Danielle Steel: Passion's Promise

Chapter 4

Kezia did three hours of work on the new article, outlining, sketching what she thought she knew about the women she wanted to write about, and drafting letters to key people who could tell her something more about them. It was going to be a nice solid K. S. Miller piece, and she was pleased. After that she opened her mail and sifted through it. The usual spate of invitations, a couple of “fan” letters forwarded to her by a magazine via her agent, and a memo from Edward about some tax shelters he wanted to look into with her. None of it was interesting and she was restless. She had another article in mind; maybe that would help. A piece on child abuse in middle-class homes. It would be a hot and heavy piece if Simpson could find a market for it. She wondered if the Marshes, with their parties for a cast of thousands, ever thought of that. Child abuse. Or the slums. Or the death penalty in California. None of them were “in” causes. If they had been, surely there would have been a benefit for them, a “fabulous” ball, or a “marvelous little vernissage,” something “absolutely super” staged by a committee of beauties … while Marina waited for a sale at Bender’s or hunted a good knock-off at Ohrbach’s, and Tiffany announced the cause as “divine” …. What was happening to her, dammit? Why did it matter if Marina tried to palm off her copies as originals? So what if Tiffany was drunk every day long before noon? So fucking what? But it bothered her. Oh God, how it bothered her. Maybe a good piece of ass would calm her nerves. She was in Mark’s studio by twelve-thirty.

“Wow, lady, what’s with you?”

“Nothing. Why?” She stood watching him work on a gouache. She liked it. She would have liked to buy it from him, but she couldn’t do that, and she wouldn’t let him give it to her. She knew he needed the money, and that was one commodity she was wise enough not to exchange with him.

“Well, you slammed the door, so I figured something must be bugging you.” He had given her back her keys.

“No, I’m just grumpy, I guess. Jet lag or something.” A smile broke through the anger in her eyes, and she dumped herself into a chair. “I missed you last night. Sometimes I wish you wouldn’t let me go anywhere.”

“Do I have that option?” He looked surprised and she laughed and kicked her shoes off.

“No.”

“That’s what I thought” It didn’t seem to bother him, and Kezia was beginning to feel better.

“I like the gouache.” She looked over his shoulder as he stepped back to observe the morning’s work.

“Yeah. Maybe it’ll be okay.” He was demolishing a box of chocolate cookies and looking secretly pleased. Suddenly he turned to face her and slipped his arms around her. “And what have you been up to since yesterday?”

“Oh, let’s see. I read eight books, ran a mile, went to a ball, ran for president. The usual stuff.”

“And somewhere in all that bullshit lies the truth, doesn’t it?” She shrugged and they exchanged a smile interspersed with kisses. He didn’t really care what she did when she wasn’t with him. He had his own life, his work, his loft, his friends. Her life was her own. “Personally, I suspect that the truth is that you ran for president.”

“I just can’t keep any secrets from you, Marcus.”

“No.” He said it while carefully unbuttoning her shirt. “No secrets at all…. Now there’s the secret I was looking for.” He tenderly uncovered one breast and leaned down to kiss it, as she slid her hands under his shirt and onto his back. “I missed you, Kezia.”

“Not half as much as I missed you.” A brief flash of the evening before raced through her mind. Visions of the dancing Baron. She pulled away from Mark then and smiled at him for a long moment. “You’re the most beautiful man in the world, Mark Wooly.”

“And your slave.” She laughed at him, because Mark was no one’s slave and they both knew it, and then, barefoot, she darted away from’ him and ran behind the easel, grabbing his box of chocolate cookies as she went.

“Hey!”

“Okay, Mark, now the truth will out. What do you love more? Me or your chocolate cookies?”

“What are you, crazy or something?” He chased her behind the easel but she fled to the bedroom doorway. “I love my chocolate cookies! What do you think?”

“Ha ha! Well, I’ve got them!” She ran into the bedroom and leapt onto the bed, dancing from one foot to the other, laughing, her eyes sparkling, her hair flying around her head like a flock of silky ravens.

“Give me my chocolate cookies, woman! I’m addicted!”

“Fiend!”

“Yeah!” He joined her on the bed with a gleam in his eye, took the cookies from her and flung them to the sheepskin chair, then pulled her into a tight embrace.

“Not only are you a hopeless chocoholic, Mark Wooly, but you’re a sex fiend too!” She laughed the laugh of her childhood as she settled into his arms.

“You know, maybe I’m addicted to you too.”

“I doubt it.” But he pulled her down beside him, and wrapped in laughter and her long black hair, they made love.

“What do you want for dinner?” She yawned and cuddled closer to him in the comfortable bed.

“You.”

“That was lunch.”

“So? There’s a law that says I can’t have for dinner what I had for lunch?” He rumpled her hair, and his mouth sought her lips.

“Come on, Mark, be serious. What else do you want? Besides chocolate cookies?”

“Oh … steak … lobster … caviar … the usual.” He didn’t know just how usual it was. “Oh shit, I don’t know. Pasta, I guess. Fettuccine maybe. Al pesto? Can you get some basil? The fresh kind?”

“You’re four months late. It’s out of season. How about clam sauce?”

“You’re on.”

“Then I’ll see you in a bit.” She ran her tongue across the small of his back, stretched once more and then hopped out of bed, just out of reach of the hand he held out for her. “None of that, Marcus. Later. Or we’ll never get dinner.”

“Screw dinner.” The light in his eyes was reviving.

“Screw you.”

“That’s just what I had in mind. Now you’ve got the picture.” He grinned broadly as he lay on his back and watched her dress. “You’re really no fun, Kezia, but you’re pretty to watch.”

“So are you.” His long frame was stretched out lazily atop the sheets. It occurred to her as she looked at him that there was nothing quite so beautiful as the bold good looks of a very young man, a very handsome young man….

She left the bedroom and returned with her string bag in hand, one of his shirts knotted just under her breasts above well-tailored jeans, her hair tied in a wisp of red ribbon.

“I ought to paint you like that.”

“You ought to stop being so silly. I’ll get a fat head. Any special requests?” He smiled, shook his head, and she was gone, off to the market.

There were Italian markets nearby, and she always liked to shop for him. Here, the food was real. Home-made pasta, fresh vegetables, oversized fruit, tomatoes to squeeze, a whole array of sausages and cheeses waiting to be felt and sniffed and taken home for a princely repast. Long loaves of Italian bread to carry home under your arm the way they did in Europe. Bottles of Chianti dancing from hooks near the ceiling.

It was a short walk, and it was the time of day when young artists began to come out of their lairs. The end of the day, when those who worked at night began to come alive, and those who worked by day needed to stretch and walk. Later there would be more people in the streets, wandering, talking, smoking grass, drifting, stopping in at the cafes, en route to the studios of friends or someone’s latest sculpture show. It was friendly in SoHo; everyone was hard at work. Companions on a shared journey of the soul. Pioneers in the world of art. Dancers, writers, poets, painters, they congregated here at the southern tip of New York, locked between the dying filth and litter of Greenwich Village and the concrete and glass of Wall Street. This was a softer place. A world of friends.