Chapter 1 #3
“Let’s do it,” he said, set the pen down and stood up, and broke into a smile.
“That’s my final offer. They’ll take it, they have no other choice now.
They’ll be bankrupt if they don’t and their employees will blame them.
If they take my offer, they can blame me.
I don’t mind at all.” He walked out of the conference room then and back to his office, with his back straight and the stride of a winner.
He left the others to break the news to the owners he was buying from.
They were closing the deal for less money than they had hoped for, and all of their employees would be out of work, as the ships would head for dry dock.
There would be hundreds of men out of jobs this Christmas, but it couldn’t be helped.
John Williams always got the deals he wanted.
He was a fearless negotiator, and it always paid off.
He led a charmed life. He had always felt that way, except for the last nine months, since he had lost Helen.
Even victory no longer tasted as sweet without her.
And he took it as a personal failure, a mortal blow, that he hadn’t been able to save her. He would never forgive himself for it.
—
The night before Isabelle’s dinner party John found his dinner jacket, and everything that went with it.
Isabelle’s guess had been correct, it was several sizes too large now, as he had lost a great deal of weight since his wife died.
The night of the party, he sat down in a chair in his bedroom, laced his black patent leather shoes, and stood up to look in the mirror when he tied his black satin bow tie.
Helen had always done it for him when they went to formal dinners and events, and he couldn’t get it as perfect as she did.
It was slightly crooked as he draped a white silk scarf around his neck and put on a black overcoat.
He looked far more handsome than he realized.
Part of his charm was that he didn’t realize how strikingly handsome he was, and didn’t care about his looks.
He had been much more struck by Helen’s beauty than his own.
It felt strange to be all dressed up in black tie and going out alone for the first time. It made him feel lonelier than ever.
His driver, Sam, was waiting for him downstairs as he left his penthouse apartment in the Trump Tower on East Fifty-Sixth Street and Fifth Avenue.
It was filled with all the art and books and things Helen had loved and they had collected together.
John slipped into the backseat of his car.
He exchanged a few words with Sam, and they drove uptown to Isabelle’s spacious duplex apartment on Park Avenue, the same one where she had lived with Steve, and where their daughter had grown up.
There was a strange déjà vu for John about the whole evening.
The apartment was already full of people when he walked in and gave one of the waiters his scarf and coat, and Isabelle came over quickly to greet him, kissed him on the cheek, and tucked a hand into his arm and walked him into the living room, where he saw a sea of familiar faces and was sorry he had come.
Being there without Helen hit him like a wrecking ball for a moment and left him speechless.
He hated knowing that everyone felt sorry for him now.
It made him feel like a loser. He was a winner in everything else, but he had lost his wife, and most of the guests were there in couples, except him and Isabelle and a few others.
He was the odd man out. Isabelle went to greet her other guests, and he helped himself to a glass from a silver tray and took a long swallow of champagne to bolster him.
He greeted a number of people he knew, and noticed a cluster of young people standing near the fireplace drinking champagne and martinis.
They were a sophisticated-looking group, and he noticed that some of the girls were very pretty, and they all looked lively and happy, and stayed among themselves rather than mingling with the older guests, who outnumbered them.
They were younger than Gabby and Angela.
They looked to be somewhere in their twenties, at most thirty.
Gabby was thirty-six and seemed much older.
Isabelle’s younger group looked like kids to him.
Isabelle checked on John regularly during the cocktail hour.
He had found a small cluster of men he knew and played tennis with, which made him more comfortable.
They were deep in conversation about politics, and he seemed engaged and happier than when he walked in.
When they moved into the dining room, John saw that Isabelle had seated him next to herself at dinner, so she could keep an eye on him and cheer him up if he looked sad to be at a gathering without his late wife.
It was the first party he had been to without Helen in forty years, which was shocking when he thought about it, and he was trying not to.
One of the men congratulated him on his purchase of the shipping line he had just bought, and John thanked him.
“I hear you made quite a killing on it. You always do,” his acquaintance said admiringly.
“The right opportunities turn up at the right time sometimes,” John said modestly.
“They’ve been ready to sell for a while.
They couldn’t run it without their father and they didn’t want to.
So I stepped in at the opportune moment.
” He didn’t admit that he’d been watching their downward spiral for months, ready to catch them as they fell.
The guests had been invited for eight o’clock, and sat down to dinner at nine promptly.
Isabelle ran a tight ship and entertained beautifully.
The house was elegantly decorated for Christmas and looked very festive, with Christmas music on the sound system.
The guests looked for their name cards at the dining table and sat down.
John had the place of honor at Isabelle’s right, and was surprised when one of the young women sat down next to him on his other side and smiled at him.
She had long, straight, dark brown hair and green eyes, and was wearing a very chic short black strapless cocktail dress.
Some of the older women were wearing long gowns, but the young ones were all wearing short cocktail dresses.
The young woman glanced at his place card.
“Hi, John, I’m Lillith,” she said. She was beautiful and it stunned him into silence for a moment, and then he greeted her appropriately and she turned to the good-looking young man seated on her other side, as Isabelle leaned toward John and whispered.
“I thought I’d give you someone pretty to look at, since you’re stuck with me for dinner,” she said, smiling at him. Isabelle was wearing a silver gown and looked beautiful. She had a perfect figure.
“Hardly. The poor thing must feel like she got stuck with her grandfather,” he whispered back, relieved she had someone young to talk to on her other side. It took the pressure off him to find something to say that she’d be interested in. She seemed very warm and friendly, as well as beautiful.
When Isabelle turned to the man on her left after the first course, John dutifully turned to the girl next to him, who had said her name was Lillith, and asked if she was going home for the holidays. It was all he could think of to say.
“Actually, no, I’m not.” He guessed her to be somewhere in her early twenties.
“My parents are divorced, and this year our plans are a little sketchy. My father is going helicopter skiing in Canada with his girlfriend, and my mother is having a baby in L.A. with her new husband, twins actually, and it’s going to be crazy, so I’m staying in New York.
I work at an interior design firm that does work for Isabelle, and she very kindly invited me tonight. ”
“Are you a designer?” he asked her, feeling odd talking to someone so young. It felt like interviewing her for a job.
“Yes, I am. I went to Parsons, and I’m an interior designer, but I’m not senior enough at the firm to do Isabelle’s bigger work on my own.”
“Did you just graduate?” he asked her, and she laughed, and looked into his eyes. She had noticed how handsome he was.
“Thank you for the compliment. No, I graduated five years ago. I’m twenty-seven,” she said, as though it was a great age, and he was surprised.
She was nine years younger than Gabby, but she looked even younger.
But Gabby was very serious, didn’t do anything to enhance her looks, and rarely wore makeup.
It shocked him when he realized that the girl he was talking to was thirty-nine years younger than he was.
“And where are you spending the holidays?” she asked him.
She kept it generic, since he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring and she didn’t know if he was married.
He had only taken it off recently, because it made him sad to wear it. It was a constant reminder of Helen.
“I’m going to St. Barth,” he said simply. He didn’t say on his yacht.
“I went there last year and I loved it,” she said, seeming bubbly and fun and easier to talk to than he had feared. The young man on her other side reclaimed her a few minutes later and John turned back to Isabelle.
“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asked him, with a mischievous look.
“I nearly asked her how school was. She looks about twenty,” he said, still startled, but she seemed grown-up when he talked to her. She was poised, polite, bright, and upbeat.
“She’s a very talented designer, and a very nice girl. The poor thing has a screwed-up family and she’s going to be alone for Christmas, so I invited her tonight.” She was another of Isabelle’s charity cases, as he was, he realized.
“She must have about ten boyfriends.”
“I don’t think so. She works very hard.”