“I can’t, Johnny. Not in this house. Not with your parents sleeping down the hall.”
The logs in the guest bedroom fireplace were ablaze and so was John, but Ana felt as cold as the icicles fingering down from the eaves outside her window.
Senator John Farrell, his tanned, fit body clad only in a paisley brocade robe, stared at her in bewilderment. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m not.” Ana hunched up defensively in the high four-poster feather bed. She pulled the straps of her pink teddy on to her shoulders with a sigh. John was staring at her as if she’d just doused him with ice water. Really, she couldn’t help how she felt. His parents sent off vibes that could make Madonna frigid.
But John was evidently oblivious of them. “Ana, don’t be ridiculous. They’re five rooms down the hall.”
It was ridiculous, she thought. She tried to remember the sensible advice in her book. You have permission to relax. Focus on the pleasure. Center on the sensation. Let yourself go.
None of it was working. Dr. Severance, you’re a crock.
She felt tight as a drum and devoid of any passion.
Maybe it was this house.
Fine old Chippendale furnishings, antique mahoganies, and rich leather worn to a high gloss. Costly Oriental rugs, priceless gilt-framed paintings, and the elegant comfort of brocade tapestry and fresh flowers spiking out of vermeil pots that had been in the family for generations.
Everything seemed dark and heavy and New England. She felt more like a visitor to the Smithsonian than part of a warm and cozy home. Maybe it was because John’s mother had said: “We’re delighted to have you, dear. Please make yourself comfortable,” but her eyes had conveyed, “You don’t belong here. You’ll never belong here.”
John jumped from the bed, his robe falling open. Ana noted his erection hadn’t completely given up on her. Guilt ate at her. A little voice inside kept screaming that it was all in her mind—sex was supposed to be fun.
It was easy and natural. That’s what all the books said. That’s what all the movies said. That’s what Dr. Severance said. Loving John should be enough to make it work.
But she felt dry and cold and miserable. And the accusing look on his face didn’t help. A sheen of tears blurred her vision.
She whispered, “I feel like they’re going to know.”
“Ana, they think I’m in my own room, resting up so I can play tennis with my father at the club at seven and still be home and showered for breakfast by nine. And they’ve probably been snoring in each other’s faces for hours already.” He sat down beside her and took her hand, his fingers rubbing back and forth across her palm.
“You’ve been so tense the past few days. What’s really bothering you? And I want the truth.”
Ana answered immediately. “Your parents don’t like me.”
“They don’t like anybody born west of the Hudson,” he laughed. “It’s nothing personal, Ana. Believe me.”
His lightly tracing fingers made her palm tingle. “I’m dreading the party,” the confessed. She bit her lip and met his gaze with soulful directness. “All those bluebloods looking down on me, waiting for me to pour ketchup on my shrimp cocktail or slurp my soup.”
John shook his head as he gathered her close. “You’re a movie star, darling. They’ll be at your feet. You could spoon caviar on your ice cream and they’d simply assume it was the latest rage in California cuisine.” He pressed a kiss against her ear and whispered into it: “Where is all this insecurity coming from? I’ve never known you to worry so much about what other people think.”
“It’s just that these are the people you’re depending on to back your campaign. I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize their support, or to make you look bad.”
“You couldn’t if you tried. Come on.” He snuggled up beside her. “Enough worrying about my parents, about the party, about the campaign. Don’t even think about the wedding. Think about you and me. There’s snow at the window, a fire in the hearth, and a horny guy who thinks you’re the sexiest, most desirable, most lovable Mrs. Farrell to ever hit this family.”
John kissed her with lips that were warm and insistent. His fingers slid the delicate teddy straps down her shoulders. His mouth followed.
Ana fell back against the satin pillows, willing her mind to relax, her body to let go. John caressed her, stroked her, and nibbled at her. He moved slowly at first, then urgently upped the tempo, trying to draw her into the excitement he was feeling, but instead of ascending to the heights he promised, Ana found herself falling further and further behind.
You’re an actress. So act, Ana commanded herself at last in frustration.
So she faked it. All of it. The passion. The arousal.
The orgasm.
John came with a long, shuddering sigh and a groan of satisfaction. He playfully kissed her breasts. “Do I hear footsteps?” he stage-whispered, propping himself up to stare into her sweat-filmed face. “Is that Mommy coming down the hall?”
She swung a pillow at him, suddenly giggling. “Creep. And she’s going to stick you in the corner.”
“That’s okay—so long as you’re in that corner with me.”
“I’ll always be in your corner, Johnny,” Ana murmured, her gaze suddenly serious, her arms sliding around his neck. She drew him to her and kissed him earnestly. “I love you so much. Don’t ever leave me.”
“Never.”
Ana fell asleep snuggled beneath the goose down comforter, John’s arms around her, solid, strong, secure as the very foundations of this ancestral home. As she drifted off, lulled by his rhythmic breathing, she told herself that things would go better in Maui.
Ocean breezes, swaying palm trees, and tropical sunsets were conducive to good sex—all the experts said so. Didn’t they?
Then it must be true, Ana reflected as she stared into the dying logs of the fire and listened to the nocturnal creakings of the house.
All she had to do was learn to let go. It would get easier, she promised herself. Kind of like bungee-jumping—once you threw yourself over the edge, it was all downhill.
* * *
Liz Smith’s column taunted him from the kitchen table.
Eric taunted back.
Ho-ho-ho. He paced frenetically around the room, always circling back to the column. So the bitch was spending the holidays in Rhode Island with her future fucking in-laws and the boy senator. La-de-fucking-da.
He ripped up the entire newspaper and tossed the confettied pieces out into the night. Swearing, he slammed the window shut on the stench of garbage and dog shit in the alley.
Then he paced some more.
Stupid move, Candy. You had your chance and you blew it, babe. Santa’s going to have one big, belated surprise for you.
He grabbed up his .45 and stared at it longingly, the anger building inside of him. Christmas Eve had come and gone—and so had the deadline he’d given Ana.
She doesn’t think I’ve got the guts to do it.
He tossed the revolver from hand to hand.
Well, you just made the worst mistake of your life, sweetheart. Kinda like plunking coal in my Christmas stocking. Can’t play with coal, baby, and not get yourself dirty.
Time to get dirty, Ana. Real dirty.
He turned and lunged into a graceful crouch, pointing the gun at his own refection in the grimy window.
Merry Christmas, slut.
* * *
New Year’s Eve. She had to get through only one more night. Tomorrow, Ana reminded herself as she sipped her champagne, she’d be out of this stuffy mausoleum. She’d be soaring like an uncaged bird, flying with John to Maui.
The party was huge, pretentious, and sedate as a Sunday-school tea. Ana wandered from room to room, feeling lost and adrift despite the multitude of guests. The air was close and warm. With all the chandeliers and fireplaces aglow, she felt overheated and sweaty in her tight-sleeved wine velvet gown.
The gown was terrible. All wrong. It was too low-cut, too sexy. She’d had a feeling it would be, but John had assured her she looked stunning. Once downstairs, though, mingling with the one hundred and twenty guests dribbling through the mansion, she felt overdone, overdressed, and flashy with her smoky eye makeup and brilliant burgundy lips.
And her earrings were inappropriate as well. John had insisted that the dangling ruby-encrusted diamonds she’d bought for herself after she’d won her Oscar set off the gown’s burning jewel color to perfection. He’d urged her to wear them.
But Hope Farrell and her society friends all wore simple pearl studs, tailored dresses, stiff smiles, and polite makeup.
They must think I look like a hooker, she thought miserably.
The hours till midnight stretched agonizingly before her.
John and his father had withdrawn to the library for cognac with the governor, several state congressmen, and his two biggest campaign contributors, Jeffrey Tobes III and William Gordon.
Ana felt like a cheerleader at a funeral home. For God’s sake, this was New Year’s Eve. It was supposed to be festive, wild, and celebratory with rock music and funny hats and noisemakers. The only noise here was the tinkle of silver demitasse spoons against dainty floral teacups.
She’d scream if she didn’t get some air. Five more minutes in this stifling parlor with all the ladies sipping from heirloom bone china and droning endlessly about their spring debutante balls, and she’d go bonkers.
She threw on her black velvet hooded cape and slipped out into the frosty New England darkness. She inhaled deeply of the fresh tangy air and set off down the front walk, the path flanked by twinkling luminaria winding toward Ocean Drive.
John had taken her this way along the Cliff Walk that afternoon, pointing out the various “cottages” built by the Astors, the Vanderbilts, the Belmonts and other wealthy industrialists during the late nineteenth century. Ana had shaken her head in disbelief. Even after the excesses of Hollywood, she was amazed. The ocean-fronted “cottages” looked like palaces plucked from European estates. John had told her that they’d been originally fashioned after the great castles and chateaus of Europe. She tried to imagine him growing up here, amid such unbelievable wealth. She’d grown up in Buck Hollow, where the greatest show of affluence was a pillared porch in the center of Main Street, where the only thing reminiscent of Newport was the invigorating scent of the pines.
Buck Hollow. She hadn’t been back in all these years. After her Oscar nomination, she’d received a fan letter from Buddy Crocker. He was married to Shirleen, and they had four kids. All boys.
Her father had written, too, looking for a handout.
That was when Ana had instructed her lawyers to set up an account at Buck Hollow First National. Working with Reverend Bowles, the local minister, the lawyers had arranged for all of Warren Cates’s grocery and medical bills to be paid from the account. But nothing else. Ana had made it clear that she would not contribute one penny to her father’s alcohol abuse. And she didn’t want to be involved in any way with either her father or the disbursement of the account’s funds.
She walked along, pushing her father and Buck Hollow from her thoughts, giving herself up to the heady fragrance of pine trees, smoky chimneys, and sea air. The Atlantic rolled beyond the horizon, shimmering beneath the starry midnight-blue sky.
Someday my children will sail out there in Narragansett Bay, Ana mused. They’ll play tennis at the country club, swim in the ocean, and mingle with the grandchildren of all those stuffy Yankees inside.
Poor kids.
But I’ll be damned if I let them fall into the mold. Their father may have come into this world with a gold money clip tucked in his diaper, but their mother was a poor country girl who still remembers what it was like when she didn’t have squat. They’ll be bicoastal kids, she reassured herself, California dreamers and Washington pragmatists.
John and I will have to make sure they keep their sense of humor, their sense of balance, and their feet planted on the ground. I won’t have them turning out spoiled or full of themselves.
The church bells chimed from somewhere beyond the moonwashed cliffs. Eleven o’clock. John would be looking for her.
She let herself in and was about to hang up her cape, when Wendall, the butler, an imposing scarecrow with blue-veined hands and a bald pate, stopped short in the middle of the hall.
“Oh! Miss Cates... forgive me, please. I’m so terribly sorry.”
“What’s wrong, Wendall?” Ana inquired with a smile. The poor man looked so flustered, she thought he’d pop his cummerbund.
“The package that came for you and Senator John before the party. With all the last-minute preparations, I completely forgot. It’s in the library. Shall I get it for you?”
“Don’t bother. I’m sure I’ll find it, Wendall.”
J. Quincy meowed at her from the mantelpiece as she entered the library. But when Ana reached out to stroke the Smoke Persian’s silky fur, the cat leapt gracefully away.
“Be that way,” she grumbled.
The men had obviously rejoined the women in the south parlor, but the rich aroma of cigar smoke remained. Ana found herself pleasantly alone in the massive mahogany-paneled room filled with comfortable leather chesterfield sofas, matching gooseneck chairs, and glass-fronted mahogany bookcases teeming with well-worn leather-bound volumes.
She saw the UPS package at once, resting beside the bronze candlestick lamp on the Louis XV desk. Maybe Louise had forwarded a late Christmas gift. Funny, there was no return address.
Ana slit the wrapping with an antique gold letter opener she found in the desk drawer. She tore off the brown butcher paper and lifted out a videocassette—accidentally scattering the enclosed black and white photos to the floor.
Oh, God.
From the pale Aubusson carpet, glossy images leapt up to stop her heart. Images of herself—no, of sixteen year-old Candy Monroe—romping naked with nameless men she’d long since banished from her mind.
She stifled a scream and fell to her knees, haplessly swooping at the scattered photos. Her heart seemed to convulse in her chest as horror gripped her.
The video. She knew exactly what it was—one of Eric’s smutty little masterpieces. That bastard!
Trembling, she stared at the yellow legal page stapled to one of the photos. Beneath it, a picture of herself sandwiched between Eric and a man she couldn’t recall mocked up at her with sickening clarity.
That bastard.
She read the note while choking back the urge to vomit.
Something old... something blue.
A New Year’s Party treat for you.
The star, I’m sure, you’ll recognize.
Oh, yes... you can believe your eyes.
Your White House bid will be no more.
When voters see she’s such a whore.
You’ll view this first by just a week.
Then the tabloids get a peek.
She’s not the girl you thought you knew.
She’s screwed half the world plus me... and you.
Below the printed block letters, Eric had scribbled a crude postscript:
Ana babe, you just blew your last chance. I waited two hours at the drop point, but you stood me up. Now it’s time for truth or consequences. The tabloids will pay me big-time for these goodies. Kiss your cushy life and your Prince Charming goodbye.
Still on her knees, Ana stared blankly at the almost indecipherable scrawl. Drop point? What drop point? What was he talking about? Feverishly, she collected the photos, video, and note and crammed them back inside the plain tan box, her thoughts racing.
Eric must have tried to contact her after the movie role fell through. It was the only explanation.
But she’d never received his demands. No phone calls. No letters. No messages in bottles or surprise visits. Something had gone wrong—and now it was too late.
She clutched the box in numb terror. What if Wendall had delivered this to John instead of me? Cold, clammy despair drained the strength from her body. Somehow she pulled herself to her feet and leaned on the desk for support.
Next week John would know anyway—along with everyone else. Her life was disintegrating and she was helpless to stop it.
Or was she?
John’s voice startled her from the doorway.
“Hey, gorgeous, where’ve you been hiding?”
She nearly dropped the box.
He strode into the room, looking as comfortable in his black tux as he had walking along the cliffs that afternoon in his jeans and hooded sweatshirt. “Guess who wants to have their picture taken with you?”
“Wh-who?” Ana’s voice emerged a hoarse croak. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Who?”
“The governor and his wife. They’re waiting by the Christmas tree with their press photographer. And Jeffrey Tobes the third requested your autograph for his mother. Ana, what’ve you got there? What’s wrong? You look like you’re going to faint.”
“This? Nothing, it came today from Arnie. Business. Can you imagine, I can’t get a minute’s peace, even on New Year’s Eve.” Oh, God. She was babbling. She sounded like a total idiot.
Deep breaths, Ana. Slow down. Focus and act your ass off.
Ana forced herself to grimace with pain and pressed her fingers to her temples. “I think I had too much champagne before dinner,” she said with a small, rueful laugh. “I stepped outside to try to clear my head but... if I don’t get an aspirin, I’m going to die. Darling, I’ll be right back.”
He slipped an arm around her shoulder, his blue-gray eyes darkening with concern. “Let me get it for you.”
“Don’t bother. I know you have to mingle, mingle.” She slanted him an over bright smile and started toward the door.
“Hang on, I think you dropped this.” John stooped to reach for the glossy paper lying partially under her heel.
Ana’s heart lurched into her throat. She’d missed one of them...
She couldn’t breathe as he turned the glossy square of paper over in his hands.
“Just a Christmas card.” John tossed it on to the desk. “Must’ve fallen from the mantel.”
“John,” Ana said weakly, breath barely flowing from her lungs. “If I don’t get that aspirin, you’ll be picking me up off the floor.”
“Make it quick, sweetheart, it’s nearly midnight...”
“Two seconds. Promise.”
Alone upstairs in the guest room bath, she vomited into the toilet. Afterward, she gargled with Scope and sprawled in despair on the ice-cold tile floor.
Her throat burned raw. Perspiration filmed her cheeks. Yet inside she was freezing cold.
Her mind blank, Ana commanded herself: Think. Think.
John would be looking for her.
Think. Hurry.
She willed herself off the floor and scooped up the tan box from the bed, knowing only one thing.
“I won’t let you get away with this, Eric Gunn. Not on your life.”
The photos and note she flung into the fireplace, watching them curl into blackened ash. She stuffed the video into her overnight bag.
She wasn’t sure exactly when she made the decision.
From downstairs, as she packed, she could hear the faint strains of “Auld Lang Syne.” “Should old acquaintances be forgot and never brought to mind...?”
“Yes,” Ana whispered fiercely, her eyes full of tears.
“They should.”
No one except J. Quincy saw her leave.