Where There's Smoke

He had bent down to pick up his shoes. Slowly he straightened. “The hell you’re not. It’s all arranged.”

“Then unarrange it. I’m not going.”

“The President of the United States is scheduled to receive us in the Oval Office.” His face had become flushed.

“Extend him my regrets. I won’t be able to make it.”

She headed for the bedroom. Randall stormed off the sofa, grabbed her arm, and brought her around. “You’ll be there with me every step of the way through this, Lara.”

“No, I won’t Randall,” she averred, pulling her arm free. “Frankly, I’m surprised you want to share the limelight. When you left Washington, you were a cuckold, a laughing-stock. You’re returning a hero. You’ll probably be invited to appear on all the TV talk shows, to write a book—there might even be a movie-of-the-week in your future. Your credibility has been fully restored and once again you’ve got the ear of the president. Why would you want me there, stealing a few rays of your spotlight and reminding everyone of that large, dark blot on your career?”

“To keep up appearances,” he said with a cold smile. “You are still my wife. I’m willing to overlook your sleeping arrangements with Key Tackett. After all, you thought I was dead.”

“Don’t assume that moral posture with me, Randall. The martyred husband who continues to forgive his wayward wife.” Her words were laden with contempt. “That’s the pose you struck when photos of me being hustled from Clark’s cottage hit the newsstands. Little did anyone guess that you’d been having affairs almost from the day we married.”

“I’ve never confessed to that,” he replied blandly. “You surmised it for your own benefit.”

“I also surmise that you didn’t live a celibate life in Montesangre. If you were chummy with your guards, I’m certain they made arrangements for you.”

“A very astute guess, Lara. In fact I did enjoy a satisfying physical relationship while I was in captivity. She was a beautiful girl, petite and delicate, with ebony eyes. She was pathetically willing to please me no matter what I asked of her. She was hardly suited to guerrilla warfare, although she was dedicated to the cause and to her second cousin, Emilio Sánchez Perón.

“When he found out she’d become my lover, he had her disemboweled. I believe he was jealous. During their youth they’d been very close. Or maybe he was afraid that her devotion to me would divide her loyalties. Either way, he brought an end to a very gratifying diversion.”

Lara was sickened by the story and the cavalier manner in which Randall related it. She said, “I should have divorced you before we went to Montesangre.”

“Possibly. But by then you were pregnant. That made things difficult for you.”

“Yes, because you threatened to take the baby away from me unless I stayed with you.”

“I could have, too. You were an adulterous wife, hardly a model parent. What court in the land would have awarded custody of a newborn to Clark Tackett’s whore?”

He’d posed the same question five years earlier. She’d known it wasn’t an empty threat. Had she pursued a divorce and refused to go with him when he left the country, he would have exhausted every effort to win legal custody of the child.

She would have fought him to the Supreme Court, except for one major consideration—Ashley. During the years most vital to her development, she would have been shuttled between them, more an object under dispute than a human being. That would have made it almost impossible to raise a contented, well-adjusted child. She hadn’t wanted that for her baby.

“Your insults can’t hurt me, Randall, because I don’t love you. You don’t love me. Why perpetuate this myth any longer?”

“Appearances are very important in my line of work,” he said with exaggerated patience. “You are garnish, Lara. You always have been. Most wives are. The smarter and prettier they are, the better, but all are little more than what parsley is to prime rib.”

Disgusted, she backed away from him.

“Your objections have been noted,” he said in a condescending way that further infuriated her. Then he smiled. “Actually I find this new rebellious streak of yours rather exciting, but I’m tiring of it. Save it for a more convenient time, hmm? You’ll follow me to Washington and stand meekly by my side just as you followed me to Montesangre and fulfilled your duties as my official hostess.”

“The hell I will.” She confronted him defiantly and fearlessly. “Because of the terrible ordeal you’d been through, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. But your three years of confinement haven’t changed you, Randall. You’re as selfish and manipulative as you ever were. Maybe even more so because you now feel the world owes you for what you endured.

“I’m glad you’re alive, but I want nothing to do with you. Don’t think you can persuade me otherwise. It’s over and has been for years.

“I went to Central America with you in exchange for Ashley. I agreed to stay for one year following her birth. We were only weeks away from the deadline when she was killed. I lost her anyway,” she said with rancor. “Now that she’s dead, your threats are worthless. You have no bargaining power because I’ve already lost everything that was valuable to me.”

“What about Tackett brother number two?”

“You can’t harm Key.”

“No?” he asked silkily. “Reading between the lines, I’d say he held his brother in very high regard. Think about it, Lara.”

The threat was very subtle, but very real. She schooled her features not to give away her alarm. “You wouldn’t say anything to him.”

He laughed. “Just as I guessed. He doesn’t know. It’s still our little secret.”