Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [190]
He called her after breakfast. It was eleven-thirty and she yawned and said irritably, “Why are you calling, Harry? I only saw you a few hours ago at your dreadful party. Who were those movie people? I had a hard time explaining to Buck exactly why we were there.”
He didn’t bother to explain that the reason she and Buck were there was to boost his credibility when he went to Zev Abrams and the others and asked them to invest in his oil drilling operation. “Of course, Buck is already in,” he would tell them confidently, and he knew now they would believe him; after all hadn’t they just had dinner with him at his house?
“You and I need to talk, Maryanne,” he said smoothly.
She leaned back against her pillows, groaning. “My God, what now, Harry? I’m a busy woman.”
“But never too busy to see me.”
She held the phone away from her ear, staring at it with surprise, as though she were looking at his face. She thought worriedly that Harry was becoming very insistent, pushy even.
“Can’t you tell me over the phone?” she asked plaintively.
“No. I must see you. Tonight at eight o’clock. At my place,” he said briskly.
“I can’t do that. What would I tell Buck?”
“Tell him you’re dining with an old school friend. In my experience with women and excuses, that one always works.”
“Indeed,” she said icily.
“Eight o’clock,” he said and put down the phone.
Maryanne replaced the receiver and lay back against the pillows, wondering what she was going to do. Harry was becoming a problem and problems had to be dealt with, though she didn’t quite know how. She sighed deeply; right now there was nothing she could do. Harry had her exactly where he wanted her and he knew it.
CHAPTER 40
Maryanne breathed a sigh of relief when Buck told her he would be busy that evening, at least it saved her the embarrassment of finding an excuse to slip out for half an hour to see Harry. “Don’t worry about me, darling,” she said, still smarting at the idea of Harry demanding, no, ordering her to go see him. “I’ll have room service send something up.” She yawned delicately. “I’m tired, anyway.”
Buck glanced at her, surprised she hadn’t asked where he was going, but communications between him and Maryanne were reduced to businesslike basics these days. He watched her powdering her pretty nose, peering at herself in the mirror of the little gold-and-platinum striped Cartier compact with her initials in rubies that he had given her for Christmas years ago. He had married a cold, ambitious, self-seeking woman who would have happily traded her entire family to become First Lady. He shrugged, he didn’t care anymore. A touch of warmth crept into his chilled heart as he thought of Lysandra, his newly discovered daughter, and Francie whom he would see again in just a few minutes.
Maryanne lazed in her peach satin robe on the flowered chintz sofa, watching as he shrugged on his overcoat and walked to the door. “Bye, darling,” she called, blowing him a kiss. The expression in her eyes changed to anger as he flung a cold good-bye over his shoulder and closed the door.
She glanced at her watch, there was no time to waste, she must dress and get over to Harry’s and back again before Buck returned. It occurred to her that she did not know how long Buck was going to be or where he was going, but there was no time to brood on that now. She dressed quickly in a black wool-crepe dress, black suede pumps, and an emerald green cashmere cape lined with mink. She had decided fur linings were a good idea since it wouldn’t be good to look too ostentatiously rich publicly right now, with Buck being presented as “a man of the people.” She picked up the little black clutch purse, stuffed the key, her ruby-initialed Cartier compact, her lipstick, her lizard-skin address book, and a white linen handkerchief into it, and then hurried to the elevator. The front lobby was crowded and she glanced quickly around, then swung unnoticed through the revolving