Gwynne Forster - Drive Me Wild

“Sorry to bother you,” he said when she identified herself, “but I dialed your home phone and you didn’t answer, so I dialed your cell number. Where are you? Can you turn on a television? I’m watching an unbelievable show on channel thirteen.”

“I don’t think this TV is working. Can you tape it?”

“Yeah. I’ll save it for you,” he said.

“Thanks for thinking about me,” she said. “I’ll look forward to viewing it. Have a pleasant evening.”

“You, too.”

She hung up and stared at the cell phone in her right hand. Her driver was somewhere watching a program and enjoying it and wanted to share it with her. That wasn’t normal, was it? And he was thinking about her, too. Surely, his mind was not immersed in appreciation for her as an employer. He’d said he needed the job, but that suit he wore when they shopped for a car fitted him as if it had been tailor made. Annoyed because she seemed to be developing a crush on her mysterious chauffeur, Gina looked toward the ceiling and blew out a long breath.

“Everybody’s innocent until proved guilty,” she reminded herself aloud. “I’m going to stop second-guessing the man. He behaves properly, and seems to be an expert driver, and that’s all I can ask.” Her shoulders sagged. “But if that man isn’t a walking advertisement for sex, I don’t know what is.”

Justin stared at the television set, seeing nothing. The program had been off the air for a full fifteen minutes and he hadn’t willed himself to move. He was a grown man, and he was used to women—all kinds, ages, colors and shapes of women. But there was something about the way Gina looked at him. Every time she smiled at him, she threw him for a loop. The woman was educated, intelligent and, he suspected, accomplished. But she wasn’t jaded, nor did she have the sophistication that comes with old money. He walked over to the window and looked out into East River.

He felt protective toward Gina, and he had to get over it. Feeling for her would interfere with his performance as her employee and with his professionalism as a journalist. He needed to be totally objective.

Ordinarily, on a balmy Sunday afternoon when he didn’t feel like working, he’d take his bike over to Central Park, or ride or walk along Riverside Drive. But being alone didn’t appeal to him right then. He phoned Craig, his younger brother.

“Hi. This is Justin. If you don’t have a date, how about dinner somewhere?”

“Hi. I had a date, but she came down with a cold, and I have these two tickets to the Met. Feel like seeing Madama Butterfly?”

Justin thought for a minute. “Why not? It’s been a while since I went to the opera. Want to eat at Hanks? Say, around six-thirty? I’ll call and make a reservation.”

“Fine. I’ll see you there. Uh…anything wrong? I mean…You seem kinda down.”

“Don’t worry about it. Resilience is my middle name. Remember? See you later.” He had to decide how much to tell his brother. Craig wouldn’t repeat anything he told him, but he didn’t have a clear picture of what was bothering him.

As the first born of two university professors, much had been expected of Justin Whitehead. And he had delivered plenty. An honor graduate from Yale University, Justin distinguished himself as an investigative reporter early. Now, at thirty-seven, Justin was in a position to call his shots. Though a salaried newspaper reporter, he enjoyed the status of a syndicated columnist whose work appeared regularly in newspapers and magazines under the by-line, J. L. Whitehead. Justin attributed his success and fame to his habit of “living” in the situations about which he wrote.

Over the past couple of years, Justin had followed the story of a thirty-one-year-old woman who won a lottery for eleven million dollars and died four years later. The notion that sudden wealth changed a person’s lifestyle, and not always positively, intrigued Justin. After weeks of interviewing relatives, friends and acquaintances of people who had become suddenly rich, he decided to get to know one. He saw Gina’s ad for a chauffeur—placed in the Daily News and not The New York Times as one would have expected—and, after investigating, he learned of her recent inheritance and applied for the job.

For the first time in his career as a journalist, Justin had a tinge of guilt about not revealing to Gina who he really was and why he took the job as her driver. His guilt stemmed from a suspicion that he would not walk away from their relationship unscathed. He was beginning to think that his deception would bring pain to both of them. Had he known what she would be like, he doubted he would have taken the job.

He walked into Hank’s restaurant at precisely six-thirty and Craig rose to greet him as he approached the table. They hugged and then sat.

“I don’t think I’ll have a drink,” Craig said, “because I don’t want to go to sleep during the show.” He looked at the waiter. “Just bring us the dinner menu, please.” Craig knew that Justin rarely drank and never before going to a performance of any kind.

“What’s up?” Craig asked him. “Spoken with Mom and Dad lately?”

“Yeah. You know I call them at least once a week. Mom would freak out if I didn’t. She said something about Lynn falling in love. Geez, I hope not.”

“Why not. She’s twenty-eight,” Craig said.

“I don’t feel like sweating through it. When Lynn fell in love before, she had the whole family in turmoil.”

“That’s because the guy was a jerk, and everybody but Lynn knew it.”

After they placed their orders, Craig—a man who never procrastinated—leaned back and looked at his older brother, his friend and idol. “How are things with you, Justin? I sense that something’s amiss. Can you share it? Is it a woman?”

“In a way, I suppose it is. Keep this in strictest confidence. The only other person who knows about it is Mel Scott, my editor, and he doesn’t know the woman’s name.”

Craig leaned forward with his piercing gaze on Justin’s face. “I’m listening.”

Justin related to Craig details of his latest project. “I go undercover all the time, Craig. This time, I’m using my real name. So far, she hasn’t associated me with J. L. Whitehead the reporter, and I’m praying she doesn’t.”

“Maybe she won’t. So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that I hadn’t counted on the type of woman she is. Honest, gracious, respectful. Man, she’s soft, feminine and intelligent. She’s just plain nice,” Justin said.

“Good-looking?”

“Absolutely, and she’s in over her head. She has no idea of the benefits of being rich, and she snapped at me for addressing her as ma’am. Said she was getting tired of it.”

“She wouldn’t be tired of it if you looked and acted like a chauffeur is supposed to look and act. Do you wear a uniform?”

Justin laughed. “When I asked about that, she said I should just be neat. So when I took her shopping for a car, I…”

“You took her shopping in your Jaguar?”

“Real funny. I called a limousine company and got us a car and driver. As I was saying, when I went with her to choose a car—she picked a Town Car—I wore a suit, shirt and tie,” Justin said.

“So far, the problem I see is deception, and I imagine that doesn’t sit well with you, but why has it depressed you?”

“Beats me. She’s uh…I uh…She’s got a hook in me, and I’d swear it’s mutual.” Both of Craig’s eyebrows shot up and his lower lip dropped.

“That’s right,” Justin went on, “and I feel protective toward her. How’m I going to keep my hands off her, and what the hell do I do when she asks me to chauffeur her and her dates? I’ve taken six months from the office, though not from the paper, so I can complete this project. Mel’s expecting what amounts to a treatise on the subject of the suddenly nouveaux riches. I’m not used to defeat, but I feel like walking away from this thing.”