Invincible

by Joan Johnston

  Kristin felt her cheeks heating with shame. It was an awful condemnation of what she’d done—keeping him from his daughter. And an accurate one.

  “How could you not tell me I had a daughter? How could you keep her existence a secret from me all these years?”

  The agonized accusations stung. What she’d done had seemed perfectly logical at the time. In hindsight, and fully aware now of the false brush with which she’d tarred Max’s character, she could understand why he judged her actions so harshly.

  But she didn’t think she’d been wrong. “Would you have wanted to be a father at eighteen?” she demanded. “I can tell you, Max, it wasn’t easy being a mother at sixteen. You don’t go to parties. You don’t travel the world. You have someone making demands on your time every single moment of every day and all through the night. You have to think of someone else first and foremost and of yourself a long way after that.”

  She crossed around the sofa, stepping into the space he’d claimed as his own. “Be honest, Max. Would you have been ready for that kind of responsibility at eighteen?”

  “We’ll never know now, will we?” he raged.

  “Think back, Max. Where did you go after Wimbledon? What did you do?”

  She watched his forehead furrow. And waited for him to remember.

  “Bloody hell. That’s not fair, K.”

  “What did you do, Max?” she persisted.

  “After a year on the pro tour, I tried sailing around Cape Horn alone in a too-small craft, to prove it could be done,” he said quietly.

  “Your sailboat sank in a storm, Max. You were missing for eighteen hours after you radioed to say your mast had snapped and your boat was going down. Before you left, you told the press you weren’t taking a life preserver, because you’d rather drown than get eaten by sharks if you ran into trouble. You were given up for lost, presumed dead.”

  The story of Max’s sail around Cape Horn, on the extreme southern tip of Chile, famous for its monstrous waves, terrifying winds and frigid temperatures, hadn’t made the national news. But her father was a sailor when he could find time for it, and he’d heard scuttlebutt at his yacht club about Max’s adventure—and its apparently tragic ending.

  She remembered how she’d mourned a love that had died before it was really born. How she’d grieved for a man who’d betrayed her. “Then I heard about you on the BBC news channel, that you were alive and well. They said you laughed away the danger. As though it had all been a lark.”

  “I had an inflatable raft on board,” he said sullenly. “I was wearing protective clothing against the cold. I was fine.”

  “You could have floated around in that ocean until you died of thirst. Or been thrown out of that flimsy raft by a monster wave and eaten by sharks or drowned. You were only rescued by the grace of God,” she said. “You’ve always been a risk-taker, Max. Look at what you’re doing with your life now. You’re a spy, for heaven’s sake.”

  “It’s a job, Princess, nothing more or less.”

  “It’s a risky job, Max. I don’t want Flick to start loving you if you aren’t going to be there for her because you’re dead.”

  “What about you?” he countered. “You’re an FBI agent. You’ve shot at the bad guys, and they’ve shot back. Doesn’t that make you as much of a risk-taker—maybe even more of one—as I am?”

  Kristin realized she hadn’t thought through her argument before she’d started it. “Maybe that’s true,” she conceded. “But most FBI agents never draw their weapons during an entire career.”

  “Most spies don’t get caught and killed, either.”

  “All right, Max, I wasn’t going to go there, but let’s get to it. The real reason I don’t want you involved in Flick’s life is because I don’t think you’ll stick around for the long haul. Having a child is a novelty to you right now, but I wasn’t kidding when I said it’s a 24/7, 365 days a year job. And it doesn’t end when she finishes high school or graduates college.”

  “I know that,” he said. “I had parents.”

  “Forgive me for saying so, but not good ones.”

  “Your father wasn’t a paragon, either,” Max retorted. “And your mother abandoned you.”

  She met his gaze and saw remorse in his eyes for pointing it out, though he didn’t apologize. She’d more than once complained to Max about her father’s heartless behavior and his ruthless teaching tactics. “Harry has been a wonderful grandfather. A better grandfather than he was a father,” Kristin said. “He’s been a steady rock in Flick’s life, someone besides me she could always count on.”

  “And I’m what, sand under her feet?” Max asked.

  She could hear the resentment in his voice. She was less willing to believe the hurt she heard, as well. She continued inexorably, “I don’t want Flick to end up pining for a father who’s never there.”

  “I can’t very well be there all the time if we live on different continents,” he snapped.

  “My point exactly.”

  “What is it you expect me to do?”

  “Stay out of her life. Make some excuse not to take her horseback riding tomorrow.”

  “No.”

  “Just no?”

  “You may think it doesn’t mean anything to me to know I have a daughter who’s lived without a father since birth. You’re wrong. I never asked to have a child. Given a choice, I’m not sure I would ever have had any children.”

  “Then why—”

  “Shut up, K, and let me explain. I never wanted to be a parent because I know firsthand how much a child can miss a parent who isn’t there. I never wanted to do that to a child of mine. Thanks to you, I’ve committed that sin in spades. That ends now. I’m not going to spend another day separated from my daughter.”

  “Max, you can’t—”

  “Marry me, Princess.”

  Kristin might have laughed, except she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs to make any sound at all. He looked as shocked by what he’d said as she felt hearing his abrupt proposal.

  “It’s not a bad solution to the problem,” Max said when she remained silent. “We were friends once. We can be again. That’s more than most couples can say.”

  We were lovers, too, Max, she thought. Does that mean love is off the table?

  “What about your girlfriend?”

  He avoided the question. “Are you saying yes?”

  It occurred to her that she had the proposal his mother had been hoping for. But now that she had it, she wasn’t sure she wanted it.

  “What if I say no?” she said.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  She heard the threat in his voice and saw it in his ice-blue eyes. “I’m not really being given a choice, am I, Max?”

  “No, K. You’re not.”

  “I’d want a prenup.”

  Max snorted. “There’s nothing you have that I want, Princess.”

  “What I’d want is financial security for Flick if you walk away.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Max said with finality.

  Kristin wasn’t so sure.

  “I’ll have my lawyer put together a prenup for you to look at on Monday. We can be married as soon as your lawyer approves it.”

  Kristin felt a frisson of fear race down her spine. Why was Max in such a hurry? “What’s the rush?”

  “My home is here in England. I want us married so you and Flick can stay here from now on.”

  “No, Max. My job is in the States.” If she still had a job. There had been no word from SIRT.

  “There’s no need for you to work once we’re married.”

  “What if I want to work?”

  “You’re being ridiculous, K. You just got through telling me your job is dangerous. In fact, you may not even have a job to go back to when you get home. What’s the big deal?”

  “I don’t like being manipulated, Max. That’s the big deal. And I don’t want to be dependent on you.” Which meant, she supposed, that
she didn’t think a marriage between them was going to have much chance of succeeding.

  She added another argument against marrying Max and staying in England. “Flick won’t want to be separated from her grandfather. And Harry needs me right now.”

  “That problem has been taken care of. I’ve already made arrangements for Harry to be transported here. He should be arriving early tomorrow morning.”

  She was stunned at how quickly he’d acted to get her father to London. Flick would be over the moon. She wondered what he’d said to Harry to get him to agree to come. Most likely, he hadn’t asked. He hadn’t persuaded. He’d simply issued orders and expected them to be obeyed. Like he was doing now.

  “From what you’ve said, it’s doubtful Harry’s going to be going back to work as a tennis coach anytime soon,” Max said. “I’ll be glad to make arrangements for him to live somewhere close to us.”

  It was unfortunate Max was so rich. Money could solve so many problems.

  “What if Harry won’t agree to stay?” she argued.

  “From what you’ve said, he won’t want to be separated from Flick. If Flick is living here, Harry will stay.”

  He was probably right. Damn it.

  “Then it’s all settled,” he said.

  “I haven’t said yes.”

  “But you will.”

  The smugness of his smile caused her to blurt, “My answer is no.”

  The smile disappeared. “You don’t have any choice about this, K.”

  “You’re wrong, Max.”

  “All right, spill it. What’s your real objection to my suggestion?”

  Kristin’s heart ached. It had since Max had first proposed this arranged, loveless marriage. She had nothing to lose by telling him how she felt. “I want to care for the man I marry, Max. I want to love him, and I want him to love me and my daughter. You know nothing about the woman I am now. You know nothing about our daughter. You’ve proposed marriage as an easy solution to a difficult problem. Marriage isn’t easy, Max. No more than parenting is easy. You’re just not a good risk.”

  She turned and headed for the door. When she got there she turned and said, “I refuse your generous proposal, Max. I’d rather figure out some other way for Flick to see her father, if you insist on becoming a part of her life.

  “I’d hoped to spare her the pain of having a father who might abandon her if something—or someone—more exciting came along. Since that isn’t possible, I’m not going to compound the problem by marrying you.”

  As she closed the door quietly behind her, Kristin wondered if she’d done the right thing. She’d loved Max once upon a time. That love had been reborn during the past week. Now she knew he’d had feelings for her then, which she believed had been growing over the past week.

  But she hadn’t trusted him then, not after what she’d seen the next morning. And after hearing about Veronica, she still didn’t trust him.

  Oh, he’d said all the right things about wanting to be a good father. She just couldn’t be sure he meant them. And agreeing to a marriage of convenience was asking for heartache. She would rather not reach for a nebulous happy ending at all, than endure the pain of a fairy-tale ending that never came true.

  21

  The moment Bella saw Kristin’s face, she knew things had not gone well between Kristin and her son.

  “Where’s Flick?” the agitated young woman asked as she entered the sitting room and found her daughter missing.

  “I sent her to the kitchen with Emily to ask Cook for some scones with clotted cream.” Bella gestured toward the chair beside her and said, “Come here, my dear, and tell me what happened with Max.”

  “He proposed,” she said flatly. “I refused.”

  “I feared as much,” Bella said. “The rubies will still be yours when—”

  “Keep them. I’d hate myself if I took them.” Instead of sitting, Kristin headed straight to the fireplace. She reached her hands out, seeking heat from the fiery coals.

  “Before you refuse the rubies, I wish you’d let me tell you a little bit more about them.” When Kristin didn’t object, she said, “The air is chilly in here. There’s a knitted quilt on the back of the chair beside me. Why don’t you sit down and get comfortable?”

  For a moment Bella thought Kristin was too upset to sit, but the agitated young woman grabbed the colorful quilt and dropped into the chair, spreading it over her lap before pulling it all the way up to her neck.

  “I’ve already told you the Blackthorne Rubies—the diamond and ruby necklace, pendant earrings, bracelet and ruby ring—were given to Philip Wharton, the first Duke of Blackthorne, as a gift from Henry II for saving his life. When Philip fought for the young king, he earned himself a bride as a prize of war—along with the dukedom.

  “Unfortunately, as the Blackthorne family fortunes rose and fell, the rubies were lost, a piece at a time.”

  “I had no idea,” Kristin said. She frowned and added, “If that’s true, how is it you have all of them now?”

  “Ah. That is a story worth telling. Bull found them, every one. He tracked down their current owners and made each of them an offer they couldn’t refuse.”

  “How on earth did he find them all?” Kristin asked. “I mean, if they were lost over time.”

  “The recovery of the jewels is a fascinating story. But first, you need to know how the Blackthorne Rubies were lost.”

  “Lost? As in, misplaced?” Kristin asked.

  Bella chuckled. “Nothing so simple as that. Each piece has a history of its own. For instance, the pendant earrings were used during the French Revolution to buy the freedom of a French aristocrat, a beautiful woman condemned to the guillotine. One of my Blackthorne ancestors had fallen in love with her. He rescued her. And married her. I showed Flick a painting of her in the gallery. Flick pointed out that she looks like me.”

  “That sounds romantic.”

  “It is. It was,” Bella said. “It would be nice if all the rubies had been lost for such noble causes.”

  “They weren’t?” Kristin said.

  “The ruby-and-diamond necklace was used to pay a gambling debt during the Regency period, around 1812, I think. The duke wagered the rubies on a horse race. And lost.”

  Kristin made a clucking sound. “It seems criminal to wager something with so much family history on something so risky.”

  “Especially when the rubies weren’t his to wager,” Bella said. “The duke had already promised them to another creditor for another debt.”

  “Couldn’t his gambling debt have been paid some other way?”

  Bella shook her head. “The American who made the wager with the duke insisted on having the necklace. It seemed there was bad blood between the two men. The duke gave up the rubies rather than taking a chance on being shot and killed in a duel. The American took the rubies—and the duke’s fiancée, with whom he’d fallen in love—and disappeared.”

  “That’s a love story, too,” Kristin pointed out.

  When Bella raised a questioning brow, Kristin explained, “The American fell in love with the duke’s fiancée.”

  “Yes, he did, didn’t he?” Bella said. “When the duke later tried to retrieve the necklace, the gambler had disappeared. It seemed he’d lied about who he really was.”

  “He was never found?” Kristin asked.

  “Never,” Bella said. “The necklace was never recovered.”

  “How sad,” Kristin murmured.

  “The bracelet and ring were stolen by a Southern privateer during the American Civil War,” Bella said. “They were in the possession of the Duke of Blackthorne, who was traveling to meet his affianced bride, the daughter of a wealthy munitions manufacturer in Boston.”

  “The duke was going to marry an American? Not someone with a title?”

  “That was the plan. Of course, without the jewels, the duke was essentially penniless. He didn’t want to come to his bride without the rubies he’d intended as a bride gift, so h
e set out to find them. Of course, he found a new love along the way. He married a Southern bride, a woman from Texas, instead.”

  “So the rubies led to love again,” Kristin said. “Did the duke ever recover the stolen jewels?”

  Bella shook her head. “An English merchant’s daughter showed up at a steeplechase in London wearing them, along with an atrocious hat.”

  Kristin laughed.

  “It’s good to see you smiling again,” Bella said. “So you see, the Blackthorne Rubies seem to inspire love, or perhaps, the courage to find love, in their owner. Which is why I wanted you—want you—to have them. I thought they might work their magic on you and Max.”

  Kristin sobered. “Max only proposed as a way of getting custody of Flick.”

  “Yes, of course he did. A marriage is expedient and convenient. When you sort out what went wrong between you in the past, the situation between the two of you could improve markedly. Is there any hope you might reconsider?”

  The distraught young woman stood, dropping the quilt on the chair as she once more sought out the fire, reaching for the warmth that seemed to have deserted her. “We’ve already discussed what happened between us ten years ago. As you suspected, it was a simple misunderstanding. I was mistaken in what I thought I saw. It’s all water under the bridge.”

  “Then there’s no reason why the two of you can’t start over,” Bella said.

  Tears brimmed in the young woman’s eyes. “There’s nothing left between us on which to build a relationship,” she said simply.

  “Nothing? You have a daughter together. What about Felicity?”

  Bella saw an anguished look flicker across Kristin’s face before the young woman said, “I’m not going to allow Flick to end up in a tug-of-war between us. It’s over.”

  “Does this mean you’re not going to play the exhibition match with Max?” Bella asked.

  Kristin shook her head. “I’ll stay for the match and perhaps for the tournament as well, to see old friends. Then I’m heading home. With Flick. And my father. Max has arranged for him to come here.”

  Bella raised a brow. If Max had exerted himself so far as to make that sort of arrangement for Harry Lassiter, there was far more going on between the two young people than Kristin was admitting.