He was only thirty years old, and he didn't want life to be safe and settled. Where were the challenges? The thrills? SysVal wasn't enough anymore. And neither was Susannah.
A sound intruded on his thoughts. One of the doors that led out from the house to the deck had opened behind him. Susannah came into his line of vision. He watched with resentment as she pulled her silk robe tight and hugged herself against the night chill.
"You couldn't sleep?" she asked.
He settled deeper into the bubbling waters and wished she would go away.
"Would you like me to get in with you?" she said softly.
He shrugged. "Whatever."
She unfastened her robe and let it slide from her shoulders. She was naked beneath. There was a momentary shift in the rhythm of the water as she settled onto the ledge next to him.
"The water's hot."
"One hundred and two degrees, like always." He arched his neck and laid his head back in the water, closing his eyes to shut her out.
He felt her fingers on his arm. "Sam, I'm worried about you."
"Don't be."
"I wish you'd tell me what's wrong."
His eyes snapped open. "You're what's wrong! Why don't you leave me alone?"
For a moment she did nothing, and then she rose silently from the tub. Water glistened on her body. His eyes roved down over her small breasts, her waist, the soft auburn tuft. She didn't have any idea how hot she still made him. He grabbed her hand before she could move away and pulled her down. She lost her balance and landed awkwardly beside him.
He pushed her back onto the ledge. "Open your legs."
"I don't want to." She tried to twist away.
"Open them, damn it," he insisted.
"Sam, this isn't right. We need to talk. Sex isn't enough this time."
She started to get up. He clenched his teeth and moved on top of her. He didn't want to listen to her. He wanted to get the fire back, the challenge, the thrill of conquest. Wedging open her thighs, he thrust hard and buried himself inside her.
She wasn't ready for him and she winced, but he tilted up her hips and drove deeper.
She dug the heels of her hands into his chest, trying to push him away. "Dammit, Sam. Don't do this!"
He refused to let her up. The night-black water swirled around him like a witch's caldron. Steam rose from his shoulders as he arched his back and thrust again and again, cursing her in his mind. In the old days, she had made him happy… In the old days, life had been exciting… Everything had been new-the company-Susannah… In the old days, life had thrilled him.
He cried out when he came, shuddering violently and falling heavily on her. With a hard shove, she pushed him off her body and rose from the tub.
"Susannah…"
She spun around, steam coming from her body. Her light gray eyes blazed with fury. "Don't you ever do that to me again."
Naked and fierce, she stood over him. She was silhouetted against the sky, her head in front of the moon, so that a halo of silver light had formed around her wet hair and spilled down over her shoulders. Water sluiced like quicksilver over her skin. As he stared at her, her entire body glowed with an eerie moon-induced incandescence. She looked both holy and profane.
He hated the strength he saw there. The strength and power and courage that hadn't been there when they had first met. When had she gotten ahead of him? How had she learned secrets he didn't know?
A dam of emotion burst from inside him, and he shouted at her. "Why should I worry about how you feel? You don't care about me!"
She stared down at him, the moonlight forming an unearthly aurora behind her. "You don't even know what you want."
He wanted that click he used to feel, that sense that she would fill in his missing parts, that she would give him some of her serenity, polish off his rough edges, soothe his impatience. He wanted her to take away his fear of death. He wanted her to relieve his boredom, offer him a fresh challenge. Make life exciting again. And she wasn't doing it.
He rose from the hot tub and angrily slicked the water from his body with the flat of his hand. "If you haven't figured out what's wrong by now, I'm not going to explain it to you."
"You'll have to make peace with yourself," she said flatly. "I can't do it for you."
His anger swelled. "I should have known you would try to make it my fault. What's happened to us is your problem, Susannah. Yours, not mine."
He turned to stalk away from her, but he hadn't finished punishing her for not being able to help him. Spinning back around, he made a final cruel attack. "I'm warning you right now. You'd better not be playing any games with those birth control pills."
Her hand spasmed at her side. "You bastard."
Water was glistening on her cheeks, but he didn't know if it was from the hot tub or because she was crying. "If you get pregnant, I'll leave you," he said viciously. "I mean it."
She spun away from him and stalked toward the house, her robe lying forgotten on the deck.
"Things had better start changing around here," he shouted after her.
But she had disappeared inside, and he was left alone with himself.
Chapter 22
FBT had been caught with its pants down. All of its sophisticated forecasting tools, its graphs and charts and leather-bound strategy statements, its legions of MBA's and Ph.D.'s and decades of experience, hadn't been able to predict the public's growing fascination with the personal computer.
Personal computer. Just the name made the FBT executives cringe. What kind of name was that? It sounded like a douche, for godsake.
As the seventies had come to an end, the executives had kept themselves busy smiling and harumphing and doubletalking the press, referring to stable product line and the fickleness of the consumer products market. They had talked about FBT tradition, waxed poetic over the majesty of their giant mainframes and those eye-popping profits listed in crisp black ink in their annual reports. And the more they had talked, the more they had qualified and quantified away, the more the world's business community had laughed behind their backs at them for having been so woefully left behind by a bunch of wild-eyed kids.
For Cal Theroux it had been unbearable.
He was the one who had given FBT back its self respect with the launching of the Falcon 101 in January of 1982. It had been his baby from the beginning, and its success had given him the final leverage he needed to consolidate his power within FBT. Now Cal was riding the small computer's success all the way to personal glory.
On the other side of the office, his secretary was unpacking the last of his personal effects and arranging them in the bookshelves. She had been at the task for some time, and he was growing impatient. The ceremony that marked his appointment as the new chairman of FBT would begin in less than an hour, and he wanted a few moments to himself.
"That's enough for now, Patricia. When my wife arrives, send her in."
His secretary nodded and left.
Finally alone, Cal allowed himself the liberty of sliding back in his chair and contemplating his imposing surroundings. Some men were obsessed with sex, others with wealth. But for Cal, power had always been the ultimate prize.
He stroked the polished malachite top of the chairman's desk and touched the panel of switches that controlled the FBT fountains. Since the grounds were crawling with members of the press, he suppressed the urge to manipulate the switches as he had seen Joel do so many times. Even Paul Clemens had not been able to resist toying with those seven fountains during his reign as FBT chairman following Joel's death. They were the final symbol of command, and now they belonged to Cal.
The door opened and his wife Nicole entered. "Hello, darling." As she walked across the carpet toward him, her shoulders tensed almost imperceptibly. He knew she was awaiting his verdict on her appearance.