The Satin Sash

He didn’t know how long he sat there, his fingers digging into the wheel, and he didn’t know how long the phone’s rhythmic vibrations took to filter through his fury. Irately registering the call, he flung himself across the back and grabbed the phone, ready to crack it in two. Ready to take the call and tell Heathcliff all the nasty things Grey planned to do to him. But the name of the caller blinking on the display screen was someone else entirely.

Lucien Grey Richards.

Grey did not answer. Could not, would not, deal with his father right now. On each of the phone’s subsequent vibrations, he crammed the device in his fist until its motion ceased. By the fourth attempt, he cursed and turned the damned thing off.

The entire nineteenth floor stumbled into silence when he stepped out of the elevators. He stalked down the hall directly toward the tall rosewood doors of his office, barking for his messages as he passed Louisa. Behind her desk, she raised a halting hand and quickly pressed a button on the phone, holding the receiver away from her ear. “Your father. It’s the third time he’s called.”

Damn him.What did he want?

“Put him through,” he snapped, slamming the double doors behind him.

He fell into his chair, picked up, and easily said, “Father.”

“Explain.”

“Explain what?”

Tiptoeing inside with the expression of someone about to be hanged, Louisa held out the day’s paper. Grey homed in on the social column headline as she set it on the surface of his desk.

GLACIER TOO COLD FOR THE SUN?

Spotted vacationing in Cabo San Lucas recently, sexy “ice” millionaire Grey Richards showed no signs of thawing as longtime girlfriend, Antonia Kearny, got cozy with a dark-haired stranger on the beach.

Icicles pricked him on the inside.The chills of Antarctica paled in comparison to the sweeping cold that spread through him. He didn’t continue reading. The picture said it all. Toni smilin

g, Heath crowding her with his body, cupping her breasts from behind, whispering something in her ear. And Grey. Nonchalant as could be, and right behind them, speaking to the Mexican with the dresses.

“I said explain.”

His father’s angry voice snapped him back. With characteristic remoteness, Grey waved Louisa off, and only when he was sealed inside his office—alone—did he put his forehead in his hand and rub. His thoughts tumbled one after the other—one in particular, one that prevailed. Toni. His baby. His lively, mischievous little imp. In the eye of the storm. Subjected to public speculation and scorn.

“I don’t know what you’re looking for, or what you want to hear,” Grey said levelly.

“I want to hear that my son, with my name, isn’t engaged in some strange type of business. I warned you against men like that one. I know who that good-for-nothing is. How do you expect your mother to face her friends at the function today?”

The function.Yes. Of course. How inconsiderate of Grey. “Just like she always does, smiling wide and bright. Dad.”

“If you can’t control your own woman, you’re not the man I thought you were.”

The anger he felt was sweeping, blinding, cramming his mouth with poison he wanted to spit, but even then his voice remained passive. “Like you control your wife? Who’s she sleeping with now, the gardener? I have another call. Have a good day, Dad.”

“. . . Now, your father and I are very certain there’s a good explanation, so I propose you both come over for dinner and talk to us.”

Toni was so stunned by the article she could barely make sense of her mother’s words. A rabid, vehement anger flared up in her, then a profound, wrenching hurt. It seemed she wasn’t even breathing, nor her heart beating, while a single thought slammed into her brain—Grey.

She was portrayed as the harlot and he like the . . . the fool. How many people bought this paper? Exactly how many people would read this? What was this paper’s circulation? He would be crushed. He would be. Oh, god. She stuck the phone between her shoulder and ear and fell on her knees, frantically spreading the paper on the coffee table and flipping the page, where the words continued. More words. Malicious, cruel words. Hurtful words about them. And her mother’s voice droned on in her ear like an annoying noise that never stopped.That made you want to scream and scream and scream.

“. . . couldn’t possibly be what I’m thinking . . .”

“Mom, please. Please. I can’t talk to you right now.”

“Just tell me who is this man? What is he to you?”

And through her mother’s fraught words, she heard her father’s furious rant in the background. “I don’t want to be hearing this. That is not my daughter right there. These people are scammers. I tell you, they put ten pictures together to come up with this stuff!”

Dad.Who still thought her to be faultless.With unsteady arms, she pulled herself up to the couch seat, barely registering that the person speaking in that peculiar, toneless voice was her. “Mom, I’ll call you later.”

She hung up and dialed slowly, an alarming calm settling over her. She was livid, she wanted to scream, and here she was . . . sitting. Hanging on to the phone as though for dear life! Oh, god!