Chapter 12
Lillith hadn’t heard from John in a week.
She was used to it by now. He came in and out of her life whenever he felt like it, on any day, at any hour.
The hope of moving in together had waned.
He never mentioned it anymore, and he wasn’t asking her to give up her job.
Sometimes he was wildly passionate, or tender and affectionate.
At other times, he was dark and brooding.
He never explained why. He never asked to meet her friends, or about what she did when he wasn’t with her.
He lived in his own world, and entered hers whenever he felt like it, just as he did her body.
And she allowed it because she believed that she was in love with him.
He rarely called to warn her he was coming over.
He just showed up, had the key and let himself in, and usually wanted to have sex with her as soon as he laid eyes on her.
There was something about her that drove him wild with desire.
He had to have her when he wanted her. At times he was exquisitely sensual with her, and at other times he took her with such force it left her breathless and in pain.
She could tell if he was angry when he got to her apartment.
Sometimes he told her why, and at other times he barely spoke to her and his mind was somewhere else.
He stayed with her for days occasionally and she loved it, even when he barely talked to her.
And sometimes he was only there long enough to make love to her, then dressed and left, as though he had an appointment somewhere else.
It wasn’t a relationship based on mutual respect, she realized now.
It was based on his carnal and sexual needs, which he expected her to satisfy whenever he wanted, in whatever way that pleased him in the moment.
At times Lillith was ashamed of the relationship they had, and she was acutely aware that he was using her.
But however quixotic and unpredictable he was, he was so big and powerful and exciting to be with that she was sure she loved him.
It was like an addiction. And the thought of losing him and not having him in her life terrified her.
She didn’t know how she would live without him.
He hadn’t been back to the boat since January, but he had promised to take her the next time he went.
She had begun to realize that it was a mutual addiction.
He needed her as badly as she needed him, which reassured her.
She realized that it wasn’t a healthy relationship but it was the only one she had, the only affection, the only human touch in her life, and she didn’t want to leave him.
He occasionally asked her if she needed money, and gave her some cash, but she was mainly self-supporting.
She was no longer surprised when she didn’t see him for a week.
He had mentioned an article coming out in Vanity Fair, and he was worried about it.
He had warned her not to talk to them if they called.
When Charlotte called, Lillith had told her she couldn’t talk to her or answer any questions.
She didn’t know what the final slant of the article was going to be.
But she read the newspapers closely, and had followed the whole saga of the shipping line John had bought, and the men he had put out of work.
He was getting a lot of bad press, and she felt sorry for him.
She knew it upset him. On the day of a particularly bad story in the press he almost always showed up, and was rough when he had sex with her, as though making love with her was the only thing that gave him relief and brought him comfort.
—
When Lillith went to work on Monday morning, her boss told her that Isabelle had a new project and had requested that Lillith work on it with her.
The head designer whispered to her that she thought Isabelle had a new man in her life.
She hadn’t said so, but she wanted to reconfigure her closets and build a dressing room for him, and Lillith was to be discreet about it.
It sounded like a fun project. Isabelle wanted Lillith to come and see her that morning and they would figure it out together.
Lillith always loved working with Isabelle.
She was such a nice person, she had great taste and fun ideas, and the head designer was willing to let her work on it alone.
There was no glory to it, it was just a useful project.
When Lillith arrived at the apartment, Isabelle was delighted to see her.
They had coffee in the kitchen, and then they went to study her closets, decide which ones she could do without, and move the clothes to another room.
Isabelle was going to take some of them to the Hamptons, and she was thinking of giving up a guest room to create an additional closet.
Lillith had brought a sketch pad with her, and she followed Isabelle to the space she wanted to commit to the new dressing room.
They talked about some ideas, Lillith took the measurements, and by lunchtime she was back at the office, making some computer drawings to show Isabelle the options.
There had been some men’s jeans and jackets and suits in one of the closets, so their guess had been correct.
Isabelle had a man in her life, for the first time since her husband died.
Lillith was happy for her. Isabelle had been girlish with her, and seemed a little embarrassed, which Lillith thought was sweet.
The computer renderings came out well. They had come up with four options, and Lillith emailed them to her after lunch.
Isabelle had a busy life and was often slow to respond.
Lillith didn’t hear from her that day, or for the next week, which didn’t worry her.
She had plenty of other things to do in the office.
They kept her busy, and they had several new clients after a big spread in Architectural Digest. It was a busy design firm, and Lillith enjoyed her work.
There was a buzz in the office that afternoon, about an article in Vanity Fair.
She didn’t pay attention to it at first. It was supposedly a knockout.
It wasn’t about one of their clients, but someone everybody knew.
There was a copy of the magazine on someone’s desk, and Lillith picked it up and thumbed through it to see who it was, and halfway through, she found herself staring at John’s face.
It was a very handsome photo, but the things they said about him were shocking.
It talked about two men committing suicide after he fired hundreds of people.
She knew about the layoffs, and John had told her that they weren’t his fault, they were someone else’s—the previous owners, the union bosses, and the men themselves.
The article wasn’t emotional, it was almost clinical, listing all the things he had supposedly done, the two suicides, all the men who had been laid off, other people who had been unfairly fired, businesses he had destroyed and taken apart piece by piece.
There was a long list of his heartless misdeeds, and at the very end, the worst one, the rape of a young woman.
It sounded premeditated since he had sexually abused her four years before, and when the opportunity presented itself and he was alone with her years later, he brutally raped her.
Lillith felt breathless as she read it. Some of the behaviors the article described, cited by an anonymous source, were things he did to her at times.
He came across as heartless, with total disregard for other humans, and the rape was the worst of all.
It was a terrible article. She thought it couldn’t be true.
She wanted to call him to comfort him, but she didn’t dare.
She didn’t believe most of it. Someone was clearly out to get him and hurt him, and the rape victim was probably lying too, Lillith thought.
The man she knew was harsh at times and mercurial, but she didn’t believe him capable of what the article claimed.
She was sure he would sue them. She was shocked by what she read.
—
At the magazine, Henry had John on speakerphone, so Charlotte could hear him, and she was silent in the room, so he didn’t know she was there.
“I want that bitch fired today!” John was roaring like a lion, and it was obvious he meant Charlotte.
“I was in a mess before this. This piece was supposed to calm it down, to say nice things about me, not this shit. She must be out to destroy me, and you can be damn sure I’m going to sue you.
I’ll own the goddamn magazine when this is over.
And I want her head on a platter now. I want her out the door by the end of the day.
And what’s this horseshit about a rape? I never raped anyone.
That’s insane. I was a happily married man then.
How dare she throw that at me! Was someone paying her to damage me?
” He meant Charlotte again. She sat very still as she listened to him rage.
“Of course not. She was only reporting what she was told. The piece was carefully researched. We always check our sources. And in the case of the rape, we saw the police report and the hospital report from Cedars-Sinai before we ran it. A person with reliable credentials informed us and we had to check it out.”
“And I remember that little prick-tease you claim I raped. She came on to me, she was standing in her underwear, soaking wet, and damn near tore my clothes off. She tried to get me to screw her when she was a teenager. I refused, and she got even with me years later. I can sue all of you for defamation. The girl never named me to the police.” Charlotte had carefully disguised Angela in the article but John knew exactly who it was, which was damning evidence against him.