fire. Peter no longer went out with her socially. At sixty-three, he was married, but he had been alone emotionally for years. He buried himself in his work, as Olivia did.
“I’m not going anywhere, unless we have a problem somewhere that I need to attend to or see for myself,” Olivia answered his question. “I have too much to do here. I don’t want to start traveling again until September.”
“That sounds reasonable.” Then he hesitated and looked at her as an expression of tenderness passed between them. “Dinner Saturday?” It was a shorthand they both understood. She nodded, and they smiled at each other.
“That sounds terrific. Bedford?” He nodded too. And then she got up and quietly came around her desk. It was after hours, her assistant had gone home, the building was quiet, and she was more relaxed than usual after her vacation. She was wearing a light summer dress, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her as she approached him and then gently bent to kiss him. “I missed you. I always do,” she said softly. She wanted him to know it, although she expected nothing from him in return. She never did. She understood his situation perfectly. He would stay where he was forever, with Emily, drinking herself to death quietly.
Peter stood up then and did something they never did in the office, but they were alone. He put his arms around her and kissed her. He sighed as he did. Holding her always felt so good. “I missed you terribly,” he admitted. They stood kissing in each other’s arms for a long moment, lost in the tenderness of it, and then they both heard a sound in the room.
Their lips parted and their heads turned, and they both saw him at the same time. It was Phillip standing in the doorway with a stack of papers in his arms, and a horrified expression. He looked like he’d been shot out of a cannon. Peter and Olivia moved apart discreetly—he gave Olivia a serious look and walked away. He said nothing to her, and as he passed Phillip in the doorway, he nodded at him.
“Sorry, Phillip,” was all he said, as Phillip strode toward his mother with a vengeance. Peter didn’t want to leave her with him, but he thought it best to do so. It was better for her to deal with her son alone.
“What was that moment of insanity I just witnessed?” her son asked her, as Olivia sat down quietly at her desk. In the instant it had happened, and they had been discovered, she had made a decision not to apologize to him. He was old enough to know the truth. She and Peter had been discreet lovers for ten years.
“It’s not insanity, Phillip. And it’s none of your business, any more than your personal life is mine. We’re both adults.”
“What, you’re having affairs with the employees now? What kind of bullshit is that? What if someone saw you?”
“We thought we were alone. And Peter is not an employee, he’s our general counsel. And what I do personally is no concern of yours. I’m sorry if it upset you, but I can assure you, we’re discreet.” She was shaking at his accusation, but she didn’t let it show. She had to take a position on the situation now, and she didn’t like what he had said. Not at all.
“Discreet? Are you crazy, or just immoral? He’s married, he’s ten years younger than you are, and if the press gets hold of this, you’ll look ridiculous. It will invalidate all our legal positions if people find out you’re sleeping with him. And he’s a married man, for chrissake! Is this what you did when you were gone all the time when we were kids? Is this what it was all about? Did Dad know? And all your bullshit about morality—what a joke! How dare you moralize to us, when you’re screwing around with married men, and maybe you always were.”
“Stop it!” Olivia said in a powerful tone as she stood up at her desk. She had an instant sense that Phillip was using this as a vehicle to air his grievances of the past. “I was faithful to your father every moment of our marriage, and he knew that. I was away so that I could build this business for all of us, and he knew that too. He wanted me to. He respected what I did, even if you don’t. And I