Possessions (74 page)

Ross came to a full stop. “Say that again.”

Tobias repeated it. “You should always listen to the wisdom of poets, Ross. And of old men. There is never enough time. Damn it, boy, ask her to dance!”

“Have you a poem that explains loyalty and betrayal?” Ross asked quietly. “And a fear of repeating the past? And a shadow that darkens everything it touches? Of course I'll ask her to
dance. But after that . . .” He shrugged slightly. For the past hour, as he moved among the guests, finding old friends, making new acquaintances, fending off commiserations and probing inquiries on his separation from Melanie, he continually found himself near Katherine. How it happened he was not sure, but wherever he turned, her vivid loveliness was not far away, surrounded by broad-shouldered tuxedoes and glittering gowns and jewels. She was a slender, golden flame, swaying slightly in the currents of the crowd, drawing others to her, as he was drawn, to stand close to her glow and the lilt of her voice and laughter.

As he and Tobias walked toward her, the thought suddenly came to him: She doesn't need any of us. She's come this far without Craig, without me, without Victoria. She's done it all herself. She can go as far as she wants, by herself. He felt the emptiness of loss. He'd thought he was protecting her when he kept Elissa a secret, but that had only shown her one more step she could take on her own; she could do without him.

But then Katherine looked his way and he saw the swift succession of joy, love, and caution in her clear hazel eyes, and he thought it might be all right after all. She didn't depend on him to survive and make her way in the world, any more than he depended on her, but if she needed his love to be a whole person, as much as he needed hers, that would be more than enough on which to build a life.

“May I introduce Ross Hayward?” Tobias was saying. “Ross, this is Katherine Fraser; I think you two should get acquainted. But first”—he tugged lightly on Katherine's arm—“Victoria demands your presence. If I can spirit you away, just for a moment . . .”

“Tobias,” Katherine said as they walked into the ballroom. “Was that a private joke?”

“Ross wants to start from the beginning,” he explained cheerfully. “A good idea. When he asks you to dance, tell him you'll accept not for yourself but because it will please Victoria.”

Katherine looked at him closely. “That sounds like something you'd tell Ross to say to me.”

“Great heavens!” Tobias expostulated. “Am I condemned to live my entire life with intelligent women who see through
me? Victoria, here is your granddaughter. I leave her to you. I go in search of gullible guests.”

The pitch of conversation had reached a level that almost drowned out the orchestra, and Katherine had to lean close to Victoria to hear her. “The dahlias are perfect,” she said, kissing her cheek. “Wally tried to tell me they were his idea, but I know better. You seem to have put him properly in his place. He is the worst kind of snob: a small-minded and very dull man who looks down on others because he moves among people who happen to have money. Salespeople at certain exclusive shops are the same; I avoid them.”

“I should tell you,” Katherine said. “The caviar—” Quickly she explained it. “I don't know how much more it costs—”

Victoria waved it away. “They'll make it up; it's their mistake. They knew they'd have to; Wally tried to intimidate you because you weren't arrogant enough to impress him. You handled it perfectly, my dear; I'm sorry I missed seeing you do it. Have you seen Ross?”

Katherine nodded.

“Will you dance with him?”

“Of course.”

“Excellent. Let me look at your jewelry. My friends are asking me where you bought it.” Katherine took off her bracelet, a smaller version of the necklace. “Ah, my dear, the feel of it, almost as if it breathes. Have you ever done anything like it? No, of course you haven't. Neither has anyone else. Do you know, Katherine, I almost
covet
it.”

Katherine laughed and kissed her again. “It's yours.”

“No, no. But if you would make me something like it . . .”

“You know I will.”

A trumpet call from the orchestra announced dinner and the crowd surged toward the dining room. From Victoria's platform, Katherine had a full view of the mosaic of richly colored gowns interspersed with black and white tuxedoes—patterns forming and dissolving, shifting, flowing, thinning out until the last of the guests had gone through the doors and she and Victoria were alone. “I should have brought my sketch pad,” she murmured.

“You'll remember,” Victoria said serenely. “You have an artist's eye.” As they walked to the dining room, she said,
“Katherine, dear, when you make my necklace and bracelet, will you also make the seahorse? Such simplicity; almost Florentine. How did you learn that?”

“I don't know.”

“It just comes to you? How exciting that must be. And satisfying.”

“And demanding,” Katherine said. “I can forget whatever else is happening—at least while I'm concentrating on it.”

Victoria nodded. “I think of you working at your table, the way I once worked at Hugh's desk. It gives me such enormous pleasure to think of you at work.”

In the center of the dining room, Ross sat at a table with seven people Katherine did not know. Two chairs were empty. “For us,” Victoria said, and as Ross held the one beside him, she took it.

A burly man with masses of waving hair and a mustache to match held the other chair for Katherine. Ross introduced him. “Brock Galvez—Victoria Hayward—Katherine Fraser. Brock is one of the developers of BayBridge Plaza, Katherine; he talks about it almost as much as I do.”

“More,” Galvez declared. “My wife Brenda here, she gets upset; says a mistress she could handle; BayBridge has her stumped.”

In the general laughter, as waiters served the caviar mousse, he said to Katherine, “We've met. New Year's Eve, wasn't it? Some crazy shindig with dogs barking Christmas carols. You were with Derek. Haven't seen him tonight. He out of town?”

“I don't know,” Katherine replied. “He's been very busy lately.”

“Good man, Derek; knows how to run a construction team. He built us a helluva—excuse the expression—office building down Cupertino way. Doesn't have the—how would you say it—
vision
of Ross, but I had a drink last night with Curt—known him for years—and he says they're all getting together in a new company. Quite a team, that'll be. Where'd you find that necklace?”

“I made it.”

“Made it?”

“I design and make jewelry.”

“I'll be damned. Can you make me one? And”—he peered
at her waist—“don't mean to be impertinent but could I see that thingamajig?”

Katherine unpinned the seahorse and handed it to him. Brenda Calvez asked to see it, and it was passed from hand to hand. Ross watched, a thoughtful expression on his face, and when a woman across the table said, “I'd love to buy one for my daughter,” he held a quick whispered conversation with Victoria. “Who carries them?” the woman asked.

“It's one of a kind,” Katherine answered. “And I don't sell these to—” Ross raised his hand slightly, and, puzzled, she broke off.

“Well, one of a kind is what I prefer,” the woman across the table was saying. “It's unbearable to see just everyone wearing something I've spent a fortune on to be different. Do I order from you?”

As a slow, wicked smile spread across Victoria's face, Ross said casually, “You'll find the Fraser collection at Xavier's in about a month.”

Speechless, Katherine stared at him. Victoria looked at her with dancing eyes. “Try the caviar mousse,” she urged. “It is quite the best I've had in a long time.”

But as superb as the mousse was, and the watercress soup and fillet of duck in Calvados that followed, and the dessert of Crème Brûlée and lacy almond tuiles, Katherine barely tasted any of it. Xavier's? What was Ross talking about?

Cognac and port were offered as the orchestra in the ballroom struck up a waltz. Gradually, the dining room emptied. Brock Calvez asked Katherine to dance. Marc Landau followed; then a string of men she did not know, all animated, flattering, light on their feet, successful in business—and none of them Ross. An hour passed, then two. Katherine went to sit with Victoria. A few minutes later Ross joined them. “Will you dance with me? For no one's pleasure but my own. And, I hope, yours.”

She gave a low laugh, so intimate his hands felt the curve of her body even before he held her on the dance floor. “I want to carry you off,” he said, “and hold you and tell you I love you and let no one come near to distract us, until you say we're so much a part of each other you can't imagine a life without me.”

“Ross, please don't—”

“Katherine, your jewelry,” interrupted a tall woman Katherine did not know. “Xavier's? In November?”

“I don't think—”

“Well, even December . . . as long as it's in time for Christmas.” The woman and her partner spun away.

“—handsome necklace,” said the president of the Bank of California, pausing in the dance with his wife.

An electronic flash went off as a photographer captured Katherine in Ross's arms, chatting with the president of the Bank of California. Within the next half hour, photographers from the
Chronicle
and the
Examiner
circled the room to give their readers a pictorial report of Victoria Hayward's All Hallows Eve celebration, while society reporters eavesdropped and scribbled notes.

Victoria watched with a wide smile, and Katherine said, “Ross, what is that all about? It's not true . . .”

“Not yet. But what do you think will happen when these people call Xavier's next week asking about the Fraser jewelry collection?”

“They'll be told there is no such thing.”

“My dear love,” he smiled. “More likely, the astute people at Xavier's will be delighted to take the names of the callers, to notify them when the collection is available, and when they have a list of potential customers, they will call you.”

Katherine shook her head. “Only in fairy tales.”

“Business isn't so different from fairy tales; they both have obstacles, rewards, coincidences, fairy godmothers and godfathers, winners and losers . . .”

“But fairy tales have happy endings.”

“I'm working on that.”

They danced in silence. “You had your own happy ending,” Katherine said. “I meant to congratulate you after the board meeting.”

“Not an ending,” he said. “A beginning. With a long and very bumpy road ahead. If I were smarter, I'd be scared.”

She tilted her head and studied him. “But you're not. You're excited; you can't wait to get started.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Do you know what it means to me when you understand me, without explanations?”

Tobias materialized beside them. “Katherine, my dear, I
have again been commanded to deliver you to Victoria. She wants to say goodnight.”

“Goodnight?” Katherine asked. “But it's only—” She looked at her watch in disbelief. “Three o'clock?”

“So it seems. And the two of us are ready for bed.”

Victoria was fastening a cape at her throat when they found her at the cloakroom. “A highly satisfactory evening,” she said. “You did very well, Katherine. Now kiss me goodnight and go back to your dancing.”

“I think I should go home, too. There's no such thing as sleeping late on a sofa bed in our living room.”

“Stay awhile,” Ross said. “I'll take you home whenever you're ready.”

“Very sensible,” Victoria commented. “My dear,” she added to Katherine, “promise me something. Don't make any sudden decisions about your jewelry. Take your time.”

“All right,” Katherine said.

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“And you'll tell me what happens.”

“I promise that, too.”

“Excellent. Goodnight, my dears. I'll talk to you tomorrow.”

The music was soft and slow and they glided in a gentle, swaying rhythm. Katherine touched the smooth cloth of Ross's sleeve. “Do you know, I've never seen you in a tuxedo? You look exceedingly handsome.”

“And you are wonderfully beautiful,” he said quietly. “You haven't responded to what I said earlier.”

“You mean about becoming a part of you. Ross, I already am—as much as I can be. I miss you and I want you, and I find myself reaching out to share with you—”

“Katherine—!”

“—but you said you wanted to let me finish what I began. That was why you weren't calling me, you said. And then tonight—to tell me you want me to be part of you . . .”

“It's not consistent.”

“Or fair.”

“It would be easier to be consistent and fair if I could stop worrying about what you might do when Craig comes back.”

“Has it occurred to you that you worry about that more than I do?”

He thought about it. “No. I don't think you know how you'll react to him any more than I do when he starts playing on your memories and sympathies, and his needs and your kids . . . Katherine, we don't have to be so far apart; if we love each other we can find a way—”

“Ross, please. I'm trying to do what's right.”

It struck him like a blow.
Trying to do what's right.
If she thought she knew what that was, how could he tell her she was wrong?

He repeated it as he drove her home.
Trying to do what's right.
In fairy tales, Ross thought, that was always rewarded; happy endings, Katherine had said. They walked to her front door and he held her for a moment, as he had when they were dancing. “I hope, whatever happens, it is what you want,” he told her, and waited until she had closed the door behind her before he went back to his car, and drove home.