“Why not?”
He did shake her then, a short, sharp jostle of frustration.“Because I have pride, dammit!Marrying you may be the most important thing in my life, but I’ll do it on my terms.I’ll do it when I’ve come far enough to settle down.I’m not there yet, but I will be someday.”
“And if I won’t wait?”she was hurt enough to ask.
He looked at her for a minute, then dropped his hands and sat back.“If you won’t wait, then it’s your loss.”
“You pompous ass!”Scrambling off the bed, she reached for her clothes.“It’ll be your loss, too, only you’re too bullheaded to see it.”
“Where are you going?”
“Back to Boston.You need time to think about whether it’s me you want, or power.”
“It shouldn’t be either or.”
“Well, it is.”
“Don’t do that,” he warned in a low voice that made her hand falter on a button of her blouse.
“Do what?”She resumed the buttoning.
“Give ultimatums.Either I marry you now, or you’re leaving.That’s a John kind of move.”
She snagged her nylons, swore, felt her eyes water, and knew it had nothing to do with the snag.“No.It’s a human kind of move.I should have made it a while ago.If you loved me, you’d marry me.It’s as simple as that.”
“It’s not simple.Nothing’s ever been simple where you and I are concerned.”
She stood to stuff her blouse into her skirt.“Maybe there’s a message in that.”
Heedless of his nudity, Cutter rose from the bed and came around to confront her.“You’re sounding like a spoiled kid.”
“I’m twenty-three, old enough to get married and more than old enough to have kids.”Blazer in hand, she reached for her bag.“I would have had yours, Cutter.Ours.It would have been five years old now, only it never took a breath, because John had it killed.”
Cutter was dead silent for an awful moment.“What?”
“You didn’t know that?”she asked on her way to the door.Her voice shook.She began to tremble all over.“Hillary didn’t tell you?”
He came after her.“What are you talking about?”
She walked faster.“The abortion.”
“What abortion?”
“The one John had done while I was drugged.”At the front door, she whirled around.“He killed your child, Cutter.Only you never knew it existed, so you never lovedit, so you don’t grieve like I do.You have your career.You have your money.You have your power.”She opened the door.“Well, good!Keep it all.I hope it makes you happy.”
Slamming the apartment door, she raced to the elevator.She was too hurt to cry, too angry to think of looking back to see if he would follow.On the street, she hailed a cab and went straight to the airport.She was back in Boston before midnight.Not that there was a great rush.As she saw it, the coach had turned into a pumpkin well before that.
For days she waited, hoping that Cutter would call to say how upset he was, how much he loved her, how badly he wanted to marry her.When no call came, she tried to call him, but all she reached was his answering service.Whether he was out of town or simply not taking her calls, she didn’t know.But she waited and waited, and he didn’t call her back.
Convinced that he blamed her for the abortion, she was grief-stricken.She was also angry—angry at Cutter for being so stubborn, angry at John for being so evil.She couldn’t do much about Cutter but ache.John was something else.
She wanted to be free of him.She needed control of the stock if she was ever to help her mother.With each day that passed, she felt more certain that she was the only one who could do that.There was no one besides Pam through whom Patricia could finally get back at John.
Marriage was the only answer.Pam was at the right age; many of her friends were getting married.And therewas Brendan McGrath, who had asked her more than once, and was so kind.
So she married him.For the sake of herself and her mother, and even Cutter, she married Brendan.It was a quiet ceremony in the living room of his spacious home in Milton.A justice of the peace presided.The only witnesses were Brendan’s two grown sons.
Brendan was a banker, better than twice Pam’s age, older and even more respected in financial circles than John.His first marriage had been a happy one.His wife had been his best friend until the day she died, five years before.Pam had met him soon after that and found a friend in him, too.He was soft-spoken and low-keyed, interested in what she was doing, respectful of her achievements.He was a strong man, self-confident but not egotistical.At fifty, with his sons in homes of their own, he was looking for companionship over passion.
