by Lisa Jackson
Zach rested a hip against the fireplace.
“What is it you want, Miss Nash?” Jason asked.
She was ready for him. “Recognition.”
“That you’re London?”
“Yes.”
Jason’s smile was so cold, Zachary felt a moment’s concern for Adria. “You know we don’t believe you.”
“I expected it, yes.”
“And you know that there have been hundreds of young women who have claimed to be our half-sister.”
She didn’t bother answering, but her eyes never left Jason’s face.
“She says she has proof,” Zach interjected, uncomfortable with Jason’s arrogant attitude.
“Proof?” Jason’s eyebrows raised and a muscle tightened in his jaw.
“I have a tape.”
“A tape of—?”
“It’s from my adoptive father. It explains what happened.”
Jason looked at his brother. “You’ve seen it?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, what’re we waiting for? I assume you have it with you, Miss Nash.”
“In my purse.” She reached for the purse near her feet.
Zach stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Don’t you think we should wait until Nelson and Trisha are here?”
“Why?”
“We’re all involved, Jason,” Zach said as Adria handed Jason the tape.
Opening the plastic cover, Jason asked, “Is this the only copy?”
Adria slanted him a glance that told him to quit acting as if she didn’t have a brain in her head. “Of course not.”
“Didn’t think so.” Jason stared at the videocassette, flipped it over, and slipped it onto the corner of the desk. “Everything on this tape can be verified, right? If there’s any question of legality, there would be documents to back it up.”
“Such as?”
“Adoption papers, that sort of thing.”
“The papers were destroyed.”
Jason’s lips twitched. “Destroyed?”
“By a fire.”
“Convenient.”
“I don’t think so.”
For a reason he couldn’t explain, Zach stepped in. “There must be copies filed with the start.”
Adria shook her head. “I think the adoption was illegal.”
Jason’s mouth swept into a grin. “This just gets better and better.”
Zach felt his stomach curl at the way Jason stepped closer to Adria—moving in for the kill. “Back off,” he warned his brother.
“Oh, no, she started this.” Jason was suddenly enjoying the evening.
But Adria didn’t back down. “Look,” she said, getting to her feet and staring the brothers down. “I know you’re going to do everything you can to disprove me. I expect you to put me through hell. I did a lot of soul-searching before I came here, because, to put it frankly, I’m not sure I’m London Danvers.”
Jason looked smug, as if he thought she was already hedging her bets. “You’ve changed your mind.”
“No,” she said emphatically and stepped toward him. “I just want you to know where I stand. My father thought I was London.”
“Your father?”
“Victor Nash. He died last year. I didn’t find out the truth until I discovered the tape.”
“That makes things easy, doesn’t it?” Jason asked. “Your father—and I presume your mother, as well—aren’t around to be questioned. But, happily for you, he leaves you a mystery tape telling you that you’re going to inherit millions. Have I got it right so far?”
“Dad thought I should know,” she said, a slight defensive edge to her voice.
“So he gave you some sort of deathbed swan song about you being the lost princess of the Danvers kingdom, is that it?”
She pinned him with eyes that darkened with the pain of her past. “That’s it.”
“And you must believe it or you wouldn’t be here.”
“Of course. But I’m not sure.”
“How much would it cost to convince you that you’re no blood relation?”
“As I said before, it’s not a matter of money. If I find out I’m not London, I’ll leave.”
“And you won’t go running to the press?”
Suddenly she crossed the short distance between Jason and the couch so quickly, Zach’s breath caught. Without the added inches of her heels, she was a full head shorter than Jason, yet she craned her neck upward and glared at him. Two spots of color stained her cheeks. “You may find this impossible to believe,” she said in a voice so low it was nearly inaudible over the hiss of the fire, “but I don’t really care about money. I’ve seen what it’s done to your family as well as a few others, but it is important to me to find out the truth.” Her lips flattened in distaste and her eyes narrowed just a fraction. “Be honest, Jason—wouldn’t you like to know if I’m really London?”
“I already know,” Zach said.
Jason glanced at his brother.
“She’s a fake.” Zach finished his drink.
So like Zach to make a snap judgment, Jason thought. He was so damned cocksure. To Zach, everything was black or white, right or wrong, good or bad. Once again, Jason’s hotheaded brother wasn’t reading the situation the way it was. The reason this woman worried Jason wasn’t because of her incredible resemblance to Kat. Hell, any decent plastic surgeon could alter her face, her black hair could come out of a bottle, and she could be wearing sky-blue contact lenses for all he knew. Her looks weren’t the real problem, though they did worry him more than a little, but it was her attitude that bothered him. Adria was the first person to claim she wasn’t sure of her birthright. Whereas every other imposter, the pretenders to the Danvers crown, were sure of themselves and threatening lawsuits, adverse publicity and stories in newspapers coast to coast. Adria was different…chillingly so.
“Sit down, Miss Nash,” he suggested in a voice that most witnesses in a court of law obeyed instantly.
Unmoving, she stood her ground and from the corner of his eye, Jason saw Zachary’s mouth twitch in amusement. He was enjoying this, because he didn’t have much of a stake in the inheritance. The old man had written him out of his will once and then, as he’d aged Witt had mellowed, tried to patch things up with Zach and offered him the ranch, the only asset that Zach cared about.
Zachary had been reluctant, but finally capitulated. The old man and his rebellious middle son had struck a deal of sorts, something no one ever brought into conversation. There were no signed papers and yet somehow Zach had ended up doing Witt’s bidding and refurbishing the Hotel Danvers. In return, Zach would inherit the ranch in Bend—acres and acres of rich farmland, a drop in the bucket as far as the family fortune was concerned, but worth something nonetheless. The fact that Zach wanted it gave Jason a bargaining point with his headstrong younger brother. Jason suspected that deep down, Zach was just as greedy as the rest of the clan.
If London suddenly were to appear, Zach’s share of the estate wouldn’t alter too much. He had no percentage of the assets, just the damned ranch, which would shrink by a few hundred acres if he had to pay off London for her share. But Jason, Trisha, and Nelson would suffer seriously because Witt, damn him, had talked his lawyers into leaving fifty percent of his holdings, including the value of the ranch, to his youngest daughter. Fifty goddamned percent. There was no provision for the fact that she couldn’t be found. Only after fifty years—fifty years—would the assets revert back to the rest of the estate. By that time, Jason would have one foot planted firmly in the grave.
Hell, what a mess!
Fortunately, most people didn’t know the terms of the will, or there would be London Danvers after London Danvers crawling out of the woodwork trying to get their hands on the fortune.
And this one was glaring defiantly up at him, and looking so much like Kat that he felt the same hot urges he had when he was in his early twenties and his stepmother had been the most gorgeous and sexy woman on this earth. He’d h
ad dreams about her, fantasized about making love to her, but she’d had the hots for Zachary, who had only been a boy at the time.
Zach, for God’s sake!
Zach’s attitude reeked of insolence and he had no respect for the good things in life, yet women seemed to flock to him. Kat had been the first in a long succession of women who would have given their eye teeth, or their diamond earrings, just to get him into their beds. The fact that Zach had always appeared uninterested had seemed to drive them into wild and hot pursuit.
Jason didn’t understand it, never would. All he knew was that Zach had always been more trouble than he was worth.
“Look,” Adria was saying, her chin lifted several notches. “Why don’t you just play the tape?”
“I will,” Jason assured her as he glanced at his watch. “But we can wait a few more minutes, until Nelson and Trisha get here.”
“So it’s a family party after all,” Zach said, cynicism edging his words. “Should be a barrel of laughs.”
“I tell you, Trisha, it was downright eerie,” Nelson said as he braked in front of the garage. Zach’s old Jeep and Jason’s Jag were already parked in the drive. “I mean, I felt like I’d traveled back in time about twenty years. She looks just like Kat.”
Trisha wasn’t impressed. She’d been through this routine too many times before. Nelson was quick to jump off the deep end. “So what does she want?”
“No one knows. Money, I imagine.”
“Where does she come from?”
“I’m telling you no one knows a damned thing about her.”
“Don’t you think it would have been smarter to check her out before we confront her?”
“Jason didn’t want her to cause a scene at the party. Too many reporters were there.”
“So he hustled her out here. Great.” Trisha climbed out of Nelson’s Cadillac and slammed the door shut. She didn’t have time for these kinds of games. There had always been women who claimed they were London Danvers, and there always would be. Why was this one any different? Either intimidate the bitch into leaving the family alone, or buy her off. The imposters could usually be purchased cheaply. Offer them a check for twenty-five or thirty thousand and a promise not to prosecute them for fraud, and they were only too happy to do anything anyone asked. They all signed sworn statements that they would never pretend to be London Danvers or bother the family again and in some cases, Trisha suspected, they’d slept with Jason. He seemed to get off on bedding any woman who remotely resembled Kat. Some sort of weird Oedipal thing. Trisha didn’t care, just as long as the women took off. Paying off the little fakes saved a whole lot of time and lawyers’ fees and everyone was happy. So why not do the same with this one?
Nelson was babbling. “Right now we can’t afford any adverse publicity. My job—”
“Isn’t worth diddly squat. You work for the public defender’s office,” she reminded him. “If you didn’t get checks from the trust fund, you’d be scrounging every month to pay the rent.”
Nelson’s eyes thinned on his sister. “You know why I work where I do. It’s a stepping-stone, Trisha.”
“Politics,” she said with a sneer. “You’re as bad as Dad was. Delusions of grandeur.”
“Politics is power, Trisha, and we both know how you feel about powerful men.”
“Kind of the same way you do,” she cooed, though she felt like slapping him. He’d hit a raw nerve, but then Nelson had the uncanny ability to find a person’s weak spot and expose it. Sometimes Trisha wondered if there were any secrets in the family that Nelson didn’t know and wouldn’t use for his own personal gain. Well, he had a few skeletons in his closet as well.
As they walked through the front door, she checked her watch. It was after midnight and she was tired. The hotel opening had been a success and she would much rather have bathed in the accolades of the guests than return here, to the house where she’d been raised, a house filled with ghosts and bad blood, treachery and lies. There had been little laughter echoing through the hallways of the Danvers Manor. In truth, she remembered nothing but the continual arguments and explosive outbursts as Witt Danvers tried to force his five bullheaded children into becoming exactly what he wanted them to be.
Trisha reached into her purse and found her cigarette case. Pausing in the foyer, she lit up. She needed something stronger. A drink or a hit of cocaine would help, but she settled for nicotine and ambled farther down the hall, trying not to remember the emotional fights, the hate that had filled this house when her father had found out that she’d been seeing Mario Polidori.
“You did this to spite me!” Witt had screamed, his face flushed scarlet, the veins in his temples throbbing.
“No, Daddy, I love him—”
“Love?” Witt had cried, his blue eyes electrified with disgust. “Love?”
“I want to marry him.”
“For the love of Jesus! You’re not going to marry him. Don’t you know what the Polidoris are? What they’ve done to this family?”
“I love him,” she said firmly, tears standing in her eyes.
“Then you’re a fool, Trisha, and of all the things I’ve ever thought about you, I’ve never thought you were stupid.”
She began to shake inside, but she squared her shoulders. “You hate Mario because of Mom. Because she slept with Anthony—”
The slap sent her reeling backward and she fell against the wall of Witt’s den, her head bouncing off the corner of the mantel. “Don’t you ever speak of that woman again, do you hear me? She left me as well as every one of you kids so she could carry on her affair with Polidori. So don’t you be lecturing me about how you’re in love with that bastard’s son!”
“You don’t understand—”
“No, Trisha, you don’t understand! You’re never to see him again! Got it?”
Cowering against the wall, faced with her father’s horrid rage, she refused to agree. She loved Mario. She did. Her fists had curled into tight balls and tears rained from her eyes and it became blindingly clear that her father was an ogre, an ugly, ruthless monster who cared about only one thing: his precious daughter, London. Trisha rubbed the welt on the side of her cheek and bit her lip to keep from crying. At that moment she hated Witt Danvers and she’d do anything she could to hurt him!
Now, years later, she still felt the shame. Her father had been a bastard while alive and he was still controlling his children from the grave, putting reins on his money, making them jump through hoops. Angrily, she walked down the hall. Her father had never loved her, not at all. He’d only loved his youngest daughter and now she, or more probably some imposter, was back, trying to get her greedy little fingers into the old man’s fortune. Well, Trisha was bound and determined to fight the gold digger tooth and nail. London had escaped when the rest of them had been forced to suffer and face their father day after day, to cower and shudder and kiss the old man’s ass so he wouldn’t cut them out of his will.
Except for Zach. He’d managed to tell his father to go to hell and then slip back into Witt’s good graces. Much as she hated to admit it, Trisha admired her brother for his grit.
As for Adria Nash, even if she could prove that she was London, Trisha silently vowed she’d never get a penny of the Danvers fortune. She hadn’t paid her dues, hadn’t lived with the heartless tyrant who was Witt Danvers. London didn’t deserve half the old man’s estate and besides, this woman was probably just another fortune hunter.
“What’re you thinking about?” Nelson asked, his eyebrows pulled together anxiously as he glanced at his sister.
“Nothing.”
He didn’t believe her. “Just be on your best behavior, Trisha, and hear what she has to say. Brace yourself. She looks like our dear departed stepmother did twenty years ago.”
They entered the den and Trisha nearly missed a step as her gaze fastened on the woman—a beautiful woman. The resemblance was uncanny, and although this girl didn’t have the innate feline sensuality of the woman sh
e claimed was her mother, she was nearly a dead ringer for Kat.
Someone, Nelson probably, thrust a drink in Trisha’s hand and she took a sip. Zach made introductions, but Trisha didn’t pay much attention; she was too wrapped up in memories of her stepmother. Her throat tightened. God, could it be? Was this woman really her half-sister? She took another calming drink and stubbed out her cigarette. Jason was talking…
“…so we waited for you two before we looked it over. Adria assures us this is the proof we’ll need.” He slapped a black video into the VCR and turned on the power and Trisha pulled her attention away from the woman with the uncanny resemblance to Kat and watched the screen.
Zachary took his position at the window. The room was tense, but he found a grain of amusement in the tight smiles of his brothers and sister. Adria had gotten to them. All of them. They were worried. For the first time in nearly twenty years.
He heard a voice and turned his attention to the television screen where an emaciated, bald man was lying on a hospital bed and speaking with obvious difficulty.
“I suppose I should have told you this before, but for reasons I’ll get to later, selfish reasons, Adria, I kept the story of your birth a secret. When you asked me about it, I swear to God, I didn’t know the truth and later…well, I couldn’t bear to tell you.
“Your mother and I, rest her soul, always wanted children, but, as you know, Sharon couldn’t conceive. This was a constant torment to her and she somehow thought that God was punishing her, though why, I’ll never understand. So when we found you…when you were handed to us, it was the blessing she’d been praying for.
“We adopted you through my brother, Ezra. You probably don’t remember him much as he died in ’77. But he was the one who brought you to us. He was a lawyer, practicing out of Bozeman. He knew that your mother and I were desperate for children. Already in our fifties and with debts that were burying us and the farm, we were considered too old and too poor to adopt through the usual legal means.”
The man paused, took a sip of water from a glass on a nearby table, then cleared his throat and looked at the camera again.