Three Fates

by Nora Roberts

  the door behind him before she remembered she was wearing pajamas. “Oh,” she said again, and clutched the lapels together. “I was just . . .”

  “Recuperating from your travels, I expect. It must be lovely, being home.”

  “Yes. Yes. I wasn’t expecting company. I’ll just change.”

  “No, don’t.” He snagged her hand before she could rush off. “You’re perfectly fine, and I won’t keep you long. I was worried about you. I hated leaving you so abruptly. Did they find who broke into your hotel room?”

  “No. No, they didn’t. At least not yet. I never thanked you properly for staying with me through all the questioning and paperwork.”

  “I wish I could’ve done more. I hope the rest of your trip went well.”

  “It did. I’m glad it’s over.” Should she offer him a drink? she fretted. She couldn’t possibly, not while wearing pajamas. “Did you . . . Have you been in New York long?”

  “I’ve just arrived. Business.” She had the drapes pulled over the windows, he noted. The place was dim as a cave but for the reading lamp on the table by the sofa. Still, what he could see was tidy as a church and quietly pretty. As she was, despite the prim cotton pajamas.

  He was, he realized, more pleased to see her than he’d expected to be. “I wanted to look you up, Tia, as I’ve been thinking about you the last few weeks.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Would you have dinner with me tonight?”

  “Dinner? Tonight?”

  “It’s short notice, I know, but if you’re not busy I’d love to have an evening with you. Tonight.” He moved in, just a little. “Tonight. Tomorrow. As soon as you’re free.”

  She’d have considered it all a hallucination, but she could smell him. Just a hint of his aftershave. She didn’t think she’d identify men’s aftershave in a hallucination. “I don’t have any plans.”

  “Brilliant. Why don’t I pick you up at seven-thirty?” He released her hand, wisely opting to retreat before she could think of an excuse. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  While she stood, staring at him, he let himself out.

  “IT’S JUST DINNER, Tia. Relax.”

  “Carrie, I asked you to come over and help, not advise me to do the impossible. What about this?” Tia turned from her closet, holding up a navy suit.

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Everything.” Carrie Wilson, a streamlined brunette with skin the color of melted caramel and ebony eyes, angled her head. “It’s fine if you’re going to address the board of directors on fiscal responsibility. It’s dead wrong for a romantic dinner for two.”

  “I never said it was romantic.”

  “You’re going out with a great-looking Irishman you met in Helsinki who stayed by your side during a criminal investigation and who has shown up on your doorstep in New York the minute he hit the States.”

  Carrie’s voice had the rapid-fire punch of a machine gun as she lounged on the bed. “The only way it could be more romantic would be if he’d shown up on a white charger with the blood of a dragon on his sword.”

  “I just want to look reasonably attractive,” Tia replied.

  “Honey, you always look reasonably attractive. Let’s swing the hammer and ring the bell.” She unfolded herself from the bed and plunged into Tia’s closet.

  Carrie was a stockbroker. Tia’s stockbroker. Somehow during their six-year association they’d become friends. She was Tia’s image of the modern, independent woman, the type who normally would have intimidated Tia into muscle spasms.

  And had until they’d discovered a mutual interest in alternative medicine and Italian shoes.

  Thirty, divorced, professionally successful, Carrie dated a string of interesting, eclectic men, could analyze the Dow Jones or Kafka with equal authority and vacationed solo every year, selecting the location by sticking a pin in an atlas.

  There was no one Tia trusted more in matters of finance, fashion or men.

  “Here, the classic little black number.” Carrie pulled out a simple sleeveless sheath. “We’ll sex it up a bit.”

  “I’m not looking for sex.”

  “That, as I’ve told you for years, is your core problem.” She stepped out of the closet, then studied Tia. “I wish we had more time. I’d call my stylist, get him to squeeze you in.”

  “You know I don’t go to salons. All those chemicals, and the hair flying everywhere. You don’t know what you might pick up.”

  “A decent haircut, for one thing. I’m telling you, you’d really open your face up, accent your bone structure and your eyes if you’d just get that mop whacked off.”

  Carrie tossed the dress on the bed, then gathered Tia’s long hair in her hand. “Let me do it.”

  “Not as long as I still have a brain wave pattern,” she chided. “Just help me get through the evening, Carrie. Then he’ll go back to Ireland or wherever, and things’ll get back to normal.”

  Carrie hoped not. As far as she was concerned her friend had entirely too much normal in her life.

  MALACHI THOUGHT THE flowers were a nice touch. Pink roses. She struck him as the type for pink roses. He was afraid he was going to have to rush her a bit, and he regretted that. She also struck him as the type for slow, rather sweet seductions. And oddly, he thought he’d enjoy seducing her, slowly.

  But he couldn’t spare the time. He wasn’t at all sure he should have left home, not before Gideon had returned. The fact that Anita had managed to track down the Toliver woman worried him.

  Was it another case of her trailing their path, or were their routes just coinciding? Either way, he was absolutely sure that Anita would move on Tia soon. If she hadn’t already.

  He needed to get his pitch in, to lure Tia over to his side before Anita could confuse matters.

  So here he was, toting a dozen pink rosebuds to the door of Wyley’s ancestor while his brother was God-knew-where with one of White-Smythe’s.

  He’d have preferred striding to Anita’s door, and leading with his boot there. If he hadn’t promised his mother—who had the good sense not to want her oldest son locked in a foreign jail—he’d have done just that.

  Still, when it came down to it, spending the evening having dinner with a pretty woman was a better bet than dragging one all over Europe as Gideon was doing.

  He knocked, waited, then was caught off balance when she opened the door. “You look fantastic.”

  Tia struggled not to tug at the hem of the little black dress that Carrie had ruthlessly shortened a full two inches. Carrie had chosen the opera-length pearls, too, and was responsible for the hairstyle that added a few wispy bangs and whisked the rest away in a long fall down the back.

  “Thank you. Those are lovely.”

  “I thought they suited you.”

  “Would you like to sit down? Have a drink before we go? I have some wine.”

  “I’d like that, yes.”

  “Well, I’ll just put these in some water.” She restrained herself from mentioning she was relatively sure she’d inherited her mother’s allergy to roses. Instead, she chose an old Baccarat vase from her display cabinet. She carried them back into the kitchen, setting them aside while she got out the bottle of white she’d opened for Carrie.

  “I like your place,” Malachi said from behind her.

  “So do I.” She poured a glass, turned to offer it. As he was closer than she’d anticipated, she nearly plowed the glass into his chest.

  “Thanks. I think the hardest aspect of traveling is not having your own things about you. The little things that comfort you.”

  “Yes.” She let out a quiet breath. “Exactly.” To keep busy, she filled the vase with water, then began to arrange the flowers in it, one by one. “That’s why you caught me in pajamas this afternoon. I was wallowing in being home. In fact, other than the limo driver, you were the first person I’d spoken to since I got back.”

  “Is that right?” So Anita ha
dn’t beaten him, after all. “Then I’m very flattered.” He picked up one of the roses, handed it to her. “And I hope you’ll enjoy the evening.”

  She did. A great deal.

  The restaurant he’d chosen was quiet, with soft lighting and discreet service. Discreet enough that the waiter hadn’t blinked when she’d picked her way through the menu, ordering a salad, without dressing, and requested her fish be broiled without butter and served without the accompanying sauce.

  Because he’d ordered a bottle of wine, she accepted a glass. She rarely drank. She’d read several articles on how alcohol destroyed brain cells. Of course, a glass of red wine was supposed to counteract that by being good for your heart.

  But the wine was so soft, and he managed to put her so completely at ease, that she never noticed how often her glass was topped off.

  “It’s so interesting that you live in Cobh,” she said. “Another tie to the Lusitania.”

  “And indirectly to you.”

  “Well, my great-great-grandparents were brought back here for burial. But I suppose, like so many of the others, they were taken to Cobh, or Queenstown then. It was foolish, really, for those people to make that crossing during wartime. Such an unnecessary risk.”

  “We never know what another considers necessary, or a risk, do we? Or why some lived and some died. My ancestor wasn’t from Ireland, you know.”

  She nearly missed what he was saying. When he smiled at her, just that way—slow and intimate—his eyes seemed impossibly green. “He wasn’t?”

  “No, indeed. He was born in England, but lived most of his life here in New York.”

  “Really?”

  “After the tragedy, he was nursed back to health by a young woman who was to become his wife. It’s said the experience changed him. Word is, he was a bit of a loose cannon before it happened. In any case, his story’s been passed down through the family. It seems he was interested in a certain item he’d heard was in England. Seeing as you’re an expert on Greek myths, you might have heard of it. The Silver Fates.”

  Struck, she set down her fork. “Do you mean the statues?”

  His pulse jumped, but he nodded easily. “I do, yes.”

  “Not The Silver Fates. The Three Fates. Three separate statues, not one, though they can be linked by the bases.”

  “Ah well, stories take on a life of their own, don’t they, over generations.” He cut another bite of his beef. “Three pieces, then. You know of them?”

  “I certainly do. Henry Wyley owned one, and it went down with the Lusitania. According to his journal, he was going to England to buy the second of the set and to, hopefully, follow a lead on finding the third. It seemed so interesting to me as a child to think that he’d essentially died for those pieces that I looked up the Fates.”

  He waited a beat. “What did you find?”

  “Oh, about the statues, next to nothing. In fact, it’s most commonly believed they don’t really exist. For all I know Henry had something else entirely.” She moved her shoulders. “But I found out about the Fates of mythology, and kept reading. The more I read, the more fascinated I was by the gods, and the half gods. I had absolutely no talent for the family business, so I turned an interest into a career.”

  “Then you have Henry to thank for that.”

  She’d always thought the same. “You’re right, I do.”

  He lifted his glass, tapped it to hers. “To Henry, then, and his pursuit of the Fates.”

  He let the conversation wind into other areas. Damn it, she was pleasant company when she loosened up. The wine added a sparkle to her eyes, a pretty glow to her cheeks. She had a mind that was quick enough to jump into any area, and a subtle and dry wit when she forgot to be nervous about what came out of her mouth.

  He gave himself an hour to simply enjoy her company, and didn’t circle back to the Fates until they were in the cab heading back to her apartment.

  “Did Henry note down in his journal how he planned to acquire the other statues?” Idly, Malachi toyed with the ends of her hair. “Weren’t you curious if they existed? If they were real?”

  “Mmm. I don’t remember.” With the wine spinning gently in her head, she relaxed against him when he slid an arm around her shoulders. “I was thirteen, no, twelve, when I first read it. It was the winter I had bronchitis. I think it was bronchitis,” she said, lazily now. “I always seemed to have something that kept me in bed. Anyway, I was too young to think about heading off to England to find some legendary statue.”

  He frowned. It seemed to him that was precisely what a twelve-year-old girl should have thought of doing. The adventure of it, the romance of it would have made a perfect fantasy for a housebound child.

  “After that, I was too steeped in gods to worry about artifacts. That’s my father’s area. I’m hopeless at business. I’ve no flare for figures or for people. I’m a crushing disappointment to him.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “It is, but it’s nice of you to say it isn’t. Wyley Antiques paid for my education, my lifestyle and my piano lessons, and I’ve given nothing back, preferring to write books on imaginary figures rather than accept the weight and responsibilities of my legacy.”

  “Writing books about imaginary figures is an art, and a time-honored profession.”

  “Not when you’re my father. He’s given up on me, and as I’ve yet to latch onto a man long enough to produce a grandchild for him, he despairs that on his retirement, Wyley’s will pass out of the family.”

  “A woman’s not required to birth a child for the sake of a bloody business.”

  She blinked a bit at the temper in his voice. “Wyley’s isn’t just a business, it’s a tradition. Oh my, I shouldn’t have had so much wine. I’m rambling.”

  “You’re not.” He paid the driver when they pulled to the curb. “And you shouldn’t worry so much about pleasing your father if he can’t see the value of who you are and what you do.”

  “Oh, he’s not . . .” She was grateful for the firmness of Malachi’s hand as she climbed out of the cab. The wine made her limbs feel loose and disconnected. “He’s a wonderful man, amazingly kind and patient. It’s just that he’s so proud of Wyley’s. If he’d had a son, or another daughter with more business skills, it wouldn’t be so difficult.”

  “Your thread’s been spun, hasn’t it?” He led her into the elevator. “You are what you are.”

  “My father doesn’t believe in fate.” She shook back her hair, smiled. “But maybe he’d be interested in the Fates. Wouldn’t it be something if I research and manage to find one of them? Or two. Of course, they don’t have any serious significance unless they’re complete.”

  “Maybe you should read Henry’s journal again.”

  “Maybe I should. I wonder where it is.” She laughed up at him as they walked toward her door. “I had the best time. That’s twice now I’ve had the best time with you, and on two continents. I feel very cosmopolitan.”

  “See me tomorrow.” He turned her into him, slid a hand up her back to the nape of her neck.

  “Okay.” Her eyes fluttered closed as he drew her closer. “Where?”

  “Anywhere.” He whispered it, then touched his lips to hers.

  It was a simple matter for a man to deepen a kiss when a woman was all but melting around him. It was easy to take as much as he wanted when she sighed and wrapped her arms around him.

  And when what she gave back was sweet and warm and unbearably soft, it was damn near impossible not to want more.

  He could have more, he thought as he changed the angle of the kiss. He had only to open her door, step inside with her. Already there was a purr in her throat and a quiver along her skin.

  And he couldn’t do it. She was half-drunk and criminally vulnerable. Worse, somehow worse, the want for her was a great deal more personal than he’d bargained for.

  He eased her back with the sudden, certain knowledge that his plans had just suffered a major snag. And the s
nag could become a large and tangled knot.

  “Spend the day with me tomorrow.”

  She felt as if she were floating. “Don’t you have work?”