“I’ll handle this.” Kat had hurried into the room, as if she’d been hovering in the hall, waiting for the right moment to appear. She’d stared at Trisha with chilling calm. For the first time Trisha felt fear.
“She’s my daughter,” Witt protested.
“And you’re out of control.” Kat’s lips had compressed. “I said, I’ll handle this, Witt. It’s women’s business.”
“I’m not backing down,” he’d growled and stalked out of the den, kicking the door on his way out.
Quietly, Kat had shut the door and the lock clicking into place was like the knell of doom. Trisha’s eyes filled with tears because she knew she’d already lost. God, she’d hated her stepmother.
“Come on, Trisha, let’s talk sensibly about what’s going on here,” Kat said. “I know you’re upset and your father, well, he is, too. It’s just because he loves you so much.”
“Bullshit!” Sniffling, Trisha had backed up, her shoes crunching on the broken shards of glass.
“He does. In his own way. But he hates the Polidoris as much as he loves you and he’s serious when he says he’ll press charges. Mario will probably spend time in jail and how good would that be for you and your baby?” Kat’s smile was patronizing and cold as death.
Trisha had begun to sob brokenly, already giving in to the steady, unrelenting pressure her family was sure to put on her.
In the end, Kat had convinced her that the only reasonable thing to do, the best thing for all concerned, was to abort the baby, and the next day, before Trisha could change her mind, Kat had shuttled her off to a private clinic where she’d given up the only person—the only thing—that had meant anything to her.
She’d never gotten pregnant again. She’d lost the baby and Mario’s love. Though he claimed to still care for her, their relationship had never been the same. They had lost what little innocence they’d once shared. Because of Witt. Because of Kat. God, she’d hated them both.
Now, so many hateful years later, she rested her head on the steering wheel of her sports car. At least her father and Kat were dead. They deserved their ends. But, Trisha and Mario were still illicit lovers, running through the shadows to private rendezvous of hot sex with no strings attached. Trisha tried to hide the fact that she still loved him, even from herself, but then something always happened to awaken all her old, long-buried emotions, as if that little bit of life that had been so frail, existed for so little time, had linked Trisha to Mario forever.
Love, coupled with the possession and jealousy that came with it, always resurfaced. She would love Mario Polidori until the day she gave up her last breath. Tonight, watching Mario with Adria, Trisha had felt the old pangs of pain and loss, love and jealousy. She sniffed loudly and her hatred grew white-hot, settling in the pit of her stomach and burning.
Mario had been with Adria.
Beautiful Adria.
So much like Kat.
Too much like London.
20
“I’m going out,” Jason said as he paused at the door to his wife’s bedroom.
“Now?” Sitting in her robe, brushing her hair, Nicole caught Jason’s reflection in the mirror and she wondered why she’d ever been foolish enough to think that he loved her. She glanced at her watch. “Why?”
“Late meeting.”
“It’s nearly midnight,” she said, hating the wheedling sound of protest in her voice.
“I know.”
Closing her eyes, she tried to pull together whatever it was that kept her going. She set her brush down and said calmly, “You know, Jason, I should just divorce you and get it over with. Then you wouldn’t have to lie anymore.”
“I’m not—”
She held up a hand before opening her eyes. “Please. Give me some credit, will you?”
When she looked up, Jason was smiling that waxen, tight little grin that she’d grown to hate over the years—the smile he seemed to reserve just for her. “The skillet suddenly too hot for you, darling?” he said, and her insides revolted at the endearment.
How far they’d drifted apart over the years. Too far to ever find each other again. “What’s too hot isn’t the skillet, or the fire, it’s that damned little mistress of yours,” she said evenly though her insides churned. She’d thought she’d quit loving him years ago, but still the lies hurt.
At least he had the decency to blanch.
“She called here. Kim, isn’t it? The little blonde with legs that won’t quit and no breasts?” Nicole applied a little night cream to moisturize her face and hopefully forestall a few of the determined little lines that remained on her skin as the years crept by. “You really didn’t believe I didn’t know, did you?”
He seemed to puff up a bit—like he used to do when he practiced law and stood in front of a particularly recalcitrant witness on the stand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come off it, Jason.” She wiped off the excess cream. “Contrary to what you would like to think, I’m not stupid. And I know what’s going on with this London thing. You’re running scared, aren’t you?” She tossed her pale hair over her shoulders and removed her earrings, diamonds that sparkled in the soft lights arranged over her vanity. She’d picked out the earrings herself, though Jason had bought them for their fifth…or was it their sixth?…anniversary. “This new little London, she just could be your sister.”
“I don’t think so.”
Sometimes, when the pain wasn’t too great, when she could distance herself from him, it amused her to watch him lie. He did it so well, with such grace and such…conviction, as if he really believed himself.
“Zachary wouldn’t be hanging around if it weren’t serious,” she said. “Nelson looks like he’s hiding something, Trisha’s worse than ever—I shudder to think what she’s on these days—and your mother, usually so remote, she seems to have taken a sudden interest in the family. Oh, you’re worried,” she said, dropping her earrings into a velvet case and snapping it shut. “All very worried.”
“And you’re not?” He walked up behind her and placed his hands lightly around her throat. Their gazes locked in the mirror and she tilted her chin up a fraction as she felt him squeeze, ever so slightly. It would be so easy for him to cut off her wind and strangle her, but Nicole wasn’t afraid. She slid a meaningful glance to the framed eight-by-ten picture poised on the corner of the vanity.
Their daughter, Shelly, laughing, her hair windswept in the breeze rising off the ocean that day, gazed back at her. Shelly was the one thing that both she and Jason cared about. The only thing.
Jason’s gaze dropped to the picture and his fingers relaxed.
He would never do anything that might cause him to lose his daughter, for, as overly doting as Witt had been with London, so was Jason with Shelly. In his eyes, his daughter could do no wrong. The little imp had him wrapped around her slim little finger.
“You know, I’d hate to see anything happen to us,” Nicole said softly, though there was a steel thread running through the words. “It would be devastating to Shelly.”
Jason’s smug smile faltered. “Kids are survivors.”
“Are they?” she asked pointedly. “What about you?”
“I’m doing okay.”
“Are you? I’m not so sure. Then there are your brothers and sister…”
His gaze met hers again in the mirror. “Zach always seems to land on his feet. The others…who can say?” He turned away from her and started for the door.
“I won’t be publicly humiliated, Jason. If your little girlfriend wants to get down and dirty, I won’t be a part of it and neither will Shelly. Either stop seeing that little bitch or control her—I don’t really care which.” That was bending the truth a little; she did care—it bothered her to think that another woman, a younger woman, could turn his head, but she was shrewd enough to understand that Jason needed more than just a wife. He needed to be adored and fawned upon and he always needed a hot little number warming his bed a
nd stroking his male ego.
The thought made her sick, but she’d live with it. For Shelly. As long as one of his slutty little mistresses didn’t go public. Nicole had never before been concerned, not really, but she was worried about this Kim. It took nerve—hell, it took brass balls—to call up Jason Danvers’s wife and start issuing orders.
Things had changed since Adria Nash had waltzed into town. And not for the better.
She heard a pounding on the front door and her heart leaped to her throat. Now what? For a foolish split second her fears took hold and she thought Kim had become desperate enough to show up here. Jason probably had given her the code to the gate and the little slut had just enough nerve to confront her lover and his wife.
Shelly! Her thoughts flew to her daughter. She couldn’t let Shelly meet the woman! Grabbing the satin robe left at the foot of her bed, she slid her arms through the sleeves and hurried down the hall, looping the belt; damned if that little tramp would meet her daughter. Jason was two steps in front of her and he opened the door, letting in the slice of wintry cold wind that preceded his brother.
Zachary, in jeans and a denim jacket, looked out of place in the house where he’d grown up. He was tense and the restless energy that Nicole had come to associate with him was evident in the way he paced the room, the manner in which his eyes took in everything at once, the feel of electricity that he generated. His hair was a little too long, uncombed, and he looked as if he could use a shave—like he’d just come in off the range. He was so innately sexy that Nicole tried to avoid looking in his eyes for fear she would see the promise of sweet seduction lingering in those hot gray orbs.
She offered him a chair, but he shook his head and stared at his brother. “I want Sweeny’s number.”
“I was just on my way out—” Jason said.
“Now?”
“Late meeting.”
Zach didn’t press it, as if what Jason did with his own time was his business. “Fine. Go out Just give me the number.”
“Sweeny’s out of town.” Now it was Jason’s turn to be nervous.
“Then tell me where he can be reached.” There was a desperate edge to Zach’s voice, one that dared to be defied.
“He’s in and out—you’ll never catch up with him,” Jason said, and his voice sounded strangled. Out of control. All that practiced courtroom poker face shot to hell. He was lying again, Nicole surmised. And the untruths seemed to come harder when they were told to his steel-jawed brother. Would this chain of deception never end?
Zach’s eyes grew dark. “Give me the number, Jason, or place the damned call. I want to talk to him.”
Jason backed off. “You look like you could use a drink. I’ve got a bottle of—”
“I don’t need a drink,” Zach snapped. “Just give me the number.”
Jason eyed his brother and finally relented. “All right. Come on. In the den.” He checked his watch. “You know it’s nearly two o’clock in Memphis.”
“Good. He should be in.”
“Sweeny could be asleep.”
“Then it’s time to wake up,” Zach said, unable to tamp down the raw, naked tautness that had been with him ever since he’d kissed Adria and held her in his arms. He was frightened for her. Afraid that whoever was stalking her would up the ante. But he couldn’t confide in his family. Not when one of them could be the sicko. And there was the other problem of his feelings for Adria. Her lips had offered such sweet promise, her head thrown back in absolute abandon, her breasts straining against that little scrap of a bra. He’d come close to making love to her, so damned close, and it had been all he could do to break it off. She’d been willing and soft, her body yielding to his. He’d argued with himself as he’d kissed her, sworn at himself when he touched her breasts, and nearly lost all reason as she’d cradled his head to her nipple. He’d never been so hard in his life. Never wanted anything more. Never been so repulsed by his own desires.
Just thinking of it now caused the beginning of an erection to swell in his jeans. He stuffed one hand into a front pocket as Jason showed him the numbers scratched on a pad across the desk. Cradling the receiver with his shoulder, Zach punched out the numbers and waited impatiently, tapping the fingers of his free hand on the corner of the desk. “Come on, come on,” he muttered as Jason closed the door to the den.
Sweeny’s groggy voice answered on the seventh ring. “Yeah.”
“This is Zachary Danvers.”
“Jesus, do you know what time it is?”
“What’ve you found out?”
“I was gonna call Jason in the morning.”
Zach glanced at the clock. “You’re in luck. It is morning and Jason’s right here.”
“You’re a fucking prick, Danvers.” The voice cleared and he heard the sound of a lighter clicking. “Okay, it’s not much, but a start.” Zach’s stomach twisted. If Sweeny confirmed the fact that Adria was a fraud, then she was little more than a cheap hustler—a gold digger. But if he’d discovered she was London…hell, that would be worse because he’d be related to her. His heart drummed frantically in his chest. Either way, he was bound to lose. “It’s kind of been like lookin’ for a needle in a haystack,” Sweeny was saying, “or trying to find that damned guy in the puzzle, you know what I’m talking about? The guy in the red stripes? Where’s Whosit?”
“Waldo,” Zach said tersely.
“Right. That’s it. Anyway, I narrowed it down and it looks like the guy who was married to Ginny Watson moved to Kentucky a while back. Lexington, in the seventies sometime, near as I can tell. I’m gonna visit him tomorrow.”
“You got his phone number?”
Zach heard nothing but silence for a few seconds.
“Well, do you?”
“Sure, I got it, but I figured a visit in person would be better. Seeing people face-to-face makes it impossible to hang up.”
“I want to speak to him.”
“Easy, boy. You’ll get your chance,” Oswald said smoothly. “Just let me break the ice. I’ll call you as soon as I have more news. I’ll leave the message with Jason.”
“Where will you be staying?” Zach demanded.
“Where will I be staying? That’s a good one. Maybe at the Ritz? Or how about the Hotel Danvers? You got one over in Kentucky? Shit, how’m I s’posed to know?” He hung up and the phone clicked loudly in Zach’s ear.
“What was that all about?” Jason asked, pouring two glasses from a bottle of Scotch he kept in the bar. His eyes were trained suspiciously on his brother.
“I’m just tired of waiting around and I don’t trust Sweeny.”
“Neither do I, but he keeps his mouth shut and if he finds out something, he’ll let us know, but it’ll cost. Now, where’s Adria? Are you hiding her somewhere?”
Zach didn’t answer and his older brother’s lips curved into a hard little smile. “Keeping her all to yourself?”
“I thought you wanted her low-profile.”
“She’s already been on the news and in the papers. Hardly low-profile.” Jason walked to the desk, opened the drawer, and flipped out clippings and copies and faxes. “She’s made the national news, you know…and I mean more than just the little blurb that was reported through the AP. The networks are beginning to call and even a few papers back East are showing a little interest. Every time I turn on the television, someone seems to be talking about her and during the day, at the company, there’s a fucking siege in the lobby.”
“Free publicity,” Zach said sarcastically.
“Go to hell, Zach.” Jason tossed back his drink. “It’s started here, too, at the house. It upsets Nicole and Shelly and…I feel like I did when London was kidnapped—all the reporters camped out at the gate.”
Zach remembered the throng of newspeople that had pummeled the family with questions, called at all hours, crowded around the gates to the house; he’d heard from his crew still cleaning up at the hotel, that the press had been ever-present in the lobby. Even his offic
e in Bend wasn’t immune; Terry had phoned and told him that a few reporters had shown up looking for him ever since Adria’s meeting with the press.
“It’s worse than I’d imagined,” Jason was saying as he reached for the bottle again. “Even the lawyers are beginning to worry. They want to talk to Ms. Nash, but I advised them to wait a while.”
“Just let me handle her.” He didn’t want her hustled away by a herd of bloodsuckers like the attorneys for the Danvers family. Impatiently, he jammed one hand through his hair.
“Has she hired an attorney yet?”
Zach lifted a shoulder. “I don’t think so. But she’s with Mario Polidori tonight.”
“Polidori?” Jason’s face muscles flexed in disbelief and his nostrils flared in disgust. “Why?”
“Don’t know. She didn’t say.”
“So, the vultures are already circling. Great, Zach, that’s just great,” he said sarcastically, then pointed a finger at his younger brother. “You can’t let him get to her.”
“It’s none of my business.”
“Like hell! Polidori, through a smoke screen of lawyers and holding companies and silent partners, has been trying to buy off chunks of Danvers International for years—waterfront property and the old hotel, downtown real estate, even a couple of sawmills. You name it, he wants it as long as it’s got the Danvers logo attached. He has this thing about acquiring our castoffs—so far we’ve held him off.”
“His money no good?”
“It’s not the money, it’s the idea that he wants it all,” Jason said and Zach smiled at the irony of it all.
“Aren’t you the guy who said ‘it’s always money’?”
“Not with the Polidoris. With them it’s revenge,” Jason said, staring morosely into his glass. Zach didn’t argue; he’d grown up being told that the Polidoris were no-goods, out for blood, the worst of the worst. Zach had changed his mind over the course of the years, but he still didn’t trust them, especially with Adria.
Before Jason could ask a lot of questions Zach didn’t want to answer, he pushed himself away from the desk and left. Jason’s case of nerves was getting to him.