He was puzzled and showed it. She got up, pulled on a robe and made a production out of explaining.
"Darling, I'm going to have a guest, and it'll be improper for us to stay in the same room," she said.
"Another man?" He couldn't think anything else but that. He didn't want any man cutting in on the cash. He bristled and it was a lucky stroke. Paulette thought he was jealous. She hugged and kissed him for it.
"No, dear. It's not a man. I have no man but you. It's my daughter. She'll spend a few days wit me," she revealed.
"Well," he said. "I'm very surprised. Your daughter, huh? Want me to return to Hollywood?"
"No you'll move to another hotel. I've already arranged it."
"Fine, he said, trying to outguess her and be cooperative at the same time. "Where?"
"Scottsdale!"
"How long will your daughter be here?".
"Four days"
"Is she coming from Houston?"
"No, from her school in Iowa: She's a student at the University of Iowa."
He had automatically imagined her daughter to be a teenager, perhaps attending some exclusive school So he naturally wanted to know more. He could see the motherhood tears behind her eyes, and he was trying to figure this new angle. It was the first he knew about a daughter.
"Go on, baby," he said, "and tell me about it."
Any more children?"
"No. Only one. I haven't even seen my daughter in fifteen years. Not since she was five. years old."
It didn't take Nathan long to find out she had needed she could talk to. The story tumbled out from there on, and he finished without interrupting her.
"Her father was an Australian. I was married once before. I don't like to remember it. We met and married in Houston. We didn't have much then. We had some trouble, and finally we got a divorce. He got our daughter and went home and married Australian girl."
Probably got tired of the tape, Nathan thought. Then another thought struck him maybe the Aussie was the one who started it. He kept quiet,
though, so Paulette could talk it out of her system. "I was working in a cabaret at the time, working very hard to study and earn money to get out of my background. I'm Mexican in part, and he could never forget that. It made no difference to my second husband; he was a nice man. But we broke up. I really intended to keep my daughter, but I couldn't work and look after her, too. I put her in a home for children. At the time of our divorce, he managed to get her and when he left for Australia, he took our child. I could do nothing. Later, I married my husband, who was already well on his way to success with Ranchland Oil. He was twenty years older than I."
"And you haven't seen you daughter since?"
"No." She cried a little. Nathan supposed it was a normal emotion, but he couldn't imagine Paulette caring one whit one way or the other about the child. Her tears seemed incongruous.
"I've sent money to my daughter and have written over the years to her. She's a good child, and has always answered."'
"What about the father?"
"He was a good man, I think, deep in his soul. At least he didn't try to keep me from contacting her. He swore I couldn't see her until she was grown.
''How come she's in the United States?''
"He'd gone to the University of Iowa, and he sent her to his school."
"How is it that you're meeting her here?'
"I've decided to build my permanent home here
in Arizona and I want her to visit here. I want to show her the place. Perhaps she'll come
and live with me. Since I have no other children, I'll leave my money to her."
God, you are mixed up, Nathan wanted to say. But he couldn't blame her for hoping. He was damn curious all of a sudden about this Australian daughter.
She looked at him all funny for a moment, then reverted to a giggly state. "Nathan, can I trust you away from me?"
"Of course you can, little girl "Will you be true?"
"You know I will."
"If you don't, I will not forgive you." There was a cold ring to her tones that sent a momentary chill up his spine.
He changed the subject. He was sleepy and fed up with her coquettishness. "Look here, sweetheart," he said, "I've got an idea. I can be your chauffeur."
"Oh; I don't want her to suspect me."
"Empress, I'm an actor he.said. "Remember?
It would be a good thing. Listen, I can get a cab, drive you to the airport, drive you around. You can impress her; see? Honest, sugar. I can carry it off so well that she'll never suspect a thing."
Poor Paulette, he thought. She was torn between several emotions. She wanted to keep an eye on him. She didn't want her daughter to know about her lover. He could see she was trying to make up her mind.
"My daughter must never know."
"I'll act my part like it was an Academy Award performance. You do the same. She'll never know."
"Darling, I love you for this," Paulette said to him. "Thanks for everything."
"That's why I'm here, Paulette. For your sake."
She was all over him again, hugging and kissing him. He turned off the light and dropped off to sleep. She had a call in for eleven.
She let him sleep until one and by that time she was dressed. He showered and shaved in no time, and they went down to the lobby. He waited while she cashed her travelers checks for him. When he counted it in the men's room, it was six hundred. The widow could be generous when she wanted to, he saw.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Nathan found himself pacing the floor of his new hotel room, sipping a bourbon and soda and going over the events of the day. He couldn't explain the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, or the sudden burst of nervous energy. Everything had come off just fine at the airport They picked up Paulette's daughter in a rented
taxi, with Nathan behind the wheel, and he had played his part to perfection. The girl was more impressed with his good looks than the tour they gave her, but Nathan handled that with finesse, too. He was polite and friendly toward the girl, carefully avoiding anything that might make Paulette the least bit jealous.
It was a bad arrangement, he decided. He didn't like being separated from the Empress like this. He didn't like eating alone, or, for that matter, sleeping alone. And what was so terrible about her daughter finding out she had a boy friend? The kid probably was shacked up with someone at school herself, he thought with growing anger.
Then it occurred to him that Cassandra's flirtations and open passes during the day may have gotten Paulette jealous anyway. She had been extremely cool but that was part of their plan. Now he had his doubts about whether she was acting or not. For all he knew, the twenty-year-old girl may have driven a wedge between him and Paulette and there was no way of finding out until she left, which was just wasted time as far as Nathan was concerned. Everything was getting complicated, he thought as he poured more bourbon over the ice and soda left in his glass.
It was almost midnight and he was thoroughly dIsgusted with the turn of events and how he had handled them. He knew now that he should have insisted on returning to Hollywood when she first told him they were going to be separated like this.
Paulette suddenly awoke and found Cassy missing, this would be the first place she'd look. "Look,
over something like this. So why don't you go on back to your mother?"
"My, my. Your cock is as handsome as your face," she said with a sigh, dropping her coat to the floor and moving towards him with catlike grace. "And while you're telling me to leave, your cock is begging me to stay."
He couldn't argue that point. The minute she opened the front of her coat his cock snapped to a full-size hard-on. And Cassy was just what he had imagined Paulette to look like when she was young petite and beautiful. Her size made her look younger than her twenty years, perhaps fifteen, and it really turned him on!