Children of Dynasty

Published 2005 by Medallion Press, Inc.
225 Seabreeze Ave.
Palm Beach, FL 33480

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is a registered tradmark of Medallion Press, Inc.

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment from this “stripped book.”

Copyright © 2005 by Christine Carroll
Cover Illustration by James Tampa

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Carroll, Christine.

  Children of dynasty / Christine Carroll.

     p. cm.

  ISBN 1-932815-42-2

  1. San Francisco (Calif.)–Fiction. I. Title.

   PS3603.A774575C48 2005

   813’.6–dc22

             2005016459

M
ariah Grant hugged her slender body against the deepening chill of the San Francisco twilight. Behind her, music and party chatter drifted out through the French doors of Davis Campbell’s Seacliff mansion. Perched on the brink of a precipice, the stucco-walled edifice boasted three wings, handmade clay roof tiles and a two-story wall of glass overlooking the Pacific. Mariah’s view from the terrace swept from the Golden Gate Bridge south to the trackless sea, while a line of ships headed for the expanse of open ocean. Their purpose and motion made her wish she were bound for some exotic port, to be anywhere but in the home of her father’s most bitter rival.

Only a month had passed since she joined the family company and, due to her dad being under the weather tonight, she represented Grant Development alone for the first time. Her hope this evening was to meet Senator Lawrence Chatsworth, former head of the Bay Area Regional Planning Commission, a man whose influence had opened doors for many.

Though she might feel confident invading the Campbell domain for business reasons, she had trouble setting aside her personal feelings. She expected Davis Campbell’s son Rory to be here, she counted on it, but the prospect of seeing the man she’d once loved made her chest feel hollow.

As the sun sank into the molten ocean, a salt breeze stirred her hair. She knew she should go back inside and look for the Senator, but instead stood compelled by the rugged San Francisco terrain, achingly familiar, yet now more precious for having spent her college years at UCLA, and four more working in Southern California. Virtual exile from her father, but it had been necessary both to pay her business dues and heal the wound inflicted by Rory Campbell.

Fixing her eyes on a deepening ochre sky, she steeled herself to rejoin the party. All the key players in the Bay Area developers’ community were here. Hundreds of guests crowded the elegant high-ceilinged rooms, drinking premium liquor and vying for information to help their interests or hinder others.

Before she could turn back toward the house, a hand brushed her forearm. “Mariah.”

Startled, she turned and looked up into warm brown eyes. Six-foot-two inches of well-built man in a tailored tuxedo, Rory Campbell brought back all the memories she’d tried to forget.

“It’s been too long.” His voice sounded familiar, deep, and even though she could no longer replay that seductive tone in her mind, her heart remembered. Treacherous images swirled of being in his arms when she was eighteen and innocent.

Rory’s gaze traveled from the straps of her gold sheath down to the curve of her waist. In the San Francisco boutique, the dress had seemed the perfect revenge, but now she wondered if it revealed too much. With a coolness she didn’t feel, she looked up at wavy, black hair above dark angled brows, high cheekbones, and a square jaw softened by a sensuous mouth. The scent of his aftershave wafted to her, bringing back a bygone summer when she’d sprinkled the fragrance on her pillow so she could dream of him. He’d been a slim blade of youth then, with a gaunt face composed of angular planes. Tonight, he wore an aura of self-confidence that declared the heir to Davis Campbell Interests had come into his own.

“How did eight years get away?” he asked.

“You were married for seven of them.” She failed to state that his rush to the altar indicated how little she had meant to him.

He looked pained. “You know Elizabeth and I … that I’m single?”

She studied the sea cliffs. “Your divorce made the news.”

Last fall when she was visiting her dad for Thanksgiving, the lead story in “On the Spot,” the city’s video equivalent of the tabloids: “City’s most eligible bachelor once more at large.”

“The paparazzi are relentless.” Rory looked annoyed. “Ten minutes after you joined your father’s company, the word was out.”

Through the French doors, Mariah spied Davis Campbell’s tall frame cutting a swath through the party crowd. “And for the past few months you, too, have been with your father.” Her tone hardened. “You swore you’d never work for him.”

Rory’s mouth twisted. “I remember saying I wanted to run white water raft trips.”

They’d played that kind of “what if,” sailing on the Bay where sunlight sprinkled diamonds over the water.

“We thought we’d do whatever we wanted when we grew up.” Though Mariah knew he’d recently turned twenty-eight, Rory spoke with the sadness of a much older man.

To remind herself, and him, how he’d once caved in to his father, she looked a challenge at him. “What happened to your dream of being your own man?”

“The same thing that happens to so many with a legacy.” Though his words rang with finality, his dark expression conveyed something like regret. “At least you’re where you’ve always wanted to be, training to run Grant Development. You said that was your dream, and here you are.”

When she was a little girl, her father had taken her to construction sites. While he took notes on his aluminum, weatherproof clipboard and talked with employees, she watched with a child’s single-minded fascination. Dreams of a future where she saw her creations take shape had consumed most of her life.

Rory glanced over his shoulder at the crush inside. “I’m surprised you came tonight.”

“Dad was a bit taken aback when we both got an unprecedented invitation from Davis Campbell. Then he decided it must have been a business courtesy.” Reluctant to mention her father’s health lest it get back to his rival, she finished, “I came alone.”

Speaking of her father, she realized that the wall of glass on the rear of the house exposed her standing with Rory. If the ever-active grapevine paired them, Dad would be sure to hear and be hurt by his daughter’s indiscretion.

“Would you be here if you’d known the invitation was from me?” Rory spoke with a trace of what could not be hesitation, not in the “the city’s most eligible bachelor.”

Mariah went still inside, afraid of trusting too much in his statement. She had trusted him once before, and look where that had gotten her.

“Why would you invite me?” She tried to sound casual.

He smiled for the first time. It softened his features, making him more like the youth she’d known. “Maybe when I heard you’d come back to town I got curious.”

“Curious.” She too, had wondered how they would react to seeing each other again. “If you did invite me, why include my father?”

Rory’s eyes twinkled. “Asking you both seemed less obvious.”

Like his smile, his teasing tone took her back. When his gaze took another tour from the top of her head to the tips of her strappy gold sandals, goosebumps prickled her skin.

“You’re chilled.” He shrugged off his jacket and draped it around her.

She wasn’t sure she wanted the remembered intimacy of wearing his clothes, but with bowed head, she let him cover her shoulders with the coat. His hand brushed her collarbone, left a tingling spot on her skin, and she wondered if it were her imagination that his fingers were unsteady?

Before she could stop herself, she looked up. In his eyes, she found the same smoky look that had so often preceded a kiss. With a flutter in her stomach, she realized how easily he could have her back under his spell.

She tried looking away, at the flagstone, the railing around the turquoise swimming pool, but it was no good.

“Mariah.” Rory tipped her chin up so she met his eyes once more. Rather than lower his mouth to hers, he studied her in silence, as though measuring his next words. “You ever think ‘what if?’”

Closing her eyes, she rode a wave of pain. Why couldn’t she be immune to him after so many years of silence?

“Admit it,” Rory’s voice was soft. “You remember, too.”

Memory held it all, from the times she had raised her face for his kiss to his vow that nothing would come between them, not school, long distance, or their parents. Did she feel his breath, a faint stir of air before her?

Before she could decide, Davis Campbell’s imperial tone intruded. “Rory!”

Her eyes snapped open.

Rory stepped back, and turned from her toward the French doors where his father stood.

Davis must be about fifty-eight now, her father’s age, as they had been classmates at Stanford. A complimentary scatter of silver threaded his thick, black hair, but he still carried his tall frame proudly. Though undeniably good-looking, his predatory expression chilled her enough to draw Rory’s jacket closer around her. Behind him in the great room, his big game hunting trophies festooned the walls.

Davis fixed on Mariah, his dark eyes as hard as she remembered, reminding her of the night he’d caught her and Rory making love on his yacht. Drunk on freedom and the heat of their bare skin, neither of them heard the tap of footsteps on the dock until it was too late.

Though the sea breeze cooled the terrace, the memory of shame heated her.

“What are you doing in my home?” The man she blamed for destroying her dreams glared down at her.