Remember When

'What did Charles Hayward say to you, honey?'

Corey crouched beside him, clutching his shoulder tightly, a brace against whatever hideous thing they were about to hear that had reduced Diana to such a mindless state.

Diana looked at both of them. 'Oh,' she said thoughtfully, 'he said Cole molested Barbara and got her pregnant and Barbara had an abortion. Now she can't have any more children and that's why she's always been so unstable.'

'Whaat!' Corey exploded, shooting to her feet.

Diana's gaze automatically followed her motion, and she tipped her head back. Her voice dropped to a whisper. 'Isn't that amazing?'

'—'Amazing'?' Corey said, shooting a hesitant look at Spence as he slowly stood up beside her. 'Is that what you think it is?'

It happened then, the thing that Diana had subconsciously feared for hours—she started to laugh and she couldn't stop. 'Cole wouldn't have laid a hand on Barbara! He lived in daily fear of us coming on to him. Remember how hard we all worked to get him to notice us?'

'I remember,' Corey admitted, but her brows remained pulled together in a watchful frown.

'It's so funny, so hideously funny.'

'Is it? Funny?' Corey said cautiously, but she was beginning to believe Diana was thinking far more clearly than she'd first imagined when she saw her curled up in that chair.

'Yes, it is!' Diana said, nodding emphatically. 'It's hilarious. I know, because I was the one who kept the bets.'

'What bets?'

'The bets!' she laughed. 'Everyone, including Barbara, put money into a box, and the first one to get Cole to kiss her was the winner.' Diana laughed harder. 'I was the treasurer. And no one won!' Suddenly she turned her face into the chair and the laughter turned to wrenching sobs.

'No one won!' she sobbed. 'They're destroying him... and no one ever won !'

Chapter 55

Diana tried to call Cole at home the next morning, but the man who answered his phone said that Mr. Harrison was at work. At his office Mr. Harrison's secretary said he wasn't in. Diana arrived at the obvious conclusion that she was a very dispensable commodity to men, and that Cole had just been amusing himself when they were together with Cal, playing with marriage. When other matters in his life became pressing, either he didn't want to be bothered with her or he forgot that she existed! Her brain accepted that, but her heart rejected it and went on aching.

Somehow she made it through the day at work. In keeping with her resolution to delegate more responsibility, she spent most of the afternoon working closely with two of her executives, to be certain they were all thinking alike. No matter where she went or whom she saw in the building, she maintained a cheerful and pleasant face. Cole's name and his current predicament actually came up several times in her presence, but it was simply a thoughtful effort by the people who worked for her to avoid acting as if he had either done something wrong or else died.

In retrospect, it was comical that she'd thought Dan's defection such a disaster. This was a disaster.

She left the office at five-thirty and, at her family's insistence, she drove to their house for dinner. Being there was even harder than being at the office. Unlike her employees, her family didn't hesitate to voice their opinions about Cole's situation or to insist that Diana talk about it, although Corey and Spence remained silent and supportive. Even Glenna had an opinion to express, but she, too, was part of the family. Besides, she was a flagrant eavesdropper. Everyone was sitting outside by the pool before dinner, when Glenna came out to tell Diana that she had an urgent call. The entire family brightened, thinking it was Cole.

'It's a reporter,' Glenna said, holding a cordless phone in her hand with the hold light flashing.

'I don't want to talk to any reporters,' Diana replied, and added to her family, 'I don't know how they're getting this number, but we're probably going to have to change it.'

'He wants to ask you about your divorce.'

Everyone stopped talking and stared at the housekeeper. 'My what?'

'He says he wants a comment from you on the 'grounds' you're going to use.'

Diana took the phone, said hello, and then listened for a moment. 'Where did you hear that?' she demanded. 'Well, I don't think it's actually 'public knowledge,' Mr. Godfrey,' Diana replied, slowly standing up, 'because I don't know anything about it. Good-bye,' she said, but a small feeling of hope was slowly dawning in Diana's heart. She turned and ran to the nearest television set with her family in close pursuit. The screen lit up just in time for a local Houston newscast team to confirm what the newspaper reporter had just told Diana.

'There's been a side development in the Cole Harrison-Unified Industries uproar,' the woman on the screen told her male counterpart. 'Diana Foster, his wife of less than two weeks, is filing for divorce on unspecified grounds.'

'That didn't last very long,' he said to the camera.

His coanchor nodded. 'Sources close to Cole Harrison confirmed the rumor less than an hour ago. It seems that Diana Foster has chosen to disassociate herself and her company from the scandal brewing in Washington over Harrison's takeover of Cushman Electronics.'

Henry Britton looked almost accusingly at Diana. 'Is that what you're going to do, Diana?'

Diana slowly shook her head, her eyes glowing with relief and happiness. 'That's what Cole wants me to do. Charles and Doug Hayward warned me to get rid of Cole so the scandal won't spill over onto me. Now Cole is trying to make sure it won't.'

Corey looked at her husband and quietly pointed out, 'So much for the theory that Cole married her to help his public image. He just blew it to pieces for her.'

Diana didn't hear that; she was thinking and planning.

'What are you going to do?' Gram asked, but Mary Foster already knew the answer to that. Putting her arm around Diana's shoulders, she said with a soft laugh, 'Diana is going to Dallas.'

Diana was definitely going to Dallas, and for a woman who once couldn't function without a detailed schedule or leave on a short trip without lining every article of clothing with tissue paper, she accomplished that feat with amazing expediency. With Corey and her grandmother helplessly standing by, she stuffed whatever clothes she had at the house into two suitcases she owned; then she threw all her toiletries in on top of them. 'That's that,' she said, closing the last piece of luggage. After that she phoned her two top executives and told them they were in charge and to call her at Cole's numbers if they had questions or problems.

She took care of the items on her filled calendar by turning to Corey and saying, 'Tell Sally to cancel all my appointments.'

'What reason should she give everyone?'

'Tell everyone,' Diana said as she dragged the two heavy cases off her bed, 'that I'm in Dallas. With my husband.'

By seven forty-five, Corey had dropped her off at the airport and Diana was in line to board her eight o'clock flight when she realized that the man who was sprinting past the rows of gates toward her was Spence. 'Give this to Cole,' he said, taking an envelope out of his pocket. 'Tell him I said it's a belated wedding present and to use it if he absolutely has to as an equalizer.'

'What is it?' Diana asked, moving forward as the boarding process continued.

'It is the end of Doug's political career,' Spence said somberly.