Jennifer Greene: Silver and Spice

That affair had left her bruised and worse, because they’d fought terribly at the end. He wanted her to go with him. She wanted him to stay. He’d split for Tulsa, something to do with telecommunications. For months, she saw his face in every crowd, jumped every time the phone rang… But by the age of twenty-four, she was completely over him. Completely. Serious about banking by then, involved, busy, her own woman. She was home with the flu the day he walked in. No doctor would have forced her to stay in bed as long as he did. The hours went far too swiftly; they couldn’t even spare the time to argue…

Anne washed her hands, switched off the light and tiptoed back to her bedroom. The faintest gray dawn light was coming in at the windows. She switched on the closet light and pulled a mauve blouse from its hanger. The fabric was silky to the touch but totally plain, with a stand-up collar and long sleeves.

At twenty-seven, she’d been close to marrying a man named Jim Hollinger. There was no possible way Jake could have known that, no possible reason for him to show up at such a critical time. She’d had to give back Jim’s ring, and Lord, she’d been ashamed. Jim was a true-blue nice man. Jake was an impulsive, wandering rogue, and he was never going to change. He’d stayed four months. At the end of that time, he was still wearing ragged jeans and didn’t have any idea where he was headed. She’d told him never to come back. And meant it. Lord, she’d meant it. Every single time he’d shown up in her life, she’d fallen-hook, line, sinker, soul, fingernails, toes. And every time he left, there was a terrible yawning gap, a wrenching loneliness, an ache in her heart that would never ease.

She tucked the blouse into a heather pin-striped straight skirt. Its matching jacket followed, a designer label, severely tailored. Spectator pumps, a slim bracelet-style gold watch…the austere image was not a disguise, but Anne. Polish and perfection and a control she valued. She went out regularly on Saturday nights, with men who wanted and respected the kind of woman who looked good and talked well and could hold up her head in any social gathering. Jake couldn’t care less about all of that. Because her childhood had been chaos, Anne had patterned her adult life on very different lines. Jake had always been the only zigzag in the pattern…

There was no sound from the doorway. She didn’t know why she suddenly glanced up…to find him there, all scraggly brows and leonine mane, the bold line of his shoulders clearly defined under the sheet he had carelessly draped around himself. Sleepy eyes were busy surveying Anne, from her figure-eight coil to her spectator pumps.

“Your slip is showing,” he remarked idly.

She was too smart to jump. “Since I know you will anyway, make yourself a cup of coffee. I have to go to work.” He said nothing. Wariness prickled her nerve endings as she bent to add lipstick and a handkerchief to her purse. The feeling of vulnerability was suddenly there again, unwanted and upsetting.

“The image just doesn’t always work the way I think you want it to, princess,” he murmured thoughtfully. “You’re a striking woman, no matter how you dress. Sometimes I like the formal Anne best, actually. All marble surface, all softness underneath. A contrast that very honestly reflects the lady… Anne?”

She was picking up her briefcase from beside her small desk. “Hmm?” His comment confused her. He’d always mocked her clothing styles, always teased her about them.

“I really have come back to marry you.”

Her heart stopped. She took a silent breath. “Last night I had a few glasses of champagne. This morning I won’t be so easily rattled, Jake. You can take your insanity-and your suitcase-over to your grandfather’s, after you’ve had your coffee.”

“Very assertive,” Jake admired gravely.

In spite of herself, Anne’s lips curled in a smile. “Thank you so much.”

“I haven’t decided whether to try for a long, drawn-out battle or to play low-down and dirty. Do you have a preference?”

“Only for you to move away from the door.”

“Low-down and dirty then,” Jake decided absently.

“But it takes two to play, and one of us isn’t playing.” She brushed past him, her eyes averted from the mat of masculine hair on his chest. The smell of his sleep-warm flesh assaulted her nostrils. She headed rapidly for the door.

“Anne?”

“No,” she called back to him. That seemed to cover everything.

“I love you to distraction.”

In less than a minute, she’d snatched up her coat and let herself out the front door. Crisp September air greeted her, a dew-drenched lawn, and the special silence of the morning. She was far too early for work, but she could always pick up a cup of coffee and a newspaper somewhere… Her heels click-clicked on the pavement as she strode toward her MG, shivering just a little from the morning chill. She slid into the driver’s seat, stuck the key into the ignition and started the engine. For just an instant, she caught her reflection in the tiny rearview mirror. A suspicious brightness glittered in her eyes. And her fingers were trembling annoyingly on the wheel.

She and Jake were chalk and cheese. She valued stability; he was a hopeless rover. He was lazy-sleep-in to her rise-and-shine, jeans to her business suits, lackadaisical chaos to her well-ordered world. She knew exactly what she required in order to survive; she had learned the lessons when she was very young, and the lessons had been very hard and very painful.

It was not amusing to have fallen in love with the wrong man.

Slipping the car into reverse, she backed out of the drive. You’re thirty-one, Anne reminded herself. Mature enough to know certain relationships can go only so far. Plenty mature enough to say no to a dead-end physical relationship that has already brought more than enough heartache.

Again her eyes met their reflection in the mirror; this time there was a trace of humor in their haunted green depths. Mature? Jake could bring out the terrible two’s in a hundred-year-old saint. Anne had lost control the moment she’d seen him at the party. Mature?

She loved that man. And she heartily wished that he’d never come back.

At midmorning, Anne stepped out of her office with a sheaf of papers in her hand. The trust department of Yale Bank and Trust was carpeted in teal blue and paneled in dark walnut; the mood of the place, particularly on the second floor, was efficient, quiet and formal. It suited Anne. Yale was an old-time, small, well-established bank, not in competition with the major conglomerate banks of the metropolitan area. Its specialty was trusts and estate planning; its assets were varied and closely guarded; and its stock was so zealously held that shares were rarely for sale. Conservative was the name of the game.

Anne had a nice block of that stock, and in the six years she’d been with the bank had acquired more. Trust officers were typically over fifty and balding, a stereotype that was important, actually. Authority and experience were critical to gaining the customers’ trust. Fred Laird would never have given her the title two years ago, no matter how much he respected Anne, if she hadn’t demonstrated her ability to bring in the high-powered accounts that the bank specialized in. Gil Rivard had been her first estate. Jake’s grandfather. Anne had wanted to do that work for him, but had been uncomfortable when he later sent his friends to her. She had too much pride to want anyone’s help, and she wished to owe no one favors.

She no longer needed favors from anyone. Anne was conservative, inventive, knowledgeable, and could find loopholes no one else had ever heard of in the tax laws. One customer had told her jokingly that she was more concerned with his security than he was. True.