“This really isn’t a good time,” she told him. “I’m sorry I had to bail out on dinner at the last minute, but things have been happening here and…well…”
His eyes narrowed. “Gabriel,” he said. “I heard. But if things are jumping around here, then why are you hiding out in your room?”
She pressed her lips together. “Laszlo, really, I’m sorry about the date, but I can’t explain any farther.”
“You cancelled it….” he said slowly. He stepped into the room and shut the door, closing them in, then turned to look at her. “You cancelled the date. You told Nayara about me. And now Brenden is as jumpy as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. What is going on, Mariana?”
For a moment, blank confusion buzzed in her brain. She couldn’t make what he said come together in a way that made sense. Then the truth slammed into her with an impact that made her gasp. “You’re Billy!”
He tilted his head. “I’m Laszlo, too,” he said, with a small smile.
“You’re From-the-past-Billy,” she said, her heart thundering. “What are you doing here?”
“This is my time,” he pointed out.
She shook her head impatiently. “You slept with Brenden, not me. I spoke to you in New Orleans three hours ago by my subjective time and if Brenden is as good as I hear he is, then it was almost exactly three hours ago by your subjective time, too.”
He gave her a small, lop-sided smile. “I’m Billy by that definition,” he told her.
“Why are you here?” she repeated.
“I’m looking for answers, the same as you.” He stepped closer. “How did you know Brenden and I…?”
“You don’t have a good poker face,” she told him.
“I am brilliant at poker,” he replied. “High stakes poker was the foundation of my money.” He studied her. “I think you’re more sensitive about Laszlo—and Brenden—than either of us realize.” He lifted her chin and it was a gentle touch, so much like Laszlo’s that her breath caught. He looked into her eyes. “What made you cancel the dinner?” he asked. “Because I know you had no intention of letting either of us influence how you dealt with Laszlo.”
Her heart was still racing, but this time, it was Laszlo’s—Billy’s, she corrected herself harshly—proximity. “Don’t. Please.”
“Don’t?”
She stepped away from him and his hand. “This is highly confusing, especially with you here in this room, dressed like…well, like you, instead of the twentieth century clothing.”
“You like him, don’t you? More than that. He’s got under your skin.”
Mariana couldn’t look at him. For a moment, she could smell apples, baking in the hot afternoon sun. She could taste….
She closed her eyes and tried to breathe away the image, the taste, the reminder of him. Guilt speared her.
Billy’s hands on her shoulders turned her to face him. “You’re behaving like Brenden was. What’s going on, Mariana? I know you’ll tell me the truth.”
“I kissed him,” she said and blinked away the guilty tears. “I’m sorry. I know that sounds pathetic, but I am.”
His hands fell away from her shoulders. “You’re not talking about me—about Laszlo, I mean.”
She shook her head, her misery complete.
He pushed his hands into his pockets. “You wouldn’t be so cut up about this if it had meant nothing. But you’re eating yourself up about it.” He closed his eyes as he figured it out. “And so is Brenden,” he added.
He turned away from her. “He could barely look me in the eye when he came back to New Orleans. Said he was under orders to come and collect me and tried to hustle me out of the room inside ten seconds, like just being there was agony. He kept saying we had to hurry, but even if the whole world was demanding my return back here, we could have taken a month to get back and it wouldn’t have made any difference here.”
“I’m sorry,” Mariana repeated desperately.
“I know.” Billy glanced at her over his shoulder. “You’re too honest to be anything but sorry.” He gave a great sigh and turned back to face her again. “I told Brenden I’d come and get you, because he was so reluctant to do it himself. He was trying to talk Rob into fetching you.” He grimaced. “Now I know why. But Nayara does want to see us all. I think she’s had someone go and collect Laszlo, too.” He gave her a stiff smile. “So brace yourself,” he added.
Mariana rubbed her temples, pushing away the ache. “I think it’s my turn to run away to New Orleans.”
* * * * *
Mariana had the greatest difficulty stepping through the doors into the command center. Oddly, it was Billy’s presence by her side that gave her the courage to move into the room.
Brenden was leaning over the table, watching a screen unroll in front of him, but he straightened up as they entered. His glance flickered toward her, settling for the barest of a second, then shifted to Billy.
Billy walked right up to him and stood in front of him. “She told me,” he said flatly.
Brenden drew in a heavy breath. He looked at her over Billy’s shoulder. “Why?”
“Because she likes me. Laszlo,” Billy said flatly. “Which puts us in an awkward place. Brenden, look at me.”
Brenden looked at him. “There’s an easy way to cut through all this and Nayara was about to do just that, but you’ve gone to ground.”
“You mean Laszlo?” Mariana asked, moving up to their sides. “He’s disappeared?”
“Completely off grid,” Brenden confirmed. “They won’t let me help with the search because it’s Laszlo. It’s almost like he knew we would come for him.” He looked at Billy.
Billy shifted awkwardly. “What can I say? I knew Nayara planned to speak to him and I will still know that when I am him, somewhere in the future. But I can’t tell you why he’s here, or why he’s disappeared now. His motives are as much of a mystery to me as anyone here.”
Brenden shook his head. “This whole thing is driving me crazy.” He looked at Mariana. “I need to speak to you. Privately,” he added, glancing at Billy.
Billy leaned back against the table. “I’d ask you if you plan to kiss her again, but you’re too angry right now to kiss anyone. Be nice to her.”
Brenden was angry. She could see it in every stiff line in his body. He strode over to his office and she looked at Billy. “I guess I’d better go and talk to him, before he vents pyroclastic clouds.” She touched his hand. It was supposed to be a reassuring thing, a thank you for being so nice about her confession. But it turned into a lingering caress. He felt the same as Laszlo, because he was Laszlo. No wonder she was confused.
Billy gave her a small smile. “Don’t let him bully you.”
“There has to be at least one person he can’t push around, right?”
“Right.”
She walked into Brenden’s office, trying to look more confident than she felt. She was certain that Brenden was going to tear strips off her again, this time for telling Billy the truth. Impatience touched her. Why should she always be defending her actions, when what she had done was the best decision she could make at the time?
Mariana shut the door. She was tempted to slam it shut except that the network controlled the door and if Brenden couldn’t slam it even when he wanted—and she had seen him try—then there was no way she was going to be able to do it.
She turned and faced Brenden. He was sitting with his butt on the front edge of his desk, his arms crossed.
“You might has well save your breath if you think you can make me feel guilty for telling Billy that I kissed you,” she began. “I was already feeling guilty just for doing it in the first place. Telling him was the only right thing to do.” And she realized she was justifying herself, when she had decided that she was tired of doing exactly that.
Brenden didn’t move. “I’m not angry with you.”
Mariana blinked. “You’re not?”
“I’m pissed at myself.” His jaw flexed. “Billy
isn’t one of my very unavailable society wives.”
“He’s the complete and polar opposite on all counts,” she agreed. Then she realized what he had really meant. “Oh…”
Brenden was watching her with a peculiar intensity. Waiting for her to understand.
“You like him. More than that.” Then she frowned. Billy had said the exact same thing to her, just now in her bedroom. And neither Billy nor Brenden were lying. Not about this.
Mariana twined her fingers together and squeezed. “We both like him,” she concluded. And she laughed, the sound bitter and dry. “Only my version of Billy is lying to all of us. That’s what you’re trying to tell me, isn’t it? I like a liar, you like the authentic version, so what do we do about it…that’s why you pulled me in here?”
Brenden drew in a slow deep breath and that told her he wasn’t as calm and stoical as he appeared. He was hiding how much this was bothering him.
“You really don’t trust me, do you? You can’t even be honest about your feelings with me.”
“It’s not a matter of trust,” he said quickly.
Mariana rolled her eyes. “You’re dealing with real feelings for another person for the first time in…I don’t know how long. If the rumors are right, you’ve been single for centuries and I’m excluding all the human women you’ve been playing around with for the last few years, as I doubt your emotional involvement with any of them was more than skin deep. Plus you’re a man and you’re ancient. So deep emotional feelings are an anathema to you. You don’t want to share how you’re feeling with anyone because you don’t like the fact that you have the feelings at all.”
Brenden didn’t move.
“So yeah, it’s a matter of trust,” Mariana finished dryly. “You don’t trust anyone when dealing with your feelings, because you barely trust yourself.”
“I don’t even know myself,” Brenden railed, getting to his feet with an abrupt snap. “I’m two and a half thousand years old. I should have had all relationships figured out by now. But Billy…” He blew out a breath and pushed his hand through his hair. “You don’t understand,” he said evenly. “I’ve spent days dealing with how I felt about Billy and I thought I had it sorted out. Then you kissed me.”
Mariana’s heart squeezed. She pressed her lips together, to stop herself from saying anything. She had said it all, already.
Brenden threw out a hand, in an impatient gesture. “It happened,” he said flatly, “and the reasons why are irrelevant. I let it go. I thought I let it go.” His dark eyes caught her gaze. “But when you came into the command center just then, Billy was by your side, but all I could think about was how much I wanted to kiss you again.”
Mariana didn’t know what to say. War raged inside her.
Brenden didn’t hate her. His emotions were tied up in knots, something she never thought she would see in the great Spartan. She could simplify this for him so easily. All she had to do was give up Laszlo. Billy. But that also meant giving up Brenden, too. But she didn’t know if she could. Not now.
Her back was against the glass door, which was polarized and opaque, but she was still aware of Billy, waiting out by the table.
“What do you want of me?” she asked Brenden.
“Damn it, I don’t know!” His hands curled into fists, the forearms rippling as the tendons tightened.
“Shouldn’t Billy be a part of this discussion?”
He let out a curse. “I pulled you in here because I wanted to kiss you! Of course I don’t want him here!”
Her heart was aching. “That’s exactly why he should be,” she said softly. She tapped the door controls by her left hand and felt the door give way behind her. It pushed open, gliding smoothly.
Brenden took a step forward, as if he might halt her, but Mariana threw up her hand. “Don’t,” she warned him.
Billy straightened up from his lean over the table, where he had been reading…something. She didn’t care what he had been reading. She lifted herself on her toes and kissed him, sliding her arm around his neck for support.
He drew in a sharp breath in reaction, but that was all. After a momentary shocked stillness, he kissed her back, his lips moving against hers.
This was Laszlo. He felt the same, he tasted the same.
Mariana stepped back. Reluctantly. She gave him a small smile. “Goodbye, Billy.” Then she made herself walk away.
“What the fuck did you do to her?” Billy demanded of Brenden.
Mariana kept walking, letting the doors close behind her and cutting off any sound, for they were absolutely sound-proof, bomb-proof and radiation shielded. She kept her mind blank, holding all the thoughts at bay with sheer will power, as she hurried through the courtyards and walkways, galleries and room.
Deonne was sitting in a low chair, her feet propped up on her desk. There were reading boards all around her chair, scattered across the rug. But she didn’t hold a board. She was massaging her temples, but when she saw Mariana, she almost bounced onto her feet.
“What happened?” she demanded. “You look like someone just punched you in the stomach.”
“In a way, that’s exactly what happened,” Mariana said. She leaned on Deonne’s desk and tried to breathe away the shock, the fury and the despair. She blinked, as tears stung and threatened to fall. But she was too wound up to cry properly. Too tense. Crying would have been a relief, but she couldn’t do it.
Deonne squeezed her shoulder. “Come on,” she said gently and tugged. “Let’s get you behind a closed door somewhere.”
Chapter Nineteen
Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2265 A.D.
The fountain was one of many on the grounds of the agency’s villa, which was what gave the villa its name. But it was a little known one, tucked away in a pocket among trees and bushes that hid it away from casual strollers. It was only the people that knew it was there that could find it.
Deonne sat on the stone lip of the fountain, her übersilk suit getting damp from the spray, and listened as Mariana told her everything. It was cathartic and she held nothing back, not even the smallest detail. Deonne didn’t interrupt, except to ask questions that tapped into another mental abscess and Mariana would vent it all.
“It’s such a mess,” Mariana finished.
“Is it?” Deonne asked softly.
Mariana frowned. “Brenden keeps talking about time paradoxes, that we could screw up the future if we confront Laszlo, but now he’s disappeared and besides, Nayara seemed to think that talking to him was a good idea…who do I believe? I don’t know time the way the vampires do.”
“Granted, there’s a time issue there, but if you put that aside—”
“Put it aside?” Mariana looked at Deonne, astonished and horrified. Preservation of time, of history, was the reason the agency existed.
“For the moment,” Deonne assured her. “For the sake of discussion only. If you put aside the time issue, then you also have to put aside this notion you’ve all seemed to have developed that Laszlo Wolffe is two different people. He’s just one person. You agree on that much, yes?”
“I’m standing here with my heart exposed and you’re giving me logic?” Mariana asked.
“For a reason. You’ll understand in a minute. Just bear with me. You agree that for the sake of discussion, we ignore the time issue and treat both versions of Laszlo as one person. Yes?”
Mariana nodded.
Deonne held up two fingers. “You want Brenden.”
Mariana let out a breath. “Yes,” she said softly.
“And you want Laszlo.” She raised the forefinger on her other hand.
“Yes.”
“You can barely begin to consider giving up either of them. But Brenden and Billy are together.”
Mariana stared as Deonne pressed her two forefingers together.
Deonne dropped her hands. “Why does anyone have to choose?” she asked reasonably. “You all want each other.”
“Billy doesn’t want me,” Mariana pointed out.
“He will, in the future. He’s Laszlo.”
“But he doesn’t right now.” Then she gasped as she realized what Deonne was saying. “Ménage?” she breathed. “But that’s…that’s what vampires do.”
Deonne tilted her head. “Not just vampires,” she said, with a little quirk of her mouth, which reminded Mariana that she had two men of her own.
Mariana shook her head. “But I’m not like you.”
“Thank god,” Deonne said with real feeling. “I’d have a huge problem with you if you were. I have a hard enough time making friends with women. It took you three years to unbend as it is and you’re one of the nicest people I know. But just because you’re not like me doesn’t mean you can’t love two people at once, or that they can’t love you back.”
Mariana flinched. “Who said anything about love?”
Deonne gave her an exasperated look. “Are you really going to try and pretend that’s not what we’re talking about?”
Mariana wrapped her arms around her middle. She didn’t feel chilled, exactly. But now Deonne had spoken the word aloud, it had shifted her perceptions and she felt…sobered. Now she could properly acknowledge what was at stake.
“You’re lucky,” Deonne said. “The time anomaly, the two versions of Laszlo Wolffe, has made things break almost perfectly for you. Brenden would never have got out of his own way and admitted he loved you, but Billy wasn’t something he had time to brace himself against and that took his feet out from under him. Laszlo did the same thing to you.” Deonne gave her another warm smile. “That they’re the same man is why you’re lucky.”
“If I’m so lucky, then why do I feel like my guts are being ripped out?” Mariana asked.
“Because you’re scared. Because now you know what to do and now you have to act on your feelings.” Deonne stood up. “That’s where I get to step out of the way.”
Mariana sucked in another breath, but it wasn’t helping. “What if he says no?” she whispered.
Deonne laughed. “Say ‘no’ to you?” She laughed again.
Spartan Resistance Page 26
