Susan Phillips - Hot Shot

Susannah had just finished adjusting one of the floral arrangements when she heard Cal's voice in the foyer. She went out to greet him and to straighten his tie, just as she had straightened her father's tie a short time before. Cal and her father were alike in so many ways. Both were commanding presences, both utterly self-assured.

"You look lovely, darling," Cal said, openly admiring her black evening gown. It had an off-the-shoulder neckline surrounded by a wide white organdy ruffle. When she'd put it on, she had thought the combination of the frothy neckline and her bare shoulders made her look as if she had just climbed naked out of a vat of whipped vanilla nougat.

He chucked her under the chin. "You look like a beautiful, graceful swan."

Just her luck, she thought. Cal ate vanilla nougat, but she had never known him to eat a swan.

She turned away abruptly and led Cal toward the living room. He kissed her again-a neat kiss, precisely on target, as neat as the crease in his trousers, as exact as the part in his hair.

"Do you remember me telling you about the problems I was having with Harrison's region?"

He kept his voice low in case there were any eavesdroppers lurking about, and without waiting for her answer, launched into a detailed account of his latest success at work. She needed to speak to the cook, but she listened patiently. Serving as Cal's audience wasn't something she minded. In public, her fiancй was both discreet and modest to a fault, and it was only when he was with her that he dropped his natural caution. Sometimes she thought he didn't really enjoy his triumphs until he had spread them out before her.

After the guests arrived, dinner progressed agreeably. She had seated Cal and her father close together. Although only forty-two, Cal was a senior vice-president, and insiders considered him Joel's probable successor, especially in light of his upcoming marriage to Susannah.

She noticed how handsome the two men looked sitting at the other end of the table. At fifty-eight, Joel was nearly as lean and fit as her fiancй, and his ice-blue eyes hadn't lost a bit of their sharpness. Age had given his face more character than it had possessed on the day he pulled her from her grandmother's closet. The cleft in his chin had deepened, and his square jaw was sharper. Although his blond hair had darkened at the top and grayed at the temples, it hadn't thinned, and he was still vain about it.

Cal's triangular face was much narrower than her father's, broad at the forehead but tapering from the cheekbones down to the jaw. A gray streak, like a lightning bolt, cut a dashing path through the center. He was always tan from sitting behind the helm of his French-made racing sloop, and he had a ready smile that flashed white teeth and oozed confidence.

"Wonderful dinner, Susannah," Joel said, lifting his glass in her direction. "You've outdone yourself." He gave her their private smile, and she felt as if someone had tossed a shower of gold stars over her head. Her father could be difficult and autocratic sometimes, but she loved him deeply.

The plump, aging Italian countess at her side finished a generous wedge of chocolate truffle cake. "You thin girls are so lucky," she said in heavily accented English as she gazed at the barely touched piece of cake on Susannah's plate. "I have to watch every bite I put in my mouth."

"No one would ever know it," Susannah replied graciously. "You have a wonderful figure. Tell me about your gown? It's Italian, isn't it?" Skillfully, she deflected her guest from worries about her waistline to a rapturous description of Valentino's last collection.

She heard her father's laughter at the other end of the table. By tilting her head ever so slightly, she could observe Joel sharing a joke with Cal. She nodded agreeably at the countess's description of a two-piece dinner ensemble, and at the same time noted Cal's hand resting lightly on the stem of his wineglass. His fingers looked sun-browned and strong. She could see the starched edge of his shirt cuff showing beneath the sleeve of his dinner jacket. He was wearing the monogrammed gold cuff links she had given him, and his fingers were sliding up and down the stem of the wineglass. She felt a hot rush of sexual excitement.

"You're absolutely right, Countess," she said. "The Italian designers have been so much stronger this year."

She remembered the first time she and Cal had made love. She had been so excited, so pitifully grateful that she had finally found a man who would relieve her of her burdensome virginity. But it had been over with quickly and wasn't nearly as thrilling as she had thought it would be. It was her fault, of course. After indulging in so many lewd fantasies, was it any wonder that Cal's all too human touch had seemed vaguely antiseptic and somehow perfunctory?

She remembered her embarrassment afterward.

"You nearly poked my eye out, darling," he had said. "I didn't imagine you would be quite so… athletic." And then he'd smiled, as if a smile could take the sting out of his words. "Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Just rather surprised, that's all."

He had made her feel as if her passion were a breach of etiquette, and she'd been more restrained ever since. Now the bedroom was one more place where she had to mind her manners.

She took a small bite of truffle cake and nodded at the countess. While she chewed she envisioned herself licking a line from the hollow at the base of Cal's throat down his chest and over his hard belly. She saw herself using the tip of her tongue as a sharp, pointed dart, making little stabs at his skin and then softening her tongue to dip lower and lick again.

"More sherry, Countess?" she inquired.

"That would be lovely, dear."

With the barest tilt of her head, Susannah caught the attention of one of the waiters she had hired for the evening to supplement her regular staff. The glow of the candles glimmering in her fine auburn hair touched the strands with gold just as candlelight had illuminated the gracious heads of women of wealth and privilege for centuries.

Another burst of laughter rang out from the head of the table, and Cal called down to her, "Susannah, your father is telling lies about you."

She smiled. "My father never lies. He just colors the truth to suit his purpose."

Joel chuckled and gazed at her fondly. "Not this time, Susannah. I was telling Cal about your hippie period."

Her fingers clenched in her lap, but no trace of agitation was evident in her voice or in the calm, smooth line of her brow. "Be careful what you say, Daddy. You'll scare poor Cal away before we get him to the altar."

"He's made of stronger stuff. He won't be frightened by a little mushy-headed liberalism."

Susannah took a sip from her wineglass, maintaining her cool, careful smile even though she was having difficulty swallowing.

"I can't imagine Susannah going through a hippie period," Paul Clemens said. He was FBTs Vice-Chairman of the Board and Joel's oldest friend.

"She wasn't wearing beads and living in a commune," Joel quickly interjected. "But when she was twenty, she came to me and-with great solemnity, mind you-announced that she was thinking about joining the Peace Corps."

There was a momentary silence, and then the sound of several chuckles. Please don't do this, Daddy , Susannah silently pleaded. Please don't trot out my confidences for dinner party conversation .

She touched her napkin to the corner of her lips, smearing her lipstick on the gold crest of Czar Nicholas I. "I'm certain no one wants to hear about my boring youth," she said.

The flicker of a frown passed briefly over Joel's features, and she knew her interjection had displeased him. He disliked it enormously when anyone interrupted one of his stories.