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Maris presiding over a meeting.
Maris smiling at Noah.
Maris hailing a taxi.
Maris kissing Noah.
Maris working at her desk.
Maris sleeping beside Noah.
Maris shopping on Fifth Avenue.
Maris opening her thighs to Noah.
The revolving mental images had been enough to drive him crazy. Had been enough to drive him to drink, anyway.
He wondered now if he’d had a premonition of her arrival. Yeah, maybe he had. Because he’d been in the dining room, a room he visited only rarely. He’d been feeling sorry for himself, quaffing Wild Turkey as fast as he could pour it, and glumly staring out the window at nothing.
When he heard a motorized vehicle turning into the lane off the main road, he had assumed it was Mike returning. He remembered hoping that Mike hadn’t forgotten to get a bag of bite-sized Milky Way bars.
When he saw Maris behind the wheel of the approaching golf cart, his heart had sputtered and knocked like an ailing engine.
Subconsciously, had he been watching for her, pining like a grass widow searching the horizon for sight of her sailor’s ship? He hated to think of himself as some wretched, pathetic figure waiting for Maris to grace him with her presence. God, had he sunk that low?
But he realized now that that’s exactly what he’d been doing since she’d turned her back on him and stalked out of the cotton gin. Since that morning, he’d been steeping in his misery, stewing in his jealous sweat, sucking on whisky bottles, and nursing his fantasies.
Torturous fantasies of her with Noah.
Delicious ones of her with him.
At night he had erotic dreams in which she clutched him and chanted his name in breathless, urgent, orgasmic whispers. During the daylight hours, he occupied himself with visions of her caressing him, of her fingertips skimming his chest and belly, of her mouth silkily sliding—
“Was it Todd’s?”
He jerked upright as though his wheelchair had goosed him. “Huh?” He cleared his throat and shook off the sexual reverie. “Pardon?”
“The baby that Mary Catherine miscarried. Was it Todd’s?”
“What do you think?”
“It’s suggested. Do we ever know?”
He shook his head. “I think it’s better to leave it with just a suggestion. Let the reader come to his own conclusion.”
“I agree.” She thumbed through the pages again, stopping occasionally to reread a passage. “He’s a remarkable character. Roark, I mean. He’s so… well, heroic. As Mary Catherine says, he’s nice.”
Parker grimaced. “He’s not too nice, is he? I don’t want him coming across as a saint. Or worse, a puss.”
“He doesn’t.” She smiled reassurance, but he continued to frown doubtfully. “Trust me, Parker. I’d tell you if he were nice to the point of being dull.”
“Women readers aren’t turned on by nice heroes any more than male readers lust after heroines who are too virtuous. There should be at least a hint, maybe even a promise, of corruptibility.”
“You don’t have to worry about Roark in that regard. Women readers will love him, for this scene alone if for no other. He’s very male. His responses are instinctually masculine. He looks at everything in a sexual context first, before expanding his viewpoint to include other factors, like morality.
“At the same time, he’s sensitive to Mary Catherine’s needs. He declined her invitation to have sex, demonstrating that he knows where the lines of decency are drawn. Without hitting the reader over the head with his goodness, you imply that he has a strong conscience and moral fiber. He upholds a code of honor, a…” She glanced up and caught him silently laughing at her. “What?”
“You really get worked up over this stuff, don’t you?”
