Betrayals by Carla Neggers

bristled. “Who are you to talk to me about love? Get out of my house.”
    Jean-Paul ignored her. “And your company,” he went on. “Winston & Reed is your triumph. It would never have amounted to anything if your husband had lived. How fortunate he died, hmm? You’re the Winston. You were alwaysthe one with the money and intelligence, but you insisted on being the perfect Boston woman and wife—until Benjamin’s death freed you. A widow can get away with so much more, can’t she? Yes. Look at Annette Reed, bravely carrying on alone.”
    “Get out, Jean-Paul.” Her voice was low and deadly, but the Vietnamese guard remained impassive, not moving until she specifically instructed him to.
    Jean-Paul persevered. “You always loved to take risks. It used to be you could satisfy your zest for risk by going to bed with the kind of man I once was.” He made himself smile and move toward her, until he was so close he could have taken her into his arms. Better a viper, he thought. But he lowered his voice and exaggerated his French accent, “Aah, ma belle, you were a passionate woman. Have you put all that passion into your company?”
    She pushed him away. “Go to hell.”
    Jean-Paul laughed. “We’ll go together, ma belle. ” Then he moved in close again, daring her to touch him; he saw her wince at the foulness of his breath and the ugliness of his scars. “I can destroy your son, and I can destroy your company. Quentin and Winston & Reed. Imagine them gone. What would you have left?”
    For a moment she was expressionless, saying nothing. But Jean-Paul could see beneath the composed facade, could sense how angry she was—and frightened. Could he do it? Would he? Annette might like risks, but she wanted them to be on her own terms. She hated losing control. With Jean-Paul, she had lost control thirty years ago and had tried to drive him out of her life for good.
    “Don’t threaten me,” she said, but her voice cracked. She licked her lips. Without lipstick, they seemed pale and thin. Still, she had never been vain about her appearance. “No one will believe anything you say about Quentin or about me. I’ll have you locked up for the raving lunatic you are.”
    Unaffected by her outburst, Jean-Paul walked to the table and fingered a chunk of rose quartz Annette used as a paperweight. “Mai Sloan’s a pretty child, isn’t she?” he commented, without looking at her.
    “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen her, Jean-Paul. She’s just fourteen—”
    Annette broke off, and Jean-Paul could tell she was getting nervous. The more uneasy she became, the more relaxed he felt. She was a formidable opponent, and to get what he wanted, he had to keep her off balance. Or she would win. Again.
    He looked at her. “Get me the Jupiter Stones.”
    “Jean-Paul,” she said in a whisper, “let the past be.”
    “I can’t,” he replied and left her standing amidst her expensive antiques, her bodyguard’s eyes following him as he disappeared.
     
    Not until she heard the back door shut and his footfall on the cobblestone carriageway outside the open window behind her did Annette move. Then, clutching her chest as her heart throbbed painfully, she flung herself into the hall, running to the front parlor, tripping and stumbling along the way, her vision blurred by tears.
    She got to the window in time to see him go through the wrought-iron gate onto the brick sidewalk.
    Jean-Paul Gerard.
    He wasn’t even the ghost of the robust, cocky young race-car driver he’d been thirty years ago. His horrible face would give her worse nightmares than she already had about him, night after night. He seemed so shrunken andpitiful and old. Yet he was younger than she was. His yellowed, skeletal smile had stirred up her fears of dying, and she’d have given him the Jupiter Stones, just to be rid of him.
    If she’d had them.
    She watched him limp down the shaded brick sidewalk of Mt. Vernon toward Charles Street until he was out