“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, tom 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 bed 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, a
n 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.
“Once you see him, you’ll be on the FBI radar.”
That brought her thoughts back to McLean and his offer. She hadn’t taken his card, but a call to the FBI would probably locate him. The intensity that seemed so uniquely his remained clear in her memory, as did the questioning gaze of striking green eyes.
Then she heard the door open, and Nicholas was back. “Learn anything from Pop?”
“No. He didn’t say why he wanted to see me, other than I’m ‘unfinished business.’ He didn’t seem very moved at seeing me.”
“He isn’t moved by much,” Nicholas said. “Maybe we’ll learn something at dinner.”
Sam shivered slightly. Her gaze traveled around the richly furnished room. It seemed even colder, more inhospitable than before. Everything in this house seemed purchased for show.
“Would you like to see the gardens?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied. She hoped he didn’t hear the gratitude in her voice.
He led her through what seemed an endless hall to the back. Formal gardens lay in perfect symmetry. He led her down a path edged by manicured shrubs and stopped at a clearing dominated by a white gazebo. Roses climbed the columns.
“It’s—”
“Perfect.” He finished the sentence.
They looked at each other and grinned simultaneously. Perfection lacked spontaneity. Passion. Creativity.
His smile faded. She wanted to bring that expression back. For a moment they’d shared feelings. Something very nice had moved between them.
Too soon, that mask had slipped over his face again. “Tell me about you,” she said. “What do you like? What sports? What books? Where did you go to college? How did you start your business? I feel like I’ve missed so much.”
“There wasn’t much to miss.” He moved away from her, putting both physical and emotional distance between them. “I went to military school, then to college where I bombed out and finally the military. After my tour, I went back to college and started a business with a friend.”
“And who’s the friend?”
“Cal White.”
“I would like to meet him.”
He shrugged. “I thought you would be leaving.”
“Is that what you want, Nicholas?”
“Nick. Everyone calls me Nick, and yes, it would be better for you, for both of us. You’ll stir up trouble. Perhaps if you leave now, the FBI might forget about you.” She remembered McLean’s eyes. She didn’t think so. Neither, she guessed, did Nick.
Sam turned away, tortured by doubts again. The house and the garden were illusions of perfection. Was Nick’s concern also an illusion?
“He’s really dying, isn’t he?”
“His doctors say so.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’ve learned never to trust anything to do with my father. That wisdom was made only too clear when you appeared. I recall his crocodile tears when I asked about my mother. A saint she was, he said.” Sarcasm rippled through his words.
She studied him. “Are you sorry I appeared?”
“No. But I worry about you. You still don’t know what you’ve gotten into. I want you to leave. In the morning.”
“I haven’t learned what I wanted to.”
“You probably won’t. He’s playing games with you. A clue here, a clue there, until he has you enmeshed in a web.”
“What could he want?”
“He could use you to get to your mother. My father never lets anyone go. Not without a battle. Your mother must have something he fears. Or wants. You could be the leverage to getting it.”
Uncertainty tugged at her again. And fear, but not for herself. Despite her continued anger toward her mother, she didn’t want to be the instrument of pain. Or betrayal. She nodded. “Will you keep in contact with me?”
“Samantha… you don’t know what you are asking.”
“Sam,” she said. “My friends call me Sam.”
“I’m not your friend,” he said.
“Not yet. I hope you will be.”
“You don’t take rejection readily, do you?”
“No.” She smiled. “Particularly when it seems to be motivated by concern for me.”
He sighed. “Is your mother as stubborn as you?”
“She’s your mother, too.”
“No. She’ll never be that.”
“She’s a good person,” she said. “It was hell for her to leave you behind, but—”
“Don’t go there,” he said, a muscle throbbing in his cheek. He had accused her of not taking rejection readily. Apparently he couldn’t take it, either. Not where their mother was concerned. It gave her hope. If he was wounded by all this, then it meant he cared.
She wondered what it had been like for him growing up in Boston, knowing much of what was said about his father, his family. It must have been hard. Bewildering to a child. Had he really been able to throw all the baggage away?
Her mother had warned her. Something had frightened her badly. Was she—Sam—a fool for not listening?
They sat in the gazebo. A silence grew between them. Too many questions, too many guarded emotions. She wanted their relationship to be more. But did he?
“Go home,” he said, “and be grateful for what you had and still have.”
“How can I when you—?”
“I have what I want now,” he said. “I have never believed in playing ‘what if’ games. They’re useless. You deal with reality and choose your own path.”
�
��I want you on my path.”
“No,” he said simply.
She looked at him. His eyes were uncannily like her own, except there was a secretiveness in his she didn’t think hers had ever had.
She turned away from him, her body stiff and tense and defiant.
“Go,” he said softly. “Go for your mother’s sake, if not your own.”
She whirled around on him. “What do you mean?”
“I suspect you’re meant to be the instrument of her destruction. It’s the only answer that makes sense.”
Dinner was a nightmare.
Nicholas’s words continued to ring in her head. “The instrument of her destruction.” And why did he keep urging her to leave and never look back?
A fortune?
A well-meaning warning?
“You’re in dangerous company… Don’t wait to call us.” Should she take heed of the FBI agent’s warning?
Again Sam wondered why she had ever agreed to come, then to stay. Several members of the party had been thoroughly rude. Paul Merritta had been watchful, Nick silent. Only Anna, who had reappeared, had tried to keep the conversation going.
Her aunt and her uncles and their wives were cold, looking at her as if she had come to rob them. Paul Merritta had been no help. He had introduced her as his daughter, then apparently decided to sit back as the lions tried to rip her apart.
Or perhaps nothing as noble as lions. They were more like jackals.
“I remember Tracy,” Victor said dismissively. “Flighty. Ungrateful little—”
“That’s enough,” Paul Merritta finally interceded.
Victor—like Paul—might have been a handsome man once, but where Paul Merritta’s illness had apparently drained life from him, his brother had allowed life to coarsen him. His face was red veined, probably from drinking too much, and his body was bloated. He had the blue eyes common in the family, except his were dull. They didn’t carry the spark, the emotion that she saw in Nick’s eyes, or even the embers that remained in her father’s eyes.
“You look nothing like her,” Uncle Ricardo—Rich, everyone called him—added after a pause. The implication that she was a fraud was clear.
Twisted Shadows Page 11
