In her office Kate flipped quickly through the glossy pages of the first October magazine to hit the stands. For three weeks now she'd been waiting for it like a vulture. It would have helped if she had the slightest idea what she was looking for, Kate thought, vexed. According to Diana, they'd even changed the name of the perfume.
Diana. Kate was reduced to getting information on the company's major projects from Chess's lackey.
Kate found the ad at the same moment that Chess walked in her door. She was so astonished by the full-page image in the magazine that she didn't even look up at him.
Her daughter-in-law was sitting in a peach and silky boudoir. She was wearing a flowered robe in a way that suggested it would soon be coming off altogether. On her face, tilted back to receive a fingerful of perfume, was an expression of the most intense and painful longing.
CALL IT LOVE, a set of white letters suggested at the bottom of the page. In the lower right corner was a photograph of the distinctive blue, oval bottle. The letters L O V E twisted around the bottle like embracing arms.
"What do you think?" Chess stood on the other side of her desk.
As she looked up, Kate was careful to keep her expression neutral. "It's certainly different from the other ad." While her eyes were on Chess, her mind still saw Cookie's face. That expression... "Whose idea was the new name?" Kate's heart was in her throat.
"Ruth's." A corner of Chess's straight mouth lifted. "Imaginative, that one."
"Yes, very imaginative." Thank God the idea hadn't been Cookie's. Kate had only caught a couple glimpses of Cookie since that abortive dinner party at Chess's house three weeks before. Both times she'd looked drawn and distant. She'd barely spoken a word to Kate. "Do you think the campaign will work?" she now asked Chess.
He lifted a shoulder. "We'll know soon enough."
"Sales were a bit on the low side in September," Kate observed.
"They were damn lousy." Chess looked up, over her shoulder. "We'll have to make up the difference next month. Otherwise..." He shrugged again. "Otherwise we can forget the whole thing."
Kate hid her alarm. Chess sounded positively bored. She realized that in all the jockeying over where to spend their money to shore up the dying business, she'd never once considered that Chess might simply give up. She'd never worried he might abandon her.
"Do you have some time?" Chess now asked. "I'd like to go over the production schedules for next month."
Kate closed the magazine. Relief blossomed through her. He wasn't giving up. Not yet, anyway. But it was a new worry over a matter she'd always taken for granted. "I can make time. Is it something urgent?"
"In a way." Chess crossed his arms over his chest. "I was rather thinking we could discuss it over drinks."
Her heart leaped into her throat. It was the first time, bar none, Chess had ever suggested such a thing. "Drinks would be fine." Though she managed to sound cool and collected, inside she bounced with joy.
Fifteen minutes later, Chess took her arm as they walked into a quaint bar on California Street. Ceiling fans turned amid a hanging garden of ferns. Voices buzzed under the music of a jazz station.
Chess frowned. "Are you sure you wouldn't have preferred the Atelier? This place is a little loud."
"I'm sure." Kate did her best to scrounge up a smile. "The Atelier still holds too many memories."
Chess shot her a peculiar look. "Do you miss David?"
Kate had to close her eyes. She couldn't discuss this with Chess. Oddly, she didn't mind talking about her loss with Bernard. In fact, she'd done quite a bit of such talking at their evening rendezvous at the Atelier over the past few weeks. Bernard had listened and then done some talking of his own. Their conversations had become rather...amiable.
"Sometimes I miss David," she tersely answered Chess.
"I see."
He didn't see anything, Kate knew, but he seemed to understand this wasn't an open topic for conversation.
"I think there's an empty table in that direction," he observed. "Shall we?"
Once they were seated, Kate acted on her lingering concern over the magazine advertisement. "How's Cookie?"
Chess didn't look up from his perusal of the wine list. "Fine, I suppose."
I suppose. Kate longed to ask what that meant. The expression she'd seen on Cookie's face in that advertisement bothered her. She remembered warning Cookie that Chess didn't own a heart. She hadn't added that his mother was probably responsible for that state of affairs.
"About the production schedule for next month." Chess returned the worn cardboard wine list to its spot leaning against a small vase of flowers. "It's going to be big and it's going to be fast."
"You're assuming there'll be a demand."
Chess drummed his fingers on the waxed wood tabletop. "It's the only assumption open to us. We can't afford to be cautious at this point."
"All or nothing," Kate observed.
He hesitated and then gave a curt nod. "That's about the size of it."
A waitress dressed in jeans came to take their order. Chess ordered a glass of local wine for himself and a dry sherry for his mother.
Kate rubbed a finger along the top of the table. "A production like that—it's going to take another hefty infusion of cash from our capital."
A muscle clenched in his jaw. "That's right."
Kate almost laughed. She should have known. Chess never did anything without a reason. He hadn't asked her out for a drink to be nice or to enjoy some time with her. He wanted her approval for the disbursement of money. "So you're asking for my go-ahead?"
He caught himself mid-shrug. Then he straightened and looked her in the eye. "Would you give it to me?"
Kate did laugh then. "What choice do I have? You're already halfway into this mess." She lifted a hand. "You have my approval."
The waitress appeared with their two drinks on a tray. Kate waited until the young woman had finished arranging the glasses on the table and left. Then she turned back to Chess. "I don't know why you need my votes, though, when you have Cookie."
Chess carefully wrapped his fingers around his dewy glass of wine. "With Cookie's schedule the way it is, I rarely even see her, let alone have time to discuss business."
"Hm." Kate lifted her glass of sherry. So they weren't sleeping together. She hadn't known. But now she wondered if that were a good or a bad thing. God knew, she didn't want to see Cookie hurt, but she'd hoped the business marriage might turn into something real. Maybe she'd even hoped that Cookie might undo the years of work Kate had invested in creating the emotional wall around her son.
"Alex seems to be working out rather well, don't you think?" Kate asked, changing the subject. The topic of Chess's wife was obviously touchy and she didn't want him to slam shut his door yet.
Finishing a swallow of wine, Chess appeared pleased by the shift. "Yes, he's a hard worker, which surprised me. But you were right the other night. He's not interested in learning about fragrance."
Kate gave him a soft smile. "He's not at all like you."
Chess shot her a peculiar glance. "Clearly."
"You had a goal in mind from the day you were born, it seemed," Kate mused on. "Alex has to experiment for a while before he finds his place."
"Fortunate he has the luxury."
Kate straightened at the light slap in his tone. "He's not as strong as you, Chess. Few people are."
Chess's sea-green eyes fixed on her with unnerving intensity. "Strong," he repeated flatly. "Oh, yes. I always thought I got that from you. Being strong."
Her heart fluttered sickly in her chest. The fear rose up inside her, the fear that he'd confront her with what she'd done with his life.
Chess gave a curt laugh and looked away. "Then you got married. You adjusted to that state easily enough."
"Not so easily," Kate returned, remembering those early stormy months with David. She'd been outraged he wanted something more out of her than a business partner and social escort.
"Ah, well." Chess leaned back in his chair, taking his wine with him. He gave her a dry half smile and lifted his glass. "Here's to being strong."
~~~
An hour later Chess let himself into his empty house.
Strength. It was quality he'd spent a great deal of time considering lately. He thought about it as he lay in bed at night, his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
Was it strength to have to battle the ache of loneliness through those long hours of the night?
In the marble foyer, Chess threw his keys on the little table there before making his way upstairs. He didn't have to worry about staying up all evening anymore. Cookie now insisted on taking a cab home from the theater instead of letting him pick her up.
Was it strength to feel regret over the loss of that small task?
In his room, Chess carefully removed the half dozen blotting papers from his top pocket and then shrugged out of his jacket. He had an auto freshener to work on tonight. A little outside contract work was a nice way to earn some extra money. God knew they could use all the extra cash they could get. After taking his shirt off, he sat down on the edge of his bed.
Was it strength to have this constant, nagging worry that they wouldn't be able to make up their low September sales?
Sighing, Chess clasped both hands behind his neck and arched his back. He thought about making dinner, but he didn't enjoy cooking any more. Not since he'd noticed Cookie was no longer taking any of the meals he'd prepared. In fact, when he looked in the refrigerator in the morning, he'd see nothing gone: not a piece of bread, not an egg, not a grape. He doubted she'd obligated herself so far as a cup of tea.
Now, was it strength to let that rankle?
Chess stood up from the bed with a sigh. There were a lot of empty hours to fill. He might as well make himself dinner, after all. Something complicated that would take up a few of those hours. Then, after tending to his garden, he'd do some work with the auto freshener. If he stretched things out very carefully he could, quite legitimately, still be sitting in the dining room come twelve-thirty or one, sniffing at his papers. He could manage to be awake and around when Cookie came home.
Now was that strong?
Chess shook his head. He wasn't going to sink that low. He'd make sure he was in bed long before then. In bed, staring at the ceiling and fighting back these weak, inappropriate urges for a woman he'd done his best to drive away forever.