by Black, Jenna
Nate blinked and shook his head. “Wait. That’s what you think is so important? A dinner invitation?” One Hartman had to know Nate would refuse out of hand.
“It conflicts with your currently scheduled plans,” Hartman said. “The dinner is scheduled for six o’clock.”
Of course it was. Right during the heart of the retreat’s visiting hours, so that Nate wouldn’t have time to drive out there either before or after the dinner. “You can send my father my sincere regrets,” Nate said, but he knew it wouldn’t be that easy. The Chairman was a bastard, but he wasn’t stupid, and he knew exactly what kind of response his invitation would elicit.
Hartman nodded. “He told me you would say that. He said to tell you your mother might appreciate some company. He said you would know what that meant.”
At first, he didn’t. What did his mother have to do with any of this? But it only took a moment for it to make sense. If Nate didn’t show up for the dinner tonight, the Chairman would recommend to the Lakes that they send Nadia to the Preston Sanctuary, the upstate retreat his mother had holed herself up in for the past decade. It was the kind of place where visitors were as rare as four-leafed clovers, and from which Executives rarely emerged. In one of those places, Nadia might well disappear from his life as thoroughly as his mother had. She might be destined for such a place anyway, but if his father “recommended” it, the Lakes would surely obey.
“Do you still wish me to send the Chairman your regrets?” Hartman asked. There was a disquieting glint of satisfaction in his eyes. He wasn’t used to winning arguments with Nate, and it seemed he was enjoying the novel experience.
Nate was angry enough—and felt helpless enough—that he was tempted to fire Hartman on the spot just because of the look on his face. He controlled the impulse with embarrassing difficulty. Hartman didn’t understand the threat he was making on the Chairman’s behalf, and Nate had to admit he wasn’t the easiest person in the world to work for. He suspected Kurt was the only person who’d ever been on his household staff who didn’t want to smack him every once in a while.
“Tell him I accept,” Nate said, because he had no other choice. But he was going to do his level best to make Chairman Belinski think twice about the marriage arrangement. His own father didn’t give a rat’s ass about Nate’s happiness and well-being. Nate could only hope Chairman Belinski was a more loving and protective parent.
* * *
Wednesday was the closest thing Nadia had had to a good day since the moment she’d first set foot in the retreat. Thanks to the phone Dante had smuggled to her, she had a connection to the outside world, even if she could only use it in case of emergency. And she knew he would be waiting for her outside the fence again at midnight. She probably wouldn’t be as desperate for a friendly face today as she had been in the past, because it was an official visiting day, but she would sneak out to meet him anyway. If he was going to go through all the bother to come to the retreat every night, the least she could do was to show up, if only to thank him again.
Nadia occupied her morning with a number of spa appointments, picking services where she didn’t have to undress. Having learned her lesson when her underwear was whisked away that first day, she wasn’t leaving the phone out of her reach for an instant.
The afternoon, she spent reading on the spa’s rooftop veranda, which provided a panoramic view of the grounds. It was a beautiful spring day, and there were moments when Nadia was actually able to take a deep breath and relax for the first time in weeks. Those moments never lasted long, but she appreciated them anyway.
She was down in the visitors’ lobby at exactly five o’clock. She didn’t know who was planning to show up or when, because that would have required communication with the outside world, and she wanted to make sure she didn’t miss a single minute of her time with her loved ones.
The visitors’ lobby was festive and comfortable. Chairs and tables were arranged in intimate clusters so that people could visit in a semblance of privacy. There was a table of hors d’oeuvres set up near the entrance, and retreat staff prowled the room to take drink orders. A merry wood fire crackled away in a recessed area in the middle of the room, and Nadia could see the carpeted stairs leading down to the fireplace were a popular seating choice, the room being surprisingly chilly considering the outside temperature.
Except for the fireplace with its enormous mantel and the chimney that disappeared into the ceiling, the lobby had an open floor plan. Standing in the doorway from the dormitory wing, Nadia could see practically the whole room without having to move. The visitors hadn’t been granted entry yet, so all she could see were retreat employees and fellow inmates like herself. It was a veritable sea of powder-blue uniforms, and Nadia swore that when she got out of here, she would never again wear so much as a hair ribbon in that color.
The visitors began to trickle in within a minute or so of Nadia’s arrival, and she waited and watched breathlessly as people in street clothes entered the room. There were some enthusiastic greetings, complete with hugs and kisses, but mostly everyone was quiet and reserved, as if they were meeting at a funeral. Nadia supposed the circumstances that had driven most of the guests into the retreat cast a pall on their relationships with friends and family.
By six o’clock, the steady stream of visitors had slowed to a trickle, and no one had come for Nadia. She circled the room restlessly, feeling like a lost soul. Of course, she reminded herself, the retreat was almost an hour and a half’s drive from Manhattan, so it would take a while for any of her visitors to arrive. Neither her father nor Gerri would leave work early for anything short of a crisis, and her mother would wait for them before coming out herself.
Nate’s absence was a little harder to explain away, as he was liable to duck out of work on the flimsiest of excuses. She knew he was trying to become more responsible, but she didn’t think his newfound sense of responsibility would keep him in the office when he had a chance to visit her, especially when they hadn’t seen each other before she’d been spirited away. He would want to put in an appearance to give her some moral support, if nothing else.
Nadia finally got tired of her restless pacing and plunked into a seat where she’d have a good view of the entrance. She wasn’t the only retreat guest not to have any visitors yet, and she supposed she could go sit with some other lonely guest so they could keep each other company. But the guests were far from the most social bunch, and Nadia was so much younger than everyone else it was hard to find common ground. She felt like a complete pariah sitting in the corner by herself, but that wasn’t enough to motivate her to move.
The hollow feeling in Nadia’s stomach worsened as every minute ticked by. She checked the time compulsively, deciding that she couldn’t reasonably expect anyone to show up until 6:30 if they didn’t leave Manhattan until 5:00. When 6:30 rolled around and there was still no one, she told herself they probably didn’t leave work until 5:30, and therefore she shouldn’t expect anyone until 7:00.
When 7:00 came and went and she was still alone, Nadia ran out of hopeful excuses and started entertaining the possibility that no one was coming. At first, she could hardly believe that was the case, but as the hands on the clock continued their relentless circling, it became harder and harder to deny it. She considered fleeing the visitors’ lobby and heading back to her room before visiting hours officially came to the end, just to escape the humiliation of being so thoroughly abandoned, but a stubborn kernel of hope refused to die. She would stay and wait until the retreat staff kicked the visitors out, just in case someone was running terribly late and would show up at the last moment.
No one did.
Visiting hours were over, and everyone was saying their good-byes. Most of the guests were gone already, and those who remained were outnumbered by the staff. When Nadia noticed Mari of the manic smile heading her way, she quickly vacated her seat and practically ran for the exit. No doubt the woman was coming to offer consolation of some sort, but Nadia
couldn’t have stomached it even if she’d believed it sincere. She fled back to her room and locked the door behind her, sitting on the edge of her bed and urging herself not to cry.
She’d only been away five nights, though it felt like forever to her. She had certainly gone longer than that without seeing Gerri before, as her sister had her hands full with work and two young children. Her mother had never been warm and nurturing, and she might have taken the retreat’s suggestion that visitors stay away for the first two weeks to heart. Or maybe she was planning to bring Nadia home in the next couple of days, making a visit unnecessary.
But Nate … How could Nate not have come? He had to know she was climbing the walls, had to know she was desperate for company. Obviously, he did know, or he wouldn’t have sent Dante to deliver the phone.
Nadia swallowed the lump in her throat. There was a logical explanation for his failure to appear. He certainly hadn’t done it to hurt her, or even out of carelessness. Nate might not be the most considerate and responsible of people, but he had always been her best friend. If he hadn’t come tonight, it was because, for some reason, he couldn’t.
Nadia reached into her tunic and withdrew the phone she had tucked in her bra. The temptation to dial Nate’s number, to find out if he was all right, to hear his explanation for why he hadn’t come, was almost overwhelming. But as hurt and as abandoned as she was feeling, the phone was only for use in emergencies, and this was not an emergency. Using the phone involved risk, and wouldn’t she feel like the world’s biggest idiot if she lost her lifeline just because she felt lonely?
Reminding herself that Dante would come tonight, that she wasn’t completely isolated no matter how she felt, she tucked the phone back into its hiding place.
CHAPTER SIX
The media had been overly generous when they labeled Agnes Belinski “plain,” Nate decided the moment he set eyes on the girl his father meant to shackle him to for the rest of his life. Her body was pear-shaped, and the clingy blouse and flowing skirt she wore made that shape more obvious, rather than camouflaging it as she probably hoped. Puffy cheeks and a receding chin made her face look round as a soccer ball, and her thin, fine brown hair was cut in an unflattering bob. Even if he liked girls, he wouldn’t want her in his bed.
Nate made little effort to hide his distaste when his father introduced him to Chairman Belinski and his homely daughter. He made his handshake as brief and limp as possible, and after looking Agnes up and down once, refused to meet her eyes. He wondered idly why Mrs. Belinski hadn’t come to dinner—he knew she had come to Paxco with her husband and daughter—but he wasn’t interested enough to bother asking.
“Chairman Belinski and I have some important matters to discuss,” Nate’s father said. “We’ll leave you young people to get to know each other, then we’ll rejoin you when dinner is served.”
Though he wasn’t looking straight at her, Nate could see the look of near-panic Agnes shot her father; he could also see the reassuring smile Chairman Belinski gave her.
Nate grimaced. So not only was Agnes homely, but she didn’t have the grace and self-assurance to fulfill her social obligations without her daddy holding her hand. She was probably the kind of girl who burst into tears if anyone said anything even remotely unkind to her.
In short, she was nothing like Nadia, who would have been as close to the perfect wife as it was possible to get.
The two Chairmen left the room, both looking pompous and self-satisfied—Nate’s father because he knew just how poorly Agnes stacked up against Nadia, and Chairman Belinski because his daughter would be marrying well above her station. Synchrony was one of the smaller states, and not a particularly wealthy one. They produced great tech, but they kept too much of it to themselves to realize anything close to their earnings potential. Their elite and exceptionally well-equipped military was envied worldwide, but in the hierarchy of states, rich outranked well-defended by a mile. Paxco could have gotten a bigger financial boost by creating an alliance with a much wealthier state, and Nate was convinced his father had picked Synchrony because he knew just how Nate would feel about Agnes.
Nate had never thought of himself as a mean or cruel person. He was careless of people’s feelings sometimes, but it was rarely out of malice. But the anger and resentment burning inside him were almost too much to bear, and he just couldn’t bring himself to make friendly with Agnes in even the most superficial way. She was the enemy, and he would give her exactly the kind of consideration an enemy deserved. When their fathers left the room, Nate stood rooted to the floor in stony silence, daring Agnes to break it.
Agnes licked her lips nervously. A couple of times, it looked like she was going to say something, but she either thought better of it or just plain didn’t have the nerve. Nadia would have handed Nate his ass on a silver platter if he’d treated her like this, but Agnes just stood there. He might have hoped that if he was being forced to marry a homely stranger, she might at least have a decent personality to make up for her shortcomings, but it seemed she had the personality of a frightened mouse. Maybe Nate would get lucky and she’d start begging her father to cancel the engagement plans the moment Nate was out of her sight.
Giving Agnes one more disdainful look, Nate walked past her and plopped himself down in an armchair near the fireplace. If there had been a fire he could stare broodingly into, he would have done it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Agnes still standing in the same spot, shifting from foot to foot. If she couldn’t even make a show of standing up for herself with him, how the hell was she going to handle people like the Terrible Trio, who so loved to publicly embarrass other girls to make themselves feel more important? This was the girl his father wanted to be Chairman Spouse of Paxco someday?
The awkward silence eventually became so uncomfortable that Nate was forced to break it himself. If he were being extremely generous, he might think that had been Agnes’s plan all along and she’d actually won a battle of wills against him. But he was hardly in the mood to be generous to anyone, much less the girl his father would force him to marry.
“What kind of a name is Agnes, anyway?” he asked out of nowhere. Agnes jumped at the sound of his voice, her eyes going wide. No, she definitely had not been engaged in a battle of wills. She’d just been incapable of speech. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone named Agnes who wasn’t at least eighty years old.”
Splotchy color rose in Agnes’s chipmunk cheeks, and she looked at the floor instead of at him when she answered. “I was named after my grandmother.” Her voice was high and thin, almost like a little girl’s. It was a voice Nate knew would grate on his nerves in no time flat. Not that everything about Agnes didn’t grate on his nerves already. “She was the first Chairman of Synchrony.”
The first Agnes Belinski must have had an impressive backbone to have been Chairman of a corporate state, even a small one like Synchrony. Too bad her namesake seemed to have inherited none of it.
No, not too bad, Nate reminded himself. If Agnes were a girl like Nadia, the kind of girl who always stubbornly fought back, he’d have no hope of frightening her out of the marriage. After all, the status and money and power she would get out of being Chairman Spouse of Paxco were well worth fighting for. Nate knew any number of Paxco girls who would stab their grandmother in the back if that meant they got to marry him, and it wasn’t because they were so all-fired fond of him. Better for him that Agnes be a wimp.
Walking gingerly as if to keep her shoes from clacking against the hardwood floor, Agnes proved herself capable of movement and took a seat on the sofa. She sat straight and primly, with her knees locked together and her hands folded in her lap. Nate thought she was going to give him more details about her grandmother, to try to fill the silence with meaningless chatter, but she didn’t. He imagined Nadia, sitting alone at the retreat, waiting patiently for visitors who would never come. She wouldn’t know why, and she’d be both hurt and angry.
“You’re going to ruin
an innocent girl’s life,” he blurted, glaring at Agnes. She just blinked at him stupidly, as if she had no idea what he could possibly be talking about. But unless she’d been living in a cave, she had to know Nate had already been informally engaged before she’d entered his life. If she hadn’t known it by the time she first set foot in Paxco, then someone had certainly told her by now. He kept glaring at her until she bowed her head.
“I’m sorry,” she said, proving she did know.
Nate waited for more, but obviously Agnes wasn’t much of a talker. “You’re sorry? That’s all you have to say for yourself?” He looked for some hint of spirit and defiance in her, but there was none. If he hadn’t despised her so much, he might have felt sorry for her.
“When your father’s a Chairman, you don’t get to pick whom you marry,” she said. It was a statement of fact, not a complaint. If her lack of choices bothered her, she certainly wasn’t letting it show.
“Tell your father you won’t do it.”
She looked shocked by the very suggestion, as if he’d told her to fly to the moon. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Why would I do that?” she asked, sounding genuinely perplexed. “Solidifying the bond between Paxco and Synchrony will be advantageous to both our states, and—”
“Because if you don’t fight it, you’ll be stuck with me,” Nate said as ominously as he could. “You won’t like that.”
He thought he detected a hint of unease in Agnes’s eyes, but she shrugged as if it hardly mattered to her. “You’re the Chairman Heir of Paxco. Surely you know that what you and I would like is irrelevant. I didn’t much like it when it looked likely I’d marry a fifty-two-year-old marketing director with two children older than I am, but the match made political sense and I didn’t complain about it. I know my duty.”