Danielle Steel: The Promise

“You won't even need to do that. I have everything you'll need for the walls.”

So did he. Nancy's drawings. There was sudden fire in his eyes now, and an air of watchfulness in hers. She had seen something in his face.

“Mother—” He sat down next to her with a small sigh and stretched his legs as Mattie arrived with the coffee. “Thank you, Mattie.”

“You're welcome, Mr. Hillyard.” She smiled at him as warmly as she always did. He was always so pleasant to her, as though he hated to bother her, not like … “Will there be anything else, madam?”

“No. As a matter of fact … Michael, do you want to take that into the library?”

“All right.” Maybe it would be easier to talk in there. His mother's dining room had always reminded him of ballrooms he had seen in ancestral homes. It was not conducive to intimate conversation, and certainly not to gentle persuasion. He stood up and followed his mother out of the room, down three thickly carpeted steps, and into the library immediately to their left. There was a splendid view of Fifth Avenue and a comfortable chunk of Central Park, but there was also a warm fireplace and two walls lined with books. The fourth wall was dominated by a portrait of Michael's father, but it was one he liked, one in which his father looked warm—like someone you'd want to know. As a small boy he had come to look at that portrait at times, and to “talk” aloud to his father. His mother had found him that way once, and told him it was an absurd thing to do. But later he had seen her crying in that room, and staring at the portrait as he had.

His mother ensconced herself in her usual place, in a Louis XV chair covered in beige damask and facing the fireplace. Tonight her dress was almost the same color, and for a moment, as the firelight glowed, Michael thought her almost beautiful. She had been once, and not so long ago. Now she was fifty-seven. Michael had been born when she was thirty-three. She hadn't had time for children before that. And she had been very beautiful then. She had had the same rich honey-blonde hair that Michael had, but now it was graying, and the life in her face had faded. It had been replaced by other things. Mostly the business. And the once cornflower-blue eyes looked almost gray now. As though winter had finally come.

“I have the feeling that you came down here tonight to speak to me about something important, Michael. Is anything the matter?” Had he gotten someone pregnant? Smashed up his car? Hurt someone? Nothing was irreparable, of course, as long as he told her. She was glad he had come down.

“No, nothing's the matter. But there is something I want to discuss with you.” Wrong. He cringed almost visibly at his own words. “Discuss.” He should have said there was something he wanted to tell her, not discuss with her. Damn. “I thought it was about time we were honest with each other.”

“You make it sound as though we usually aren't.”

“About some things we aren't” His whole body was tense now, and he was leaning forward in his chair, conscious of his father looking over his shoulder. “We aren't honest about Nancy, Mother.”

“Nancy?” She sounded blank, and suddenly he wanted to jump up and slap her. He hated the way she said her name. Like one of the servants.

“Nancy McAllister. My friend.”

“Oh, yes.” There was an interminable pause as she shifted the tiny vermeil and enamel spoon on the saucer of her demitasse cup. “And in what way are we not honest about Nancy?” Her eyes were veiled by a sheet of gray ice.

“You try to pretend that she doesn't exist. And I try not to get you upset about it. But the fact is, Mother … I'm going to marry her.” He took another breath and sat back in his chair. “In two weeks.”

“I see.” Marion Hillyard was perfectly still. Her eyes did not move, nor her hands, nor her face. Nothing. “And may I ask why? Is she pregnant?”

“Of course not.”

“How fortunate. Then why, may I ask; are you marrying her? And why in two weeks?”

“Because I graduate then, because I'm moving to New York then, because I start work then. Because it makes sense.”

“To whom?” The ice was hardening, and one leg crossed carefully over the other with the slippery sound of silk. Michael felt uncomfortable under the constancy of her gaze. She hadn't shifted her eyes once. As in business, she was ruthless. She could make any man squirm, and eventually break.

“It makes sense to us, Mother.”

“Well, not to me. We've been asked to build a medical center in San Francisco, by the same group who were behind the Hartford Center. You won't have time for a wife. I'm going to be counting on you very heavily for the next year or two. Frankly, darling, I wish you'd wait.” It was the first softening he'd seen, and it almost made him wonder if there was hope.

“Nancy will be an asset to both of us, Mother. Not a distraction to me, or a nuisance to you. She's a wonderful girl.”

“Maybe so, but as for being an asset … have you thought of the scandal?” There was victory in her eyes now. She was going in for the kill, and suddenly Michael held his breath, a helpless prey, not knowing where she would strike, or how.

“What scandal?”

“She's told you who she is, of course?”

Oh, Jesus. Now what? “What do you mean, who she is?”

“Precisely that. I'll be quite specific.” And in one smooth, feline gesture, she set down the demitasse and glided to her desk. From a bottom drawer she removed a file, and silently handed it to Michael. He held it for an instant, afraid to look inside.

“What is this?”

“A report I had a private investigator look into your artistic little friend. I was not very pleased.” An understatement. She had been livid. “Please sit down and read it” He did not sit down, but unwillingly he opened the folder and began to read. It told him in the first twelve lines that Nancy's father had been killed in prison when she was still a baby, and her mother had died an alcoholic two years later. It explained as well that her father had been serving a seven-year sentence for armed robbery. “Charming people, weren't they, darling?” Her voice was lightly contemptuous, and suddenly Michael threw the folder on the desk, from which its contents slid rapidly to the floor.

“I won't read that garbage.”

“No, but you'll marry it.”

“What difference does it make who her parents were? Is that her Goddamn fault?”

“No. Her misfortune. And yours, if you marry her.

Michael, be sensible. You're going into a business where millions of dollars are involved in every deal. You can no longer afford the risk of scandal. You'll ruin us. Your grandfather founded this business over fifty years ago, and you're going to destroy it now for a love affair? Don't be insane. It's time you grew up, my boy. High time. Your salad days are over. In exactly two weeks.” She burned as she looked at him now. She was not going to lose this battle, no matter what she had to do. “I won't discuss this with you, Michael You have no choice.” She had always told him that Goddammit, she had always …

“The hell I don't!” It was a sudden roar as he paced across the room. “I'm not going to bow and scrape before you and your rules for the rest of my life, Mother! I won't! What exactly do you think, that you're going to pull me into the business, groom me until you retire, and then run me as a puppet from a chaise longue in your room? Well, to hell with that. I'm coming to work for you. But that's all. You don't own my life, now or ever, and I have a right to marry anybody I bloody well please!”

“Michael!”

They were interrupted by the sudden peal of the doorbell, and they stood eying each other like two jaguars in a cage. The old cat and the young one, each slightly afraid of the other, each hungry for victory, each fighting for his survival. They were still standing at opposite ends of the room, trembling with rage, when George Calloway walked in, and instantly sensed that he had stepped into a scene of great passion. He was a gentle, elegant man in his late fifties who had been Marion's right hand man for years. More than that, he was much of the power behind Cotter-Hillyard. But unlike Marion, he was seldom in the forefront; he preferred to wield his strength from the shadows. He had long since learned the merits of quiet strength. It had won him Marion's trust and admiration years ago, when she first took her husband's place in the business. She had been only a figurehead then, and it had been George who actually ran Cotter-Hillyard for the first year, while he determinedly and conscientiously taught her the ropes. And he had done his job well. Marion had learned all he had taught, and more. She was a power in her own right now, but she still relied on George on every major deal. That meant everything to him. Knowing that she still needed him after all these years. Knowing that she always would. He understood that now. They were a team, silent, inseparable, each one stronger because of the other. He sometimes wondered if Michael knew just how close they were. He doubted it. Michael had always been the hub of his mother's life. Why would he ever have noticed just how much George cared? In some ways, even Marion didn't understand that. But George accepted that. He lavished his warmth and energies on the business. And perhaps, one day … George looked at Marion now with instant concern. He had learned to recognize the tightness around the mouth and the strange pallor beneath the carefully applied powder and rouge.