Play Dirty

CHAPTER 10

JOE LEFT HER, AND LAURA DECIDED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE solitude in the conference room. She remained seated in the tall leather chair at the head of the table-the one in which Foster had sat the first time she saw him-and looked again at the four-color rendering of the sleek jet.

SunSouth Select was a concept that she’d been working on for more than a year. It was a service-oriented innovation for the business traveler that she hoped to implement before SunSouth’s competitors did something similar. She wanted SunSouth to be the initiator, not an imitator.

Joe seemed surprised that Foster hadn’t yet seen the syllabus. Laura had worked on it for months, and once it was done, Joe had assumed she would take it straight to Foster. “No,” she told him. “I want SunSouth Select to be a surprise. I want to present it to him as a complete package.”

“You want to have all your ducks in a row.”

“Exactly. And I’m still waiting on some market analyses and cost projections. When they’re ready and I’ve had a chance to study them, I’ll lay out the entire plan for him.”

This was uncustomary. Always before, she and Foster had worked in tandem. One rarely made a move without the other knowing about it. While it was true that she wanted to surprise him with a kit-and-caboodle proposal, it was also true that, when she did, she wanted his undivided attention. She hadn’t had that in months. He’d been preoccupied with finding the right man to sire their child.

He thought of little else, talked of little else. Every conversation included at least one reference to a child and its conception. That was the prevailing issue of their lives now. If she became pregnant, she knew that Foster would become an expert on prenatal care, diet, exercise. He would spend hours researching and committing to memory every aspect of pregnancy. No doubt he would chart their child’s development on a daily basis.

He had once been quoted in Business Week as saying that his airline’s success was in large part due to his OCD-obsessive-compulsive disorder. The interviewer thought he was joking. He wasn’t.

He had been diagnosed as an adolescent, although he had exhibited the symptoms in early childhood. His parents had thought his compulsions went hand in glove with his brilliant mind and were nothing to worry about. But when those compulsions began to interfere with normal function and everyday life, his parents had sought psychiatric help.

Foster was put on medication to keep the disorder under control. He wasn’t “healed,” however, and so in a very real sense his obsessiveness was indeed responsible for his fanatic attention to detail, and therefore for SunSouth’s extraordinary success.

Unless the weather was prohibitive, late arrivals and departures were not tolerated at SunSouth Airlines.

Each packet of peanuts contained exactly the same number. One too few, the customer was cheated. One too many cost the airline money.

Flight attendants and pilots did not alter their uniforms, not even by wearing nonregulation cuff links or an unapproved shade of panty hose.

If he’d had less charisma, Foster’s obsessiveness would have incited mutiny by subordinates. But he was so personally disarming that it was indulged. Most regarded it with amusement instead of impatience. He was even teased about it. It was looked upon as an idiosyncrasy, an endearing one at that. And no one, not even his sternest critics, could argue with his success.

But Laura had a different perspective on Foster’s OCD because she lived with it. She covered for him to keep it less noticeable to colleagues. Only she knew how much it governed his life. Increasingly so, it seemed. His compulsions were an integral part of him. Because she loved him, she accepted and tolerated them. But doing so had once been easier. Before.

Laura got up and walked to the window, rubbing her arms to ward off the chill of the air-conditioning. She twirled the wand on the blinds and looked through the slats at the traffic speeding along the expressway. A SunSouth jet, only minutes into its flight, was banking toward the west. The 3:45 to Denver, she thought automatically.

She watched the jet as it climbed, the sun reflecting off its silver fuselage, hurting her eyes when the shaft of light pierced them. But then she realized that her eyes stung with the need to cry. Resting her head against the window frame, she closed her eyes tightly, squeezing out tears. She whispered, “I want my life back.”

Foster had waited one year after Elaine’s death before asking Laura out. Initially Laura had misinterpreted the invitation, believing he had invited her to attend a black-tie charity event with him for some business purpose. But when several dozen white roses were delivered to her apartment in advance of his picking her up, she began to think perhaps there was more to it. Undeniably, the thought of that made her feel bubbly on the inside.

By the end of the evening there was no question that it had been a bona fide date. If Foster had asked any other executive-say, the CFO-to accompany him, he wouldn’t have taken hold of both his hands and kissed his cheek good night.

Their evenings out became more frequent. There were dinners together after work, sailing on area lakes on Saturday afternoons, and Sunday suppers, which she cooked at her place. She attended his polo matches, and he had no compunction about kissing her in front of his teammates after a victory. She became his regular date to private dinner parties and public events. She stopped accepting other dates, even invitations from her tennis buddy, who began teasing her about her new beau.

She couldn’t apply such a frivolous moniker to Foster Speakman, but away from the office he acted like one. The more time they spent alone together, the less chaste their embraces became. She had started devoting a lot of thought to him, his smile, his eyes, his mannerisms. She found herself engaging in gauzy daydreams about him unlike any she’d had about other men, not even in adolescence. She’d always enjoyed an active social life. She’d had a generous number of boyfriends, and enough lovers to be confident of her allure, but not so many that she need be embarrassed by the number.

But among them there were no standouts, no disappointing heartbreaks, or near-miss commitments. Because every romantic relationship she’d ever had, from the first car date to the last man she’d slept with, had been qualified. It could not interfere with her ambition.

Which now placed her in a real conundrum with Foster. Because of the professional implications, neither acknowledged their increasing intimacy and longing for more. Their kissing and groping left them fevered and frustrated, but each was determined to preserve their working relationship.

One evening while they were cuddled on the sofa in her den, watching a movie on TV, he suddenly reached for the remote and turned it off. “Thank you,” she said. “I was finding it hard to get into, too.”

“I loved Elaine with all my heart, Laura.”

Recognizing the seriousness of his tone, she sat up and looked into his face. “Yes, you did. I know that.”

“If she had lived, I would have loved her forever.”

“I don’t doubt that.”

“I’ll always cherish her memory and the years we had together.”

None of this came as a surprise to Laura. She’d seen them together on numerous occasions following that first time at their home. It was obvious how deeply they had loved each other. Since Elaine’s death, Foster had honored her by establishing a foundation to raise money for leukemia research. He wasn’t just a mouthpiece with a checkbook, either, but a crusading advocate and hands-on fundraiser. In death, as in life, Elaine was a vital part of him.

He stroked Laura’s cheek. “But Elaine is no longer here. You are. And I’m in love with you.”

He spent that night with her. Most nights following that, they spent together. In the office, they continued as they always had done, performing their individual jobs, conducting themselves in a professional manner, treating each other no differently than they treated their colleagues. They were confident no one knew about their personal relationship, but Laura learned later that they had fooled only themselves. Everyone knew.

One morning, she walked into his office unannounced and laid an envelope on his desk. “What’s that?”

“My resignation.”

He struggled to contain his smile. “We’re not paying you enough? You’ve had a better offer?”

She sat down in the chair facing his desk. “Foster, the last four months have been the happiest of my life. Also the most miserable.”

“Well, I hope that being with me has been the happy part.”

She gave him a soft look. “You know how happy I am to be with you. But the secrecy makes it seem…”

“Sordid?”

“Yes. And sleazy. I’m sleeping with my boss. As a career woman, I don’t like what that suggests about me. I don’t like the connotation co-workers would apply to it. I don’t want to give up my job. It’s what I’ve worked so hard to attain. You know how much I love it.

“But I can’t possibly give you up,” she said, her voice turning husky with emotion. “Between the two, I love you more than I love my job. So…” She gestured toward the envelope lying on his desk. “I must leave SunSouth.”

He picked up the envelope then and looked at it, turning it this way and that as though contemplating the contents. “Or,” he said, “you could marry me.”

Elaine Speakman had set a precedent by serving on the board of directors, so no one cried nepotism. No one wanted to anyway. When Foster and Laura announced their plans to the other executives and the board members, the only discussion was the date the nuptials would take place and if they would be taking a SunSouth jet on their honeymoon.

If there was watercooler talk about her marrying Foster for his money, or any other self-serving reason, Laura never knew of it. Even if she had been aware of such scuttlebutt, she would have ignored it. While some may have regarded what had happened as a Cinderella story-in those very words it had been hinted at in a newspaper column-she knew her only reason for marrying him was that she loved him wholly and completely. She couldn’t be bothered by the conjectures of mean-spirited people.

Their marriage was covered extensively in the press, although there were no pictures accompanying the stories. They kept the wedding itself private, inviting only their most intimate friends to the chapel service and the dinner following it.

Foster paid lip service to moving from his family estate, but Laura realized what a sacrifice that would be for him. He loved his family home and hugged her tightly when she told him she loved it, too, and that that was where they would stay and make their life together.

She moved in, changing very little of Elaine’s decor. Like his wealth, his love for Elaine was only another aspect of him. Laura didn’t feel threatened by his late wife’s memory, any more than she was intimidated by his fortune.

Foster would have preferred her to be pregnant by the time they returned from their honeymoon in Fiji. When she demurred, he had teased her about her biological clock. “I’m thirty-one!” she exclaimed.

He placed his ear against her lower body. “But I can hear it ticking.”

Even so, she had begged for time to be a bride before she became a mother. It was a decision that later seemed terribly selfish, and one she would always regret.

That first year they were kept busy with the burgeoning airline and settling into married life. Although Laura was to learn that “settling” was a foreign concept to her husband. The man never rested. The more he had to do, the more he got done. He was a tireless, incessant generator of energy. He had the work ethic of a Trojan but was also a proponent of la dolce vita. His enthusiasm for life and living was contagious. Laura reveled in the whirlwind of their life.

Foster used the media to his advantage, regularly feeding them tidbits of information about his airline even when there was no actual news to report, so that SunSouth was kept constantly in the minds of the public. His name, along with Laura’s, appeared frequently in the business sections of the newspapers.

They received national magazine coverage, once pictured playing doubles tennis with the president and first lady. The television newsmagazine 20/20 did a segment on them, touting them as the team that had, despite industry naysayers, resurrected a failed airline. They appeared on Good Morning America to talk about the Elaine Speakman Foundation and the medical research it was funding.

The gossip columnists who had snidely implied that Laura was a gold digger were soon extolling her intelligence, business acumen, impeccable taste, and unaffected charm. The Speakmans became the darlings of the local society pages, and their photographs began appearing regularly as hosts, guests, or sponsors of one event or another.

As they were leaving one such event, a decision was made that would change the course of their lives forever.

It was a Tuesday night. They had attended a retirement dinner for a notable Dallasite. The hotel where the dinner had been held and the Speakman estate were separated by only three miles of city streets.

When the parking valet brought up Foster’s car, Laura went around to the driver’s side. “You toasted him more times than I did,” she said.

“I’m fine to drive.”

“Why chance it?”

She got behind the wheel. He sat in the passenger seat. They were talking about the next day’s agenda. She had just reminded him of a meeting the following afternoon. “I have a busy day,” he remarked. “Any chance we could change that?”

Then everything changed.

The driver of a delivery truck ran a red light, an error that cost him his life. Opposed to wearing a seat belt, he was ejected from his truck through the windshield.

Otherwise he might have had to be cut from the mishmash of metal caused by the collision, as Foster had been. The cab of the truck fused with the passenger side of Foster’s sedan. It took rescue workers over four hours to extricate him from the wreckage.

Laura was rendered unconscious by the impact. She came to in the ambulance, and her first thought was of her husband. Her rising hysteria concerned the paramedics treating her. They answered honestly, “We don’t know about your husband, ma’am.”

It was agonizing hours before she was told that he was alive but that his condition was critical. She learned later that he underwent emergency surgery to repair extensive internal injuries causing life-threatening hemorrhage. Because she had sustained only a concussion, a broken arm, some scrapes and bruising, she was finally permitted into the ICU, where Foster struggled to survive. Specialists came and went. In hushed voices they conferred. None looked optimistic.

Days passed; Foster clung to life. Laura kept vigil at his bedside while monitors telegraphed in blips and beeps his extraordinary will to live.

In all, he had six operations. From the outset, she realized that the orthopedists knew he would never walk again, but they performed the surgeries as though there was hope. They used pins and screws to reattach bones that would never move unless someone moved them for him. Other specialists spliced blood vessels to provide better circulation. He underwent a second abdominal surgery to repair a tear in his colon that had gone undetected during the first.

She couldn’t remember what the other surgeries were for.

It wasn’t until weeks after the accident that Foster was fully apprised of his condition and prognosis. He took the news with remarkable aplomb, courage, and confidence.

When they were alone, he reached for Laura’s hand, pressed it between his, and reassured her that everything would be all right. He looked at her with unqualified love and repeatedly expressed his gratitude to God that she had escaped the accident without serious injury.

He never implied that she was responsible. But as she gazed down at him through her tears that day, she said what she knew must have crossed his mind, as it had hers a thousand times. “I should have let you drive.”

Two years later, staring sightlessly through the window in SunSouth’s conference room, she was still anguishing over her decision to drive that night. Would Foster have driven a bit faster, a bit slower, preventing them from being in the center of the intersection when the truck failed to stop? Would he have seen it ahead of time and swerved to avoid the collision? Would he have done something she hadn’t?

Or, if fate had dictated that they were in that spot at that precise moment, she should have been the one sitting in the passenger seat.

Foster had never suggested she was to blame. He had never even referenced their brief conversation about how much each had had to drink and who should drive. But, although it remained unspoken, the question was always there between them: Would this have happened if he’d been behind the wheel?

Laura acknowledged how pointless it was to ask. Even so, the suppositions tortured her, as she knew they must Foster. They would go to their graves asking, What if?

Griff Burkett had somehow learned about the accident. She hadn’t stayed to have a conversation with him about it, but if he knew the details of why Foster was in his wheelchair, he surely understood why she would go along with this or any plan Foster devised.

Foster hadn’t died, but his previous life had ended the night of the wreck. And Laura was left guilt-ridden.

Having a child, conceiving it in the way Foster wished, demanded very little of her, considering everything he’d had to give up. A child and heir was one of the dreams that had been snatched from him that night. Maybe by granting him that dream, she would relieve her guilt and, by doing so, get back a portion of her former life.

Impatient with her self-pity, she turned away from the window. As she did so, a pinching sensation between her legs caused her to wince, as much from the memory it evoked as from the physical discomfort.

It had been difficult for Griff Burkett to penetrate her. That she was dry and inflexible said much about the status of her private life, and that had been mortifying. But at least he’d had the sensitivity to realize her condition and to hesitate. He’d even seemed reluctant to proceed, knowing it would hurt her. In fact, he had…

No. She wouldn’t think about it. Wouldn’t think about him. Doing so would make it personal. If it became personal, her argument wouldn’t hold. The argument she’d used to convince herself to go along with Foster’s plan was that using a surrogate father to conceive was just as clinical as, and no more emotionally involving than, undergoing artificial insemination in the sterile environment of a doctor’s office.

But the tenderness between her thighs was a taunting reminder that she had been with a man. A man moving inside her. Climaxing inside her.

How could she have thought for one foolish moment that it would feel clinical?