Intimate Betrayal (32 page)

Chicago/New York/Virginia

I
t took two days before they were able to get a return flight to New York. During those two days, Maxwell had completely shut Reese out. He refused to talk, saying that everything was fine. He wouldn't touch her even in the most platonic of manners. And inside, Reese felt like parts of her were slowly dying, like a plant without water. He had isolated her, and he couldn't have done more to hurt her if he'd cut out her heart.

He had withdrawn so far within himself that he was totally oblivious to what Reese was going through. From the moment she'd seen the picture her mind had been assailed with ragged images slowly taking shape. It got so bad that even when she was awake the images intruded like a heavy cloak dropped in front of her line of vision.

She was afraid to sleep, afraid to be awake. And she
realized that she was painfully alone. Neither of them seemed to be able to help the other. It was almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. As much as they'd said they would not let whatever they found out come between them, no matter how devastating, they had. And that pain was more than she could endure.

Unknown to Max, Reese had made arrangements to take a connecting flight directly to Chicago from Kennedy Airport. She saw no point in dragging out the inevitable.

“I have a driver waiting. As soon as the bags come down we can go. I had my town house opened. You can stay there until you're ready to…go back to Chicago.”

Reese raised her chin and stared directly into those eyes that had the power to make her weak with wanting. “I am ready to go, Max,” she said in a steady voice that surprised her. “I'm catching my flight to Chicago in a half hour.” She pulled her cream-colored cashmere coat tighter around her body from the sudden chill that tore through her.

How could he tell her how much he wanted her to stay, knowing that this time for them to pick up their lives would eventually come? He'd been a fool to think she'd give up her life and her home to make one with him. There were so many things he'd been struggling with over the past few days. He knew he'd been distant and difficult. He'd spurned her attempts of any type of comfort or affection, simply because he needed to prepare himself for this moment. He needed to reach inside of himself to find some sort of balance and while doing that, he couldn't take her on that trip as much as he wanted to. But he could have never imagined it would hurt this deeply. Yet he understood.

It seemed as if the lights went out in his eyes and for the barest moment she faltered, her resolve to leave him weakening, until he spoke.

“That's probably the best thing,” he answered matter-of-
factly. “We both have a lot to do. It was presumptuous of me to make plans for you.”

Reese pushed down the knot of pain that rose from the pit of her soul. “You're right.” She gave him a tight smile and pulled her defenses around her like a wool blanket.

His bags came around on the carousel and he pulled them off. He turned toward her still form. She looked so vulnerable, so in need. But he must be mistaken. “Call me when you get in. Will you?”

“Yes,” she said in a thready whisper.

He leaned down and placed a feather-light kiss on her lips, making her heart flutter with desire. Reluctantly he pulled away and silently prayed that she would change her mind.

“I guess I'd better get going or I'll miss my flight.” She blinked, fighting back her tears. “Goodbye, Max,” she uttered in a breathless whisper. She didn't wait for him to respond. To hear him say goodbye would destroy the last shred of her composure. Swiftly she turned and hurried across the terminal.

“Goodbye,” he whispered as he watched her disappear into the crowd.

 

For the first two days back in her hometown, Reese merely existed—she didn't live. She moved through life and her day on autopilot, remembering to eat, sleep and bathe when necessary.

Painstakingly, she finished the article on Max. It was the most difficult piece she'd ever written. Bringing him to life on paper seemed to bring him closer, and still he was a lifetime away. Through tear-filled eyes she wrote her closing commentary:

With a heavy heart, she sent out the package by Federal Express, knowing that Phillip was holding space in this week's issue, and tried to put the past months behind her.

She'd been to see Lynnette on her first day home and they laughed, cried, and laughed some more. Yet, for the first time in all of the years they'd been friends, Reese was unable to share the depth of her pain. All she did share was that her memory had returned and the impact of it had buffeted her between moments of extreme anxiety, to levels of exhilaration, and then plunge her into a bottomless pit of despair.

“Yes,” she'd called her doctor, she explained to Lynnette. She was informed that it was to be expected and she needed to be seen and medication prescribed. “No,” she was not going back under the microscope and “no,” she would not live under the haze of Prozac or whatever it was they were prescribing these days.

She'd promised to visit every day until Lynnette's release and she even met the handsome doctor Adam Moore. She could easily see why Lynnette was in no real rush to go home.

By day she tried to keep herself busy, reading, walking,
cleaning. When she lay in bed at night, that was when the hurt was so heavy it was like an anvil resting on her chest. Foolishly, she'd thought she could handle it when she'd talked to him like she promised. But hearing his voice only made it that much more difficult. A chasm had come between them. It was as if each of them were standing on a frozen river, too afraid to move toward each other for fear of plunging into the black, icy waters below. And after that first conversation, she knew it would be too difficult to talk with him again. Both of them were trapped in their own worlds, wallowing in their own pain and disillusionment.

She'd thought that when the day came that her memory returned, she'd feel whole. He believed that if he were ever to find out the truth about his mother, he would be whole. But the reality was, it didn't happen for either of them. They should be sharing their joys and their sorrows. But they never would, not until they were able to heal themselves first. They were each other's half.

And on the third day, when Reese awoke, that reality enveloped her and soothed her ragged soul. She had to find a way to heal herself and when she did, she would go to Max and they would finish the process together.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, Reese's spirits lifted. She finally knew what she had to do. She needed to talk to Victoria Davenport.

 

Reese could barely hear the phone ringing over the thudding of her heart. On the third ring she was on the brink of hanging up when she heard the soft, southern cadence of a very feminine voice.

“Hello?”

Reese swallowed down the last of her apprehension. “Hello…may I speak with Victoria Davenport, please?”

“Who's calling?” she asked, suspicion lacing her voice.

“Reese Delaware.” Reese heard the short intake of breath, followed by silence.

Finally Victoria responded. “Well, I wasn't expecting to hear from you. Do you want a story for your magazine, too? It seems every newshound on the face of the earth has either called or is camped out on my doorstep,” she babbled nervously. She ran a hand through her hair. “So, Ms. Delaware, what can I do for you?”

“I…read the letter.”

Silence.

“It's all very hard to digest—” she pressed on “—but I want to know the truth as much as you do.”

Victoria lowered herself onto the edge of her bed. She sucked on her bottom lip, willing herself not to cry. The moment she'd lived for—for years—had finally arrived and she was at a total loss as to what to say. She wanted to rant and rave. She wanted to tell Reese how isolated she'd been all her life, how she'd been so jealous of her and her life. But now that the opportunity had presented itself, all the hurt and jealousy seemed to have vanished.

“What do you want to do?” she asked, surprised by the calm in her voice.

“I…was hoping that we could…work together, Victoria. Somehow, I feel certain the real answers will be found if we can find out how my father…” she swallowed “…our father died.”

Victoria expelled a breath of relief. Her full lips trembled as the unnatural sensation of kinship filled her. “I'd like to find out, too…Reese. How can I help?”

Reese smiled and blinked back her own tears of relief. “Can you gain access to the Air Force's computer system? I'd bet anything that the answers are buried in the files…”

 

Maxwell plunged into his work like an Olympic diver jumping from the high boards. He spent inhuman hours
working out the mechanics of an elaborate encoding chip. He met daily with the Board of Directors and the broker Harlan Black, preparing for their market launch. He went to the gym at night, or ran for miles around Central Park. He swam, practiced his martial arts—anything to keep his mind from Reese. After their initial phone conversation, he realized that the strain was much too great. He couldn't remain miles away from her and not be able to touch her, hear her cry his name in ecstasy, to feel her writhe beneath him, listen to her laughter and her wisdom, feast on her chocolate-coated beauty. He needed more than just an occasional call, visits on holidays and long weekends. He thought she wanted that, too.

He pushed himself away from his drafting table and arched his back. He crossed the room and stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window peering down below. He braced the maplewood window supports that ran vertically along the smoked glass.

Even knowing how much he wanted and needed Reese, he also knew that he would be no good to her now. He needed time to adjust, time to regain the equilibrium he'd lost after meeting his “dead” mother in the flesh. He needed to be on top of everything within his company, and within a phone call away from the broker once M.K. hit the boards. Sighing heavily, he turned away.

He had yet to contact his father and confront him with his thirty-three years of lies. He was just not ready to deal with or listen to his explanations. It was enough that he'd had to accept the fact that she was alive and preferred to keep their relationship a secret. He slung his hands in his pockets. He had not spoken to Tasaka about the issue, not wanting his uncle to “lose face” by having to discuss such a personal matter, which involved his sister.

When everything was up and running with M.K.
Enterprises and Tasaka Industries, and when he found a way to do away with the emotional baggage that plagued him, he would go to Reese. He would make her understand that without her, he was nothing; what he had or could ever acquire meant nothing—not if she weren't in his life. But first he must bring order and harmony back into his life in order to make one with her.

 

Victoria sat down behind her desk in the small room she used as her home office. Years ago, because of her seniority and wizardry with the Air Force's computer system, most of which she designed herself, she had her system at home linked to their mainframe at the communications center. She'd been the one to set up the codes for access to various areas. She maintained her high security clearance in the event that any one of the systems crashed she would be able to get in and get it operational.

These were the skills and the tools she was banking on now. Through a series of intricate maneuvers throughout the tangled web of classified and unclassified documents, defunct departments that existed only within the computer's memory, passwords that had to be overridden by a string of codes—and all to be done without alerting anyone that she'd broken every security dictum ever written—she arrived at the location she'd spent the past four hours attempting to reach.

Taking a long shuddering breath, she picked up the headphones from the desk, put them on. Through her built-in modem she dialed Reese in Chicago. Reese answered on the second ring.

“I'm in,” she stated. “I'll begin to download the files now.” Rapidly she keyed in a sequence of numbers and immediately files, notes, and minutes from meetings dating back more than fifteen years flashed on the screen in succession. “Sit back and relax, this is going to take some time. I need to scan the
files to see what's in them. There's no point in transmitting unnecessary data.”

Reese's heart began a rapid rhythm as the first page glided through the printer. “Here it comes,” she said with a breathless catch in her throat.

They were both seeing the information virtually at the same time. As fast as it came up on screen it was printing.

“Oh, my God,” they both gasped in unison, watching the damning words scroll across the screen and onto paper.

 

Frank Murphy keyed in his password and accessed his archival files. He'd been removed from duty, the day the
Post
's article hit the stands. But there were still several security personnel who owed him favors.

Frank's breathing pumped in short staccato beats. This was the only chance he had to keep himself from possibly spending the rest of his life behind bars.

After several moments, the files he wanted were brought up. It had been years since he'd looked at them. Even now, years later, the guilt of what he'd been a part of assaulted him. Yes, his actions had been sanctioned by the government. He was merely a pawn in the chess game of life. But he'd also had choices. His choice was to follow orders and move up the ranks. He pressed Delete as the first completed file scrolled along the screen. The next one came up. Guilt stabbed him again, twisting the knife a bit deeper. He stared at the orders to “remove all obstacles.” He swallowed hard. That obstacle had been Hamilton Delaware, his best friend—his nemesis. His eyes burned with the memories. Again he pressed the delete key. The rest of the files contained all of the names of the parties involved, what their assignments had been, who was in charge of each phase, and the names of the Air Force doctors who compiled the data. This page he printed. He might just need it for insurance. Then he pressed Delete.