“It’s freedom for us.”He took her fingers away and held them.“Do you know how often I’ve thought of killing him?I mean, actually committing murder?Catching him in an alley and beating him to death?Bludgeoning him with a baseball bat?Running him over with my car?I’m not proud of those thoughts, but they come, and I hate him more for making me think them.”He eased his grip.“But I’m gonna do it right, Pam.I’m gonna fight John on his terms.I’m gonna fight him with money and power, because that’s what I’m going to have.You can do it with the jewelry you make.Think about it.”
She didn’t want to.Not just then.She wanted to think about when she’d see Cutter again.“I’m going back to Paris for the summer.Meet me there.”
He shook his head.“I’ll be working the country pushing the fall lines.I won’t be home for more than a weekend until October.That’s one of the reasons I had to see you now.”
“Then October.”She came up and put both hands on his chest.His skin was warm, the hair there soft.“I don’t know where I’ll be living—I’m looking for an apartment in the Back Bay—but Hillary will know my address, and my phone will be listed.”
“I don’t know where or when it will be, Pam.But we’re on the right track.I’m not blowing it now by being careless.”
“We’ll be careful.”She clutched his shoulders, fearful that if she didn’t make her case, another four years might go by before she saw him again.“Once I start atFacets,I’ll have to visit the New York store sometimes.I’ll make excuses to visit it.I’ll stay at the Park Lane—no, the Hilton; that’s busier, people get lost there.If you’re in town, we could meet.John would never know.”
Cutter gave her a sad look before drawing her close.He wrapped his arms around her, enclosing her in a cocoon of his warmth and his scent.He didn’t speak.As the minutes passed, his arms tightened.
“Sleep with me?”she whispered.“Just for a little while?”
When the silence stretched on, she wondered if he’d heard.She was about to repeat the plea when he took her down to the sheets and tucked her snugly against him.Taking his hand, she brought it to her mouth.She kissed it, curled it around hers, held it there so she knew it was real.
In time she fell asleep.When she woke, as she had known he would be, Cutter was gone.
She cried.It was one way to fight the silence and fill the emptiness.When the tears were finished, she wrapped a love-scented sheet around her and went to the window.Dawn was just breaking, casting a pale glow on the building across the way.She opened the window higher.It was going to be another warm day.She wondered how many warm days would pass before she saw Cutter again.
The more she wondered, the more frustrated she grew.She was twenty-two, graduating from college within days.By fall she’d be a full-fledged member of the workforce, afunctioning adult.It wasn’t right-that John should still be controlling her life.
Make a name for yourself,Cutter had said.Fight him on his terms.
He sounded so sure of himself, but that was easy for him to do.He didn’t have to see John.His income wasn’t dependent on him.
You can do it with the jewelry you make.Think about it.
She did.She thought about it often during those days before graduation, and by the time she stood up to receive her diploma, when the one person she wanted most to be there wasn’t, because there would be trouble if John found him around, she was angry enough to understand.
She needed power over John.That meant sinking her fingers intoFacetsand holding on.She could do it one of two ways—through her say as a shareholder, or through her own work.Since she wouldn’t control her stock until she turned twenty-five, she was determined to become the jewelry designer of note atFacets.By making the store’s name synonymous with her work, she would have the power she needed to fight John and win.
Chapter 21
Palm Beach, 1979
John worked the crowd with his usual aplomb.He knew most of his guests, and those he didn’t, he greeted with a smile, an outstretched hand, and a clever word.Small talk was his forte.It didn’t demand much.While engaged in it, he could be thinking about more important issues, like whether the triple-tiered chandeliers were too sparkly, the caviar canapes too spare, the champagne too dry.
Turning from a guest to stop one of the tuxedoed waiters as he passed, he murmured so that only the young fellow heard, “Your friend on the other side of the room is flirting.Please tell him to do that on his own time.On my time, he’ll pass the hors d’oeuvres.”
“Yes, sir,” the waiter said and moved off.
John rejoined the ongoing chitchat for several minutesbefore’moving on to another group.People seemed impressed.That pleased him.He had wanted the openingof FacetsPalm Beach to be an event, and it was.A fair number of the press were there, more than had attended the opening ofFacetsNew York three years before, and that pleased him, too.The name was growing.The following was growing.Fashion reporters and society columnists called often, which was all well and good until they asked for Pam.John had mixed feelings about that.On one hand, their interest in her was good for business.On the other, it was interest diverted from him.
He had to admit that her work had flair.Her pieces were unique.They were large and simple, relying on an undulation of gold or a twist of silver to provide an exciting backdrop for one or more stones.She worked exclusively with tourmaline, claiming it was in her genes.He was a diamond man, himself, but he couldn’t deny that her pieces sold well.For that reason, he gave her free rein with her designs.
On the matter of press interest, though, he wasn’t as free—or he hadn’t been in the past.His people had been able to soft-pedal the press response to her original show, saying that she was still a student and wouldn’t be available for interviews.Now, he was losing his hold.The press could find her whenever they wanted, either atFacets’workshop on Newbury Street or at the one in New York.
Raising his champagne glass to his lips, he looked over its rim to the spot across the room where she stood.She looked beautiful.Her white silk dress was strapless.It fell to her ankles, showing just a hint of high-heeled silver sandals.Her hair was swept into a loose knot at the top ofher head.Her makeup was as simple and tasteful as her attire.
He knew her strategy.She wanted nothing to detract from her jewelry, and nothing did.Around her neck she wore a wide silver collar embedded with pink and purple tourmalines of various sizes and shapes.Her earlobes displayed silver disks, each with a single off-center stone.Her bracelet echoed the collar, with a ripple worked through it for good measure.
As he watched, he saw a woman touch the collar in admiration.He saw Pam smile in response, then turn her smile on another person in the group.He saw her talk, saw her nod, saw her accept the two-cheeked kisses bestowed on her when that group yielded to another.
She knew how to handle herself.He wanted to think she’d learned it from him, but if that was the case, she’d learned it from afar.She avoided him whenever possible.If he was on one side of a room, she stayed on the other.Generally she excused herself from affairs that she knew he was attending.But she went to many parties, and after each there were orders for replicas of the jewelry she’d worn.
Pamela St.George Originals, she called them.When she had first come up with the name, he had indulged her.He had doubted she had the experience or ability to produce a steady flow of designs.She was proving him wrong, though, and it was too late to change the name.People had latched on to it.They wanted “a Pamela St.George” or “a St.George Original.”He supposed that mention of the family name did him good; but he couldhave done without the quips about “the other St.George—the pretty one.”
