Indiscretions - Elizabeth Adler [35]
He was talking to his son. Morgan was a good-looking young man … maybe if things didn’t go too well with Fitz she should try him instead? No, at thirty-two she was better off with the father; after all, that’s where the power was.
Raymunda glanced again at Fitz’s back. The drops of water had trickled down beneath his towel. She’d been waiting here, in the virginal robe, when he came back from wherever he’d been last—Hamburg, she thought he’d said. He’d gone straight into the shower after a brief hello, and then he’d got on the phone to Morgan. He’d never even noticed the robe. She looked at it doubtfully. Maybe it was too virginal? She unfastened the buttons to the waist and allowed it to fall open a little, displaying her ample and very pretty bosom to advantage. Her olive skin looked smooth and she ran a finger around her nipple, enjoying the responses of her own body.
The real trouble was knowing how to play it with Fitz. It was difficult sometimes when he was making love to her to remember to use ladylike words, and yet she wasn’t sure whether a man from his background understood that even ladies liked to fuck? It was a dilemma and playing a dual role was hard work.
“Fitz,” she called impatiently, “I need you.”
He turned his head and smiled at her.
The trouble was, he really turned her on—she liked his tall, spare, muscular body, hardened from those years spent wildcatting in the backlands of Texas, and she liked his thick brown-black hair and his face with its oddly jutting cheekbones and deeply set, dark blue eyes. And she was turned on, too, by the power of his money—it was breathtaking, that kind of power. When you were with Fitz McBain, you felt that the world was yours and that rich men made their own rules. Power was so exciting.
Raymunda slid back the white robe tantalizingly, posing against the pillows; she wanted him now.
“Fitz,” she called again, “come here, I want you.” He waved an impatient arm and went on with his conversation.
“Goddamn it!” Raymunda sat up again and clicked channels furiously.
“Wait!” Fitz slammed down the phone and strode across the room to the bed. “Put the news back on, channel two.”
“Channel Two! Damn it, I’ve been waiting here for you to—”
Fitz grabbed the remote control and pushed the button. Channel Two news showed pictures of Jenny Haven and then switched to the scene outside the coroner’s office in Los Angeles. Damn, Raymunda had turned down the sound.
“… the autopsy showed,” said the reporter, “that while there had been a certain amount of alcohol in her blood, Jenny wasn’t drunk, and while there was also some evidence of barbiturates, they would hardly have been sufficient to cause heart failure—though there is always the possibility of an unusual reaction with the alcohol. Perhaps Jenny simply couldn’t sleep and had taken herself out to the ocean for some fresh air? But why the evening dress? Was she meeting a lover? No one has come forward to claim that privilege. It was stated in court that Jenny was a good and experienced driver and the night was a clear one with no mist blowing in from the ocean. So—was it a tragic accident that took Jenny Haven from us? Or was it the last deliberate act of a woman, saddened at growing older, parted from the three daughters she barely knew, and unable to face life alone?” The reporter turned to gesture at the courthouse behind him. “The coroner this morning found no option but to record an open verdict on Jenny Haven’s death.”
The picture switched back to the newscaster. “Well, a sad end for a woman we all must have loved at some time in our lives. …”
Fitz switched off the television set and sat on the edge of the bed. Now, he supposed, the newspapers would really go to town on the story. Had she? Or hadn’t she? They’d drag up every bit of her past that they could—and heaven knows Jenny had been a very indiscreet woman. Fitz figured that right now there must be quite a few people in Hollywood who were praying that Jenny had never kept a diary, or that her housekeeper for the past twenty years would remain loyal and not be