Rules of the Game Read Online Free PDF

right job came along, she knew he would simply stride into it then zoom to the top.
    At times he’d seemed restless, moody. Because she had always had to steal her own privacy, Brooke had left him to his. And when he snapped out of it, he’d always been bursting with energy and plans. Let’s go here, let’s go there. Now, today. Tomorrow was always years away to Clark. To Brooke, for the first time in seventeen years, today was special. She had something—
someone
—who belonged to her.
    In the meantime, she’d worked long hours, cooked his meals and hoarded her tips in a small apothecary jar on a shelf in the kitchen.
    One night Brooke had come home from a late shift to find that Clark had gone, taking with him her small black-and-white television set, her record collection and her apothecary jar. A note was in its place.
    Brooke,
    Got a call from home. My parents are putting on the pressure—I didn’t know it would start so soon. I should have told you before, but I guess I kept thinking it would just go away. An old family tradition—a merger with my third cousin, as in matrimony. Hell, it sounds archaic, but it’s the way my people work. Shelley’s a nice girl, her dad’s a connection of my dad’s. I’ve been more or less engaged to her for a couple of years, but she was still at Smith, so it didn’t seem important. Anyway, I’ll slip into her family’s business. Junior executive with a shot at the V.P. in five years or so. I guess I hoped I’d tell them to take a leap when the time came, but I can’t. I’m sorry.
    There’s no fighting a wall of family and old money and stiff New England practicality, babe, especially when they keep reminding you that you’re the heir apparent. I want you to know that these last couple of months I’ve had more breathing space than I’ve had in a long time, and I suppose than I’ll have in an even longer time.
    I’m sorry about the TV and stuff, but I didn’t have the cash for the plane fare and the time wasn’t right to tell my folks I’d already blown my savings. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.
    I kept hoping it wouldn’t have to be this way, but I’m backed into a corner. You’ve been great, Brooke, really great. Be happy.
    Clark
    Brooke had read the note twice before all the words registered. He’d gone. Her things hadn’t mattered but he had. Clark was gone and she was alone—again—because she hadn’t graduated from Smith or had a family in Boston or a father who could offer someone she loved a comfortable job so he’d choose her. No one had ever chosen her.
    Brooke had wept until she was drained, unable to believe that her dreams, her trust and her future had been destroyed all in one instant.
    Then she had grown up fast, pushing her idealism behind her. She wasn’t going to be used ever again. She wasn’t going to compete ever again with women who had all the advantages. And she wasn’t going to slave in a steamy little diner for enough money to keep herself in a one-room apartment with dingy paint.
    She had torn the note into tiny pieces, then had washed her face with icy water until all the traces of all the tears were gone.
    Walking the pavement with all the money she had left in her pocket, she had found herself in front of Thorton Productions. She had gone in aggressively, belligerently, talking her way past the receptionist and into the personnel office. She’d come out with a new job, making hardly more than she had waiting tables, but with fresh ambition. She was going places. The one thing her betrayal by Clark had taught her was that she could depend on only one person: herself. No one was ever going to make her believe, or make her cry again.
    Ten years later, Brooke drew a narrow black dress from her closet. It was a severely sophisticated outfit she had bought mainly for the cocktail circuit