Chapter Thirty-Five
Isobel spied Lance from a distance as she tentatively drove down the main street. Despite that she now knew he kept a busy schedule he looked, as always, like a man with time on his hands, idly reading a newspaper. In his dark glasses and wide brimmed panama hat she would not have recognised him had he not been waiting where they had arranged, and leaning against his limousine. She had been willing traffic to part like the Dead Sea as road works delayed her coming down into La Jolla, but he looked blissfully calm, taking his ease in the late morning sun and to all appearances without a care in the world. His relaxed demeanour unsettled her and she pulled in behind a parked car and gave a look in the vanity mirror. Her appearance had not changed since she last checked it but, nevertheless, she applied a further reassuring touch of red lipstick. He folded his newspaper as she pulled into the space alongside him.
“Thanks for making the time,” she said, as if she had arrived for an unscheduled doctor’s appointment, and accepted a kiss to her cheek.
“The pleasure is mine. And you beat me to the punch with the telephone call. Something has come up and I thought I should talk to you before you heard it from anyone else.”
“Sounds ominous.”
“We can discuss it over coffee. Is Starbucks okay? We’ll have Internet if we run out of conversation.”
“I don’t mind, wherever suits you. But as we’re in La Jolla, I would love to see your place,” she said, reciting the lines she had rehearsed. She could see her suggestion had taken him by surprise, left him hesitant even. “It just seems so unfair,” she continued, immediately off script, “you arrive on my doorstep unannounced whenever you please and I don’t even know where you live. It’s not another of your secrets, is it?”
If she had wrong-footed him, it only took a moment for him to recover. “What a splendid idea. I thought to suggest it but wasn’t sure how much time you had. But rather than feed the meter with coins, how about you follow me up to the house?”
He pulled open her car door and she had little option but to get in. He drove sedately, pulling up to let pedestrians cross, even when not obliged to. She couldn’t see through his blackened windows whether he called ahead for any reason and supposed he would be hands-free anyway, so it would make no difference. She followed him up a winding hill to a residential area with houses set back from the road, graced with generous drives lined by trees. She recognised it as an obviously exclusive neighbourhood, even by La Jolla’s upmarket standards. He put his warning flashers on, slowed further and pulled in. High black metal gates protected the house, and she shivered for a moment at the recollection of the Shahidi residence. Isobel drummed the steering wheel, her insides fluttering like caged canaries. Lance put out his hand, touched a finger against a sensor pad, and the doors began to swing back.
A well-tended lawn hugged the driveway, its borders studded by birds of paradise and other exotic plants, offering bright punches of colour against the lush green. A lone bonsai tree stood perfectly in the centre and beyond it a row of palm trees brushed the blue sky. Lance sprung from the limo and helped her out. “Welcome to my humble hideaway.” A smiling woman in a black dress appeared at the entrance. To Isobel’s relief she could not be mistaken for Chrystal Brakeley, but a nevertheless attractive woman with raven black hair pulled in a ponytail and dark eyes set against light brown skin.
“Rosa, this is Isobel, she’ll be joining me for coffee on the terrace.”
“Buenos dias, Isobel,” said the woman, turning and gracefully striding into the house, the taut skin of her legs flashing as she walked away.
From the outside the house looked typical of those she had passed on the drive up, what selling agents called “desirable”, but without being ostentatious or of mansion proportions. Arches and curves and stucco pastel walls under red clay tiles denoted a traditional Spanish design. Bunches of brilliant lavender framed the porch, contrasting to the spears of green and white yucca plants either side. The trickle of water from a small fountain set in a pentagonal stone water feature amplified the sense of quietness. Several CCTV cameras positioned high above the ground served as signals that the owner had concerns other than aesthetics. They reminded Isobel of the security at the front gate.
“You have a clever entry system. I haven’t seen that before.”
“Biometrics, the way of the future.”
“I see you take your privacy seriously.”
“Either that or I got tired of losing the remote controls, I’m not sure which.”
Isobel entered to find a split level open plan arrangement in a minimalist style, again with white walls complemented by glass and chrome, with spiral stairs leading to an upper floor. He guided her from the door across the lounge, pausing to let her look around. She thought it immaculately presented, but sterile. Other than an overindulgence in paintings and fresh flowers, it had all the life and warmth of a show house, reinforced by the total absence of man-mess or clutter, or a woman’s home-making touch.
“A bit of a bachelor pad, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t know, you must be keeping the local florist in business.”
“That’s Rosa. She can’t get a loaf of bread without picking up a bunch or two of flowers.”
She walked to the open fireplace and brushed her finger on the painting above it, feeling the contours of her own signature. “So it was you?”
“You’re not offended?”
She knew that he could have rung Rosa to remove it before she arrived, so he must have wanted her to see it. She knew too that a month earlier she would have felt hurt, patronised. But now standing looking at her own work, she experienced only pleasure, and a degree of pride. Even if he had bought it for less than noble reasons, he had chosen to give it pride of place in his home, not stored away in the garage.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen a painting of mine hanging in someone else’s home,” she said softly. “It’s a strange feeling. Why did you buy it, of all the pictures in the gallery?”
“Because it’s yours. Because I knew how much it meant to you, getting that first picture sold. And because I like it, the sunset over Point Loma, the same sunset I’ve enjoyed for years from the terrace.”
He stood close to her. She traced her fingers down his cheek, rose up on her toes and kissed him, her lips only a moment on his. “Thank you.”
She looked away, suddenly embarrassed by her own forwardness, and her eye fell on a photo of a young girl, one amongst several, sitting on a white baby grand piano.
“Your daughter?” He nodded. She picked up the frame. The girl wore a riding helmet, standing next to a horse, holding a silver cup. “She has a beautiful smile, you must be proud of her.” Isobel’s mind went to her own dead infant, who she had held only once. If he had lived, he would be much the same age as the girl in the picture.
“It’s from an equestrian event last summer. She won second prize. If I remember, you have a love of horses…”
“I used to,” she said, turning from him, not wanting to reveal her pain. She had already noticed Lance appeared in none of his daughter’s photos. “You were there with Jessica?”
“In the distance, she didn’t know. The photo appeared in the local paper and I ordered it through the agency.”
She rubbed his arm. “She’ll come back to you, one day, in her own time.”
She wanted him to act on the intimacy of the moment, on the permission her kiss had conveyed and the freedom it offered, but he did not. He smiled and said nothing, leading her towards the terrace. With every step the confidence and purpose with which she had entered the house ebbed from her.
“Coffee or champagne? Or perhaps English tea?”
“Tea is fine,” said Isobel, taking the seat he offered. The terrace overlooked a plunge pool with a clear view down onto the wildlife and rocks of La Jolla Cove.
“You picked a great spot,” she said simply, afraid to say anything else.
“A house without the right woman is like a body without a soul.” He said it jokily but his eyes were dull and fixed on the horizon.
“But thank you.”
She noticed his hands. She had always liked his hands. “Did you live here when you were married?”
“No, I moved up here from Coronado about the time of my divorce. A fresh start and all that.”
Rosa served the tea and coffee and Lance stood and engaged the maid in Spanish. Isobel deciphered a routine conversation around various household matters before Lance, with a reassuring touch to her shoulder, told her he did not need her for the rest of the day.
“Does Rosa live in?” said Isobel, unable to contain her curiosity at the friendly informality between Lance and the maid.
“If I have people late for dinner she sometimes chooses to use the guest room. But most evenings she goes home. She’s an indulgence, I know, but she’s also company.”
“Staff with benefits, you might say.”
“Yes, but I try not to mix business with pleasure. The quality of the coffee would, I expect, soon suffer, particularly if I had to make it.”
She laughed. “Yes, I can see how that might happen. You’re the man about town, after all. I’m not sure you’d look the part in an apron.”
“I might surprise you. I do one hell of a mean baked potato. As long as there’s a microwave on hand, that is.”
They fell silent for a moment, hesitating in a no-man’s land somewhere between small talk and intimacy. “You must let me make you a meal sometime,” she said, “something more than a baked potato.”
“You mean I’d get the baked beans too?”
“Uh hum. And maybe the dessert.”
Rosa interrupted to say good-bye, breaking the electricity of the moment. When the conversation resumed Lance took the initiative, to Isobel’s frustration reverting to more idle chatter, asking about areas he had not broached before; did she have brothers and sisters, were her parents still alive, and so on. When he had established Isobel’s family did not extend beyond an ailing mother, he took the opportunity to move to the topic he had alluded to when they met. He leant forwards, steepling his fingers as he began.
“I don’t want to be presumptuous, Isobel, but you have few ties back in England, so I’ll come straight to the point. Pauline is seventy this year and she tells me she would like to retire from the gallery. She holds you in high regard and has suggested to me that you would be the perfect person to take over the business.”
The proposition stunned Isobel. Lance had come to his point with such directness, with such absence of context, that she feared she might be misunderstanding him.
“Pauline wants me to take over her business?” she blurted back, incredulity in every word.”
“That’s what she told me.”
Since she had started working for Pauline, Isobel had often dreamt of running a gallery of her own, but now that opportunity appeared to be before her, instead of excitement, suspicion and doubt consumed her. Jay had trapped her in his spider’s web of duplicity only too easily. She would not let that happen again.
“And why should she suggest that to you, Lance? Why not to me?”
Lance smiled and leant back in the chair, his expression now less earnest. “I think she’s worried that she may have been unkind to you in the past and that you would be less agreeable to the idea directly from her. Apart from that, although the business is Pauline’s and she’s the leaseholder, a company I’m connected to holds the freehold ownership. And Pauline is beholden to that company as they must agree any change to the leaseholder.”
The beginnings of the spider’s web seemed to be taking shape. “In other words, you own the property and you’re Pauline’s boss.”
“Perish the thought!” he exclaimed. “If that were the case I would have dismissed the old battleaxe long ago. But yes, I suppose I have final say over any transfer of the lease. But it is Pauline’s business, she’s responsible for the profit and the loss, and I can’t cross the threshold of the gallery other than as a customer.”
“Or as a suitor.” She crossed her legs and his eyes followed her movement. “And here you are proposing to mix business with pleasure.”
“That’s unfair. What I’m suggesting is on Pauline’s behalf, I only ask you to consider it.” He paused, watching Isobel intently. “But let us leave that aside. I’ve sprung it on you without warning, and I apologise. Now, you said you wanted to discuss something with me that could not wait till this evening,” he paused again, his eyes lingering once more, “or am I about to learn that you no longer wish to come to the ballgame?”
“No, we’re both looking forwards to it. And before we leave the subject of the gallery, I thank you for acting as Pauline’s ambassador, although Pauline needn’t have worried, I have total respect for her.”
Things were not going according to Isobel’s plan, and she welcomed the opportunity to take some control.
“I really do appreciate how you sorted out the extension to the rental contract. I know I must make a decision but at the moment I’m not sure what my plans are beyond this month.”
“Of course, I understand, it’s only an option,” he said.
“But thank you again for making it happen.”
“What’s the point of being in property if I can’t use my contacts to help a friend? And if it helps make it easier for you to stay on in Coronado then that is my reward. But you had no need to come to La Jolla to tell me that. So there must be something else on your mind?”
She did not want to answer his question. She did not want to confront her own wantonness. She knew she had invited herself into Lance’s home, in spite of everything, to give herself to him. There had been no doubt in her mind of that intent from the moment she had stood naked before the mirror that morning, oiling her skin in delicate lily and rose petal. No doubt since she had run her palms over the dress that clung to her figure, imagining Lance’s strong hands upon her. Now was the moment to act. Yet instead of rising from her seat, instead of reaching out to him, she pulled on the finger where her wedding ring used to be, unable to stop herself from raising the one fear she had left home determined to suppress. “There is something we haven’t talked about. How did your trip to El Paso go? You never did tell me.”
She had thrown the question at him out of nowhere, and he looked at her sideways before answering. “What makes you interested in my business in El Paso?”
She had already noticed he often answered questions with questions. “Because I am.”
“Nothing to tell, really. Hot days and humid nights. Long meetings in oak boardrooms and lonely nights in hotel bedrooms. The usual.”
“How could you be in El Paso and in the Crown Room of the Coronado Hotel at the same time?”
She saw him narrow his eyes in thought.
“Being in two places at the same time would be a difficult trick, even in today’s virtual world. Not one I could pull off.” It seemed as he spoke that he wanted to buy thinking time, but he continued on without pausing. “I needed to attend a function at the Del. I flew back for it in the afternoon and returned to El Paso the following day.”
“After spending the night with Chrystal Brakeley?”
Lance laughed and threw back his head. “So this is what has brought you all the way to La Jolla, my relationship with Chrystal? Why didn’t you just come straight out with it after you heard about it?”
“Because, I suppose, I was waiting. Hoping you would tell me about it.”
“But instead you ended up reading about it in gossip magazines. And what did you learn from those clarions of truth?”
“I didn’t need to read about it. I went to the concert with Maria. I saw two people with chemistry. Two people who made pretence of not being together but who were seen later smooching here in La Jolla. Whatever happened to the man who hasn’t had a serious relationship in two years?”
Lance reached out and took her by the hands. “Isobel, what I’m going to tell you now is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. When I said what I said, I didn’t claim to be celibate. And I haven’t asked or expected you to be either.”
He paused like a courtroom lawyer wanting to give more weight to his words, his hold on her hands firmer now. “In the last two years I’ve only had one serious romantic relationship and that is with you, even though you have allowed me no more than a peck on the cheek.” He fixed his gaze on her, daring her to doubt his sincerity. “I can’t help what the gossipmongers say, and I’m not going to add more column inches by making statements and denials that they’ll twist and use to sell more of their worthless rags.” Now his words had an edge, the same edge that entered Ryan’s voice when he donned his rebel without a cause mantle. “Chrystal is a beautiful and charming woman, she’s intelligent and she’s good company. And yes, she has been going through a rough time emotionally, so maybe that evening she did need a shoulder to cry on.”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard it called that. Or did the non- celibate Mr. Denning turn down the invitation to take a supermodel to his bedroom?”
“That’s not fair on Chrystal, you don’t even know her.”
“Come on, Lance, I do know a bit about what goes on with the Hollywood set and I’ve been learning more than I care to these last few weeks. Chrystal Brakeley is every man’s fantasy, isn’t she?”
“I’m not saying I haven’t thought about that, but there is a simple reason I’ve never gone there—assuming for a second that Chrystal might have the remotest interest in a man ten years older than her. Chrystal and I have a business relationship and that’s the way I prefer to keep it.”
“What kind of business do you have with each other?” she asked pointedly, thinking that providing “a shoulder to cry on” had suggested more than what Lance now claimed.
“As you know, I invest in property. Contrary to what you might read, it doesn’t involve raping, plundering, asset stripping, or exploiting anyone to make profit. But it does, as far as I’m concerned, bring with it a responsibility. A responsibility to help people who see huge office blocks sitting empty, offices owned by companies I’m involved with, while they walk the streets looking for a handout.”
Lance had never before claimed to be a pillar of the community. Now he sounded close to a minister of the church, refuelling Isobel’s scepticism. “And what does your philanthropy have to do with Chrystal? It’s not like she’s on food stamps,” she said, determined not to be taken in.
“Because of the business I’m in I’ve taken it upon myself to sponsor an organisation that helps the homeless. The charity raises funds for shelters and soup kitchens; Chrystal is the patron. Her involvement helps get publicity, get donations, and make events like the jazz concert you saw me at a success. It’s that simple. It’s business. And I tell you all this in the full knowledge you can check it out. Chrystal’s involvement is a matter of public record, even if mine is hidden behind a company logo.”
His words and his conviction subdued the fight in her. She had already figured out he liked to work with a hidden hand. Mister Fix-it, as Maria had called him.
“I wish you had told me all this before, Lance. You had nothing to lose in telling me.”
“Maybe I didn’t want to put fuel on your fire,’’ he said, “adding to the playboy label you attached to me. Giving you another reason not to take a risk with me.”
He still held her hands. She pulled them away, stood, and moved to the railing. She didn’t want him to see the tears welling up in her eyes.
His hands caressed her hips, his lips on her neck. “You’re a wonderful woman, Isobel.”
He had bound his arms around her waist, his body pressed against hers. She clasped one arm around his, her other behind her head pulling him down on the side of her neck, an antelope encouraging a lion.
“I’ve thought about this moment since the day I met you.” His arms left her waist and travelled up her ribs, he clasped her breasts. Desire rose within her, as she could feel it rising up within him. She took his wrists, pulled them from her and turned to face him.
Suddenly she feared what he might be thinking. That she had given herself too willingly, that he would not value something attained so easily. “Not now, Lance, please, no more, please…”
He kissed her and his hands travelled to her neck, the fingers extending out under the folds of her dress, along her shoulders, exploring the softness of her skin. If he had said nothing, if he had torn her clothes from her, then she knew she would have abandoned herself to him
“Everything okay?” he said, letting his fingers fall limp.
She didn’t want to explain herself, didn’t want to offer reasons for him to take his hands from her. If only he would put his hands below her waist, caress her moist thighs, feel the hotness of her desire, then he would have his answers. But he didn’t and his question demanded she respond. She clasped his hands in hers.
“It’s not that I don’t want to,” how more plainly could she say it, but he heard the words from her mouth, not the need in her voice. “But I’m afraid. Afraid of making mistakes I’ve made before, mistakes that shattered my life. I just want time to take everything in, to make sense of what’s happened. My emotions have been in turmoil since yesterday. You’ve just got to give me a little more time.”
As the words flowed out logic seeped in, where only raw desire reigned before. What difference would a day make? Soon she would know everything she wanted to know about Lance Denning; if he had deceived her then she could deny herself to him, save herself from him, or let him take her just for the carnal pleasure of it. And if she gave herself in full knowledge, she would be doing it not because she needed it or because he wanted it, nor because Maria expected it, but because she chose to give herself in the certainty that she knew the man he was.
The weight of his body eased back from her.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have put pressure on you. Maybe I just thought, with you wanting to come to the house…”
She put her finger to his lips. “You did what I wanted you to do. I didn’t mean to tease you, it’s—”
Now he put his finger to her lips. “You’ve been the perfect lady, Isobel. Things will work out for us if they’re meant to be.”