Prologue

Mabel had heard that drowning was the easiest form of death. She had no idea how anyone could know that. Weird because whoever said it probably didn't die. As she drifted down in the deep end of the pool, she decided that they were right. She could feel her long hair floating upward and all weight left her 15- year old body. She wasn't really trying to kill herself. She was just waiting for him to save her. But dying was interesting to think about. What if this really was the end? Grinning, she let her body relax into her thoughts. Never again would she have to hear her mother declare how Mabel's life had been easy while her mother's had been very difficult. "We ended a great war!" her mother, Eleanor Spinnel, loved to say referring to Vietnam. "No one else in history has ever done that!" Until she was twelve, Mabel believed that her mother had singlehandedly made the president of the United States remove the troops from the war that was never declared a war.

But when Mabel was twelve, an old college friend of her mother had visited them, and when she'd heard Eleanor scolding her daughter, the friend started laughing. "Eleanor," she said, and Mabel looked up in wonder because no one had dared call her mother by her first name. "You never left your classes and you told us we were fools to sit around on the lawn smoking pots and telling vague stories".

Needless to say, that was the end of that friendship, but it had been an enlightenment for Mabel. That was when she found out that not every word that came out of her mother's mouth was the truth. She learned that just because someone delivered a statement with force and volume didn't make it a fact. From that time on, she began to see her mother for who she was: a bully and a tyrant who believed there was only one way to do anything, and that was the way she had done everything. To her mind, if her daughter wanted to grow up to be a successful person, she had to conduct herself exactly as Eleanor Spinnel had done. That meant going to a top school, getting the best grades, then working her way up to the head of some mega corporation.

One time Mabel asked, "What about a husband and children?"

"Don't get me started," Eleanor said, then said nothing further. But she had piqued Mabel's interest, so she began to secretly listen in on her mother's conversations. Most of the discussions revealed nothing of interest, but one day Mabel had the horror of hearing her mother say that her daughter had been conceived from a one-night stand with a man she hardly knew while she was on a business trip to Hong Kong. "Defective condom," Eleanor had said without emotions. She was so disciplined that she hadn't noticed she was pregnant until the fifth month and it was too late to abort the child. Eleanor said she'd done her best to ignore the pregnancy, and that she'd meant to turn the baby over to a childless colleague, but then her boss— a person she admires the most had said he was glad Eleanor was going to be raising a child. It made her seem more human. When he gave her a sterling rattle from Cochella, she decided to keep the baby.

As she did with all things, Eleanor planned it carefully. She bought a house in upstate New York, hired a live-in housekeeper and a nanny, and turned the child over to them while she stayed in the city and riveted her way to the top.

Mabel saw her mother only on alternate weekends, and had spent most of her life terrified of her.

It was when her mother had been invited to a weeklong seminar at B Sealmill Resort in Williamsburg, Virginia, that Mabel's life changed. She knew about her mother's career because Eleanor Spinnel thought it was her duty to inform her daughter how to get ahead in the world. Eleanor love to tell how she was raised in a middle-class household full of "morons" but that she had "risen above" them. She'd put herself through college, studying business administration, then got a job as a junior manager with a big office supply chain. In her seventh year there, the company was bought by a massive popular computer business and Eleanor was one of only three upper-employees kept. Within five year she was at the top of that company.

By the time she'd been out of college for twenty years she'd been in six coporations and had moved near the head of each one. She was creative and dedicated, and every waking second of her life was given to the company where she worked.

The trip to Williamsburg was to be pivotal. The company where she was second in command was about yo be bought by a wealthy conglomerate, and at the end of the week she was either going to be jobless or be made executive vice president.

The only problem had been that Mabel's latest nanny had broken her ankle and the housekeeper was on vacation , so there was no one to take care of the child. Eleanor had used the inconvenience to her advantage when she'd called her boss and said she so rarely got to sew her beloved daughter, could she please take the child with her?. The man had been pleasantly impressed and agreed readily.

Mabel and her mother were given on of the many pretty, two-bedroom guest condos, and Mabel had been left on her own. Her mother was busy "making contacts" as she called it, never friends, never anything just for pleasure, so she was unaware of where her daughter was.

It was the first time Mabel had really seen her mother's colleagues and for the whole day she'd been fascinated. There we're over three hundred people at the conference and within hours they had assembles themselves into little groups where they put their heads together and whispered. When Mabel went close to them, they dispersed. It was as if they thought the girl had been brought to spy for her mother.

Mabel spent her time wandering about the beautiful resort and watching and listening, something she was good at.

By the second day, she saw that there was one person who seemed to be different from the others. He was tall young man with green eyes, brown hair and a cleft in his chin. She didn't know who he was or what he did, but he seemed to run the place. The CEOs of the two merging corporations both talked to him. He'd listen, then go away, and later he'd nod toward someone that something had been done.

Mabel thought he was quite the eye of the storm. Tempers were rising that week. There were big negotiations of who was going to stay in what position, and who was leaving. Little cliques of men and women were everywhere, plotting and planning

In the midst of it all was this young man, who was very calm. She watched him step into the middle of angry people, and within seconds, whatever he said to them made them to quit shouting. Maybe it was a reaction to her hyper mother, who was always living in the future, constantly scheming about the next product that would sell millions, the next takeover, the next position up the ladder, but Mabel really liked this quiet man who could settle others down.

By the fourth day, Mabel began to study the young man. As much as possible, wherever he went, whatever he did, she was there. When he spoke, she put herself close enough to listen. Several times he turned quickly and winked at her, but he never talked to her directly, and she was glad. She had no idea what she'd say if he spoke to her. What she liked the most is that he seemed to be at peace with himself and the world. She never once heard him talk about a "three-year plan."

By the sixth day, she knew she was in love with him, and as a result, her watching of him became more secretive. She hid in the bushes as he played tennis and laughed with the other guests. On Sunday when he went sailing, she was nearby when he left and watching when he returned. She saw that every morning he went swimming before it was quite daylight, so early on Saturday, the last day, she waited for him by the pool. The fact that she couldn't swim very well was, to her mind, an asset. If she did begin to sink, he could save her.

Five came and went but he didn't show up. Mabel was in the deep end and she was getting tired. She hadn't had much sleep in the last few days because she had been keeping tabs on him.

By six, she knew she should get out of the pool. She'd decided he wasn't going to come, but then she heard voices from the direction of the house and she relaxed.

He'd be there soon. She smiled in anticipation as she let her muscles go limp and she sank toward the bottom.

It was never her intention to actually drown, but as she waited for him to come, as she thought about her mother, she forgot about time and place.

The next thing she knew, she opened her eyes and she was being kissed by.... him. His lips, his eyes, his chin, his body were all near hers and he was kissing her. Or giving her mouth-to-mouth, which was nearly the same thing.

"She's alive!" Mabel heard a woman say, but she couldn't concentrate because she began coughing up a lot of water.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his hands on her shoulders as she choked and spit.

Mabel managed to nod that she was fine. As long as he was near her, she was sure she'd always be alright.

Someone put a towel around her, and she looked up to see a pretty woman kneeling beside her. "You shouldn't go swimming alone, " she said softly, tenderness in her eyes.

The man looked across Mabel to the woman. It didn't take much to figure that they were together, a couple. If Mabel hadn't been weak, she would have burst into tears. She wanted to yell at the woman that he was hers! Hadn't she nearly died to prove that?

But Mabel said nothing of what she really thought. Life with her mother had taught her to keep her true feelings and emotions to herself. If people didn't agree with her mother, there were punishments.

"Don't tell my mother," Mabel managed to say at last looking at him and avoiding the gaze of the lady.

Curious, the lady glanced at him.

"Eleanor Spinnel," he said.

The lady let out her breath in a sympathetic sigh. "I didn't know Eleanor could have—"she cut off her sentence. "We won't tell," she reassured Mabel. "But maybe we should have a doctor look at you."

"No!" Mabel said, then jumped up to show them that she was alright. But she got dizzy and would have fallen if he hadn't caught her. For a moment she had the divine pleasure of feeling his arms around her. She was glad she hadn't died in the pool because if she had, she wouldn't have felt his lips on hers and his hands on her body.

The woman cleared her throat and he released Mabel.

She backed away, looking at them. They were a beautiful couple, the woman tall like he was, with her blonde hair spread around her shoulders. She had on a swimsuit that showed off her long lean athletic body. She also probably played tennis and swam. She would never drown, Mabel thought, backing away from them. She was embarrassed now and afraid they'd ask why she was in the pool alone if she couldn't swim very well.

"I, uh.... I have to go," she mumbled, then turned and ran toward the house. Behind her, she heard the man's baritone voice say something. The woman said, "Hush!, she obviously has a crush on you and she deserves respect."

Mabel heard the man say, "She's just a child, she can't—"

Mabel heard no more. She wanted to die from the humiliation and embarrassment. She couldn't will herself to die, but she could stay in her room for the rest of the day.

She and her mother left the resort that evening, but while her mother said her farewells, Mabel had skulked in the corners, fearful of running into him again, afraid he and his girlfriend would laugh at her. She didn't see them. But as soon as she and her mother got into the company car, her mother launched into a lecture about how she'd been embarrassed by Mabel's rudeness. "You'll never achieve anything if you don't push yourself forward," Eleanor said. "Lurking in the shadows will gain nothing. Its possible that you will one day be asking on of these people for a job, you should see that they remember you."

Mabel kept her head turned away. Her heart nearly stopped when she saw them strolling across the lawn, hand in hand. She was sure that they'd already forgotten the child who nearly drowned just this morning.

"Him!" Eleanor said, looking at the handsome young man. "He's part of the security hired for this meeting and he stuck his nose in where it didn't belong!" she said, a look of disgust on her face. "He told a senior VP that of he didn't contain his anger he'd have to leave. I don't know who he thinks he is but—"

"Shut up," Mabel said, her voice calm and quiet, but fierce. It was the first time in her life that she'd stood up to her overbearing mother. Mabel had survived because she'd figured out the meaning of "passives aggressive" when she was four. But now she couldn't bear for her mother to say something against _him_.

As they drove by, he raised his hands to her and smiled. Mabel smiled back and lifted her hand in return. Then the car turned a curve in the road and they were out of sight.

Eleanor started with, "How dare you—" but when she caught the look on Mabel's young face, she stopped talking and picked her bag from the floor.

When Mabel glanced up, the driver was looking at her in the rearview mirror and smiling. He was proud of her for telling Eleanor Spinnel to back off.

Mabel turned to look out the window, and she smiled too. She wasn't sure what had happened but she knew that the week had changed her life.