Perfect Partners (30 page)

The day she started sleeping with Joel Blackstone, a part of her had begun planning on marriage.

She did not really understand affairs. When you got right down to it, they were pointless. She had been raised to think in terms of commitment and love and family.

Back where she came from, people got married when they fell in love.

T
hat's the offer, Escott,” Joel said that evening. “Eighteen months to prove you can pull Copeland Marine out of the red and that's all. Take it or leave it.”

Letty held her breath as she and everyone else at the table waited for Keith's response. Around them the restaurant in the downtown hotel where the Escotts were staying hummed with muted conversation and the clink of glassware and cutlery. The tension at the table had been thick as Joel spelled out the terms of the deal. But there had also been a palpable aura of excitement and enthusiasm around Keith. And he responded to Joel's offer in a heartbeat.

“I'll take it,” Keith said.

Joel nodded. “Okay, it's a deal. For the moment, I want absolute secrecy on this. I'll tell Copeland myself—when we're ready. Understood?”

“Sure.” Keith smiled faintly. “You've got a right, although I'll have to admit it would have given me a great deal of pleasure to hand the old man an early retirement.”

Letty saw Diana's lips tighten. Across the table, the women's eyes met. There was anger and something else in Diana's gaze. Letty suddenly realized the other ingredient was fear.

But Diana said nothing as her husband and Joel fell into an intense discussion of just how the five-year plan would be implemented during the first few months. Letty kept quiet as she, too, listened to Joel's cool, logical, and well-organized comments.

He really was good at this sort of thing, Letty thought. He had a flair for business, and he appeared to thrive on it. It was obvious he was in his element.

For his part, Keith was showing an ambitious and aggressively enthusiastic side that was clearly taking Diana by surprise. Head slightly bent, she toyed with her food and sipped continually at her wine. After a few minutes she looked up and met Letty's eyes again.

“I'm going to go upstairs to our room for a minute. Would you mind coming with me?” Diana asked bluntly.

Letty slid a quick glance at Joel, but he was concentrating on something Keith was saying. She reluctantly placed her napkin on the table. “All right.”

Diana stood up quickly. “Please excuse us,” she murmured to the men. “We'll be back in a minute.”

Keith broke off a comment about finding new suppliers and smiled at his wife. “Sure, honey.”

Joel raised an inquiring brow at Letty, who gave him a small silent shrug. He turned back to Keith as she left the table with Diana.

Diana said nothing as Letty accompanied her out of the restaurant and into the large lobby. They walked in silence to the bank of elevators. Letty could feel Diana's stiff, angry tension all the way up to the twentieth floor, where they got out and started down the hall. She was wondering if she ought to say something to break the charged silence when Diana finally spoke.

“I know you're wondering what this is all about.” Diana inserted her key into the lock and moved into the room.

“I think I have a good idea.” Letty followed her into the room and closed the door. “You're opposed to Keith taking over the reins of Copeland Marine, aren't you?”

“Opposed to it?” Diana whirled around to confront Letty. Her face was tight and drawn. “I'm scared to death. I'm terrified. I'd give anything to stop it. The whole thing is going to be a disaster and yes,
yes
, I'm opposed to it. My God, that's putting it mildly.”

Letty eyed her thoughtfully. “Are you that certain Keith can't pull it off?”

“I have no idea if Keith can save the company or not. How would I know what he's capable of doing? He's never had a chance to prove what he can handle in the three years we've been married. That's not the point.”

Letty sat down in one of the chairs near the window. “What is the point, Diana?”

“Daddy.” The single word was spoken in a stark, desperate tone.

Letty watched her. “Are you telling me you're really afraid of your father? Of what he'll do when he finds out that control of Copeland Marine has been taken away from him?”

“Yes.” Diana's hands clenched and unclenched. “I'm scared to death of what he'll do. Keith won't listen to me, and I know Joel doesn't give a damn.”

Letty was silent for a moment, unsure of how to probe further. Then she decided to be blunt. “Do you think your father's capable of violence?”

Diana's eyes snapped to hers and then away again. “I don't know,” she whispered. “That's the worst part. I'm not sure if I'm right to be this frightened. But I have seen Daddy get very angry. He loses control, gets almost wild. Lately I've had the feeling he's closer to the edge than ever before.”

Letty frowned. “How often has this happened?”

“Not often, thank God. I think he beat my mother a few times. She lied about it. Told me she'd fallen or something, and God help me, I wanted to believe her. It was only when I got older that I realized Daddy had hit her. She never would admit it, though. Until the day she died, she denied it. I think she was trying to protect me from the truth.”

“How often has he gotten violent since your mother's death?”

“The worst time was fifteen years ago when he caught me in that barn with Joel.” Diana's breathing seemed labored. “I thought he was going to kill him. Daddy had a length of wood, and he kept swinging it, kept trying to crush Joel. If Joel hadn't been as quick and as strong as he was, I know Daddy would have killed him. I know it.”

Letty shivered as her imagination painted a vivid picture of the scene in the barn. “Any other instances?”

“Nothing I'm sure of. I think he punched one of his employees during an argument a few years ago, but it was hushed up. No one said anything about it, and the man left the yard soon afterward. I'm sure that wasn't the only time that sort of thing occurred.”

“Diana…”

Diana massaged her temples. “You have to understand, it isn't what's happened so far that has me frightened; it's what
could
happen. I know Daddy is getting worse. I can feel it.”

“Are you telling me you think he'll come after Joel once he hears what's happening with Copeland Marine?”

Diana got to her feet, her eyes tortured. “It's Keith I'm worried about. Don't you see? Daddy has spent three years telling me that he wishes he'd never encouraged me to marry Keith. He treats Keith like dirt. He ignores him half the time, and the other half of the time he taunts him. I'm terrified of what he'll do when he discovers Keith will be the one giving the orders around Copeland Marine.”

“I see,” Letty whispered, absorbing the implications.

“If Joel walked into Daddy's office and took charge directly, that would be one thing.” Diana moved to the dressing table and picked up a brush. She stared at it as if wondering what it was and then set it back down again. “Joel is tough. Strong. He could handle Daddy. But Keith is different.”

“What you're really saying is that you don't think Keith can handle your father.”

Diana's eyes widened in frustration. “He hasn't been able to handle him for the past three years. Why should he be able to do it now?”

“I don't know. Why don't you ask him why he's so determined to take over Copeland Marine and save it?” Letty suggested softly.

“I know why he wants to save it.” Diana snatched up a tissue and carefully blotted her eyes. “It was part of the deal. He married me because Daddy dangled the lure of Copeland Marine in front of him.”

“Why did you marry him?”

“Because Daddy handpicked him for me, and I thought that because Daddy approved of him, he was the one man in the world I could safely marry.”

Letty took a deep breath. “I see. You were afraid to marry anyone else because of what your father might do?”

“Yes. I thought I was playing it safe. But the joke was on me. I fell in love with Keith in spite of everything.”

Letty thought about that. “I don't think Keith would have stuck around to be treated like dirt by your father for three years just because he hoped eventually to get his hands on the firm. Keith's very smart. That's obvious from the five-year plan he put together. He would have seen the writing on the wall back at the beginning and cut his losses, unless he had another reason for sticking around.”

Diana stared at her. “What other reason could there have been?”

“Well, it sure wasn't the prospect of taking over a failing company like Copeland Marine. Why on earth would he want that mess?” Letty smiled. “Has it occurred to you that Keith married you and has tolerated your father all this time simply because he loves you?”

Diana wadded up the tissue in one hand. “It's not that simple. It's never that simple when you're Victor Copeland's daughter. God, I thought it would be all right when I married Keith. Now I'm more vulnerable than ever. Keith has been talking about having children, but I can't even bear the thought. A baby would be one more hostage for Daddy to use to control us.”

Letty shivered. “Diana, has your father ever been violent with you? Ever hurt you?”

She shook her head. “No. Not physically.” Her smile was grim and tremulous. “I was his little golden girl for years. And as long as I played that role, I got anything I wanted. But whenever I tried to do anything on my own or make my own decisions, he got so
angry
.”

“And his anger frightened you?”

Diana nodded. “I finally told him I didn't care if he cut me off without a cent. I was tired of being a bird in a gilded cage, as Joel used to call me. But after that scene in the barn I realized Daddy might do something a lot worse than just take away my inheritance if I made him too angry.”

“So you've been living with what amounts to emotional blackmail for fifteen years?” Letty concluded, incredulous.

Diana bit her lip and looked away. “In a sense. And, heaven help me, I've had to blackmail others in order to keep them safe. Every time Keith talked about leaving Echo Cove and starting over somewhere else, I told him I didn't want to leave. I told him I wanted him to stay at Copeland Marine. But the truth is, I was afraid of what Daddy would do if we defied him.”

Letty got to her feet and walked over to Diana. “When Joel showed up again after all these years, you really did think he was going to rescue you, didn't you?”

“I thought that if he closed down Copeland Marine once and for all, Keith and I would be free. We could go somewhere else. We'd have an excuse to leave town. Yes, I thought he was going to rescue me at last.” Diana burst into tears. “But it's turning out all wrong. Now Keith is in danger.”

“Have you talked to Keith about this?” Letty asked.

“I tried, but he won't listen. He says he can handle it.”

Letty hesitated. “I'll talk to Joel. I'll make sure he takes the possibility of violence into account when he makes his plans. But I think that's all we can do. You saw Keith and Joel downstairs. They're really into this new plan. Neither of them is going to back off just because of some vague fears on our part.”

“I know,” Diana said. “I feel like Cassandra. I'm trying to warn everyone, but no one will listen.”

“What did you and Diana talk about when you left the table this evening?” Joel asked an hour later when he opened the door of Letty's apartment.

“Her father.” Letty walked into the hall and let her coat slide from her shoulders. She tossed it over the back of the couch and sat down. “She's afraid of him, Joel.”

“Bull. He's always given her everything she wanted.” He went into the kitchen and started opening cupboards. “She's not afraid of him; she's afraid of what things are going to be like when he's no longer in charge in Echo Cove.”

Letty slid her feet out of her high heels. “No, that's not it. She's genuinely afraid of him. Afraid he might hurt Keith. She says she's been afraid of the potential violence in her father since that day he found you and her together in the barn.” Letty met Joel's eyes as he walked back into the living room carrying two snifters of brandy. “Did Copeland try to kill you that afternoon?”

Joel shrugged. “If that teak board he was swinging had connected with my skull, he probably would have killed me, yeah.”

“Oh, my God,” Letty whispered.

“Hey, don't look so panicked. It was fifteen years ago, and you've got to remember he hated my guts for daring to touch his precious darling daughter. He doesn't hate Escott. Hell, Keith told me this evening that Copeland actually introduced him to Diana. Encouraged the marriage.”

Letty sighed. “I don't know, Joel. I'm starting to get really worried. I hope this is all going to work out.”

Joel looked at her and smiled dangerously. “It better. It was all your idea, remember?”

Letty's eyes widened. Joel was right. The entire plan to save Copeland Marine was going forward because she had pushed it from the beginning. “Oh, my God.”

“Welcome to the real world, Madam Librarian. I warned you that you weren't sitting in your ivory tower back in Iowa any longer.”

“Indiana,” she corrected automatically.

But there was no real heat in her response. Her mind was too busily occupied with the potential ramifications of what was happening and with the realization that she would be responsible if disaster struck.

That night it was Letty who found herself awake at two o'clock in the morning. She lay in bed, gazing up into the shadows and wondering if she was coming down with the flu. She felt somewhat nauseated.