He clasped her hand in his. “Oh, Jennifer. Oh, my darling!”
Jennifer could feel the blood rushing to her face. She had known all along that this would be a terrible mistake.
“I have to go, Adam. I have an appointment.”
“Break it,” he urged.
“I’m sorry. I can’t.” All she wanted to do was get out of there, to get her son away from there, to flee back home.
Adam was saying, “I’m supposed to fly back to Washington on an afternoon plane. I can arrange to stay over if you’ll see me tonight.”
“No. No!”
“Jennifer, I can’t let you go again. Not like this. We have to talk. Just have dinner with me.”
He was pressing her hand tighter. She looked at him and fought with all her strength and found herself weakening.
“Please, Adam,” she begged. “We shouldn’t be seen together. If you’re after Michael Moretti—”
“This has nothing to do with Moretti. A friend of mine has offered me the use of his boat. It’s called the Paloma Blanca. It’s docked at the Yacht Club. Eight o’clock.”
“I won’t be there.”
“I will. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Across the room, at the crowded bar, Nick Vito was sitting with two Mexican puttanas a friend had delivered to him. Both were pretty and coarse and underage, the way Nick Vito liked them. His friend had promised they would be special, and he had been right. They were rubbing up against him, whispering exciting promises in his ear, but Nick Vito was not listening. He was staring across the room at the booth where Jennifer Parker and Adam Warner were seated.
“Why don’t we go up to your room now, querido?” one of the girls suggested to Nick.
Nick Vito was tempted to walk over to Jennifer and the stranger she was with and say hello, but both girls had their hands between his legs and were stroking him. He was going to make one hell of a sandwich.
“Yeah, let’s go upstairs,” Nick Vito said.
45
The Paloma Blanca was a motor sailer and it shone proud and white and gleaming in the moonlight. Jennifer approached it slowly, looking around to make sure that no one had observed her. Adam had told her he would elude the secret service men and apparently he had succeeded. After Jennifer had seated Joshua and Mrs. Mackey at Maria Elena, she had taken a taxi and had had the driver drop her off two blocks before the pier.
Jennifer had picked up the phone half a dozen times to call Adam to say she would not meet him. She had started to write a note, then had torn it up. From the moment she had left Adam at the bar, Jennifer had been in an agony of indecision. She thought of all the reasons why she should not see Adam. Nothing good could possibly come of it, and it could lead to a tremendous amount of harm. Adam’s career could be at stake. He was riding on a crest of public popularity, an idealist in a time of cynicism, the country’s hope for the future. He was the darling of the media, but the same press that had helped to create him would be out there waiting to push him into the abyss if he betrayed their image of him.
And so Jennifer had made up her mind not to see him. She was another woman, living a different life, and she belonged to Michael now…
Adam was waiting for her at the top of the gangplank.
“I was so afraid you weren’t coming,” he said.
And she was in his arms and they were kissing.
“What about the crew, Adam?” Jennifer finally asked.
“I sent them away. Do you still remember how to sail?”
“I still remember.”
They hoisted the sail and sheeted in for a starboard tack, and ten minutes later the Paloma Blanca was heading through the harbor toward the open sea. For the first half hour they were busy navigating, but there was not a moment when they were not acutely aware of each other. The tension kept mounting, and they both knew that what was going to happen was inevitable.
When they finally cleared the harbor and were sailing into the moonlit Pacific, Adam moved to Jennifer’s side and put his arms around her.
They made love on the deck under the stars, with the soft, fragrant breeze cooling their naked bodies.
The past and the future were swept away and there was only the present holding the two of them together in its swiftly fleeting moments. For Jennifer knew that this night in Adam’s arms was not a beginning; it was an ending. There was no way to bridge the worlds that separated them. They had traveled too far from each other and there was no road back. Not now, not ever. She would always have a part of Adam in Joshua, and that would be enough for her, would have to be enough for her.
This night would have to last her the rest of her life.
They lay there together, listening to the gentle susurration of the sea against the boat.
Adam said, “Tomorrow—”
“Don’t talk,” Jennifer whispered. “Just love me, Adam.”
She covered his lips with small kisses and fluttered her fingers delicately along the strong, lean lines of his body. She moved her hands down in slow circles until she found him, and her fingers began to stroke him.
“Oh God, Jennifer,” Adam whispered, and his mouth began to move slowly down her naked body.
46
“The cocksucker kept givin’ me the malocchio,” little Salvator Fiore was complaining, “so I finally hadda burn ‘im.”
Nick Vito laughed, for anyone who was stupid enough to fool around with the Little Flower had to be out to lunch. Nick Vito was enjoying himself in the farmhouse kitchen with Salvatore Fiore and Joseph Colella, talking over old times, waiting for the conference in the living room to end. The midget and the giant were his best friends. They had gone through the fire together. Nick Vito looked at the two men and thought happily, They’re like my brothers.