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  But now, looking at the glittering people in the glittering apartment, he remembered them. “Buy myself all of them,” the man had said. And wasn’t that what Amy had said, more or less? That Jason was trying to buy himself a family?

  He signaled the waiter to refill his glass, then kept on staring at his guests. In the last year Jason had done everything he could to forget that last night with Amy. Twelve whole months of refusing to think about it, to remember it. Twelve long months of hanging on to his anger. If she’d just listened to him . . . If she had thought about his side of things . . . If she’d just been willing to wait until the morning to talk . . .

  Jason drained the glass, then held it up for another refill. But tonight, in spite of the fact that he was in very different surroundings and the giant tree in the corner bore no resemblance to the one he and Amy had decorated, it was as though he were back with her.

  Images came before him until he could hardly see the roomful of people. He remembered Amy laughing, Amy teasing, Amy’s excitement at being able to buy her child some furniture.

  The waiter started to fill Jason’s glass again, but he waved him away; then Jason put his hand over his eyes for a moment. For the first time since Amy left he thought, Why didn’t I listen?

  His head came up, and he looked about him. No one was looking at him. No, they were all too busy looking at each other and enjoying Jason’s food and drink to give a thought to their host, who was quietly sitting in a corner and going mad.

  I am going mad, he thought. For one whole year he hadn’t had a moment’s peace. He’d tried to carry on a life, but he hadn’t been able to. He’d dated women, beautiful women, and today he’d even thought that he’d ask this latest one, Dawne, to marry him. Maybe marriage was what he needed to make him forget. Maybe if he had a child of his own . . .

  Breaking off, his breath caught in his throat. What was it David had said? There are “other children.” In Jason’s mind there was only one child: Max.

  But he’d lost that child because he had—

  Again Jason rubbed his hand over his eyes. Maybe it was all the alcohol he’d consumed; maybe it was the anniversary, but tonight he couldn’t work up his usual anger at himself, at David, at the town of Abernathy, at his father, at anyone.

  “She left because of me,” Jason said to himself.

  “Jase, come and join us,” said a man to his right.

  Jason recognized him as the CEO of one of the largest corporations in the world. He’d come to the party because he was afraid he was about to be fired, so he was trying to get a job with Jason. In truth, every person in the room was there because he wanted something from Jason.

  Shaking his head, Jason turned away from the man. Amy left because Jason had wanted to put her in a house and leave her there. He’d wanted to take away her freedom, her free will, all while causing himself no inconvenience whatever.

  It was a hard truth to look at, Jason thought, very, very hard. And if he’d succeeded in persuading Amy to marry him, where would he be tonight?

  He’d be here, he thought, just as he was right now, because he would have continued to think that CEOs were important people.

  And where would Amy be? he wondered, and he knew the answer. He would have bullied her into attending also. He would have told her that, as his wife, she had an obligation to attend his business parties and help him earn money.

  Money, he thought as he looked about at the people in the room. The sparkle of the jewelry on them was enough to blind a person. “You’d swallow me up,” Amy had said. He hadn’t understood a word she’d said that night, but now he did. He could see her in this glass-and-chrome room, with its designer tree and the well-designed people, and he could almost feel her misery.

  “Other children,” David had said. “Other children.”

  Maybe he couldn’t have Max or Amy, but maybe he could do something in life rather than make money.

  “Other children,” he said aloud.

  Instantly, Dawne was at his side, and Jason looked at her as though he’d never seen her before. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew the ring with the huge sapphire and handed it to her.

  “Oh, Jason, darling, I accept. Gladly.” Ostentatiously, making sure everyone in the room saw, she reached up to put her arms around his neck, but Jason gently took her wrists and put them down at her sides.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been a bastard. I think you already know that I’m no good for you,” he said.

  “But, I want you to have this ring. Wear it in good health.” He looked away, then looked back at her. “Unfortunately I have to cut this evening short; I’ve just remembered somewhere I have to be.” With that he turned away from her and went into the hallway. Robert, his butler, was right behind him.

  “Going out, sir?”

  “Yes,” Jason answered as the man held up his coat and Jason slipped his arms inside.

  “And when shall I say that you’ll return?”

  Jason looked back at the party. “I don’t think I will return. See that everyone is taken care of.”

  “Very good, sir.” Robert then handed Jason his cell phone, something that Jason was never, ever without. Jason took the instrument, then looked at it as though he’d never seen it before.

  In the next second he dropped the thing into the trash bin; then he started for the door.

  “Sir!” Robert said, for the first time losing his composure. “What if there is an emergency? What if you’re needed? Where can you be reached?”

  Jason paused for a moment. “I need to talk to somebody who knows what it feels like to lose a child. You know that little church over on Sixty-eighth Street? Try me there.”

  As his butler’s jaw dropped, Jason left the apartment.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ONE YEAR LATER

  The President of the United States of America would be pleased to attend the grand reopening of the town of Abernathy, Kentucky. He has asked me to convey his particular interest in the Arabian Nights mural in the public library as the tales are favorites of his.

  JASON READ THE LETTER AGAIN AND WAS ABOUT TO GIVE a whoop of joy and triumph—until he looked at the second paragraph, in which the president’s secretary asked that the dates of the reopening ceremony be confirmed. “But that’s . . .” He broke off in horror as he looked at his watch to check today’s date, then glared at the calendar on his desk to reconfirm his suspicions.

  “Doreen!!!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs, and after about three minutes his secretary came wandering into his office.

  “Yeah?” she said, looking at him with big, bored eyes.

  Jason had long ago learned that nothing, not any intimidation on earth, could overset Doreen’s complacency. Calm down, he told himself. But then he had another look at the presidential seal on the letter and tranquillity be damned.

  Silently, he handed her the letter.

  “That’s good, isn’t it? I told you I’d get him here. We got connections, me and Cherry.”

  Jason put his head in his hands for a moment and tried to count to ten. He made it to eight, which was a new record for him. “Doreen,” he said with controlled, exaggerated calm. “Look at the dates. How far from now is the date when the president is due to arrive?”

  “You need a new calendar?” Doreen asked in puzzlement. “ ’Cause if you do, I can get you one from the store.”

  Since Doreen had been spending six thousand dollars a month on office supplies, Jason had had to cut off her charge accounts, and he did not want to reopen them. “No, I can read one of the ten calendars that are on my desk. Doreen, why is the president coming in a mere six weeks when the opening is planned for six months from now? And why does he think the library murals are about the Arabian Nights when the painter has been commissioned to do nursery rhymes?”

  “Nursery rhymes?” Doreen blinked at him.

  Jason took a deep breath intended to calm himself, but instead thought of ways to murder his brother. David had, once again