The Senator’s Daughter Page 3

  He tamped it down so he wouldn’t get carried away.

  Nice peach wallpaper, but whoa. A stain that could only be red wine, as though someone had thrown a full goblet at the wall.

  “Looks like somebody spilled their drink,” he commented, snapping on more lights.

  Sylvia turned from rummaging in a kitchen drawer and made a disgusted face. “I let Rory Campbell get me mad one night. Threw it after he went out the door.”

  Lyle slipped out of his shoes and padded in wet socks onto the kitchen tiles. “Remind me not to rile you.”

  But didn’t Sylvia have a right to be upset? She’d been treated shabbily, a bargaining chip in some modern-day medieval matchmaking. Thank God Rory had stood up to parental tyranny and married the woman he really loved or Lyle wouldn’t be standing here.

  He very much liked being where he was.

  Sylvia came up with a red terry dish towel and tossed it to him. He used it to dry his face and ruffled it through his dripping hair.

  She wiped her arms and chest with another, drawing his focus to her cleavage. Moving closer, he looked down into her vibrant eyes. “Would you say you’re over Campbell?”

  Sylvia brushed back her damp hair that had fallen over her forehead, reached into the drawer for another towel, and approached him. “Did you know you have lipstick all over?”

  Lyle shook his head.

  Gently, she wiped his mouth and gave his cheek a light scrub.

  Everything in him went on alert. Though she stood without brushing her body against his, her musky rain-drenched aroma set off another flashbulb. In this vivid image, he dragged her against him and she came along, giving him a press of full breasts against his chest the way she had at Ice. He’d splay his hand across her bare back, locate the zipper …

  Mind you, he only wanted to help her out of that wet outfit so she didn’t get a chill.

  Lord, how fantastic that would be. Even better than their public embrace, for there was nobody here to interrupt what this might lead to. As she had no doubt intended, he dropped getting an answer to his question about Rory.

  While he was getting up his nerve to carry out his fantasy, she drew back. “There. You look like the proper DA again.”

  Lyle sighed. He’d always relished his untarnished reputation, but the way she said it made him feel dull.

  “You’re still wet, though,” she went on.

  The kitchen towels having done little to dry him, he got to thinking about hot water and getting his back scrubbed. Too bad the proper DA wasn’t the kind of guy who brought up something like that on the first date.

  Setting the lipstick-stained towel on the counter, Sylvia murmured, “Why don’t I draw a bath?”

  As soon as the words were out, she regretted them. All she had intended to offer was a chance for Lyle to warm up … privately … but the sudden darkening of his blue eyes told her he’d taken it wrong.

  Sylvia wanted to stamp her foot or sit down on the floor and cry. Playing provocative, her stock in trade that had served in the past, had gone sour in a single season. First, she had realized it was wrong for Rory, and now with Lyle it seemed even worse. On the other hand, how could she break her habit of flirting, which she’d developed to an art?

  Casting about for a way to change the subject, she looked at the wall clock. “Almost eleven. Maybe we ought to put on the tube and see what those bozos do to us.”

  The light in Lyle’s eyes subsided.

  Though she’d wanted his sensual expression subdued, her first reaction was disappointment. The way he’d looked at her had been obvious, but she’d detected nothing cheap in it.

  Confusing images of stripping this man down and getting them both beneath a steaming shower warred with knowing he would find it one more reason to think her a tramp.

  Going to her living room, she located the remote, pointed it at her big-screen TV, and zapped it on.

  Lyle followed. She noted that, rather than sit on her beige leather couches in his wet clothes, he stood shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  The “On the Spot” logo came up, and the theme music swelled. Sylvia gave Lyle a nervous glance. He wasn’t looking at her.

  To her relief, they weren’t on first. The lead story showcased the shocking disappearance of well-known developer Tony Valetti. Over a week now and no one could account for the man who had driven to work downtown one morning and never come home. His calendar had been full in the a.m.; he’d made all his meetings. After lunch he had been in his private office, at least his administrative assistant had thought so. Around seven p.m., after a call from his wife, Janine, who had expected to meet him at a dinner party, his staff opened the closed door.

  An alien spaceship might have beamed him up.

  Next, the spotlight fell upon Tony’s vintner brother Andre, whose Villa Valetti was considered one of the best boutique wineries in the northern Napa Valley. The feature, true to the show’s form, was not about his medal-winning vintages, or his stunning estate north of Calistoga. Rather, the speculation was that if Tony had angered someone and met with foul play, his brother might be next.

  “What a bunch of bunk,” Sylvia said. “Do they think they’re Mafia?”

  Lyle made a neutral sound, and it was their turn in the spotlight.

  Over footage of them kissing, the voice-over, “Party girl Sylvia Chatsworth is at it again. On the rebound from Rory Campbell, she sets her sights on Lyle Thomas. But we can’t help wondering how brief a candle burns for these two.”

  They switched to Castillo’s soundtrack recorded at Ice. “Looks like Sylvia’s found a new amour …”

  Her face heated while Lyle watched their embrace with an impassive expression. When they did a cut to him with his livid face smeared with lipstick, he didn’t look as collected.

  With the reporter’s verbal taunt edited out, all the City saw was Lyle bring up his fist and then let his arm drop. “It’s not worth it.”

  “Sylvia Chatsworth isn’t worth it,” Julio Castillo finished.

  Lyle’s cell phone rang. He jumped.

  His eyes met Sylvia’s across the room. She pointed the remote like a gun; the TV went dark.

  He fumbled for the phone in his wet pants pocket, wishing the rain had deep-sixed the damned thing. Though he didn’t want to answer, Sylvia’s expression said the climate here couldn’t get much colder.

  Flipping the top, he put it to his ear. “Lyle Thomas.”

  “Mr. Thomas,” shouted his boss’s boss, District Attorney David Dickerson. “Would it be too much trouble to tell me what you’re doing behaving like a tom with a she-cat in public?”

  “Sir,” Lyle tempered, imagining the scowl on Dickerson’s pale moon face. The DA had a tendency to make an anthill into the Matterhorn.

  “Don’t ‘sir’ me. You’ve been Mr. Conservative; trying to fit the mold you know I demand in a prosecutor. Well, you showed your true colors tonight, mister.”

  Lyle thought about saying Sylvia had kissed him, but after watching his heated response televised, that would be preposterous.

  Across her living room, she stood wide-eyed. He knew she could hear every syllable the DA uttered.

  “I hardly think my personal life—” Lyle tried.

  “Your personal life begins and ends with your public image. Larry … Senator Chatsworth is a respected figure with a cross to bear. Your taking up with his tramp of a daughter is a career-limiting move …”

  Sylvia turned and fled to the bedroom, which Lyle had briefly imagined being invited into. On instinct, he made his choice. “I have to go.”

  Folding his phone, Lyle started to cross the carpet.

  The bedroom door slammed. In three strides, he was knocking. “Sylvia!”

  No answer.

  “Come on, let me in.” How awful she must feel, but he did, too, and he needed to tell her that.

  Silence.

  “My boss is a buffoon. Working for him is a constant trial.” Cringing at his uninte
ntional pun, he thought about trying the doorknob.

  She should be the one to let him in.

  “Sylvia. When you kissed me … we can’t let other people decide it was cheap. It was fantastic.”

  “Don’t you hear yourself?” she protested from within. “You’re talking about sex! There’s more to me than that.”

  The lock snapped.

  Sylvia sat against her bedroom door, hugging her knees. From the silence in her town house, Lyle was long gone.

  Still, she stayed behind the security of the lock.

  Not worth it. If Julio Castillo had said it, she might have shaken it off.

  The words had been Lyle’s.

  When he’d followed her home, she’d dared to hope.

  Now their fate was sealed. Though she’d been flattered by his evident arousal, any red-blooded male would have had the same response. Nobody with a career as promising as Lyle would let a “tramp” stand in the way of advancement.

  To her amazement, she found that hurt more than she expected.

  For another ten minutes, Sylvia remained in a ball on the floor, listening to the silence. Then she rose, unzipped, and stepped out of her clammy leather dress and dumped it on the bathroom tile. As Lyle had said about his suit, it was ruined.

  Chilled, she went to her closet and pulled on a black fleece robe, a departure from her usual lacy lingerie. Finally, Sylvia unlocked her bedroom door and opened it.

  The place was deserted.

  How would she have felt if Lyle had been waiting on a kitchen stool with coffee brewing? Giving her a lazy grin that invited the rest of the world to go to hell?

  She’d been close enough to know he didn’t wear tinted contacts like some pretenders. His hair of gold, cut close at his ears and longer on top, was fine enough to glint in the light, yet with a little wave above his collar. Then there was his body, shoulders and chest full, but tapered to a narrow waist and well-defined buttocks, the powerful thighs of an athlete … what made it all work was that beyond the external trappings, she sensed Lyle Thomas was the genuine article.

  Something in his kiss had felt honest and whole. And somehow inevitable, as though her whole life had been a journey to that moment when her will and strength joined his.

  And, because he was a nice guy, he wasn’t slouched on her couch hoping to find out what was under her robe.

  Mist blew in arching veils during Lyle’s walk back down the Embarcadero to his warehouse loft. He saw no sign of the white press van.

  Once home, he stripped off his wet clothes and decided on a hot shower. Even with it, he wasn’t sure when he lay down he’d be able to sleep.

  Taking a calming breath, he surveyed his newly decorated digs. He enjoyed his creature comforts, a hangover from being raised on the valley dirt farm. But he wasn’t going to think about poverty and going to school hungry, counting the hours until the free lunch was served. Not when he wanted to find Julio Castillo and throttle him.

  Lyle had known a consequence of success in the DA’s office would be publicity. However, he’d imagined it would be balanced, based on his achievements. If he did a good job, the kudos would follow.

  Going from window to window, he closed the louvered blinds over tall windows set in red brick walls. Then he entered his walled-off bath.

  This evening, he wasn’t able to appreciate the natural slate, the tub big enough for a party. All he wanted was the rush of soothing water over his naked shoulders.

  Lyle reached in and adjusted the knobs, waiting for the warm. As he did, he glanced at his reflection in the mirrored wall above a pair of double sinks … his decorator had convinced him to hedge his bets and put in two. On the off chance someone like Sylvia Chatsworth might deign to join him in his bath, his bed …

  He had a bad case.

  The water was steaming. Lyle stepped under the spray and inhaled the rich humidity. He turned in a full circle, getting wet all over. On the farm where he’d grown up, there’d been raw soap made of lye and lard. No wonder he now preferred hard-milled cakes scented with sandalwood.

  While he plucked the bar from his soap dish and lathered his hands, Sylvia’s dark eyes seemed to gaze at him. What he’d give for another of the kisses she’d planted on him in front of the camera.

  On the other hand, he ought to be angry. His boss had gone ballistic, and Lyle would have a hell of a time explaining on Monday morning.

  He scrubbed his shoulders and chest, fingers moving over the curling blond hair that defined his body.

  Sylvia.

  Tonight, she’d been all he’d imagined and more. Snapping obsidian eyes, hair he could imagine trailing over his torso while she … Lyle groaned, his soapy hands moving south.

  Water poured over him; images of her naked flooded his consciousness. Those breasts would be more than a handful, with swelling areolas. He’d bend and capture a nipple—he imagined them as a sweet carnation hue—and suck the ripening bud between his lips.

  And oh, that narrow waist and swelling hips that he’d grab to pick her up and lower her onto his swelling sex. Braced against the warm slate wall, her legs around his waist, her head thrown back, throat corded as she cried out in sweet agony. Waves of contractions inside her would send him over the edge …

  Lyle twisted the taps. When he stepped out of the shower, he saw himself in the mirror before the steam cloud hit. Flushed of face, ready as he’d ever be, and what a waste.

  The tabloids said Sylvia was a trollop. Well, right now, he wished she were here and every bit of what they said.

  He barely toweled off, then went and threw himself on his big bed. Ran his hands over the mattress at his sides, touched his thighs. His lips seemed swollen, as though Sylvia’s mouth had left some magic elixir. His palms felt full, imagining how it would be to slide them over her bare skin. If she were here, he’d be hard pressed to hold back. Even if they’d done it in the shower, he’d be ready again. To kiss her smooth neck, bring back the tautness to ripe nipples and hear her intake of breath that said round two had begun.

  With a groan, he rolled onto his stomach.

  When morning broke over the Bay, sunny after last night’s rain, Lyle rose and had another shower. Dressed in khaki slacks and a golf shirt, he balled up his bed-sheets and threw them in the washing machine.

  In the kitchen, he located his cache of Sumatra decaf coffee beans and poured a generous measure into the grinder he kept on the granite counter. After the way he’d grown up, living well was a religion.

  At the push of a button, the machine whirred, beans clacked, and the aroma of coffee rose. Transferring the coarse grind to a filter basket, he started his coffeemaker.

  While he waited, he leaned against the custom cypress cabinets and surveyed the stainless-steel restaurant appliances he’d paid extra for. He planned to entertain and wanted the place classy.

  With coffee made and poured into a thick white mug, Lyle padded barefoot across the gleaming hardwood to the glass door leading out onto his roof deck. He had the top floor of the renovated warehouse overlooking the Bay.

  Across the wide Embarcadero were the docks and the renovated ferry terminal with its clock tower, farmers’ market, and restaurants. It wasn’t foggy this morning, but crystal bright. To his right, close enough to loom large, the Bay Bridge stretched away to forested Yerba Buena Island with the cranes of Oakland’s port beyond.

  Lyle went to the waist-high rail and sipped coffee laced with real cream and raw sugar. He could afford the extra calories; he lifted weights and ran on a track at a downtown health club daily.

  People often commented he must have been a linesman in high-school football. When it happened, he just smiled; his physique had developed bending to pick onions and tomatoes in the fields.

  While the sun moved higher, he contemplated phoning up his college buddy Cliff Ames and seeing about a round of golf. An investigator with the U.S. attorney’s office in the Department of Justice, Cliff got together with Lyle for male banter at least twice a w
eek. But without a reservation they’d be unlikely to get a tee time on such a beautiful Saturday morning.

  Golf. Another pursuit of perfection Lyle associated with ladies and gentlemen.

  Down in the valley, his eccentric father, James, still held on to the last few acres of the family farm, bounded by corporate spreads and a golf course community. The money sent him by his only son kept him in pork-and-beans and Pepsi. Lyle’s mother had been gone since he was ten.

  Disappeared.

  A word with the power to make his stomach clench.

  When Maddie Thomas first turned up missing, Lyle assumed she’d gone off somewhere because she was angry at Pop. She’d be back in a few hours.

  Hours became days while the knot in her son’s middle tightened. Weeks, and Lyle went to the Catholic church where his family were not members, wiggled onto the wooden confessional seat, and poured out a ten-year-old’s recitation of sin, real and imagined. If only God would send back his …

  Mama.

  Saying the word aloud, or just screaming it in his head, still had the power to make his breath stop and tears sting his eyelids.

  The one bright thing in his young life, Mama been the one to bring library books from town, which his father said interfered with his chores. Without white sugar and flour to bake with like other kids’ mothers, she had concocted delightful sweets from windfall apples waiting to rot on the neighbor’s lawn and honey cadged from hives at the edge of the onion fields. She’d kept an immaculate house and sent Lyle to school every day wearing a threadbare but clean shirt because, “Pride is all poor people got.”

  Twenty-two years later, Lyle still had dreams the phone would ring and he’d hear her smoker’s gravelly voice. “You there, son?”

  There was something particularly terrible about not knowing. It set the restless mind to concoct a thousand stories.