by JoAnn Ross
"It's not the way it sounds," he said finally.
Dear God, how she wished that were true! But his expression proclaimed his guilt every bit as loudly as if he'd shouted it on a bullhorn.
He started toward her, but was brought up short when her hands whipped out. "Just tell me one thing," she said through lips that had turned to stone. Could that really be her voice? It sounded so thin. So cold. "Did you investigate me?"
He dragged his hands through his hair in a frustrated gesture she'd come to recognize. "Yes. But—"
Trapped in the icy pain of shock, Alex pressed a hand to her stomach as if to ward off a killing blow. "Because you thought I was some kind of swindler?"
She couldn't believe it. She'd loved him. He'd told her he loved her. How could he think her capable of stealing money from an old woman?
"No, he didn't," Eleanor answered for Zach.
Alex spun around in her seat, prepared to turn on the elderly woman. The pained expression on the lined face took a bit of the furious wind out of Alex's sails.
Eleanor rose unsteadily from her place at the front of the cabin. Her left hand, laden with diamonds, clutched the back of the seat. "Zachary never thought you were a swindler, Alexandra, dear. You must believe that.
"And whatever he did, he did out of loyalty to me. Because I truly believed you were my missing Anna."
"Why didn't you say anything?" Alex's composure was cracking. It was imperative she keep her anger cold. Controlled. She had to think clearly. Think, not feel.
"I knew you were my granddaughter when I saw you on television," Eleanor alleged. "But Zachary counseled restraint—"
"Oh, Zachary's always been a virtual pillar of restraint," Alex broke in, shooting him a sharp, bitter look.
She'd trusted him, dammit! She'd believed in him. She'd opened her heart, her body, to this man. How many times was she going to have to stick her hand into the damn flame before she learned not to do it anymore?
"You have to understand, dear. Miranda is correct about my having made a fool out of myself once before," Eleanor revealed reluctantly. After all these years, it was obvious the mistake still stung her not inconsiderable pride. "Because I ignored Zachary's misgivings. This time I chose to heed his warning."
"Makes sense to me," Alex agreed bitterly. "Why make a fool of yourself when you can all make a fool out of me, instead?" Her words hit their mark. The color drained from the elderly woman's face.
"I'm sorry," Alex mumbled when Eleanor took a deep, shuddering breath. "But you should have told me."
Averill, his somber expression revealing both professional and personal concern, took hold of the elderly woman's arm. "Eleanor," he coaxed gently, "please, sit down."
Looking frail and old, Eleanor sank onto a seat across the aisle from Alex. Averill's fingers were on her wrist, taking her pulse even as he gave Alex a warning look.
The plane began its descent into LAX.
"You're right, of course," Eleanor agreed after she'd regained her composure. "We should have given more thought to how you would feel when we broke the news to you about your true identity."
There were so many questions Alex wanted to ask. So many accusations she wanted to fling at Zach. But Eleanor's pallor was frightening. "There's something important you're overlooking," Alex said, gentling her tone and her expression.
"What's that, dear?"
"I understand your need to find your missing granddaughter. But I'm not her. I'm not Anna."
"Of course you are," Eleanor returned patiently.
"Eleanor—"
"There is one way to find out," Averill suggested.
"What's that?" Zach asked, ignoring the icy looks directed his way by both his wife and the woman he loved.
"A DNA test."
"I've read about that," Eleanor said. The idea seemed to perk her up a bit. "Isn't it also known as genetic fingerprinting?"
"That's right. It's a controversial procedure in the courtroom, but there have been documented cases of DNA matching being used to determine paternity. It's also very expensive."
Renewed color returned to Eleanor's ashen cheeks. "Whatever it costs, the money will be well spent." She reached out across the aisle, took both Alex's hands in hers and said, in a pleading tone that wavered with age and emotion, "Please, Alexandra, say you'll take the test."
This was impossible! She knew who she was. She was Alexandra Lyons. She'd been Alexandra Lyons all her life. Such a test would be a waste of time, money and emotional energy.
But if it freed Eleanor of this obsession…"What would I have to do?" she asked Averill.
"Not that much. We can get sufficient DNA from a simple blood sample."
"I hate to even bring this up," Alex said with a worried, sideways glance at Eleanor, "but how would you obtain DNA samples from Robert and Melanie?"
"Those should be available from the police. The files were never closed."
Alex found the idea of digging through moldy police files for old blood samples from murder victims almost too morbid to contemplate.
"I'll have to think about it," Alex said as the jet's landing wheels touched down.
"Of course, dear," Eleanor replied generously.
Having come to know the woman well, Alex realized such patience did not come easily to her.
Refusing the offer of the Lord's limousine, Alex headed in the direction of the taxi stand. Zach followed directly on her heels.
"Go away!" she shouted. The icy shock had worn off. Her eyes glittered with tears of anger. Tears of betrayal.
He put a hand on her shoulder. "You have to let me explain."
"There's nothing to explain." She shook off his touch. "Unfortunately I understand all too well. Eleanor believed I was a missing heiress, and since you're always so concerned about saving Lord's precious money, you investigated me to prove that I was just another in a long line of fraudulent claimants."
"I never thought you were a swindler, goddamn it." He tried to find a way around the hurt. The lies. "I just didn't think you were Anna."
"But Eleanor did."
Fighting desperation, he shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from touching her again. To keep from dragging her against him and kissing her senseless until she could see, until she could feel, how much he loved her. "Yes."
"And everyone knows you'd do anything for Eleanor Lord. Even prostitute yourself."
Frustration soared, mingling with his own flare of anger. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"You slept with me."
"Because I love you, dammit. What happened between us had nothing to do with Eleanor's belief you were Anna."
"It had everything to do with it. But believe it or not, I can't help admiring your loyalty, Zachary, even while I despise your methods."
She stopped long enough to look up at him, her misty eyes dark with pain. "It was all a lie, wasn't it? New Orleans, your mother's wedding. Everything."
His betrayal cut so fatally deep, Alex could no longer even believe that Zach had loved her. She felt tired. And used.
She was looking at him as if he were something that had just crawled out from beneath a rock. Her anger he could handle. Lord knows he'd had enough experience with Miranda. But Zach had no way of knowing how to cope with Alex's despair.
"I never lied to you, Alex."
"You didn't tell me the truth. And in my book, Zachary Deveraux, that's the same thing."
As she walked away, head held high, spine as straight as a rod of steel, it crossed Zach's mind that Alexandra Lyons and that unbending arbiter of veracity, Sister Mary Joseph, had a lot in common.
The following morning, after a restless night, Alex reluctantly agreed to Averill's DNA test.
She met him in a laboratory at the UCLA medical school, where a white-smocked technician pricked the end of her right index finger, drawing a bright red bead of blood.
And then the waiting began.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Not only was
DNA testing expensive, it was, Alex learned, time-consuming. Days passed. Fifteen long days and even longer nights, which Alex spent reliving every event of her life.
She was barely able to sleep. Which was, in its own way, a blessing, because whenever she did drift off, the nightmares would return, more terrifying, more ominous than ever.
This time she could see the house, which had been draped in mist in her earlier dreams, clearly. It was Casa Contenta.
And when the monk raised the glittering knife to strike her, his brown cowl fell back, and in the slanting light of a full moon, Alex found herself staring directly into Zach's traitorous face.
She couldn't eat. Time, which was reputed to heal all wounds, did nothing to ease either her anger or her grief. She'd never been a woman of ambivalent feelings. During her life she'd felt love and hate.
Not until Zach's betrayal had she realized it was possible to feel both at the same time.
* * *
Just as she'd done when she'd set out to learn about Eleanor's will, Miranda dressed for her late-afternoon visit to Averill with extreme care.
She was wearing a new Valentino cream suit with gold piping that showed off the golden tan recently acquired in a Beverly Hills salon. Although a dread of wrinkles had already made her eschew the sun, Miranda knew that Averill preferred women who appeared to glow with good health.
"As if skin cancer could ever be healthy," she muttered as she pulled her Rolls into the office parking lot.
Peeking between the lapels of her fitted suit jacket was the lace top of her camisole. Her ivory-hued, lace-topped stockings ended at midthigh. She'd spent two hours this morning having her blond hair whipped into a frothy, wind-blown cloud. Diorissimo had been smoothed and spritzed over every inch of her supple, well-toned body.
She judiciously checked her reflection in the mirror, applied a bit more peach lip gloss and smiled her satisfaction.
Averill's office nurse had no sooner announced her than the door to the doctor's sanctum sanctorum opened.
"Miranda," he said with his trademark smile, "what a pleasant surprise."
"I was in the neighborhood—" she slipped her creamed and manicured hands into both his outstretched ones "—and thought I'd drop in."
"I'm glad you did." He hugged her briefly. "You smell like springtime."
Her smile was as dazzling as the diamonds surrounding the pearls gleaming at her earlobes. "Aren't you sweet."
She allowed her body to stay against his for a heartbeat too long. "I do hope I'm not interrupting anything important."
"Not at all. As a matter of fact, your timing's perfect. My last patient of the day just left." He glanced at his nurse. "In fact, Terri, if you'd like you can take off early."
The nurse did not hesitate. She grabbed her bag and was out the door, leaving Averill and Miranda alone in the office.
Just as Miranda had planned.
"Would you like a drink?" Averill offered as he ushered her into his inner office. "I've a variety of hard liquor here in the office, but if you'd rather have a glass of wine, we can go down the street to the Biltmore."
"Perhaps later." She sat down on his sofa and crossed her legs in a way that allowed an enticing glimpse of the lacy top of her stocking. And the smooth thigh above it.
She watched the good doctor watching her and felt a glow of female satisfaction. Men were such fools for sex, she thought. Which wasn't so bad, really. Not when it made them so easy to manipulate.
"Actually, I came here to talk with you, Averill. About Alexandra's DNA test."
"Oh?"
He folded his hands atop his desk. His expression turned professionally inscrutable. "What about it?"
"I'm sure you can understand that I'm not exactly a disinterested party."
He nodded. And waited for her to continue.
"After all, I do care a great deal for Aunt Eleanor. And I'm so worried that finding out Alex is not Anna—which we all know is the way that test is going to turn out—will come as quite a blow."
"She's pretty convinced the test will back up her beliefs," Averill said.
"I know." Her soft intake of breath made her breasts swell enticingly. "Well, I thought that if perhaps I could have advance warning, I could make certain I'm at the house. To prepare Auntie."
Averill leaned back in the chair. His intelligent blue eyes studied her for a long moment. "Are you suggesting I give you the results of the test before I tell anyone else?"
She met his gaze with a level one of her own. "That's exactly what I'm suggesting." She recrossed her legs with a swish of silk. "I promise you, Averill, I will be very grateful."
He pressed his fingers together and smiled at her over the tent of his hands. "You know, Miranda, I've always admired you."
"As I've admired you," she said silkily.
He nodded. "I've always admired your beauty and your drive. And your unrelenting avarice."
She stiffened. "Excuse me?"
"You've got balls, lady," Averill allowed. "And although I have no doubt that what you're offering would be world class, I'm afraid I'm going to have to pass."
"Pass?" Her voice rose. Her eyes glittered dangerously. "Are you saying you refuse to cooperate with me?"
"Actually, I'm saying that I can't betray my medical principles, Miranda. Not even for the fuck of a lifetime."
"You're going to be very sorry, Averill."
He looked up at her heaving breasts, flushed cheeks, her glossy, parted peach lips, and sighed heavily.
"Believe me, sweetheart," he said, his voice thick with regret, "I already am.
"But—" he held up his hand to forestall her intended renewed effort "—I'm still not going to give you first crack at Alexandra's test results."
Unaccustomed to rejection, Miranda slapped him. Hard. Then she stormed out of his office, slamming first the inner door, then the outer door behind her.
As he heard the framed diplomas on the waiting-room wall fall to the floor, Averill shook his head and wondered idly if Hippocrates had ever faced a similar ethical dilemma.
* * *
"You know," Sophie said, studying Alex's shadowed eyes and pale cheeks, "you look as if you're getting ready to audition for a remake of Night of the Living Dead."
"Thanks for the compliment," Alex muttered. They were sitting in Alex's kitchen, the box of doughnuts Sophie had brought with her between them.
"I'm worried about you."
"I'm fine."
"Like hell." Sophie licked the glaze from her fingers. "Call the man, Alex."
Alex opened her mouth to insist there'd be snowball fights in hell first when her telephone rang.
"The machine'll get it."
Immediately upon their return to Los Angeles, Zach had called several times a day, first begging, then, as his frustration obviously built, demanding to talk with her.
But she'd steadfastly refused to pick up the phone, leaving him no choice but to leave a series of messages on her recorder.
Two days ago the calls had stopped. Alex had taken the sudden silence as a sign that Zach had given up.
"Alex?" The masculine voice was smooth and cultured and unthreatening. "It's Averill. I just wanted you to know that I've got the test results back—"
Alex dived for the phone. "Averill, hi. It's me."
"Well, hello, Alex. How are you?"
"Fine, thanks," she lied. "And you?"
"Never been better. The reason I called—"
"I know. The test."
"Yes." He cleared his throat. "What are your plans for this afternoon?"
"Actually I don't have any." Other than avoiding Zach.
"Good, good," he said absently. There was a moment's silence, then Alex heard him talking with someone apparently in the room with him. "Sorry, Alexandra," he said when he came back onto the line, "but my nurse needed me to sign some prescription forms."
"That's okay." Alex took a deep breath. "Well? Was I right? Did your test prove Eleanor wrong?"
"You want me to come up to Santa Barbara? Today?"
"I thought that might be best. The strain of waiting has been hard on Eleanor. I'd rather she not make the trip to L.A."
"I'll leave within the hour, Averill."
"Thank you, dear. I'll tell Eleanor you're coming. The news will please her, I know."
"Well?" Sophie demanded after Alex had hung up.
"He wants to break the news to both of us at the same time." Alex sighed. "Poor Eleanor. You know, I really want to be angry at her, but I keep thinking how desperate she must have been all these years."
"You never know," Sophie suggested. "Eleanor Lord may get her wish today. And you may become one of the youngest millionaires in the country."
"Right. And pigs will begin flying all over Los Angeles."
* * *
London
Zach had known that the hunch he'd come here to play was a long shot. But he'd played it to win, and it had paid off.
He'd spent the past six hours locked in deliberation with the governor of the Bank of England, the chairman of Lloyd's and the publisher of the Times, enough royalty to fill several pages of Burke's Peerage and several members of Margaret Thatcher's egalitarian meritocracy.
And now, business concluded, he had one last matter to take care of before he could return home to Los Angeles. And Alex.
He knew it wasn't going to be easy breaching her seemingly concrete parapets. But breach them he would. Zach had not achieved such a high level of success by taking no for an answer.
Typically, for London, it was raining. The sky was a gloomy pewter, the streets were gray, the stone buildings were draped in a slate mist. But the dismal weather could not dampen Zach's enthusiasm. All during today's meeting, it had taken every bit of self-control he possessed to keep from thinking about how, in a few short hours, he would be making love to Alex.
Miranda's town house was located in Belgrave Square. Formerly Elysian Fields, where sheep had once placidly grazed, Belgravia, as it had come to be known, was an oasis between the feverish shopping streets of Knightsbridge and traffic-congested Picadilly.
