Twenty miles away from the hotel, Barbara Hayward was walking into her brother's town house in Washington, D.C. Her father opened the door. 'Barbara!' he exclaimed. 'Honey, what are you doing here?'
She looked around him for Doug and saw him walking into the room, buttoning the cuffs of his shirt. He stopped cold, his pleasure in her visit shaking her resolve a little. 'Is Mother here?' she asked, looking about the spacious town house.
'I'm here, darling,' Jessica said as she floated downstairs in one of the silky, clingy peignoirs she always preferred. 'The more important question is, why are you here?'
Barbara had the horrible feeling that of the three other people in the room, Jessica was already arriving at the correct conclusion. Barbara was sure of it when her mother began talking to her in a way that was calculated to make her sound feebleminded, even now, when she'd finally put her life together and built a good marriage with a husband who loved her.
'Why aren't you at your beautiful, peaceful place in Vermont?' Jessica said, rushing over to pour her a cup of tea. 'You know how the big cities always upset you. Why are you in Washington?'
Barbara sat on the sofa and realized she'd finally arrived at the moment she had dreaded since she was fifteen years old. Her mother was going to despise her and make her sound like a maniac or a liar. Doug and her father were going to lose faith in her, no one was going to love her, she'd be abandoned— With an angry shake of her head, Barbara silenced that panicky inner voice that had chanted that same chant until she was nearly crazy with it.
'I'm here to have some tea,' Barbara said with a calm smile as she took the cup and saucer and patted the seat on the sofa beside her. Doug sat down there. Her father and mother sat down in chairs facing them. 'And I'm here to right a wrong that I helped Mother commit fifteen years ago.'
Jessica shot to her feet. 'You're having one of your spells again. I have some tranquilizers in my purse.'
'Take one by all means if you need it,' Barbara said, deliberately misunderstanding her. 'Daddy,' she said firmly. 'Cole Harrison never, ever laid a finger on me. Mother was at the stable that night, and she ran up to my room and begged me to change clothes with her.'
'Can you
Her father wearily rubbed his forehead. 'Barbara, don't do this to yourself. It happened, honey. That bastard got you pregnant.'
Perhaps it was Barbara's calm that chipped away at her father's and brother's disbelief. Perhaps it was her sad smile. 'The father of that baby was a boy I met at a rock concert, Daddy. I never even knew his name. I just wanted to see if I could seduce him. I just'—she transferred her gaze to her mother's white face—'wanted to be like you.'
Chapter 60
'How did it go?' Diana asked when he returned alone, late in the afternoon.
Cole pulled her into his arms. 'It was a trade-off,' he said with a grin. 'We gave a little and we won a little. And then we insisted the actual hearing be postponed until tomorrow morning at eleven.'
'What did you win?'
'We persuaded the judge that since the SEC reports to Congress, I should have the right to request that members of Congress and members of the SEC be allowed at the proceedings if they wish to attend. I will also be allowed to make a brief opening statement.'
She reached up and straightened the knot of the tie she'd given him.
'I just don't understand why an open hearing like that is so important to you.'
'It's important because my name and my company's name have been dragged through the dirt over the Cushman deal.' Steel threaded his voice as he added, 'I don't like the reasons for it. I don't like the methods that were used. And I don't like the participants.'
Making an effort to soften his voice, he said, 'The Cushmans are an old and powerful American family, and they've used enormous political pressure and social influence to make certain I take a fall on this. The IRS has already been nudged to get into the act. I'm being tried by politicians and the media, and I don't like it. Most of all, I despise the hypocrisy behind it.'
If there was one thing she had learned about her husband in the last few days, it was that, for a man who was supposedly ruthless and unscrupulous, Cole Harrison had some very strong personal convictions about which he was not willing to negotiate.
'And somehow,' she speculated with a twinge of fear, 'you think you can do something about all that tomorrow?'
'I may be able to demonstrate all that.'
Diana didn't know how, and she was afraid to find out for fear it would worry her even more.
Instead she said, 'You told me what you won this morning; what did you give up?'
'If I insist on making an opening statement, I have to give up my right to plead the Fifth Amendment.'
''Plead the Fifth Amendment,'' Diana said with a shudder. 'It makes you sound like some mobster.'
That made him grin. 'I've been treated like a mobster. And that,' he whispered, nipping her ear, 'is what happens when nobodies from nowhere make it into the major leagues and start playing with the guys in the Brooks Brothers suits.'
'You don't wear Brooks Brothers suits,' she chided with a giggle as he continued to tease her ear.
'I know,' he said with an unabashed grin. 'And that's what pisses them off. They don't know how to deal with us. We're unpredictable. We're out of uniform.'
In his place, Diana would have been frantic at the possibility of a trial and of being wrongfully convicted on some sort of circumstantial evidence and sent to prison. But Cole had such strength of purpose that it empowered him. He generated his own force and it swept people along with it.
Diana smoothed her fingers over his hard jaw. 'Do you really
'No. I only know what can happen, and what I want to happen.'
'What do you want to happen?'
He turned her face up for a kiss and said with a somber smile, 'What I want to happen is this: I want to see your face on the pillow beside mine when I go to sleep and when I wake up. And more than anything else in the world right now, I want to give you everything you want.'
'You?' she suggested and watched his gray eyes darken with tenderness.
'That, too,' he whispered.
The phone rang and Diana reluctantly pulled out of his arms and reached out to answer it. Still in a lighthearted mood, she said, 'You're the expert on human nature, tonight. Use your powers and tell me who this is.'
Cole threw out the first name that came to mind. 'Hayward,' he guessed; then he had to hide his shock when he turned out to be right.
Diana covered the mouthpiece with her hand. 'He wants to come up.'
In answer, Cole shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded curtly.
Chapter 61
Diana's brief fantasy that Doug would apologize and offer to have the hearing called off was not only beyond his ability to fulfill, it was beyond his consideration. Instead, the two men looked at each other like sworn enemies. Cole kept his hands in his pockets and merely lifted his brows in aloof inquiry.
Doug was equally distant. 'I won't stay long,' he said. 'I've come to apologize to both of you for everything I said and did that was the result of what I believed happened to Barbara.'
