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“If she had lived, I would have loved her forever.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
“I’ll always cherish her memory and the years we had together.”
None of this came as a surprise to Laura. She’d seen them together on numerous occasions following that first time at their home. It was obvious how deeply they had loved each other. Since Elaine’s death, Foster had honored her by establishing a foundation to raise money for leukemia research. He wasn’t just a mouthpiece with a checkbook, either, but a crusading advocate and hands-on fundraiser. In death, as in life, Elaine was a vital part of him.
He stroked Laura’s cheek. “But Elaine is no longer here. You are. And I’m in love with you.”
He spent that night with her. Most nights following that, they spent together. In the office, they continued as they always had done, performing their individual jobs, conducting themselves in a professional manner, treating each other no differently than they treated their colleagues. They were confident no one knew about their personal relationship, but Laura learned later that they had fooled only themselves. Everyone knew.
One morning, she walked into his office unannounced and laid an envelope on his desk. “What’s that?”
“My resignation.”
He struggled to contain his smile. “We’re not paying you enough? You’ve had a better offer?”
She sat down in the chair facing his desk. “Foster, the last four months have been the happiest of my life. Also the most miserable.”
“Well, I hope that being with me has been the happy part.”
She gave him a soft look. “You know how happy I am to be with you. But the secrecy makes it seem…”
“Sordid?”
“Yes. And sleazy. I’m sleeping with my boss. As a career woman, I don’t like what that suggests about me. I don’t like the connotation co-workers would apply to it. I don’t want to give up my job. It’s what I’ve worked so hard to attain. You know how much I love it.
“But I can’t possibly give you up,” she said, her voice turning husky with emotion. “Between the two, I love you more than I love my job. So…” She gestured toward the envelope lying on his desk. “I must leave SunSouth.”
He picked up the envelope then and looked at it, turning it this way and that as though contemplating the contents. “Or,” he said, “you could marry me.”
Elaine Speakman had set a precedent by serving on the board of directors, so no one cried nepotism. No one wanted to anyway. When Foster and Laura announced their plans to the other executives and the board members, the only discussion was the date the nuptials would take place and if they would be taking a SunSouth jet on their honeymoon.
If there was watercooler talk about her marrying Foster for his money, or any other self-serving reason, Laura never knew of it. Even if she had been aware of such scuttlebutt, she would have ignored it. While some may have regarded what had happened as a Cinderella story—in those very words it had been hinted at in a newspaper column—she knew her only reason for marrying him was that she loved him wholly and completely. She couldn’t be bothered by the conjectures of mean-spirited people.
Their marriage was covered extensively in the press, although there were no pictures accompanying the stories. They kept the wedding itself private, inviting only their most intimate friends to the chapel service and the dinner following it.
Foster paid lip service to moving from his family estate, but Laura realized what a sacrifice that would be for him. He loved his family home and hugged her tightly when she told him she loved it, too, and that that was where they would stay and make their life together.
She moved in, changing very little of Elaine’s decor. Like his wealth, his love for Elaine was only another aspect of him. Laura didn’t feel threatened by his late wife’s memory, any more than she was intimidated by his fortune.
Foster would have preferred her to be pregnant by the time they returned from their honeymoon in Fiji. When she demurred, he had teased her about her biological clock. “I’m thirty-one!” she exclaimed.
He placed his ear against her lower body. “But I can hear it ticking.”
Even so, she had begged for time to be a bride before she became a mother. It was a decision that later seemed terribly selfish, and one she would always regret.
That first year they were kept busy with the burgeoning airline and settling into married life. Although Laura was to learn that “settling” was a foreign concept to her husband. The man never rested. The more he had to do, the more he got done. He was a tireless, incessant generator of energy. He had the work ethic of a Trojan but was also a proponent of la dolce vita. His enthusiasm for life and living was contagious. Laura reveled in the whirlwind of their life.
Foster used the media to his advantage, regularly feeding them tidbits of information about his airline even when there was no actual news to report, so that SunSouth was kept constantly in the minds of the public. His name, along with Laura’s, appeared frequently in the business sections of the newspapers.
They received national magazine coverage, once pictured playing doubles tennis with the president and first lady. The television newsmagazine 20/20 did a segment on them, touting them as the team that had, despite industry naysayers, resurrected a failed airline. They appeared on Good Morning America to talk about the Elaine Speakman Foundation and the medical research it was funding.
The gossip columnists who had snidely implied that Laura was a gold digger were soon extolling her intelligence, business acumen, impeccable taste, and unaffected charm. The Speakmans became the darlings of the local society pages, and their photographs began appearing regularly as hosts, guests, or sponsors of one event or another.
As they were leaving one such event, a decision was made that would change the course of their lives forever.
It was a Tuesday night. They had attended a retirement dinner for a notable Dallasite. The hotel where the dinner had been held and the Speakman estate were separated by only three miles of city streets.
