What Remains (18 page)

Poor Seth on the other hand, appeared as uncomfortable as Tess, standing there stuffy and rigid, with his tie barely loosened and only the top button of his hundred dollar shirt undone.

“Maybe we should head back to my apartment so we’re not intruding,” Tessa suggested, hoping to put an end to the awkward moment.

“No, don’t be silly.  Let’s have a few drinks and do something,” Kristen interjected.  “Why don’t we play pool?  That would be fun, don’t you think, Seth?”

“I’m sure Ms. Maguire would like some time alone with her date.”

“No, I’d like to,” Gregory chimed in before turning his attention to Tess.  “You don’t mind, do you?”

“It’s up to Mr. Richards since it’s his house.”

“Whatever,” he responded surly.

“Great, it can be them against the two of us.  The haves against the have-nots.”

Unable to keep from smiling at the casual manner in which he summed things up precisely as he put his arm around her, Tessa avoided eye contact with Seth.  Let him endure the discomfort of the evening.  She had given him fair warning about having Gregory over.  Multiply that by the fact that he had picked Kristen up by some unfortunate mishap before leaving Boston probably had him ready to blow his top.

“I say we wager on the have-nots kicking your ass, Mr. Richards, what do you think?” Gregory provoked the situation even further as they entered the living room.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Greg,” Tessa protested before being rudely interrupted by Seth.

“What kind of wager are you talking?”

Gregory dug through pockets of his jeans and pulled out a twenty. He then looked toward Tess.

“Do you have any cash on you?”

Reluctant to answer, Tessa did anyway, just to show her allegiance.  “I think I have some in my purse.”

“Go check and see.  Maybe we can make it an even hundred,” he encouraged with a boyishly charming smile.

Kristen squealed with the delight of a woman who knew her date had the wage covered, and that none of her own hard earned money would be risked.

“This is going to be so much fun!”

Not quite as excited as the other female obviously, Tessa made the long trek to her apartment, where she found that she in fact had ninety dollars in her wallet, having not had the opportunity to put gas in her car yet.  If they lost it, her budget would be shot, leaving her no other choice but to dip into her savings account for the rest of the week.

After rejoining the others, Tessa handed the money over to Greg, who slipped her a quick kiss on the lips before tossing the money down on top of the billiards table.

“Eight ball, twenty bucks a game.”

Mr. Richards conceded to the terms with a curt nod before removing jacket and tie and loosening another button.

The game was on.

After Kristen, who was chosen to take the first shot, took her time positioning herself for the break, which also optimized the men’s view of her derrière, Tessa leaned over and whispered to her partner.

“Did it ever occur to you that it might not be a good idea to play for money against a man who actually owns the table?”

Gregory grinned.  “I’ve got this.  It’s how I earned my way through undergraduate school.”

Even though Tessa nodded, she wasn’t convinced.  Playing college kids was one thing, playing someone like Seth Richards was something else entirely.  By taking a glance around the mansion, you could easily surmise he wasn’t a man who squandered away his money on bets he couldn’t win.

As it turned out, Kristen was quite good, and made her first two shots.  Tessa was up next.  She had never even held a pool stick before.  Wonderful.  The evening just seemed to keep getting better. 

With Gregory standing close behind her to show how the stick was to be held correctly, which only proved to heighten her anxiety, Tessa’s first attempt ended with the pool stick flying out of her hands and across the table, crashing loudly on the wood floor in front of Seth.

“Sorry,” she apologized shyly when he picked it up and returned it to her by reaching it across the table.

By the intensity of his gaze, she could tell he was not as amused as their two guests who were enjoying a good a laugh at her clumsiness.  After whispering a thank you to him, Tessa swallowed her pride and tried again. 
When Gregory leaned against her to demonstrate once more how to hold it, Seth suggested sternly that he back away and give her the opportunity to try it on her own.

Nervous about the same thing happening again, she glanced briefly up at Seth who simply nodded to let her know she was doing fine.  Although the cue ball failed to hit anything but the edge of the table, Tess considered it a success and gladly stepped away so that the next person could have their turn.

As she had suspected, Seth cleared the table of all of their balls, leaving only the eight ball left.  While Gregory was doing the same, Tessa wandered over to him.

“Are the two of you wanting anything in particular for dinner?  If not, I have plenty of
Kartoffelpuffers and Buletten.”

Surprisingly, he offered her his first, although restrained, smile of the evening.  “Maybe later,” and then added as if he needed to explain Kristen’s presence.  “She’s only here to get measurements.  My mother graciously agreed to let her redecorate one of the rooms here for a class project.  She’s in interior design school.”

Nodding to say she understood, Tessa drifted back towards Gregory who was now looking quite proud of himself, having sunk all of their balls as well, which left the winning shot for Kristen, which she done with relative ease.

Twenty bucks, gone.

The rest of the evening passed in similar fashion.  Within three hours, Tessa’s eighty dollars was gone, although, as fate would have it, Gregory managed to hold on to his twenty dollar bill that he stuffed back into his pocket.  When he suggested that they make a late night of it, since neither of them had classes until the afternoon the following day, and watch their movie in her apartment, Tessa refused, stating that it had been a long evening, and they would have to watch it next week.

By that time, the storm had moved in and was raging, prompting Mr. Richards to offer him a guest room for the night.  Gregory accepted without hesitation, leaving Tess with the duty of preparing rooms for both of their guests.  After supplying them with fresh towels, nothing was left but to bid him a good night.

“Are you sure you’re too tired to stay up?  It’s only midnight.”

“I’m sure.  I’m sorry that our evening didn’t go as planned.”

“Are you kidding?  I had a great time.  I don’t care what we do as long as I’m near you.”

“Thank you,” she smiled before he leaned down and kissed her tenderly.

“I can always sneak to your apartment, you know.”

Tessa took a step back and grinned, “Good night, Greg.”

“I’m crazy about you, Tessa.  I hope you realize that.”

Unconvinced about the sincerity of his statement, considering the interaction between him and Kristen during the evening, Tessa made her way down stairs and along the hallways that led to the servant’s quarters.   Tonight was a disappointment, but it also helped her see the situation between the two of them more clearly.  She had dodged a bullet tonight.  As much as the realization pained her, she was nothing more than a challenge to Gregory, and though she was well aware of the fact that she was nothing special, just once in her life, she wanted to be treated as if she were.

“I traced the smell of food to your apartment,” Seth grinned as he stood at her door in his Harvard tee shirt and pajama bottoms.

Physically and emotionally exhausted, Tessa wanted nothing more than to go to bed, but knew Seth was hungry, besides, she hated the idea of watching another fifty dollars go down the drain.

“Come on in.  I’ll warm it up in the microwave,” she told him with a grin of her own.

As she swept past him, he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, kissing the crown of her head.

“I’m sorry we ruined your evening, Tess.”

“You didn’t ruin anything, Seth,” she admitted solemnly, patting his hands that were clasped beneath her breasts pulling her back against him.  The strength of his embrace let her know that he was being earnest.

“You look beautiful tonight, encase no one told you.”

“Alms to the poor?” she laughed lightly.  And no, no one had told her.

“Not hardly,” chuckled Seth.  “And you smell good, even though I’m sort of partial to banana nut bread.”

“You’re only saying that because you’re hungry.”  Tessa pulled away and drug him by the hand towards the kitchen.  “Come on, boss man, let me feed you.”

“Aren’t you going to light the candles?” he teased when they sat across from each other at the breakfast nook.

Tessa shook her head, ashamed by her futile attempts at romance.  “It was just a silly idea.”

Paying no heed to her reply, Seth picked up the lighter and lit them.

“This is for you…” he said, placing the eighty dollars she had just lost to him on the table next to her plate.

“I can’t take that!  You won it fair and square.”

“And you earned it fair and square, so we’re even.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Now eat your Kartoffelpuffers and Buletten before it gets cold again,” she told him, grateful for his friendship.

BOOK TWO

Chapter Fourteen

Jacqueline Kostova sat across from Seth at the Four Seasons, examining him curiously with mistrust, which he really couldn’t blame her for since she had been vying for a dinner invitation from him for almost two years.  He wished there was a more legitimate explanation for his calling her up out of the blue, but the fact was he simply did not want to spend another night alone in his hotel room.  Even if it meant going back on a promise he had made to himself years ago; never fraternize with an employee, no matter how physically attractive he found them to be.

His father had taught him by example, what happens when a man succumbs to temptations in the work place; whether it was a secretary or a nanny...peoples’ lives got ruined.  The humiliation on his mother’s face every time she learned of another one of his father’s conquests had been enough to make a lasting impact.

Aside from wanting to do whatever he had to not to become a man like his father, there was the matter of his late wife, Elizabeth.  After what he put her through, Seth swore he would never allow himself to get emotionally involved again, and run the risk of failing another human being as he had failed her.  Because whether he liked it or not, he was very much like his father when it came to being a selfish and thoughtless husband. 

He and Beth had been married for sixteen years before she passed.  For the last eight years of their marriage, he emotionally and physically abandoned her.  Of course, Seth understood why she sided with his family over the matter of accepting the inheritance.  If he had not, the crazy old man was going to leave enough in a trust fund to support
Mems comfortably for the rest of his life, and give every remaining cent of his hundred million to charity, leaving his only daughter and her family with nothing but what her husband could provide.  They would have been destitute within a year.  His old man was not known for his work ethic or his ability to manage money.

There was also the matter of Elizabeth having come from old money.  She was use to the finer things.  Being the wife of an idealistic young man who longed to cut all family ties and make it on his own; putting every penny he earned back into a struggling new business, had not been easy for her, financially or emotionally.  It was not what she had signed on for when she said “I do”.  She assumed that marrying into a powerful and wealthy Boston family meant she would be set for life, able to continue the financial excesses she was accustomed to.  But it wasn’t as if he hadn’t shared his plans with her from the very beginning of owning his own architectural firm, she simply chose to believe he would someday grow out of it and
see the error in his thinking.

None of this mattered now.  She was gone.  It was too late to tell her he was sorry for the fact that she was forced to spend the last two years of her life struggling with not only with the disease that eventually took her life, but with knowledge that the one person who should have been there by her side, her husband, had forsaken his vowels to love and protect her, through sickness and in health, for richer or poorer.  And damn it, he had managed to avoid confronting his past failures as a husband, as a human being, until Tessa Maguire showed up on his doorstep.

“Is everything alright, Seth?  You seem a distracted.”

After taking another sip of his whiskey, he toyed with the glass absent-mindedly and offered her an insincere smile.  “Everything is fine.”

Taking his answer at face value, Jacqueline leaned back in her seat and stared at him with her usual brashness.  The thirty-four year old was the type of woman who knew exactly what she wanted, and usually got it.

“So, what made you decide to finally ask me out, if you don’t’ mind me asking?”

“I thought it was time, I guess.”

“Well, I would like to think it was my sparkling effervescence.”

Seth chuckled, but said nothing.  He had no desire to lie to her about why he called, but it was evident she wasn’t going to let it go.

“Or can it be that you finally ended things with your life-sized Barbie.” 

“That could have a little something to do with it.”

Jacqueline laughed derisively, “What was her name again?  I met her at last year’s Christmas party.  She was quite the hit.”

“Chrissy.”

“Ah, yes,
Chrissy.  She was in Playboy, right?”

“Sports Illustrated.”

“I was close,” she grinned.  “Please don’t take this as an insult to your choice in women, but I just don’t understand the attraction.  Women like that are so…so…one dimensional.  I mean, in the bedroom I’m sure it doesn’t matter, but what could possibly hold your attention the other ninety-nine percent of the time?”

“Fantasies about that one percent, I guess.”

Jacqueline grinned and nodded her head, pursing her lips together as if she didn’t appreciate his stab at humor.  But the irony was, that dressed in her short black cocktail dress, with her perfectly applied smoky eyes and hot red lipstick, Miss Kostova looked much like the Barbie doll women she was criticizing.

“Well, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that it doesn’t sting a little to know you’re here on the rebound.  But I’m a strong woman, Seth Richards.  I can handle it.”

“I have no doubt about that.”

“I think I’m more disappointed by the fact that you’re just as uptight on a dinner date as you are in the office.”

Arching a brow in surprise, Seth laughed and lifted his glass to honor the fact that she had enough balls to be straight up with him about what she was thinking.  “Salute…”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

With a self-appreciative smirk, she added, “I can tell you’re not use to having a personal conversation with a woman as out spoken as I am.”

“Why is that,” he asked, already growing bored with the conversation because he knew exactly where it was going from here. 

Squaring his shoulders, Seth prepared himself mentally for the hour long self-promoting sales pitch that was about to come his way.

“By the way you keep playing with your drink; I’ve obviously forced you out of your comfort zone.  I think men like you, or perhaps men in general, are intimidated by confident women who know who they are and what they want.  You prefer the ease of women who can’t challenge you intellectually.”

“I agree, somewhat.  Although I think ‘challenge’ is the operative word in that statement,” Seth grinned, wondering if she realized how many self-professed intelligent women had ‘challenged’ him with similar monologues to help him see the injustice of his masculine ways. 

How many dates had he been on in the past nine years where he felt as if he was being given the hard sell?  Too many.  It seemed that every woman he met felt the need to convince him of her superiority among females.  Different faces, same pitch, whether they were selling their looks or their intelligence.  They all believed they had the corner market on originality.

“Really?
  Explain,” she demanded, leaning forward on her elbows with a grin on her face, as if she relished the idea of an intellectual debate so she could show case her talents.

“Jackie, I’d rather not have this conversation, if it’s okay with you.”

“So speaking my mind does make you uncomfortable?”

“No, not in the least.”

“Then you feel like I’m threatening your manhood?”

Seth offered her a boyish grin and shook his head.  “I’m quite confident in my manhood.  But I just thought we could have dinner, a few drinks, and be ourselves.”

“What is that suppose to mean?” she pushed even further, her expression hardening, causing her bright red lips to lose their suppleness.  “Do you think I’m being disingenuous?”

“Actually, I’m hoping you are.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“Don’t’ you ever get tired of being a hard-ass?  At work I understand, our profession demands a certain level of intimidation.  But when you’re at home or out with someone, don’t you want to let your hair down and enjoy being a woman?”

“Seth, I’m sorry, but you’re sounding like a Neanderthal.   Women like June Cleaver don’t exist anymore.  We don’t need a man to take care of us and protect us anymore, and surely that’s not what you’re looking for?”

Suddenly regretting his decision to extend a dinner invitation, Seth finished his drink and debated whether to call it an evening, or go through with it.  As a gentleman, he knew it would be rude to end the date at this point, so he would suffer through the next few hours if he had to, but he refused to continue the current line of questioning.

“I apologize if I offended you.”

“You haven’t,” she reassured him, sounding resigned to the fact that this would be their first and last date.  “But can I ask you to be honest with me about something?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Why did you call me, really?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

Jacqueline blinked a few times, as if his confession had hurt.  She looked around at couples sitting at nearby tables, as if she envied them.  Seth had a hunch this wasn’t her first date that had gone badly.  Deep beneath her tough exterior was a woman who longed to have a man in her life, whether she cared to admit it or not.

“Will you do me favor, then,” she finally asked when she faced him again.

“Sure, you name it.”

“Don’t call me again until you do.”

Reaching across the table, he wrapped his fingers around hers and squeezed them.

“I won’t,” he promised.

Leaving Jacqueline’s hotel room at two in the morning after she had finally dozed off, Seth made his way down the corridor to his own suite, regretting the alcohol induced urge to sleep with her.  It was the first and last time he would go back on the promise he made to himself.  But the truth was they had used each other.  It didn’t make it right, but at least it helped cope with the guilt he was feeling.

By two: thirty he was showered and more than ready to call it a night.  Tomorrow was Saturday, and he would be returning home to Amherst.  The week in New York was spent in front of members of the SEC, defending his firm against accusations of security fraud and laundering.  Although it wasn’t the first time they had been investigated, it was the first time he had actual cause for concern.  The division of the corporation being investigated was the division managed by William Richards, his father.

Edward Collins had always cursed his own decision to let his son-in-law become partner, but did so for the sake of his daughter, his only child.  And it wasn’t that Seth was already accusing him of any wrong doing.  But after working side by side with his father for twenty years, and cleaning up the messes he made, it gave him cause to question the man’s competency.

If the accusations of the SEC were true and the findings of their investigation founded, Seth had no problem with letting the old man take the responsibility for it.  If he felt the need to hide dealings he made from the other senior partners and Seth, with blatant disregard for the future of the firm, then he deserved no legal help from the firm, or his son.

With his fingers itching to dial his home number, Seth sat slumped on the bed from exhaustion and too much bourbon.  It was too late and too early to call Tess now.  They hadn’t spoken in almost a week.  When she called him, he was in meetings and couldn’t take the call, and when he called her, she was out, or in between classes.  When he checked the miss calls to see if Tessa had even tried to reach him, he saw that there were ten of them from his mother, whose last call
missed was at two o’clock.  With a sigh, hit redial.

“Mother.”

“Seth, where have you been?”

“I’m good, Mother.  How are you?” he scoffed sarcastically. 

“How are things going?  You’re father is terribly upset, and regrets that he couldn’t make the trip.  Oh, and Justin wanted me to call you and let you know he failed the bar exam again.”

Letting his head fall back against the bed, Seth cringed inwardly from the shrill sound of his mother’s voice.  She was drunk, as usual.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose in agitation.   “You called at two in the morning to tell me this?”