Adam's Daughter by Kristy Daniels Page A

could sell some stock. But however he framed the question in his mind it sounded like a confirmation of what Charles Ingram had said -- that Adam was nothing but a fortune hunter.
    Even now, after nearly twelve years, he still smarted whenever he remembered Ingram’s dismissal that day when he came to see Elizabeth in the mansion on Broadway: “You have nothing to offer my daughter.”
    Three months after the wedding, they settled into a rented home on Jackson Street. It was a big cheerful Victorian but on a less desirable fringe of Pacific Heights. Elizabeth did not seem to care about her newly scaled-down lifestyle. The only discontent she expressed was over her inability to conceive. After five months, she still had not become pregnant.
    She wanted children so badly. She wanted them partly to make up for the fact that Adam had lost Ian in the divorce.
    Soon after Adam returned from his honeymoon, Lilith had called him. She ranted that his marriage to Elizabeth was an insult to her, that it made her look foolish to her friends.
    “You never had any sense of propriety,” she told him. “This will ruin any chances you ever had of being somebody in this town. And Ian’s, too.”
    “She can’t control me or the newspaper anymore,” Adam told Elizabeth. “So she will control Ian and turn him even further against me.”
    “He’s your son, Adam,” Elizabeth said. “I’m sure he still loves you.”
    But Adam’s fears were confirmed when Ian finally came for his first visit. He was withdrawn and silent, greeting Elizabeth with indifference and cold good manners. Adam had arranged to have the day off and they went to see the new film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , which the eight-year-old Ian pronounced “a baby movie.” By the end of the weekend, Adam returned Ian to the house on Vallejo, feeling defeated.
    “Lilith’s right,” he told Elizabeth. “He’s lost to me.”
    “Oh, Adam, it’s not true,” she said. “He’s probably just very hurt and confused by the divorce.”
    “I don’t like the way he treated you.”
    “He’s just a boy, Adam,” Elizabeth said. “Don’t be so hard on him.”
    H e took her in his arms. “Let’s have a baby,” he said.
    “We’ve certainly been trying,” she said.
    “I want children,” Adam said. “A house full of them.”
    “Yes, I know , sons,” she said. “And maybe a daughter to keep me company?”
    Later, they lay quietly in each other’s arms after making love. Adam stared at the ceiling lost in his thoughts. As always, Elizabeth had surprised him with her passion and he found himself wondering more and more about Willis Reed and what kind of marriage they had had.
    “Elizabeth, are you awake?” he said.
    “Barely,” she said.
    He propped himself up on one elbow to look at her. “Why didn’t you have children with Reed?” he asked.
    She was quiet for a moment. “You’re worried that I can’t, aren’t you,” she said. “I know I can, Adam. I just know it. And we will.”
    Adam lay back again. The long silence was broken by the muted call of a fog horn.
    Elizabeth sighed and sat up against the headboard. “I should tell you something about Willis and me,” she said softly.
    Adam waited but she didn’t seem to want to go on.
    “Elizabeth, what is it? You can tell me anything, you know that.”
    She took a deep breath. “It’s not that I can’t have babies. It’s just...Willis never made love to me. Not once in ten years.”
    Adam looked at her in astonishment but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. She sat naked, slightly stoop-shouldered, her eyes on the sheets. “He was a strange man,” she whispered. “He stayed in the city and came up to the house only on the weekends. I was alone there all the time.” She paused again, her voice faltering. “On Saturday night, always at nine, he’d come up to my room. He’d sit in a chair near the bed and then order me to take my clothes off and touch myself. He sat there and watched. After a