by Lisa Jackson
“Is this a bribe?” she asked as Zach hung her garment bag in one of the closets.
He lifted a shoulder. “Call it anything you want.”
She’d only agreed to stay in the hotel as a gesture of good faith. Though she suspected that the family just wanted to watch her closely, she decided to accept their offer. “Any strings attached?” she asked.
“Not to me.” His eyes narrowed on her. “You’ll have to ask Jason what he expects of you.”
“If he thinks he can buy me off—”
“He does.” Zach cast her a look that silently called her naive. “But it’s just his nature. Don’t take it personally. And don’t be fooled. This little bit of generosity isn’t because the family has all of a sudden decided to welcome you with open arms.”
“I know that.”
“Good.”
She tossed her jacket onto the back of a chair. “You don’t much like your family, do you?”
He snorted and didn’t bother hiding his sarcasm. “What’s not to like?” Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew the hotel key and flipped it through the air. “You’re now a guest of the Danvers family. I’m not really sure what, exactly, that entails, but I’m sure my brother will let you know.”
He started for the twin doors of the suite, but she laid a hand on the crook of his arm. “Look…is there a reason we have to be at each other’s throats?”
He turned and stared into eyes as blue as a summer’s day. Glancing at the throat in question, he felt his gut tighten and sultry memories clouded his mind. He’d too often been mesmerized by Kat’s treacherous and seductive eyes. Just as he could be with this woman. “You want to be what…well, I mean besides brother and sister, you want to be friends?” he asked, unable to hide the cynicism in his words.
“Why not?” she asked. Her smile was sincere and cracked open a dark corner of his heart, a corner he preferred to keep locked. “I don’t know a lot of people in town.”
He waited, his face a mask, not daring to move a muscle but singularly aware of the smooth hand upon his forearm. “Christ.”
“I thought maybe you’d let me buy you dinner.”
“Why?”
“Because it would be easier on both of us if we weren’t always looking to kill each other.”
“You think that’s possible?”
“Sure it is,” she said and her breath seemed to catch for a second. “Trust me.”
He knew he should just walk away. Yank the door open and slip through. Instead he stared at that vulnerable face and wondered how anyone who looked so guileless could be considered dangerous.
“This isn’t a good idea,” he said and saw the edge of her teeth dig into the soft flesh of her lower lip. Desire curled in his guts. It was suddenly hard to breathe and between his legs he felt the stirrings of an erection.
“What are you afraid of?”
He could barely speak. The room seemed suddenly hot. He had to get away. “It’s not a matter of fear.”
“Then what?”
He hoped to sound callous. “I don’t think I should be consorting with the enemy.”
Her laughter was low, like the seductive roll of an ocean tide. It thundered through his ears. “Didn’t your brother send you out to spy on me? Didn’t you camp out by my motel, then follow me to the library? Sorry if it wasn’t all that interesting, not the usual cloak-and-dagger stuff. Anyway, you’re in this as deep as I am, Zach, and you can protest as loud as you like, but deep down, you want to know as much as I do whether I’m your sister or not.”
“Half-sister,” he clarified.
“Right.” She removed her hand and tossed her thick, wild hair off her shoulders. “Half-sister. Give me a minute to change.”
He should tell her no and get out. Now. But he didn’t. Instead, his gaze skated down her worn sweatshirt and jeans. “You look fine.”
“I look like I just stepped off the farm in Belamy, Montana. I’ll only be a minute.”
She didn’t wait for him to answer and hurried through the door to the master bedroom. She wondered if he’d second-guess himself and leave, but, by the time she’d slipped into a white cowl-necked sweater and black jeans, slid a tube of lipstick over her lips and tugged a brush through her hair, he was where she’d left him, in the sitting room, one shoulder resting against the window casing, a drink in one hand as he stared out the window. His hip was thrown out and she noticed the way his jeans had faded across the buttocks and the movement of muscular thighs beneath the timeworn denim.
He caught sight of her reflection in the mirror, turned, and didn’t move. His lips thinned at the sight of her, as if he were suddenly angry and his gaze raked her down and up again.
“Ready?”
He tossed back his drink. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
All the way to the lower level he was broodingly silent and his eyes had darkened with accusations she didn’t begin to understand. The elevator car seemed close, the air thick with the scents of whiskey and leather, and though he’d made a point of standing as far from her as the small car allowed, she could feel the heat radiating from his body.
His boots rang on the concrete floor of the parking garage and Adria half ran to keep up with him, stepping around puddles of condensation that splattered the ground from the low-hanging pipes webbing across the ceiling.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked as he unlocked the passenger door of his Jeep.
“You’re the native,” she said as she climbed into the seat.
“Well, hell, I thought you were, too.” He slammed her door shut and strode to the driver’s side of the Cherokee.
“I just meant—”
“I know what you meant, lady.” He climbed in, jammed the key into the ignition, threw the rig into reverse, then shoved it into first. Within seconds the Jeep had emerged from beneath the hotel and joined the traffic of the clogged Portland streets. A light mist was falling, catching in the headlights and adding a silvery sheen to the streets.
“I thought we were going to be civil to each other.”
He slid her a noncommittal glance.
“Why do you hate me?”
His lips compressed as he headed east across the river.
“Zach?”
“I don’t hate you. I don’t even know you.”
“You act as if I’m poison.”
His jaw clenched visibly as he stopped for a light. “Maybe you are.”
“Why won’t you give me a chance?”
He practically stood on the brakes as the light changed at a crosswalk and an elderly couple crossed the street. Zach’s fingers drummed impatiently against the steering wheel and the instant the light changed, he tromped on the accelerator. “I’m not giving you a chance, because I don’t buy your story, Adria.”
“Why not have an open mind?”
“What good would it do?”
“Nothing. For you, I suppose.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared out the windshield. There was no use trying to force him to believe in her when she didn’t really believe in herself. But she’d hoped that he would become her ally. She looked at him from the corner of her eye and felt an impending sense of doom. Of course he couldn’t be her friend. If he weren’t her half-brother, she would find him attractive. Long and lean, rugged and cynical, quick to anger but with a killer smile that could warm even the most frigid heart. Intense. Cocky. Irreverent. Just plain bad news.
He caught her looking at him. Shifting down, he shot her another murderous glance. “You look a helluva lot like Kat, I’ll give you that.”
“Is that a crime?”
“It should be,” he growled.
“Kat…is that what you called Katherine?”
“Behind her back.”
She leaned against the door and rubbed the kinks from her neck. “What did you call her to her face?”
He snorted. “Mommy dearest.”
“What?”
“That was a joke, Adria.” Zach’s ex
pression hardened. “To be honest, I tried to avoid her.”
“Why?” She watched as his fingers curled around the steering wheel in a death grip.
“She was trouble,” he said as he flipped on the radio and soft jazz filled the interior. So he didn’t want to talk about Katherine. Adria wasn’t surprised. Throughout her research, she’d learned very little of the woman she suspected had borne her. It seemed as if Katherine had been content to let her husband bask in the spotlight; she’d always hidden in the wings, hauntingly beautiful and supportive. Adria wondered if Katherine truly avoided the limelight or if her powerful husband had found ways to keep his family, including his beautiful wife, in the shadows.
Adria didn’t know much about London’s mother; the information had been spotty, but she’d thought Katherine and Witt had met in Canada. After a whirlwind romance, they’d been married, to the shock and horror of Witt’s entire family. That was to be expected, Adria supposed. After all, rumor had it that Witt’s divorce from his first wife, Eunice, had been messy and harsh. Accusations had been hurled and in the end, Witt, ever powerful, had ended up with his kids. No wonder Katherine wasn’t greeted with open arms.
But Adria couldn’t help making comparisons between herself and the second Mrs. Witt Danvers. As Katherine had been an outsider to the family twenty-odd years before, Adria was the outsider now. For the first time Adria felt a kinship with the woman who was supposed to be her mother, and yet she also suspected that Zach wasn’t being completely honest with her. There was something he was hiding, something dark and mysterious about Katherine. He didn’t admit it, but obviously, whenever the subject of Katherine LaRouche Danvers was broached, he grew silent and brooding.
As he drove, the skyscrapers gave way to shorter complexes, the city lights became less frequent, the traffic thinned and eventually the offices gave way to homes lining the streets. Adria wondered about his childhood. Witt Danvers had been a powerful, dominating man. His first wife was weak, and his second…how little she knew of the woman who had become Zachary’s stepmother.
“What kind of trouble was Katherine?” she asked, when Zach didn’t elaborate.
“The worst.” Deep lines bracketed his mouth. An unspoken emotion—guilt—surfaced, then disappeared.
“Meaning—”
“Meaning that she came on like gangbusters. If she saw something she wanted, she’d use every means possible to get it. She never stopped until she got it.”
“What did she want?”
Hesitating, he stared through the windshield and he seemed lost in a whirlpool of murky memories. His mouth compressed into a hard, unyielding line; the cords in his neck seemed more pronounced, as if he were angry and waging an inner battle with himself. Seconds passed without an answer as the Jeep sped out of the city and through rolling pasture land surrounded by black, looming hills. He braked for a corner as the mist thickened into rain.
“What did Katherine want?” she repeated as the road angled upward through the hills.
Again, he slid her an insolent glance. The tires whined on the wet streets. “Everything.”
Adria felt that he was talking in circles and yet at least he was speaking. After hours in the library, reading dry accounts of the Danvers family, she finally had someone who was willing—albeit reluctantly—to give her information. She cautioned herself to tread softly.
The road had narrowed into two twisting lanes winding through the foothills. Adria barely noticed—she was too intent on finding out about the woman whom she thought was her mother. “Did she get it? Everything?”
He snorted in disgust. “Don’t you know?” he asked sarcastically.
“No, I—”
“After all those hours in the library, digging through the dirt. Kat’s dead, Adria. She killed herself. Jumped off a damned balcony.”
Stunned, she could barely speak. The temperature in the Jeep seemed to drop ten degrees and she shivered. “I thought it was an accident,” she whispered. “The accounts I read said she inadvertently overdosed on sleeping pills—and stumbled…”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Zach said as he yanked on the steering wheel and turned into the gravel parking lot of some kind of tavern or inn. “Kat took her life. She opened up a bottle of sleeping pills and downed them all with half a bottle of eighty-proof whiskey, then took a walk on a balcony and took a flying leap.”
“You don’t know—”
He slammed on the brakes, cut the engine, and grabbed her with both hands. His fingers dug into her shoulders as he gave her a little shake. “She committed suicide, Adria. It was whitewashed in the papers, but Katherine Danvers was a victim of her own fantasies, her own dreams.”
His eyes had narrowed at the memory, his nostrils flared in the close interior of the cab. Raindrops beat against the roof of the car and music, floating out of the door of the inn whenever a customer entered or left, drifted through the closed windows of the Jeep. Adria licked her lips and stared up at him, this man who could be her half-brother.
His breath was warm against her face, his hands strong and forceful, his eyes as dark as the night. Adria’s throat caught and she couldn’t look away. Spellbound, she held his gaze and knew in an instant that he was going to kiss her. Her heart squeezed. Unwanted desire—wicked and wanton—crept stealthily through her blood.
“Damn you,” he whispered hoarsely, his face so close to hers she could see smoky desire in his eyes. “You look so much like her!”
“Zachary—”
“Go home, Adria,” he said, letting go of her so suddenly she nearly fell against him. His expression turned harsh. “Go home, before you get hurt.”
13
“Who’s going to hurt me?” she demanded, pushing away from him and creating as much distance as possible in the Jeep. Her heart was pounding so loudly she could barely breathe. She’d thought he would kiss her, knew it was on his mind, and he’d run scared. She couldn’t get involved with him. The windows of the rig had fogged, seeming to cut off the rest of the world, and as she stared at him, she felt as if they were the only two people on earth.
“You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“How?”
His eyes glittered in the darkness. “You’re playing with fire.”
“And you’re talking in circles.”
“Am I?” He reached for her again and this time when he drew her close she could feel the heat of his body, found her own heart beating with desire. His breath was warm and ragged, his eyes defiant. “Why are you doing this?” he asked before he lowered his head and his lips crashed over hers in a kiss that was almost brutal and his fingers wound in the thick strands of her hair. Anger and passion sizzled through her blood. She tried not to respond, to push him away, but her hands were useless against his broad chest and he ground his mouth over hers in a way that was wickedly possessive and seared her to her very soul. His tongue prodded insistently at her teeth, gaining entrance to and plundering the dark recess of her mouth.
A low moan escaped her and she wanted to die from embarrassment, yet she kissed him back. Her pulse throbbed and for the first time in years a hot, yawning desire uncoiled deep within her. She couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t deny. She wound her arms around his neck, feeling him yank her closer, knowing that her breasts, already full, were crushed against his leather jacket.
As suddenly as he’d taken her into his arms, he released her. “Jesus H. Christ,” he swore, breathing hard. Closing his eyes, he let his head drop back against the seat cushions and gritted his teeth, as if suddenly struck by the magnitude of what he’d done. It seemed as if he were mentally willing his desire away. “Damn it, Kat, what is it you want from me?”
“I—I’m not Kat,” she whispered, horrified.
A deep stain crawled up his neck as he realized his mistake. “And you’re not London. Look, we can’t do this.”
“I don’t want to—” The glare he sent her cut her to the bone.
“And don’t give me
any crap about wanting to be friends. I think I just proved we’re way past that.”
She swallowed with difficulty. Desire pulsed through her veins. “Zachary, I can’t—this isn’t—”
“What isn’t?” His eyes flew open and he searched her face as if he intended to kiss her until she finally shut up. For several heartbeats she felt his indecision. “Hell,” he ground out before reaching for her again and roughly folding her into his arms. He kissed her without restraint, his lips anxious and hungry, his body hard and straining against hers as he forced her back against the seat, his weight pinning her. Again, his tongue delved deep and she felt the hardness between his legs. She should stop him, but she couldn’t. Delicious little flames of desire lapped at her, caused her lungs to constrict. He kissed her lips, her face, her eyes, his hands restless, but not moving from her back. When he finally lifted his head, he glared down at her and there was hatred in his eyes—intense, self-loathing hatred. “Don’t tell me you can’t,” he said through clenched teeth. “You can and would. But I won’t give you the satisfaction! You’re as bad as she was.” He struggled to a sitting position and reached for the door handle.
“As…who?” she asked, but knew that he was talking about Kat.
“She came on to anything in pants.”
“No—”
“You didn’t know her.”
“But I didn’t mean—”
“Neither did I.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” He raked stiff fingers through his hair. “Sorry?” His smile was cold in the darkness. “Don’t play the innocent with me, Adria.”
She itched to slap him, to deny what had so obviously been the truth, but curled her hands into tight little fists. “I didn’t…” If only she could lie and tell him that she didn’t feel any attraction to him, but she held her tongue. Her heart was still racing, her hands shaking.
The look he sent her seared her to the most forbidden recesses of her mind, and she knew then that what they felt for each other—this pure animal lust—was part of her destiny. A horrid attraction that she would have to fight. Her throat went dry and she wanted to deny the desire that pumped through her veins.