As You Wish Read online

  “So I started riding lessons and it was weeks before I got up the courage to tell my trainer that I wanted to learn how to leap up behind a man. He agreed instantly. I think he was bored teaching rich girls how to stroll through a park on a horse. For weeks we rehearsed.

  “He’d ride up to me, then lean down. I’d grab his arm as high up as I could, put my foot in the stirrup, and leap. It was a really hard thing to do but I managed it. Maybe it was silly, but it made me feel, well...prepared.”

  “For when a naked woman bent down from atop a tree branch and held out her arm to you?” Ray asked. When the women looked at him in surprise, he said, “I listen. I have to so I can sell things to people.”

  At the memory of her day’s adventure, the sad look left Elise’s pretty face and she smiled. “Exactly! If I hadn’t rehearsed I couldn’t have swung up, and that old man might have hit us with a shotgun.”

  “You presaved our lives,” Olivia said and the two women started laughing again.

  Ray’s groan halted them. “I hope you women are aware that neither of your little daydreams has to do with sex. A sex fantasy involves tongues on flesh and being tied to a bed and orifices and—” He broke off because they were looking at him with great interest. “I think you two want romantic fantasies.”

  Olivia and Elise looked at each other, then back at Ray. “No, we’ll take the sex,” Olivia said.

  “I agree,” Elise said. “Tell us about the sex. Do bad boys...you know...do things in different ways?”

  “No,” Ray said. “We don’t.” He was grinning. “Bad boy. No one’s thought of me like that in a long time. I think all the suits I have to wear rub the edge off a man.”

  “True. You look like a stockbroker now.” Elise was smiling at the naked upper half of his body.

  “If I didn’t think I’d break a little thing like you in half, I’d demonstrate what I know. I could—”

  Olivia cut him off. “I think you have enough problems with two women in your life. Tell us your sex fantasy—unless it involves your wife and your mistress together. That’s too close to home for me to be able to stand.”

  “No worries,” Ray said. “Kathy and I don’t... Anyway, as for the sex fantasy, get your mothers to buy you a book. My romantic fantasy is to be myself around a woman. Not an image but the real me. And she still likes me as I am.”

  Olivia sighed. “Unfortunately, I know exactly what you mean. My late husband never really liked me.”

  “After all you did for him?” Elise said.

  “I think maybe it was because of all I did for him.”

  Ray refilled their glasses. “Now don’t go getting maudlin on me. Drink more rum and eat more guacamole. There’s ice cream in the freezer. Want some?”

  “How did you meet your wife?”

  “I guess you’d say it was through my overwhelming ambition.”

  “Because her father owned the company where you worked?” Elise’s voice was hard.

  “No. Not that. I could learn about the business, but Kathy knew things I didn’t.” He smiled at the looks of interest on the women’s faces. “Three forks on a table, that sort of thing.”

  Elise grimaced. “I put on dinner parties with four forks. Kent’s family loves to impress people.”

  “Kathy knows all that. She’s really great. She and her mom lived in a big place in Connecticut, but her dad mostly stayed in his apartment in town. Considering Bert Cormac’s temper, we all understood.”

  He took a breath. “I knew Kathy had a sort of crush on me—she was always hanging around my office—but I was afraid that underneath that outward sweetness she might be like her father. Bert in a dress? No thanks! So anyway, I didn’t actually think about her as wife material until the annual office party. Black tie, lots of clients.”

  “Clients of what?” Olivia asked.

  “Advertising. We have some big accounts. Whatever is said about Cormac, he’s one of the best. Anyway, that night I was supposed to be out of town, but Bert wanted me at the party so I flew back—and I had only hours to come up with a date. I had an old girlfriend, Dolores, who I’d known most of my life, so I called her.”

  Ray lifted his hand. “Big mistake. She was out of her element. She got drunk, then spilled a drink on Kathy, and said some awful things to her. I tried to get her to shut up, but I wasn’t fast enough. But then, it turned out that Kathy could handle herself.”

  “What happened?” Olivia asked.

  “As I said, before that night, I’d never paid much attention to her. She has a really pretty face but she’s a bit... What’s that German word? Zaftig, that’s it. Not my taste and besides, she was so overwhelmed by her father that I thought she had the personality of a wet noodle.”

  He smiled in memory. “But that night she surprised me. I swear she was about to laugh at the awful things Dolores said. Laugh! Then Kathy put her arm around Dolores and walked out of the room with her. I was truly impressed. Now that’s class, I thought.”

  He shrugged. “But later, I saw Kathy crying. Not a lot, but just enough that I knew what Dolores said had hurt her feelings. We talked for hours that night and that’s when I began to think maybe we could help each other.”

  “And now you want someone else.” It was easy to see that Elise was thinking of her own marriage.

  Olivia was sipping her drink and looking at Ray. “My guess is that you’ve found a woman who is more like you. Or what you grew up with.”

  “Dr. Jeanne’s going to lose her job,” he said. “You girls mind if I...?” He waved his hand over his bare chest. He didn’t wait for an answer, but got up and went into the kitchen to get his shirt, put it back on, then poured himself a glass of straight Scotch. He took the bottle into the living room.

  Olivia said, “You mentioned a man whose death changed your life. Does your big decision have anything to do with him?”

  Ray finished his drink and poured himself another one. “Yes. Everything to do with it. That was Carl. Rita—the woman I fell for—is his little sister.”

  “Tell us your whole life story,” Elise said. “Take our minds off our own problems.”

  Chuckling, Ray leaned back in his chair. “I grew up in a rough neighborhood in Brooklyn. No dad, a saint of a mother who did the best she could at two jobs, but I was alone a lot. From the second grade, Carl Morales and I were best friends. We were taller and bigger than all the other kids.” He sipped his drink. “When you stand a head taller and twenty pounds heavier than the other kids, you can go either of two ways.”

  “Be a bully or...?” Olivia asked.

  “A savior. A protector. Carl and I saw ourselves as kings and it was our job to watch over our subjects.”

  “With that philosophy, how did you get into a gang?” Elise’s voice was disparaging.

  “We were big, not smart,” Ray said. “Actually, that’s not true. I’ve always been smart, just not very wise. And I was ambitious. Carl was my follower. Wherever I led, he went with me. By the time I was twelve, my goal in life was to become the ruler of the Scorpions. I thought that was the highest a person could reach. Carl and I quit school at fifteen and joined the gang. Then we spent three years showing them we were the best.”

  “By robbing houses,” Olivia said.

  “That and a lot of other crimes. Grand Theft Auto, B and E, all of it. We got to be so good that we became careless. When we were barely eighteen, the owner of a house had a gun and...” He stopped for a moment. “Carl threw himself in front of me and he died for it.”

  Ray closed his eyes for a moment. “I’d never imagined my life without him. We were rarely apart, had no secrets. We were...” He took a breath. “He left behind a mother and a little sister. At Carl’s funeral his mother told me her son’s death was my fault, that Carl didn’t have the brains to get into trouble on his own. She said, ‘You had a choice. You could have led