“Yeah, I’m sure it was hell,” he said sarcastically. “I’ve seen pictures of that place they sent you. I remember the layout—lots of grass, lots of trees, a green campus dotted with white-columned mansions separated by brick pathways. It sure looked like marine boot camp to me.”
“Appearances can be deceiving,” Ann said.
The waiter appeared with a fresh drink for Heath and said, “Ready to order now?”
“I’ll call you when we’re ready to order,” Heath snarled, not looking at him.
The waiter looked startled, glanced sidelong at Ann, then beat a hasty exit.
“Look,” Heath said, “I’m not going to sit here and listen to you defend what you did, especially when you characterize it as a selfless gesture to keep me out of jail. Actually, I can’t believe you have the nerve to try to pass this bogus story off as the truth. You must think I’m still as stupid as I was back when I thought that old Harley and you were all I needed to be happy. This highly inventive tale must be an example of your writer’s imagination.”
“You know I’m a writer?” Ann said.
“I have your first book.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I’ve always kept track of you, which is obviously more than you can say about me.”
“It was too painful to hear anything about you, Heath. The only way I could survive was by burying all of it.”
“Here’s to the buried past,” he said, saluting her with his liquor glass.
Ann pushed her chair back from the table. “Heath, this is pointless. You don’t want to hear anything I have to say.” She picked up her purse.
“If you leave, I will get on the phone and cancel everything I did for your brother this morning,” he said calmly. “All it takes is a word from me and he stays right where he is.”
Ann resettled in the chair. “It must be wonderful to have such power,” she said.
“I earned it,” he replied. “Since you seem anxious to leave, I think I should lay out the terms of our agreement.”
“Oh, by all means.”
“We will be getting married on Friday afternoon of this week,” he began.
“Friday?” she gasped. “So soon?”
“Do you need time to buy a trousseau?” he asked dryly.
She said nothing.
“I have already arranged an appointment with the clerk’s office for the ceremony. We can do the blood tests tomorrow. Joe Jensen and his wife can serve as the witnesses at the wedding.”
“Joe Jensen of Jensen’s Marina?”
“He works for me now.”
“So you didn’t forget all of your old friends.”
“Only the ones who forgot me,” he shot back.
Ann sighed and bit her lip. How much more of this could she take? More importantly, could she take it every day? But the alternative was too horrible to contemplate. She was trapped.
“You will keep up appearances,” Heath went on. “Serve as my hostess for the annual Christmas party for my employees, accompany me to the social functions I must attend in consideration of my position as CEO of Bimini. No one is to know how things really stand or I will consider it a breach of our pact.”
Ann listened dolefully, not looking at him.
“And in case you’re loath to raise this delicate subject, I want to make something clear. Ours will not be a marriage in name only. You will sleep with me anytime I want, in any place I want, just like a dutiful little wife.”
“That is a marriage in name only, Heath. Without a relationship to back it up, sex alone doesn’t make a marriage.”
“Giving advice to the lovelorn now? Why don’t you write a column for the papers, like Dear Abby? You apparently have the talent for it.”
“What else?” she asked tersely, ignoring the gibe.
“You will live with me in my house, and not take off every five minutes for visits to relatives or whatever else you can think of to get away from me. I expect you to be around and available, do you understand?”
“Where do you live?”
He drank deeply. “I bought the Curtis house on Prospect Boulevard,” he said.
Ann was silent. Duncan Curtis had been a friend of her father’s, the owner of a stucco, Spanish-style waterfront mansion that was arguably the only home on Lime Island more impressive than Henry Talbot’s.
“I didn’t know that Duncan Curtis had moved away,” she finally said.
“He retired to Southern California two years ago to be near his daughter,” Heath replied shortly.
“And you rushed right in and bought his house.”
“Why not?”
“I see now why you want to marry me, why torturing me outside the bonds of holy matrimony would not be sufficient for you,” Ann said quietly.
“What are you talking about?” he replied, swallowing the rest of his drink in one gulp.
“It’s all part of the master plan, isn’t it? The plan to show the Lime Island old-timers—whoever’s left, anyway—that the poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks has made good, big time. The best house on the island, the billboards for Bimini plastered on every available surface, the good works documented in the newspapers, and now marriage to the daughter of the most prominent man, the one they all remember from the country club in the old days. It has little to do with me—I’m just a means to an end.”
“It has everything to do with you,” he said quietly. “Make no mistake about that.”
“They really hurt you, didn’t they, Heath? Those golf playing snobs in their pastel polo shirts. More than even I suspected.”
“They never hurt me as much as you did. They couldn’t. You were the only one I ever loved, the only one I ever let get close enough to see that I had those feelings. And you made sure that you threw it all back in my face.”
She put her hand over his on the table.
He withdrew his hand immediately.
“Do you understand what I want?” he inquired tonelessly, his features immobile.
“Perfectly,” she replied.
“Good. Will you be staying here at the inn until the day of the wedding?”
“Yes. Since my brother’s disgrace, all doors seem closed to me. I imagine you know the feeling.”
“Very well. I’ll call you to arrange a time to go for the blood tests.”
“Am I dismissed?” she asked crisply.
“Not quite yet. We have to discuss the honeymoon.”
“The honeymoon?” Ann said faintly.
“Of course. Don’t you want go somewhere secluded and romantic to enjoy your new husband?”
“No.”
“Too bad. Because I plan to get my money’s worth, starting with a week in Caneel Bay. We’ll fly out right after the wedding.”
“You’re enjoying this immensely, aren’t you, Heath?” Ann said quietly.
“This?”
“Torturing me.”
“Not many people would consider a week at a Caneel Bay resort to be torture,” he said mildly.
“And am I supposed to play the role of the ecstatic honeymooner?” Ann demanded.
“That shouldn’t be too much trouble for you. As I recall, you’re very good at role-playing. You convinced me that you were madly in love with me without too much difficulty.”
She looked away from him. “Is there anything else?” she said tensely.
He nodded. “The Curtis house, which is now the Bodine house, is at 1223 Prospect. If I were you, I would arrange to have anything you want from your apartment shipped there. Do you have anyone in New York who can pack for you?”
“I left a key with a neighbor. I can ask her to put together a few things for me.”
“Good. Better ask her to send them express—we’re booked on a flight out to the islands Friday night.”
“Should I sublet my apartment?”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll buy out your lease if you like.”
Ann smiled thinly. Having money obviated quite a number of considerations.
He must have known what she was thinking because he said, “Turnabout is fair play, no?”
“I don’t think you know much about fair play anymore, Heath,” Ann replied.
He stared at her for a long moment, then said neutrally, “You may go now.”
Ann rose on shaky legs and walked out of the dining room.