Twisted Shadows (14 page)

“What kind of businesses are you in?”

“We broker sanitation equipment, for one. We also have janitorial services, uniform rental and cleaning, real estate …” He stopped and a look of agony crossed his face. His hand clutched the arm of his chair.

She stood. “Can I help?”

“Yes. Pills. In a bottle on the desk. And water.”

She quickly found the bottle of pills, along with a pitcher and glass. She poured water into the glass and handed both the bottle of pills and water to him. He took out two of the pills, gulped them, then drained the glass of water. In a moment, his face started to relax.

“Thank you,” he said finally.

“Are you all right? Should I call someone?”

“No. I want to talk to you.”

“Why?” she asked bluntly.

“I've wondered about you all these years,” he said. “No matter what your mother told you, I didn't want to let you go.”

“But you did let me go. You bargained with my mother. You took one, she took the other.” Anger surged through her body, her veins, flushing her face.

“Is that what she told you?”

“Only that she could ‘save' only one.”

“Does Nick seem mistreated?”

She didn't have an opinion on that yet, so she changed the subject. “How long have you known where I was?”

“I just found out,” he said, looking at her steadily through weary eyes.

She wasn't sure she believed him. “How?”

He shrugged. “Your mother's sister.”

So her mother had been right. That was how he had found them. “Why did you want to see me now?”

“You're my daughter. I'm sick,” he said matter-of-factly. “You're unfinished business.”

“No hugs … kisses,” she said sarcastically. “Just unfinished business.”

“We don't know each other. I didn't think you would—”

“You were right,” she said coolly, trying desperately to rein in her emotions. Anger, regret. Even confusion.

“I'm not asking you for anything. I wanted to see you. It's as simple as that. I wanted you and your brother to know each other.”

“For sentimental reasons?”

“I have only a few months. Maybe not that long. I have a large estate. It's important that you participate in it.”

“I don't want it.”

“Still, a part of it is yours. Your birthright. And the money was earned honestly,” he added quickly, apparently seeing the rejection in her face.

“But originally—?”

“The fruit of ill-gotten gains?” he said. “That's the problem, is it?”

“That and my mother. Your messenger threatened her.”

He sat straighter in the chair. “He wasn't authorized to do that.”

“I want your word that my mother will be safe.”

“I have no reason to harm her,” he said.

It wasn't a direct answer.

“I want a promise,” she said, hiding the hand that slightly trembled under the other.

“Would you believe me if I made that promise?”

She regarded him steadily. “I don't know.”

“One honest person in the family,” he said. “But for what it's worth, I swear I will do nothing to harm your mother if she does nothing to harm me.”

She was bargaining with the devil. Her father. She kept trying to tell herself that but everything was surreal. The house. The fading old man. She felt no connection with him, and oddly enough she wanted to.

“
If she does nothing to harm me.
” The phrase was like a knife. Her mother must have some means of hurting him. After thirty years? Was that why he wanted to see her? To see if she knew what it was?

Something froze inside her.

“
He likes to play games.
” She remembered Nick's words only too clearly.

But maybe she was reading too much into her brother's words. They could have another meaning. Her mother hadn't been hurt. Her … father had never been convicted of a crime. Maybe he
had
turned the family legitimate amid lingering suspicions. She wanted to believe that.

He continued. “I did love your mother. She's the one—” He suddenly winced, and his mouth turned grim. “You can leave now. Tell Reggie …”

She hesitated, her natural sympathy for anything hurt making her want to reach out to him.

“Dinner,” he said through clenched teeth. “I want you to meet the rest of the family at six.”

She hesitated, torn between sympathy toward him, uncertainty about why she was even here. She needed to know so much more. She was being sliced by the sharp edges of so many emotions, anger the keenest of all. Anger at her mother. Against the man who had just implied that her mother had lied again.

“You will stay?”

It was both order and plea. She didn't want to stay. She wanted to go back to the hotel and take a hot bath and rerun everything that had happened today. She wanted to weigh it, to judge it.

She looked back at him, saw the pain overtaking the arrogance. She wondered if he was using that pain to manipulate her. Both her mother and Nick had warned her against his charm, and she'd seen more than a few flashes of it. Yet there had also been no sign of affection, no real warmth. More, she thought, a claim of possession.

She got up on legs that barely held her. They were rubbery from the tense exchange, from the expectations that had been dashed, the questions unanswered, the unexpected need unmet. Until this moment, she hadn't known how much she'd wanted a gesture of some kind, just as she had wanted it from Nick.

And she had more questions now than when she'd walked into the room.

ten

Nick watched as Samantha entered the parlor. She was tense, but he saw fire in her eyes.

He wondered what his father had thought he was getting: a mild-mannered woman who could be manipulated?

If so, he'd certainly been wrong.

Nick had few doubts now that the woman really was his sister. She was too sure of it herself.

But then she'd grown up happy and safe, and entirely too trusting.

For a moment, he was envious. Nothing had been easy for him. He'd never trusted easily. Still didn't.

“Want to go?” he asked, trying to give her another easy out.

“I promised to stay for dinner.”

Anna walked in then. She looked at him, then regarded Samantha curiously. Obviously she had not been apprised of the new relative, either.

“My sister,” he said to Anna, and watched as astonishment flashed across her face. “Samantha, this is Anna. Our cousin.”

He paid little heed to Samantha's own look of surprise at his words
my sister,
at his evident surrender.

“No,” Anna said. “It's impossible.”

“I thought so, too,” he said. “Pop says it's true, and there's no reason for him to lie. Samantha—or Nicole—is my twin sister.”

All the color fled from Anna's face. “It can't be. She died years ago.”

“No. Someone else died. God knows who.”

“What does she want?” Anna asked, as if Samantha wasn't even there.

He smiled mirthlessly. “To my surprise, it seems damned little.”

He watched as Anna reassessed the visitor, both as a competitor for an inheritance and as a competitor for male attention. Anna, who had lustrous dark brown hair and dark brown eyes, was extremely pretty as well as damn smart. And ambitious. She had a MBA from Harvard and was vice president of one of his father's legitimate corporations. In his name, she'd also established a charitable foundation.

She and Nick's half brother were always in competition for his father's approval.

Her own father had been killed when she was eleven. Pop had taken her in, raised her as the daughter he hadn't had.

Christ, this newest … twist hurt. It wasn't a small secret. An oversight. A half-truth. He thought about how many times as a boy he'd longed for a mother. He'd even visited the grave where he'd thought she was buried. It had been bad enough to lose a mother to death. To know, instead, that he'd not only been abandoned as a baby but also lied to his entire life was something that would take a long time for him to accept. Much less forgive. For either parent's part.

Samantha was something else. Another innocent party. A lot more innocent, in fact, than he.

His sister
.

How could he keep her from probing any more? The deeper she probed, the more she would be tainted, even endangered. She had no idea of the cesspool bubbling just beneath the civilized trappings of their lives.

He had gone with the flow this past day, not quite believing her, not quite accepting this scenario that came out of the worst of bad novels. At some point—perhaps because of his father's call, perhaps because she believed it so thoroughly—he had come to believe everything she'd said.

And he'd tried to rein in the rage that swamped him in a way he'd never experienced before. Samantha obviously loved her mother and was loved in return. He'd had a succession of nannies and his father's girlfriends. He'd grown up lonely and isolated. His small physical hurts had been a matter of frantic finger-pointing between those looking after him and, as a result, military school had not been much of a hardship. For a moment, he knew grief for what could have been, but never was.

He found himself wanting to protect the woman he was reluctantly recognizing as his sister, while realizing his protection might well put her in more danger. It could, in fact, destroy her.

As for her mother, he had no interest in seeing her. Not now. Not ever.

Anna turned to Samantha, her lips suddenly curving into a charming smile. “Welcome to the family.” It was as if her earlier comment about Samantha—and what she wanted—had never been made.

Samantha regarded her warily. “Thank you, but I don't exactly think I'm a member of the family.”

“Pop obviously intends for you to be,” Anna said.

Nick watched Samantha's face as she caught the easily said “Pop.” A flicker of surprise disappeared quickly. She shrugged. “I really don't intend—or want—to be a part of the family. My life is in Colorado. I wanted only to meet my brother.”

Anna looked surprised. “Not your father?”

“He made a decision years ago that he wanted Nick, not me,” she said.

So she didn't really believe that her father had been looking for her all this time. Wise girl. And wouldn't she feel the same abandonment by his father as he did by her mother? That hadn't occurred to him until now.

Anna shrugged. “Well, welcome anyway. I have to get back to the office for a few hours. Nick, walk me to the car.”

She walked to the ornate front door, obviously expecting him to follow. He didn't like being manipulated by her any more than he did by his father, but Samantha had turned away, her gaze wandering over the photos in the room.

He escorted his cousin out to her sports car. “Do you really believe her?” Anna asked. “That she really doesn't want anything?”

“I'm reserving judgment,” he said blandly.

“It's a trick. Probably a look-alike that Georgie found.”

“To what purpose?”

“To keep the bulk of Pop's estate. He could have an agreement to buy her share if she inherits, then he could take over.”

“That's a big if, Anna.”

“You've talked to her. What do you think?”

“I think she's exactly what she appears to be, an unsuspecting pawn in someone's game. I'm just not sure whose yet.” He raised an eyebrow in question.

“I'm not that devious,” Anna said.

“What does Pop have to gain from this?”

Anna sighed. “I don't know. I know he doesn't entirely trust George. And I'm a female and thus not fit to become head of the family. It has to have something to do with you.”

Nick secretly agreed. It could well be another one of his father's plots to publicly bring him into his organization. The other crime groups would tear George apart, and Anna was right: Her father would see the organization crumble before putting it in the hands of a woman. “She'll be gone soon. She says she has no interest in Pop or the business, and I believe her.”

“I don't,” Anna said. “Surely she must know he's worth millions.”

“I researched her last night,” he said. “She has a successful business and a good reputation. If anything, this relationship is going to do more damage to her than good.”

“You're the last person I expected to be naive,” she said.

He shrugged. “Believe what you will. But I don't want any harm coming to her.”

Her astonishment was plain. “You
really
do believe her.”

“Yes, and I'm going to do everything I can to send her back to Colorado.”

She put a finger on his cheek. “I'm still not sure about you, Nick. Are you really that indifferent to the family? Or are you just sneaky enough to make us think so?”

“You, my dear cousin, can make up your own mind. I'll see you later.” He turned back toward the house. He heard the purr of her engine, then a roar and the spinning of gravel beneath expensive tires as she sped down the drive.

Samantha watched them from a window.

She saw Anna press her finger against Nicholas's cheek. It was more the gesture of a lover than a cousin.

She turned away. She hated this house. It was pretentious, the artwork hanging on the walls modern. She recognized the names. They were popular in the art world, though she didn't care for them. She felt the sudden need to leave, to run and never look back. Everything here was superficial; everything in Steamboat Springs substantive.

“I was wrong to come,” she whispered to herself. And yet she knew she would have wondered her entire life if she had not made this personal pilgrimage.

She would see the dinner through tonight. Then she would return to her old life, happy in what and who she was.