Sins of the Flesh. Fern Michaels

giggles. Then he’d undressed her ceremonially and placed her among them. The combination of the look in her eyes, her pliant body, and the heady scent of the petals had been so overwhelming, he’d thought his desire would drive him insane. Afterward the fragile petals had been bruised and crushed, but Mickey had gathered them up tenderly and placed them one by one in a jar. At the time he’d thought it the most wonderful thing in the world.

      Suddenly a thorn penetrated his glove and pierced his finger, but he barely felt it. Absently he removed the glove and sucked at the blood trickling from the minute wound. Was that jar still on the bedroom mantel in the château, he wondered. And Mickey—where was she? Was she safe? Did she get out in time? Jesus, he’d give anything to know.

      How many times he’d wanted to go back, actually booked passage, only to cancel at the last minute. She didn’t want him, and he couldn’t force himself on her. Maybe he should have gone. Maybe he should have listened to her tell him coldly, finally, that she didn’t want him. Perhaps that would have freed him. Pride, the deadliest sin of all. And fear of rejection, the second deadly sin.

      Reuben brushed the sweat from his brow. Guilty on both counts! Almost desperately he hacked at a bush full of delicate, almond-colored blooms, stepping on buds that would have bloomed in another day, crushing them to a messy pulp. It must be something in him that destroyed the things he loved and things he didn’t care to love. Like Bebe, his wife. He should have divorced her years before, but something in him wouldn’t allow that final action. On more than one occasion Daniel had told him Bebe was his link to Mickey in a sick kind of way. He hadn’t listened, or he’d pretended not to. Now…now he had to make a decision, not this second, but in the coming weeks. His need to be free was strangling him. None of them needed him, and he doubted seriously that either his wife or his children loved him. Simon and Dillon were his, flesh of his flesh. He’d tried to love them, but in his heart he knew that if he never saw any of them again, he wouldn’t care. Christ! What kind of a man was he? It was Mickey, her rejection of him, that had killed his capacity to love. It always came back to Mickey.

      How in the hell had he gotten this far into his life without feeling love again, the kind of love he’d had for Mickey? Was it true that some people were capable of loving only once?

      Reuben tossed the cutting shears onto the glass-topped patio table and frowned when he saw a crack spread out from where they landed. Who the hell cared? He certainly didn’t. It would simply be replaced, like magic. He removed the gloves and placed them over the shears.

      Right now, this second, he could walk out the door and never come back. He provided for his family—provided handsomely. Daniel handled the trusts and the accounts. His family would never want for a thing. Why not sell his 49 percent of Fairmont Studio stock to Philippe Bouchet? For a price…a price that would set him up somewhere far away from this place.

      Hands in his pockets, Reuben tramped through his manicured grounds. He listened a moment to a chorus of sounds overhead. When was the last time he’d actually stopped to appreciate the music of the birds? He couldn’t remember. Could he give it up, the studio and his family, and walk away? Why not? After all, what exactly was he giving up? If Bebe and the children no longer needed him, why was he still here? Because you want to be here wallowing in self-pity. If you wanted out, you would have gotten out a long time ago, an inner voice replied.

      Reuben rubbed his temples wearily. It was true: the guilt…the pity…I had to make amends…. Oh, God, how was I to know the years would fly and I’d never feel anything again? How was I to know I couldn’t make up for what had happened?

      Walk away, you’ve given enough—and you’ve taken enough. It’s all been evened out somewhere along the way. Leave it all behind…make the decision.

      “And what will I do?” Reuben’s own voice startled him.

      Take a trip around the world, suggested the inner voice. Something will come to you once you make the decision.

      Reuben sat down on a stone bench nestled in bougainvillea. When he looked up he could see his house shimmering in the golden California sunlight. “That’s just it. I can’t make up my mind. I don’t even know where Bebe is. I can’t divorce her if I don’t know where she is.”

      Private detectives and lawyers will find her; that’s not your problem. Your problem is finding you. Get a divorce!

      That means I failed.

      Your marriage was a failure from the first day, and you knew it then just as you know it now. You’re a coward, Reuben Tarz, a bloody coward.

      Reuben stood up abruptly. He’d had enough of this arguing with himself. “As soon as the problem with Daniel is resolved, I’ll act on my own life decisions. That’s how I’ll proceed.”

      He felt exhausted. The sun was warm, and a nap in the shade on one of the terrace chaises was a welcome thought. As soon as he walked back to the terrace and realized he didn’t have to think another thought, he closed his eyes and slept. But his sleep was plagued with vague and clouded glimpses of Daniel.

      A week passed, an angry, belligerent week. Rockefeller and Vanderbilt were as good as their word—they called every three hours to inform Reuben that there had been no word from Daniel. On the morning of the eighth day, Reuben calmly arranged to fly to Washington, D.C. He’d had enough of Daniel’s friends and knew without a doubt that they were both lying through their upper-crust teeth.

      As he issued orders to the staff to prepare for his departure, his mind was on his upcoming confrontation with Daniel’s friends. He’d see how good they were at lying to his face. Daniel was in trouble, and he was sorry now that he’d allowed these two sharks to bullshit him the way they had. He’d gone along with it for Daniel’s sake, but now it was his turn. One way or the other he’d get answers.

      Just one more day, he told himself as his car arrived at the site of the waiting plane. As he walked up the steps, the crew members welcomed him aboard. The steward closed the hatch, and the plane immediately began to taxi down the runway.

      His personal life was on hold. Daniel came first.

      Chapter Three

      Huddled in the corner, Bebe sat on the roomy seat of the cab as it lumbered along. It was late and she couldn’t wait to get into a hot shower and wash the grime of travel from her weary body before climbing into bed. For time out of mind she’d been away visiting a round of rich and racy friends on the East Coast, rubbing elbows with that part of society that had no need to catch the 8:05 to work. From Newport, Rhode Island, old-money homesteads, to Palm Beach estates and cozy ten-stateroom yachts, to elegant Park Avenue penthouses she was known as Bebe, never-miss-a-trick Rosen. When she left to go home for a while, they felt it was just to rest and rev up for the next go-round. It had been that way for the past ten years, ever since she’d realized once and for all that her marriage was not going to get any better. She felt nauseated, the same self-revulsion she felt every time she remembered how unequivocally stupid she had been to give up her children’s stock in Fairmont to Reuben, hoping to sweeten their reconciliation. How could she have been the one to give the great Reuben Tarz the means to be even more autonomous and selfish? Bebe shuddered and shook her head to banish the thoughts from her mind. Her hand automatically searched for the personally engraved silver flask that was never far from her grasp. With a trembling hand she took a good long desperate swallow, then stared idly out her window.

      The journey down Sepulveda was a familiar route from the Los Angeles County Airport. How many hundreds of times had she made it, she wondered dully. And always at the end of it, the house of her empty marriage. Only once, she realized, had she considered it home, and that was on her wedding day. On that day she had felt new and triumphant and full all at once. The disastrous past she and Reuben had shared together in France—when she had been forced to watch this man of her dreams in love with another woman—was behind her. On that new day there was no need to dwell on the nightmare rape that had resulted from her misfired attempt at seducing him, no need to brood upon the abandoned child of that crazed union. France and everything connected with it had faded in her memory as she’d walked down the aisle