Enchanted Heart Read online

  “I’m not following you.”

  “When it was Heart Federated,” he explained, “it was my reputation and name on the line. Now, with this venture capital corporation it’s again my name and reputation. This whole thing sinks or swims on me.”

  Sonja still had a hard time grasping whatever point he was trying to make. “And you don’t think you’re up to the job?”

  Cole scowled and pushed off the bed. “That’s not what I meant.” He tugged at his tie and headed to the closet.

  “Look Cole, it’s late. I’ve had a long week. I’m not in the mood for subtle semantics tonight. If you have something to say, say it. If not, I’m going to sleep.”

  When he came out again, he stood before her, clad in a pair of full pajamas.

  “Do you still love me?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He stood at the foot of the bed. Sonja stared at him.

  “Do you still love me?” he repeated.

  Her mouth opened, but no words came.

  Cole took a deep breath. “Well, that answered that.”

  Sonja shook her head. “You just threw me off with the abrupt change of topic. Yes, I still care for you.”

  “Care. Now there’s a word laced with ambivalence. It’s right up there with vanilla ice cream and beige walls.”

  Sonja didn’t bother to point out just how complex supposedly plain vanilla ice cream was, or for that matter that all of the walls in their home were beige.

  “People care for their pets and houseplants, Sonja.”

  Sonja checked her heart and her emotional bank account. One was empty, the other near bankruptcy.

  “Sometimes I do love you,” she amended. “At other times, I wonder why we ever got married. I think that maybe we were both caught up in a moment and a situation that naturally lent itself to intimacy.”

  “Enemies being the best lovers and opposites attracting.”

  She licked her lips, aware now more than ever before just what was at stake here. “Something like that.”

  When they’d met, she’d been out to destroy the company he so cherished. At some point during her campaign she’d fallen in love with him. The challenge then became how to save Heart Federated.

  Now though, little remained of the early fire she—they?—had taken for love. She loved him then, and even now. But was it the kind of love that sustained a marriage? Was she in love with her husband?

  “Why are you asking me this, Cole? Why now? Have you met someone?”

  He looked genuinely surprised at that. “No. I’ve been faithful to you.”

  “Oh.”

  “You sound disappointed. Is that because you have a boyfriend or someone you’re seeing?”

  Sonja shook her head. “No. I’m not seeing anyone.”

  When would she have time to date?

  “Listen to this conversation,” he said. “Doesn’t it strike you even remotely odd? What the hell is wrong with us?”

  She leaned forward, tucking her legs under her. “I don’t know, Cole. Maybe we’re too wrapped up in other things to focus our primary concern and energy on us, with each other.”

  She watched him chew on that for a bit. He shrugged and Sonja was struck with how defeated the gesture appeared. This past year had been tough on him. She’d tried to be supportive, but her own company needed tending as much, if not more, than Cole’s ego.

  “Lance thinks we worship money.”

  Sonja smiled, indulgent. “The Lance who has a shrine to the female breast in his living room? The Lance whose only serious relationships are with his tailor and masseuse?”

  Cole laughed. “That sculpture is modern art.”

  “Naked breasts,” Sonja maintained with a smile.

  She realized then that they’d done it again. Deflected the issue by steering clear of the areas where the hurt might sneak in. It was always easier to laugh and joke about little things, unimportant things. This time though, Cole guided them back to the subject at hand.

  “So, if we still lo . . .” he cleared his throat. “Care for each other, but we both want to focus on other things, where does that leave us? I’m about to head to Brazil for at least six weeks, probably longer. You won’t come with me.”

  “Can’t come with you,” she interjected.

  He shrugged. “It’s all the same. You’ll be here. I’ll be there.”

  “What about if we go to a marriage . . . ?”

  Cole stomped over to his side of the bed and snatched open a drawer. He pulled out his antacids.

  Sonja didn’t even bother arguing with him about them.

  “I’m not sitting in some therapist’s office spilling my guts about how awful my parents were. I already know how awful they are. So do you. If it hadn’t been for my mother I wouldn’t be in this situation right now.”

  Just that fast they were back to Cole and the stores. What happened to the man she’d married? The one ever solicitous of her needs, who cared about her dreams and goals?

  And just what had happened to her?

  She’d tried to get him to see a therapist to work out some of the issues that lingered from both his childhood and his tenure as CEO of Heart Federated. Now Sonja wondered if he’d just revealed something he’d rather have kept to himself. Did he blame Virginia for his uneasiness and uncertainty about the Brazil project?

  “You could have accepted the offer from Knight and Kraus,” she told him. “You could have had a seat on the board and a division to run.”

  Coleman snorted. “I was running the entire company. I was president and chairman of Heart.”

  “But you’re not anymore,” Sonja snapped.

  “You enjoy pointing that out, don’t you?”

  “No, Cole. Actually, I don’t. What I’m pointing out is that the past is gone. You have now. Not then. And, for your information, I wasn’t going to say a marriage counselor.” She reached for the novel she’d been attempting to read and plucked from a page in the back a piece of newsprint. “This was in the newspaper,” she said, handing it to him. She didn’t add that her mother had dropped it off, a not-so-subtle suggestion that Sonja and Cole could use some help in the relationship department.

  He didn’t move to take the proffered paper. “What is it?”

  “A couples retreat. Rekindling the Fire.”

  This time, Cole’s snort was even more derisive.

  Sonja pursed her lips and let the clipping fall to the bed.

  She was tired of the conversation that went around in circles, constantly returning to Cole’s needs. And she’d long since grown weary of having a marriage without emotional intimacy.

  For years she’d run the Pride Group, her consulting firm. Everything she needed—joy, security, and professional challenges—she got from her work. Everything except someone to share it with. Then she’d met Cole and realized how much was truly missing in her life. But sometime after the honeymoon, they’d both retreated to their premarital roles and habits so much that she now found herself right back where she’d started.

  Alone.

  An old saying came to her: I can do bad by myself.

  She made up her mind that a change had to come—one way or the other.

  “We can’t go on like this, Cole. Either we get some help, or I’m out of here.”

  “You don’t mean that,” he said.

  “Try me,” she said, looking up at him. “What’s keeping me here?”

  That was his cue to say everything would be all right, that they’d work through this rough patch. That indifference and apathy hadn’t obliterated all vestiges of their relationship.

  But Cole didn’t say anything. And for a long, tense moment they stared at each other.

  Cole broke contact when he turned back the comforter and sheets.

  “Why don’t you sleep in one of the guest rooms.”

  Cole glowered at her and snapped up the edge of the comforter without a word. He got into bed, whipping the sheet over his shoulder.

  Sonja
pursed her lips and stared at his back. Then she sighed. The physical gap between them in the large bed was big enough to accommodate two other people, but was actually small when compared to the emotional divide that truly separated them.

  Several hours later, Sonja sat up, the chill she felt having nothing to do with the seventy-degree temperature in the room. She’d been unable to sleep. She tugged at the top of the cotton sleep set. Far from being sexy, the tap pants and shirt were comfort clothes and the truth was she needed comforting.

  Sonja Pride was afraid. Not that she’d ever admit that weakness.

  She’d never failed at anything—nothing that was, until now. The most serious commitment she’d ever made, the one she’d committed her heart and mind and soul to lay in shredded ruin.

  She hadn’t been feeling loved or even wanted in so long. She told herself she needed the soothing feel of the soft fabric to keep her warm, at least on the outside. She often wondered if her inside would ever really be warm again, at least not as long as she and Cole remained distant, sometimes polite strangers.

  When she’d told him to sleep in a guest room she’d been half afraid he’d take her up on it, and equally as distressed that he’d stayed. Beside her, Cole slept peacefully in the big bed. They still had sex occasionally, but it wasn’t with the reckless abandon and enjoyment that had marked the early part of their relationship. Now, when they turned to each other in the night, it was habit, a physical release rather than a true and kindred connection.

  They’d had sex, but they hadn’t made love in three months. She glanced at Cole wondering if he’d know or even appreciate the difference.

  There was a time when they’d been emotionally inseparable. Now, instead of inseparable, irreconcilable seemed a better description of the direction in which they were headed. They had an equitable prenupt so finances didn’t concern her.

  Failing, however, did.

  Sonja took a moment to study her husband’s sleeping form. He was tall and had broad shoulders that tapered to a slim waist. His eyes, now shielded in slumber by long lashes, could pierce the psyche of an opponent or warm with a light Sonja rarely saw these days.

  He was a handsome man, in the classical sense. He’d been raised by a philandering father and a mother who found solace in shopping and manipulative games. Cole had somehow managed to emerge from that union unscathed physically, but scarred emotionally.

  And, Sonja realized, he still had the power to make her weak in the knees—even when she didn’t want to be.

  There’d been no intercourse tonight. They’d shared nothing but harsh words and hateful accusations culminating in threats from both sides.

  Much like a cancer out of remission and wreaking havoc on unsuspecting cells, losing the stores still gnawed at Cole. There was nothing she could do to ease that pain in him.

  With her arms wrapped around her legs Sonja listened to the silence. She hadn’t realized until tonight just how much Cole needed to feel a part of something. She’d deliberately taunted him, hoping to spur him into a realization that maybe his focus was too intent on things that didn’t matter as much—Brazil being an example—as their relationship.

  Instead, she’d nailed him on the one thing that mattered most to him. Her mind raced with all the nasty things she’d said. Her words had been cruel, but she didn’t regret saying them. They had always been honest with each other, painfully so.

  And apparently, he, too, had spent some time wondering if their marriage was worth saving.

  Cole, murmuring something unintelligible, turned and reached for her. Sonja looked at him then slipped into his arms. Habit, she supposed. Or maybe she was just feeling sorry for both of them.

  His hand settled over her breast. Even in sleep he kneaded her pliant flesh. Maybe he dreamed of how it used to be between them. Her nipple puckered at the attention, but Sonja didn’t encourage him. After a moment, he didn’t stir, but his hand remained cupped around her.

  For a long time she lay there waiting for the old fire to return, and wondering if it could ever be rekindled.

  Lance had almost a forty-minute drive to get home. Not for the first time he thought about buying a place on the Norfolk and Virginia Beach side of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. Living in this part of southeastern Virginia offered the flexibility of hanging out in the region’s fifteen independent localities. But more often than not, Lance found himself in Norfolk or at the Beach. As he sped across the bridge-tunnel that connected Norfolk with Hampton and Newport News he thought how much easier it would be if all the communities just merged into one, called the place Hampton Roads since everyone did anyway and got over the parochial in-fighting that snarled so many of the cooperative regional efforts.

  Lance’s relatives would have been surprised to discover that he gave any thought to regional concerns. The truth of it was he rarely did—except when he was on the road. Distance driving gave him a certain kind of peace that allowed his thoughts to roam beyond the usual confines. As his Jaguar ate up the road, Lance briefly took in the lights of Norfolk Naval Station to the far left, but enjoyed on his right the view and sound of the water that led to the Chesapeake Bay. Though he couldn’t hear it over the car’s engine, he knew the water lapped against the pilings and he again thought about moving to the Beach. His apartment in Newport News overlooked the James River, but that wasn’t quite the same as having the ocean as a backyard.

  Ahead, about a mile out, he saw the flashing blue lights of a state trooper and decelerated. This day had already put a dent in his wallet without adding a speeding ticket to the mix. He tried to leave those to Mallory and Cole who snapped up speeding infractions the way discount shoppers hit the blue light specials at K-mart.

  By the time he pulled into his parking spot in the garage of his building it was quite late and Lance was actually starting to wind down. He’d had a long day, and an even longer one awaited him tomorrow. He waved at the doorman and the security guard then made his way to the penthouse apartment he’d bought three years ago.

  He’d barely stepped in the door before stripping off his tie. With a remote that stayed on a table in the foyer he powered up the sound system. Easy jazz, the soothing alto of Norah Jones, filled the sometimes too-silent rooms. Lance headed to his bedroom, but paused to admire the horizon outside his windows as he stripped. He truly had a bird’s-eye view. Stepping out onto the balcony, he watched a barge slowly move along the James River. To his left, the lights of the shipyard gleamed in the night.

  Lance took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the fresh air of the early morning. The stillness pacified him, as it always did. So he stood there for a while reviewing his day. All thoughts led to Vivienne la Fontaine. Try as he might, he couldn’t nail what was going on with her. He headed toward his closet.

  Was she married? Engaged? Maybe it was guilt that made her run.

  He’d known she was going to be expensive. He just hadn’t figured on quite how much.

  The Heart family controlled a significant amount of wealth and influence not just in the Hampton Roads region, but across the state of Virginia. Lance had his share, which was more than enough to keep him idle for a long, long time. Even so, he didn’t like unnecessarily wasting money—another thing that would come as a surprise to his grandmother, who was perpetually on his case about making something of his life.

  An hour’s romp with Vivienne la Fontaine had cost him not just the room they’d too briefly shared, but a week at the Marriott’s rack rate plus meals and valet parking for two little old ladies from Pulaski, Virginia. Then there would be the floral and jeweler’s bills required to placate Rochelle, the woman he’d stood up at Cloud 9.

  “And I didn’t even get a decent meal out of the night.”

  As if to remind him of that insult, his stomach growled. He came out of his suit, shirt, T-shirt and socks, carefully hanging the suit in a closet that stretched the length of the apartment.

  Lance took pride in his closet. While Aunt Justine had
designed it, Lance gave it his own stamp of approval. GQ magazine had even done a feature on it. Lance had been perturbed that the magazine ran three photos of his closet and not a single one of him. He still angled for a cover, but hadn’t quite settled on how to best finagle that deal yet.

  But Vivienne la Fontaine, lingerie store owner and former cover model, could help him in that regard.

  “If I can figure out what set her off,” he muttered.

  He marked the laundry for the service to pick up in the morning, then set out the gym clothes he’d need for handball with his boy T.J. He was supposed to be at the rec center at nine-thirty. What sane person wanted to be up at that ungodly hour?

  Satisfied that he knew what he’d wear the coming day, he padded barefoot and in his underwear to the kitchen. Front and center in the Sub-Zero refrigerator: three bottles of a Petit Noir, some brie and plump grapes—the after-sex snack he’d planned to share with Rochelle. Ignoring the cheese, he plucked out a cluster of grapes, spied and snagged a bottle of Heineken then scrounged for some crackers and snatched up a cordless to check his messages.

  Five awaited him.

  “Yo, Heart. Don’t forget. We have the court at nine-thirty. I’m gonna whip your ass so don’t be late.”

  Lance chuckled. “In your dreams, Tyrone.”

  He deleted the message and moved on. Rochelle’s voice, coy and sexy, purred in his ear, chiding him for keeping her waiting.

  “Hi, Lance. I’m at the restaurant. You’re really going to love this place. The bartender said you’d started a tab. See you in a bit. Ciao.”

  A beep later. “Lance? Where are you? Call me on my cell. And you need to give me yours.”

  “Don’t think so, babe,” he said.

  The next one, also Rochelle, carried a decidedly different tone—pissed off.

  “It’s nine o’clock, Lance. Since you’re obviously not joining me here I took the liberty of ordering a very expensive meal and a bottle of Dom. It was excellent. The manager assured me he’d bill it all to you.”