He started to lean toward her, as if about to ask her what was wrong. Fortunately his attention was distracted a moment by Dr. Montoya, who had just launched into his own remarks.
“Before I get to the boring parts,” Dr. Montoya said, “there is something I would like to clarify. I taught Gabriel Madison many things, but there is one thing I did not teach him.” He paused to look toward the head table. “I did not teach him how to dress. That, he learned all on his own.”
There was a startled silence and then the crowd howled with delight.
“Oh, hell,” Gabe muttered, sounding both resigned and amused.
Dr. Montoya turned back to the audience. “Five years ago when I approached Gabe to try to talk him into participating in a program that would place college seniors in local businesses during their final semesters, he said-and I recall his exact words very clearly-he said, what the hell do you expect me to teach a bunch of kids about business that you can’t teach them?”
There was a short pause. Montoya leaned into the microphone.
“ ‘Teach ’em how to dress for success,’ I said.”
When the fresh wave of laughter had faded Montoya continued. “He took me seriously. Every semester when I send him the current crop of business students, he takes them to meet his tailor. What’s more, he quietly picks up the tab for those who can’t afford that first all-important business suit. Tonight, some of his protégés have prepared a small surprise to thank him for what he taught them.”
The spotlight shifted abruptly to the far end of the stage. Two young men and a woman stood there. All three were dressed in identical steel-gray business suits, charcoal-gray shirts, and black-and-silver striped ties. All three had their hair combed straight back from their foreheads. Three sets of silver-and-onyx cuff links glinted in the light. Three stainless-steel watches glinted on three wrists.
The Gabe Madison clone on the right carried a box wrapped and tied in silver foil and black ribbon.
They walked forward in lockstep.
The audience broke out in another wave of laughter and applause.
Gabe dropped his face into his hands. “I will never live this down.”
The young woman in the Gabe suit assumed control of the microphone. “We all owe Mr. Madison a debt of gratitude for the opportunities he provided to us during our semester at Madison Commercial. Most of us came from backgrounds where the unwritten rules of the business world were unknown. He taught us the secret codes. Gave us self-confidence. Opened doors. And, yes, he introduced us to his tailor and offered us some advice on how to dress.”
One of the young men took charge of the microphone. “Tonight we would like to show our gratitude to Mr. Madison by giving him a helping hand with a concept that he has never fully grasped…”
The clone holding the silver foil box removed the lid with a flourish. The young woman reached inside and removed a scruffy-looking tee shirt, faded blue jeans, and a pair of well-worn running shoes.
“… The concept of casual Fridays,” the clone at the microphone concluded.
The banquet room exploded once again in laughter and applause. Gabe rose and walked back to the podium to accept his gift. He flashed a full laughing smile at the three clones.
It struck Lillian in that moment that Gabe looked like a man at the top of his game-a man who enjoyed the respect of his friends and rivals alike, a man who was comfortable with his own power in the business world, cool and utterly in control.
He sure didn’t look like a man who was going through a bad case of burnout.
chapter 11
An hour later Gabe bundled her into the Jag and made to close the passenger door. Impulse struck. She gave into it without examining the decision.
“Would you mind if we stopped at my studio on the way back to the apartment?” she said. “I forgot a few things this afternoon when I went there.”
“Sure. No problem.”
He closed the door, circled the car and paused long enough to remove his jacket. He put it down in the darkness of the backseat and got in behind the wheel. She gave him directions but she had the feeling that he already knew where he was going. He drove smoothly out of the parking garage and turned the corner.
A short time later he stopped at the curb in front of the brick building in which she rented studio space.
“This won’t take long,” she said.
“There’s no rush.”
He got out of the car and opened her door for her. She walked beside him to the secured entrance. He waited while she punched in the code.
They went up the stairs to the second-floor loft in silence. When she inserted her key into the lock she realized that her pulse was beating a little too quickly. A sense of anticipation mingled with unease quickened her breathing.
Why had she brought him here? she wondered. Where had the urge come from? What was the point of showing him the studio tonight? He was a businessman with no use for arty types.
She opened the door and groped for the switches on the wall to the right. She flipped two of the six, turning on some of the lights but not all, leaving large sections of the loft in shadow.
Gabe surveyed the interior.
“So this is where you work.” His voice was completely uninflected.
“Yes.” She watched him prowl slowly forward, examining the canvases propped against the walls. “This is where I paint.”
He stopped in front of a picture of her great-aunt Isabel. It showed her seated in a wicker chair in the solarium at Dreamscape, looking out to sea.
Gabe looked at the painting for a long time.
“I remember seeing that expression on Isabel’s face sometimes,” he said finally. Absently he loosened the knot in his tie and opened the collar of his shirt. He did not take his gaze off the picture. “As if she were looking at something only she could see.”
Lillian crossed to the large worktable at the far end of the room, propped one hip on the edge and picked up a sketchpad and a pencil. “Everyone has that look from time to time. Probably because we all see something a little different when we look out at the world.”
“Maybe.”
He removed the silver-and-onyx cuff links and slid them into the pocket of his trousers. Again, his movements were casual and unself-conscious; the easy actions of a man relaxing after a formal evening.
He moved on to the next picture, rolling up the sleeves of the charcoal-gray shirt as he crossed the space, exposing the dark hair on the back of his arms.
She watched him for a moment. He looked rakish and extremely sexy with his tie undone and his shirt open at the throat. But what compelled her was the way he looked at her paintings. There was an intensity in him that told her that he made a visceral connection with the images she had created. He might not like the arty type but he responded to art. Unwillingly.
She began to draw, compelled by the shadows in her subject.
“You meant everything you said about Dr. Montoya tonight, didn’t you?” she asked, not looking up from her work.
“He was the closest thing I had to a mentor.” Gabe studied a picture of an old man sitting on a bench in the park. “I was a kid from a small town. I didn’t know how to handle myself. Didn’t know what was appropriate. I had no polish. No sophistication. No connections. I knew where I wanted to go but I didn’t know how to get there. He gave me a lot of the tools I needed to build Madison Commercial.”
“Now you repay him by allowing him to send some of his students into Madison Commercial every year.”