Another Eden (28 page)

But she had to know one thing. "Were you even raped, Tasha? Or was it all a lie from the beginning?" Tasha stretched her arms out wide. "I am so sleepy. From all the excitement tonight, I think."

"Come, you can tell me. What difference does it make now?"

The catlike innocence disappeared and pure venom shone in her dark, lethal eyes. "I don't tell you anything. You are not so much the great lady now, are you? You're nothing, the same as me." She smiled, showing her teeth. "Or else we are both great ladies and I am the same as you. Think about that. Perhaps we will be friends after all, Sara. But whatever we will be, I promise you we are going to be the same."

Sara shivered, chilled. She had the answer to her question, and more.

"Let's go to bed now," Tasha said, holding out her hand. "You look very tired. A long day, yes? Why did you come back so early from your weekend?"

Sara didn't answer, and she shrank from Tasha's outstretched hand.

"But wait—let us be clear. You agree to all this, do you not, Sara?"

She hesitated, not because there could be any doubt, but because she loathed the satisfaction Tasha would derive from her answer. "Even if I were willing, Ben won't allow these changes you're suggesting."

"Ah, but you will find a way to manage him, I'm sure of it. Tell me now, do you agree?"

"Very well." What choice did she have? "But only on the condition that you stay away from my son."

"What? What is this?"

"Don't speak to him, don't go near him."

"You are not to demand things from me!"

"Then we have no bargain."

"I tell you—"

"If you speak to Michael or have anything to do with him at all, I'll expose you."

"Why would I wish to speak to him? We do not like each other anyway!"

"Then you agree?"

"Puh! You do not tell me what to do."

So Tasha hated making a concession as much as she did. She found that pathetically consoling. "Yes or no. You must say, Tasha, or we have no bargain."

"Puh," she said again. "It makes no difference to me."

"You agree?"

"Yes! I have said so."

She nodded once and moved toward the door. Tasha sprang after her, so abruptly that she stopped in surprise, half-expecting some kind of attack. But Tasha only wanted to get through the door first. It was almost laughable. Almost, but not quite. Because the ridiculous incident was revealing. It gave her a sharp, bitter foretaste of what her domestic life was going to be like—if she was
lucky
—for a long, long time to come.

"Say that again, Alex? I couldn't have heard you right."

"I said I'm resigning."

John Ogden's eyebrows jerked up so high that his pince-nez fell off his nose and dropped in his lap. "What? No! Why?"

Since Ogden was too startled to offer him a chair, Alex took the liberty of draping one thigh over a corner of his desk and folding his arms. "I'm sorry to spring it on you like this, John. I guess it sounds sudden."

"I'll say it sounds sudden! What the devil are you talking about? We just made you a partner."

"I shouldn't have accepted that—I apologize. This hasn't been an easy decision, but it's been coming on for quite a while. Longer, I guess, than I even knew myself" He wasn't doing a very good job of this, he realised. Ogden deserved better. "I'm moving back to California, John. I want to try to go into business for myself and build a different kind of house from what I can build here for Draper and Snow."

"In other words, you want to throw your career away?" Ogden couldn't hide his consternation. "That's what you're saying, let's be clear about it."

"I don't see it that way."

"Alex, I
know
you. You won't make any money out there on your own, so you'll be miserable."

There was no mistaking the insult, but Alex supposed he deserved it. "It'll be quite a change, that's for sure," he said mildly.

"Is that what this is about?" Ogden's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "More money? You could've just asked, you know, it would've been—"

"It has nothing to do with money."

"No? Look, if it's the Marshall Farley house that's bothering you, I could probably get you pulled off it. It's still early, I'm sure Ames would be glad to jump in and replace you if Farley would agree—"

"John—listen, I'm honestly not being coy or trying to drive up my price. I'm quitting."

The older man sat back in his swivel chair and gestured helplessly. "But why? What can you do out there that you can't do here—better, for more money and more prestige? If you go to California you'll be starting over, as if the last six years never happened."

"That might be true as far as my reputation is concerned, at least for designing the kind of buildings I've got in mind. But it's not true for my experience and my ability. I don't regret a minute of the last six years—I couldn't have come to this decision without them. The firm's been decent to me from the beginning, and more than generous, and I'll always be grateful for that. But it deserves my best, and that's exactly what I can't give anymore."

"But why?"

He stood up. "It's hard to explain. More and more I've been feeling like an anachronism. The twentieth century's almost here, and I'm still designing buildings in a style that reached its peak a thousand years ago—
two
thousand. For a while I could do it, but not anymore. I feel as if I've given up architecture and gone into archeology. I'm finished with it, John, I can't do it anymore."

Ogden threw up his hands. "I don't understand."

Alex hesitated, frowning. "Have you got a minute? Come into my office and I'll show you something."

His new office down the hall from Ogden's was functional, hardly luxurious, but still a far cry from the noisy and always overcrowded drafting room. He went to his desk and drew a stack of drawings out of the bottom drawer. "Have a seat," he invited the other man, pulling his chair out from behind the desk. Ogden sat down, took the drawings from him, and hooked his pince-nez back on the bridge of his nose.

Alex went to the window to wait, bracing his knee against the low shelf under it and peering out at the falling rain. His ascension from drafting room to private office was still so recent, he hadn't had a chance yet to get tired of his view of Union Square from Sixteenth Street. The October day was dreary, but the incessant bustle of streetcars, cabs, carnages, and a hundred black umbrellas made it look almost gay, at least from this distance.

Six months ago he couldn't have given any of this up. In fact, by now he'd have already started wanting more—more praise, more power, more possessions, more feminine conquests. That's how he'd defined himself, evaluated his own worth—by toting up how much money he made and how many women he took to bed. Now he wanted only one woman, and Draper and Snow was just a building on Broadway where he came to work.

"Good God."

He looked around, smiling. "That bad?"

"Christ, Alex, no one's going to buy houses that look like this!"

"You've been in New York too long."

"Are you serious? Well—obviously you are."

"It's coming, John. Maybe not soon, but it's coming."

"Not in my lifetime." Alex chuckled.

"Well, at least the partners will be relieved to know you won't be stealing any of our clients when you go."

"That's for sure," he agreed cheerfully. Ogden stood up and came toward him, holding out his hand. "I wish you luck. God knows you're going to need it."

"Thanks." But he thought he saw grudging admiration in Ogden's bland features that was new. Before, he'd approved of Alex's work but not much of Alex; now that seemed to have reversed. The possibility pleased him.

"I certainly hope you'll stay in touch,
Alex
. Yours is one career I mean to follow closely."

"Yes, sir, I will."

"When do you plan to go?"

"I was thinking in a couple of weeks, if that's all right."

"I suppose so. Lucky for you the Cochrane house fell through, eh?"

He didn't answer.

"Well. See you around."

"Yes, sir. See you."

After he left, Alex sat down in the chair Ogden had just vacated. His hand went automatically to the stack of drawings on his desk and a wry smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He hoped to hell he knew what he was doing; otherwise, Ogden was going to have the last laugh after all.

His smile faded slowly. He'd been looking forward to telling Ogden his news—or rather, to having told him. Now his temporary euphoria was dissipating. He had one more person to tell. He glanced at the telephone. If he asked to see her, she might say no. He couldn't say good-bye to Sara on the telephone. And he wanted to see Michael's face when he gave him his last gift.

He stood up, and grabbed his hat on the way out the door.

"Sara? Oh, pardon—you were taking a little cat nap?"

She sat up quickly, pushing her hair out of her eyes. "What do you want?"

Tasha came all the way into the bedroom and went immediately to the mirror over the dressing table. "Do you think this hat is quite correct with this dress? Madame Bixiou insisted on it, but now I am not so positive."

"I asked you what you want."

She turned back, regarding Sara with upraised brows. "To tell you that Mr. Cochrane has called to say he will not be home for dinner. And so tonight, Sara, you are going to take me to the Waldorf Hotel, where I have wanted to dine for a very long time. I'll be back early—I'm going to Paquin's now for another fitting. Be ready at eight, will you?"

Sara didn't speak.

"Oh—I almost forgot. You have a visitor."

"No, I can't see anyone."

"Ah, too bad. Mr. McKie will be so disappointed." She jolted to her feet. "My God—did you call him?"

"I?" She laughed. "But of course not. He is in the blue drawing room, Sara. I ordered tea and told him to wait for you. He looks very handsome today, I think. And rich. He looks—as your husband would say—like a man with lots of tin." She moved back to the door, expensive silk skirts rustling subtly. "I hope you enjoy yourselves," she murmured in her throaty, suggestive purr, and sidled out.

He thought at first that she was ill. She stood in the drawing room doorway clasping and unclasping her hands and smiling at him with a frail gladness that hurt him to see. "Sara? How are you? Have you been all right?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine." She couldn't take her eyes off him. His being here was a miracle—she didn't care what had brought him.

She didn't look fine. She'd put powder under her eyes—he could see it, smell its fragrance—to disguise the dark crescents there, but she hadn't succeeded. Her lips were pale, her complexion paler; even her hair, freshly brushed, lacked the magic, satiny shine he was used to. Into the lengthening, disturbing silence, he said the first thing that came into his head. "I hardly recognised Tasha just now. What's happened to her?"

"What do you mean?"

"She looked different. And she seemed—I don't know—more sure of herself, somehow." And she'd stared at him oddly, almost as if she knew a secret. "She's never said anything about us, has she, Sara?"

The temptation to tell him almost overpowered her. But her situation was so sordid, so shameful, that she could never find the words to say to him that she was being blackmailed by a gypsy for committing adultery. More than that, she knew how he would react: with outrage and indignation and a thoroughly masculine need to rescue her. But she was beyond the possibility of rescue, and if he tried he would only make everything worse.

"No, of course not, what could she say? She doesn't know anything. She said you looked different too," she rushed on, forcing a smile. "She said you looked rich."

His smile was just as false. "I'm about to get a lot poorer. That's what I've come to tell you." There was no other way to say it. "Sara, I'm going away."

Her face crumbled before she could turn aside. She got her hands up to cover her mouth; miraculously, she didn't cry. She backed away and sat on the arm of the sofa because it was closest. She felt leveled, cut down, and violently determined not to let him know. Stupidly, as if it mattered, she asked, "But what about Eden?"

That shocked him. "You mean you didn't know? Ben's ordered work on it stopped indefinitely."

"No, I didn't know." She didn't care. "When did he do that?"

"Two weeks ago. The day after I saw you at Rector's."

"I'm not sorry. I hated it. Oh—forgive me—"

"For what? I despised it."

She took a deep breath, gathering herself "Where will you go?"

"California. I'm going to try to set up on my own in San Francisco. Build houses there."

"Oh, Alex, that's good. I'm so glad for you. It feels right," she said truthfully, "and I know you'll succeed." But she was out of control; her face turned red and she had to stop talking. When she heard the maid coming with the tea cart, she jumped up and went to the window, keeping her back to the room.

Alex stood still, thwarted and helpless, while the maid fiddled with cups and napkins and uncovered a plate of sandwiches.

"Will there be anything else, ma'am?"

"No, nothing."

The maid sent Alex one quick, curious glance and withdrew.

She ought to turn around, pour tea, speak to him—she was making a mess of this! But she couldn't move. Couldn't. Not yet.

Alex couldn't stand it. "If you want me to stay, I will. Say one word, Sara, and I won't go."

That made her whip around. "Don't say that. It can't have anything to do with me."

"It has everything to do with you."

"No, no, no—"

He went to her and took her hands, holding her still. "Yes. I can't lose you and my work at the same time. Sara, I need something."

"What do you mean?"

"Did you know that Draper and Snow offered me a partnership?"

"Ben told me. I was so proud—"

"It meant I'd have to keep building Edens for the rest of my life. If I could have had you, I might've done it—might not even have minded."

"Oh, no—"

"But without you, it's impossible. I hate Ben's house, I hate Kubla Khan—"