Jessica, allow me to introduce ...” he began.
Jack crossed the distance between him and Jessica, extending his hand.
“Miss Portman and I are acquainted. We were at school together,” he said coolly, his expression revealing nothing.
Jessica had no recourse but to shake hands, which she did briefly. His eyes betrayed him, flickering at her touch, but his slight smile was distant, professional.
“You look very well,” he said evenly.
“Thank you. So do you,” Jessica replied, and meant it. Prosperity sat upon his shoulders, and he wore it with aplomb. His navy wool suit was impeccably tailored, obviously expensive, and his light blue oxford shirt looked custom made. His striped tie was silk, his watch was a Rolex and the Bally loafers on his feet shone like shipboard brass. She stepped back, thinking how their positions had reversed since they’d last met and hoping that he could not hear the blood pounding in her ears.
The intercom buzzed again, and they both looked toward it, startled by the intrusion on what was, to them, a private tableau.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” the secretary said, “but the messenger from Crowley and Dodd is here. Mr. Dodd thinks the Henley contract is still wrong, and he sent a note...”
Ransom sighed. “I’ll be right out, Laurie. Tell the boy to wait.” He turned to his companions. “Please excuse me. I’ll settle this and be back shortly.”
“Take your time,” Jack said, and Jessica thought she detected an undertone of malice in the pleasantry. She would be left alone with him, and he was looking forward to it.
As Ransom went through the door, Jack turned to her and his eyes raked her, freed of the restraint the lawyer’s presence had imposed. He was unsmiling now, all traces of surface politeness gone. His mouth looked set in granite.
“Hello, Jesse,” he said softly, his tone belying the hard glint in his eyes. It was as if the first greeting had never taken place.
Jessica flinched inwardly. He was coming out of the corner swinging, all right. From childhood, her imperious father had insisted that everyone call her by her full name, and everyone had. Everyone, that is, except Jack. To him, and only him, she had always been Jesse.
“Hello, Jack.”
“You’re as beautiful as ever,” he said finally, after several moments of study. “I wondered if you would be.”
“Were you hoping I had turned into a hag?” Jessica asked lightly, feeling dizzy, as if on the edge of a precipice.
“I never thought there was much chance of that,” he replied shortly, sounding almost resentful. He had known that God would fail to punish her, and that, like Dorian Gray, she would remain fresh and unmarked while concealing within her a stained and guilty soul.
“But you do seem...upset,” he added smoothly, offering what was surely the understatement of the year.
“I’m worried about my father,” she said shortly.
“Still beautiful,” he murmured, his eyes narrowing slightly, “and still a liar.”
So much for the attempt at civilized conversation.
“You have the advantage in this,” she said, looking away from the probing intensity of his gaze. “You were prepared to see me. I didn’t know who JC Enterprises was until this morning.”
“Surely you weren’t surprised?” he asked. The sentence was almost a sneer.
“At first. I knew you were no longer playing football, but I hadn’t realized that you’d returned to town.” She paused. “So you were behind this all along, Jack.”
He faced her down, his expression glacial. “That’s right.”
“You plotted this like a general devising a military campaign.” She paused and then whispered,“Was it really necessary to go this far?”
“I thought so,” he replied tightly.
“No half measures for you. Right, Jack?” she said quietly.
He didn’t answer, and she remembered that about him. He didn’t fight, he didn’t argue, and he didn’t debate. He put up a stony wall of silence when crossed or contradicted, and it could be maddening.
“Now you have your revenge, on my father and me. For the past,” she went on.
He was saved from replying by Ransom’s return. The lawyer began to talk about the details of the sale, and as she listened to Jack’s comments, she realized that his speech had changed. His accent, so pronounced when he was younger, was almost gone, and she missed it. Now he sounded like an English-language news announcer in his native Quebec—lilting, slightly nasal, but no longer really French.
“And we’ll have a complete inventory of the assets ready by Friday,” Ransom was saying. “I’d like for us to get together then to go over the list and the estimates for the machine repairs. How does that sound to you, Jessica?”
“All right,” she said, thinking that she would get the whole thing over with today if she could.
“Here’s a copy of the file, as you requested,” Ransom added, handing Jack a manila folder. “You can have your people look it over and get back to me with any questions, but I think you’ll find that everything is in order. Jessica, do you have something to add?”
“No.”
Jack glanced at her. “May I give you a lift anywhere?” he asked neutrally.
“No, thank you. I have a car.” He must have known she would never go with him; the offer was for Ransom’s benefit.
“I’ll see both of you on Friday, then,” Jack said in parting and shook hands again with Ransom, nodding in Jessica’s direction. She didn’t breathe easily until he had left the room.
“Quite a personable young man,” Ransom commented, pleased with the proceedings. “I think this is going to work out very well.”
Speak for yourself, Jessica thought darkly. She got to her feet and said, “Will there be much of anything left over for me to hold things together?”
Ransom sighed. “I can’t promise that, Jessica, we’ll have to see what Chabrol does when the final inventory is in. As I said, his takeover bid was just preliminary, and these figures can change by a substantial margin when you take into account goodwill for the wholesalers and the amount of unfinished product on hand. We’ll just have to wait and hope for the best.”
Jessica nodded dismally, thinking that her fate was now in the hands of the last person on earth who would wish her well. She saw it as irony; to Jack it must seem like poetic justice.
As she headed for the door Ransom said, “I’ll call you to set up the meeting. And try not to worry. I’ll do my best for you, and this Chabrol seems like a decent sort. I think the final resolution will be fair.”
He could not know how little that observation comforted her, but she appreciated his good intentions. “Thanks, Jason. For everything.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
Jessica paused outside his office door and asked his secretary if she could use the restroom. The young woman pointed to the appropriate door. Jessica slipped inside the little cubicle and leaned against the wall. It was a relief to be unobserved, to let the mask of composure slip. She glanced in the mirror over the sink, wondering what Jack had thought of her. He had said she was still beautiful, and she tried to achieve a clinical detachment as she surveyed her features in the glass.
Her blonde hair had been long in high school, almost to her waist, and he had loved to play with the gossamer strands. It was shorter now, shoulder length, but the almond shaped green eyes, small straight nose, and wide mouth looked the same. She had the pale prettiness of her Danish mother, and once when she and Jack had gone for a midnight walk he’d called her his
ange d’argent
, his silver angel, because her skin and hair had looked silver in the moonlight.
Jessica’s eyes filled, and she allowed herself the luxury of tears. The silver angel was tarnished now, and no amount of polish could ever make her shine again in Jack Chabrol’s eyes.
Oh, how she had loved him. She would never love anybody like that again, not as long as she lived. The all-consuming passion of innocence awakened, of youth blossoming into adulthood, happened only once, and she had lost it forever, to her abiding regret.
She blinked and wiped her eyes with a tissue she’d retrieved from the bottom of her purse. When she felt composed enough to drive, she emerged from the bathroom to the puzzled stare of the secretary, who doubtless thought she had been knitting an afghan in there. Jessica glided past her with as much dignity as she could muster, emerging into the October sunshine with relief. She took several deep breaths of the fragrant air, redolent of wood smoke and the fallen apples on Lawson’s lawn, and felt better.
She headed for her car, resigned to her fate. She would deal with this because she had to, and then return to the life she had interrupted. Jack Chabrol was part of her past.
Somehow, she must find a way to keep him there.
* * * *
Jack pulled into the parking space with his name on it and shut off the engine of his car. Before him loomed the impressive expanse of his offices, modern, sparkling with chrome and glass, built on a strip of farmland he had purchased on the outskirts of town. It was the latest, in fact the only, addition to Bright River’s economic growth in recent years. His advisers had all told him to build elsewhere, in a more prosperous locale, especially since the bulk of his business came from the industrial towns farther north. But Jack had insisted on returning to the scene of his youth, creating before the staring eyes of the townspeople this monument, the palpable evidence of his success. Today it looked back at him, blank and featureless, small comfort after the trauma of the interview he’d just experienced.
Jack leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes, seeing again the expression on Jessica’s face, a mixture of apprehension and innate pride. She’d looked as if she knew she deserved anything he might do to her, but was going to face it without a whimper. All this time, he’d thought he would want to strike her, or shout at her, do something to make her pay for the cold pain that had lain in his breast for a decade like a rock. But at the sight of her, the gut-wrenching desire had returned, the relentless yearning that had made him defy her father and convention to possess her. So he’d taken refuge in icy politeness, conducting a business deal with the one woman he had never been able to forget.
It was a ludicrous turn of events, but he had himself to thank for that. He’d dedicated the past four years of his life to ruining George Portman, and now he was on the very brink of accomplishing that feat. When it became clear that Jesse would be involved, he’d wanted to see her, talk to her again. He had returned to Bright River two years earlier half hoping to find her there, but had learned that she’d never come back, even though her father and sister still lived in the big house overlooking the river. His sister, Lalage, had heard from Jean Portman that Jesse was divorced, but working in Europe and unlikely to visit the family home. Jack had left the matter there, unwilling to demonstrate a show of interest, but his disappointment at not being able to impress her with his new status was deep and bitter. Now he had his chance; she was back and in trouble. The poor boy had the rich girl at his mercy, the long sought triumph was about to be his.
The need to hurt her was so strong that it ran through his body like a toxin in his blood. Once Jesse had matched his passion with hers, swearing eternal loyalty and undying devotion. Until she’d disappeared without a word—to marry another man.
Jack sighed and opened the door, turning his mind to the meeting that awaited him inside: contract negotiations with his drivers. It would be difficult to concentrate, but he was grateful for the distraction. Until the session was over he wouldn’t have to think about Jesse again.
* * * *
Jessica parked in the driveway of her father’s house, deciding to leave her luggage in the trunk of the car until later. She had gone to Ransom’s office directly from the airport. Now she let herself in with her old key, dull with disuse. Jean was at school, and Jessica prowled the silent halls alone, looking into the rooms on the first floor, changed minimally since she had last seen them. The cherry antiques and bric-a-brac George Portman had inherited from his father furnished the house in a durable style not subject to the whims of fashion. Jessica climbed the central staircase slowly, noticing that the third step creaked, as it always had, and then paused on the landing, looking at the closed door of her room at the end of the hall.
Biting her trembling lower lip, Jessica crossed the Oriental runner on the hardwood floor, faded and worn now with the passage of many feet, and pushed open the paneled oak door.
The room assaulted her with memories, and she almost felt like covering her ears, so real and insistent were the voices she heard: her father’s, Jean’s first grade babble, and in the background, fading but still discernible, the soft murmur of her mother. Visually, everything was the same as she had left it. The chintz curtains and spread, the canopy on the four-poster, even the window seat upholstered in the same flowered fabric remained unchanged. There she had sat and dreamed her adolescent dreams, looking over the rooftops toward the ribbon of the river. The site of the house, on a height above the town, had been chosen for its view. When sitting at the top of the house in this curtained bower, she had felt mistress of all she surveyed.