by Black, Jenna
“Besides,” Dante continued before she could voice her opinion, “if we were going to take this any further, I’d rather it be sometime when it isn’t cold and raining and generally miserable out.”
That point was considerably harder to argue, and some of the starch left Nadia’s spine.
What was she thinking, anyway? She was not reckless. She was not impulsive. She didn’t dive into things without examining the consequences carefully in advance. She’d felt a reluctant attraction to Dante since they’d first met, but that attraction hadn’t truly caught fire until she’d been locked away in this forsaken retreat, cut off from all men and boys.
Was any of it real? Or was she just using Dante because he was convenient? Could she possibly trust herself when her life was crumbling around her and her emotions were in a constant state of turmoil and confusion?
Nadia shivered, and Dante cuddled her closer. The rain was starting to let up, but she was already soaked through. Even if no one saw her sneak back into the dorm, her clothes wouldn’t be dry by morning. Whoever came in to tidy up would find the wet clothes and know she’d been out in the rain. Not to mention that the book she’d been carrying with her was probably ruined for good. Maybe that would cause nothing more than a few raised eyebrows, but she would have to assume her “guardians” would keep a closer eye on her from now on, wondering what she was up to wandering around in the rain late at night.
“I might not be able to come tomorrow night,” she said, deciding to ignore the issue of what she and Dante might do if they met again in better weather. “They’re going to know I snuck out tonight, and I don’t want anyone to get curious. The staff here are so nosy, I wouldn’t put it past them to have someone follow me.”
Dante nodded. “I understand. I’ll be here anyway, just in case. And if you think someone might be watching you, you probably should sneak out as usual and then just take a nice long stroll around the grounds. If they think that’s what you’re doing every night, they’ll lose interest real fast.”
Nadia couldn’t help but smile. “I’m lucky I can get advice from a real live spy.”
“Don’t take chances,” he warned. “I’m here if you need me, but don’t give them any more reasons to watch you too closely.”
“I won’t,” she promised.
She had a feeling that by the time the next night rolled around, she’d be longing for company once again, and the urge to meet Dante would be hard to resist. But he was right. If she wanted to make sure he could continue to visit like this, she had to exercise a little restraint. No matter how hard it was.
CHAPTER TEN
Nadia saw no sign that her midnight walk in the rain had caused more than a raised eyebrow from her keepers. No one questioned her about the wet clothes, nor about the ruined book, which was removed from her room while she was out at breakfast. Even so, she felt as if eyes were on her at all times. A paranoid delusion, maybe, but she forced herself to humor it anyway, just in case it wasn’t so paranoid after all.
Her mind kept replaying the sensation of Dante’s kiss, and sometimes she could almost feel the tingle in her lips.
He was an impossible dream, of course. Even if she didn’t end up spending the rest of her days hidden behind the walls of a retreat, she could hardly be with someone like him. Even ruined as she was, she would be expected to consort only with “her own kind,” and Dante would not qualify. Never mind that “her own kind” would do nothing but sneer at her for her scandalous past.
When Sunday afternoon rolled around, Nadia wasn’t at all sure what to expect. She wasn’t sure she could face a repeat of the last visiting day, but surely her family would relent now that the initial shock of her fall from grace had worn off.
Now if only Nadia could figure out whether a visit from her family would be a good thing or a bad thing.
She missed everyone, of course. Even with Dante’s visits, her loneliness at the retreat was palpable and oppressive. But how could she possibly face her mother, knowing what she knew? And how was she supposed to pretend she didn’t know? She was a reasonably good actress, skilled at hiding her true feelings—a survival trait for an Executive who spent so much time in the public eye—but she wasn’t sure her acting skills were up to the task.
The possibility of having to face her mother almost convinced her not to make an appearance at the visitors’ lobby at all. Staying away provided the additional benefit of not knowing if no one showed up to visit.
However, Nadia wasn’t a coward, and she wasn’t going to let the situation turn her into one. So at three o’clock sharp, her pulse pattering and her palms sweaty, she marched herself to the visitors’ lobby.
Too restless—and nervous—to sit, Nadia paced. She would have loved something alcoholic to soothe her nerves, but apparently retreats were the one place where the legal drinking age was enforced for Executives, and the oh-so-helpful servers who wandered the room brought her fruit punch so sweet it made her teeth ache. She carried it around with her anyway, taking an occasional sip just because it gave her something to occupy her attention.
The good news was that Nadia didn’t have long to wait before the suspense was ended. When the first group of visitors was escorted into the lobby, she immediately spotted Gerri among them. She quickly scanned the rest of the group, but there was no sign of her mother or her father. She tried not to think too much about the bizarre mix of relief and hurt that churned inside her. Her hand was shaking just a little, so she put down the drink she didn’t want anyway and tried to walk calmly across the room to meet Gerri halfway.
The “calmly walking” thing lasted about two steps, and then Nadia’s feet developed a will of their own and propelled her across the remaining distance at a pace just short of a run. With a choked-off sob, she flung herself into her sister’s arms, so glad to see her she felt she might explode with it. Gerri hugged her back fiercely, showing no sign that she was annoyed by the undignified display.
“Glad to see you, too, kiddo,” Gerri said, and it sounded like she was fighting tears as hard as Nadia was.
Nadia sucked in air, trying to loosen the aching knot in her throat. Hurtling across the room and throwing herself into Gerri’s arms was undignified enough. She was not going to let herself cry. Public emotional displays were frowned upon in Executive society and also tended to attract unwanted attention from the press. There was no press here to take embarrassing photos, but Nadia was sure gossip could and would make its way out into the world if she made anything like a scene.
Reluctantly, she pulled away from Gerri’s arms, though somehow their hands became linked in the process. Nadia searched her sister’s face, looking for signs of disapproval, or anger, or disappointment. Gerri was every bit as good as their mother at conveying her unflattering assessment with nothing more than a facial expression, but the look she was giving Nadia now seemed suspiciously like pity. Which made Nadia’s battle against tears just that much harder.
“Let’s find a quiet corner to talk, shall we?” Gerri asked with a forced smile.
Nadia, uncertain of her voice, merely nodded and led Gerri to a cozy love seat in a secluded corner. She could read the tension in every nuance of Gerri’s body language, and she realized her sister was bracing herself to tell Nadia the terrible news about Nate’s new engagement. Acting uncommonly impulsive, she decided to save Gerri the trouble.
“I know about Agnes Belinski,” she whispered, and saw Gerri’s eyes widen in shock.
“How could you possibly…?”
“I have my ways,” Nadia answered, feeling a hint of satisfaction at having resources Gerri didn’t know about and couldn’t expect her to have. “I can’t tell you what they are, and you’d better not let anybody know that I’ve already heard.”
Gerri cocked her head, regarding Nadia with unbridled curiosity—and maybe a hint of respect, as well. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”
Nadia summoned a smile she didn’t really feel. “You have no idea.�
� Even the fake smile was almost impossible to maintain, so she quickly let it fade away. “Mom sent you in to be the bearer of bad tidings, didn’t she?”
It wasn’t like Esmeralda had a problem with confrontation. Nor did she have a problem with detailing Nadia’s inadequacies to her face. But perhaps sending Gerri had been something of an act of compassion. Maybe their mother thought the blow would be softer coming from her. Which was almost certainly true. No matter how unfair her mother thought Nadia’s disgrace might be, she would still consider it to be Nadia’s fault. Nadia had had one job in life: to be perfect, at least until her engagement to Nate was finalized. She had failed, and her mother would never be able to hide her disappointment and anger.
Gerri sighed and patted Nadia’s shoulder gently. “Actually, it was my idea. Mom is…” She shook her head. “I was going to say she isn’t herself, but that’s not true. It’s like she’s herself times two million.”
Nadia knew exactly what her sister meant.
“I figured getting the news would be bad enough without having to deal with the critique that would come with it if she told you,” Gerri continued.
Nadia nodded, certain that Gerri had made the right decision. Nadia knew exactly how her mother felt about her right now, but at least she didn’t have to have that disappointment shoved in her face. And she wouldn’t have to fight her desire to express her own feelings in return. Her relationship with her mom might never recover from such a confrontation. It might not even now, but as long as Nadia didn’t have the opportunity to say the ugly things she was thinking, there was a chance.
“And Dad…?” Nadia inquired.
Gerri made a face. “Had some kind of important meeting he just couldn’t miss.”
It was not impossible for a man of their father’s rank to have important, can’t-miss meetings on a Sunday afternoon, but Nadia could easily read between the lines. “In other words, he’s had it up to here”—she held her hand over her head—“with confrontation and he can’t face one more.”
Gerri nodded. “That’s the gist of it, I’m afraid. I think he and Mom are just short of meeting at dawn with pistols.”
Nadia would have laughed at the image of her parents dueling if the whole thing hadn’t been so depressing. And if she hadn’t felt so sure her mother would win the duel. She looked into Gerri’s eyes.
“I can’t live the rest of my live in a retreat, Gerri. I just can’t.” A hint of panic tinged her voice, and she made no attempt to hide it.
Gerri reached out and squeezed her hand. “It seems to me there’s an obvious solution to all your problems.”
Of course it seemed that way to Gerri. She knew Nadia had powerful blackmail material against the Chairman, and not knowing what that material was, it would seem to her that using it to force the Chairman to reinstate the agreement between their families was a no-brainer.
“Please tell me you kept your promise,” Nadia begged, sidestepping the issue for the moment.
Gerri frowned. “I haven’t retrieved the recordings,” she said. “Yet. You promised you would explain. Now might be a good time.”
Too bad Nadia had never quite figured out how she was going to explain. She would love to unburden herself, tell Gerri everything. But the fact was she didn’t dare. Knowing the truth about Thea was like having a death warrant with your name on it, which was why neither Nadia nor Nate could tell anyone, even—or maybe especially—the people they loved the most. If the Chairman ever caught the slightest hint that they weren’t upholding their end of the bargain, he would stop upholding his.
The problem was that if Nadia didn’t tell Gerri what was on those recordings, Gerri could just go listen to them herself—which ran the risk of leading the Chairman’s spies to their location, which would be even worse.
“You can’t listen to those recordings,” Nadia said, glancing around the room to make one hundred percent certain no one could hear what they were saying. “Having them safely hidden is the only thing that’s keeping me alive, and the Chairman would do anything to find them and destroy them—including putting you under surveillance and bugging your phones and computers. If you go anywhere near the recordings, either physically or electronically, he’ll find them.”
Gerri’s eyes widened. “What the hell is on those recordings that’s worth all that?”
“Nothing,” Nadia said, the lie falling glibly from her tongue. It was the perfect solution to her problem, making it seem not worth the risk for Gerri to listen to the recordings. “He thinks I have something, but I don’t. When he found the transmitter, he assumed I’d been sending the whole time and had caught everything he said. But I didn’t. As long as he doesn’t know that and doesn’t find the recordings, I’m safe.”
Of course, thinking the blackmail was a bluff did nothing to stifle Gerri’s curiosity. “So what did he say that he’s willing to kill to keep quiet?”
Nadia wished she had come up with this solution earlier so she’d have had time to think all the possibilities through. Making up an elaborate lie on the fly was fraught with danger, especially when she was faced with a sharp mind like Gerri’s. Which meant that keeping the lies to a minimum was her safest strategy.
“I can’t tell you,” Nadia said, looking her sister straight in the eye. “The information is useless without proof, but if the Chairman ever so much as suspected I told anyone…”
“How would he find out? It’s not like I’m going to say anything to him.”
Nadia shook her head. “Maybe all it would take is having you look at him the wrong way.” Gerri opened her mouth to protest, but Nadia kept talking. “As long as you can’t do anything with the information, there’s no reason for you to know. Except curiosity, and that’s not good enough.”
It was obvious Gerri wanted to argue, and Nadia couldn’t blame her. In her sister’s shoes, she’d be dying to know what the big secret was, too.
“Please trust me, Gerri,” she said. “It’s better for everyone if you don’t know what I heard.”
Gerri’s narrowed eyes said she still didn’t like it. “Well, I don’t suppose I can beat it out of you. But I still wish you’d tell me. If I know what the Chairman’s hiding, then maybe I can persuade him to—”
“No!” Nadia said, too fast and too sharply. She forced herself to lower her voice. “Don’t even think about trying to blackmail him. I mean it, Gerri.”
“Why not?” Gerri challenged. “Don’t you think it’s worth getting our hands a little dirty to save our family from complete ruin?”
“Of course. But do you think for one moment the Chairman didn’t consider the possibility when he decided to break the marriage agreement?” Gerri’s shrug was as close to an agreement as Nadia was likely to get. “He wouldn’t have done it if he weren’t fully prepared to call my bluff. And if he calls my bluff and finds out it really is a bluff, I won’t just be ruined, I’ll be dead—and probably you, too.”
Gerri leaned back in the love seat, her nails tapping restlessly against the padded arm as her face furrowed in thought. “He’s a devious bastard,” she said under her breath. “Maybe he guessed you’d be too afraid to try to blackmail him again. Maybe you’re playing right into his hands.”
It was possible Gerri was right, but Nadia didn’t think so. If the Chairman were prepared to give in to a blackmail attempt, then he never would have changed the marriage agreement in the first place. Backing out of the agreement would mortally offend Chairman Belinski and the entire state of Synchrony, and he would not have put himself in that position. Wars had been started over lesser offenses, and though Paxco was much larger and richer than Synchrony, Synchrony’s high-tech military made them a bad enemy to have.
“I’m not going to do it, Gerri,” Nadia said, putting every bit of her conviction into her voice. “I’m not going to blackmail him, and I’m not going to tell you what I heard. Period.”
“Fine,” Gerri said. “For now. As long as the marriage agreement isn’t signed, and as l
ong as Mom hasn’t as good as publicly admitted your guilt by sending you upstate, there’s a chance that we can get out of this. But if they start hammering nails into our social coffin, you and I are going to have another talk. I am not going to let the Chairman destroy our family without a fight.”
If it came to that, Nadia was going to have to tell Gerri the whole truth, no matter how much she didn’t want to. Her sister was ordinarily levelheaded and practical, and she had to hear the sense in what Nadia was saying. But she was also fiercely protective of her family, especially her kids, and she might well be willing to risk both her own life and Nadia’s if she thought it would save the rest of the family from ruin.
Gerri sighed. “I wish I could segue from that into something better, but I also have some bad news I have to share with you.”
Nadia listened with a heavy heart as her sister told her about the death of Nate’s mother. News of Eleanor Lake’s passing didn’t exactly break her heart, but she knew Nate had to be hurting, no matter how many mixed feelings he had toward his mother. She was grateful that she would be allowed to leave the retreat to attend the funeral. It might be the only chance she got to see or talk to Nate in the near future, considering the difficult position his new unofficial engagement put him in—and the pleasure the Chairman no doubt felt in keeping Nadia as isolated as possible.
Just as Nadia thought this, she saw Nate, standing in the entryway. A smile of greeting began to curve Nadia’s lips. Until she saw the girl who stood a couple paces behind him, just in front of his bodyguard. The girl who looked to be about Nate’s age, and who was, as Dante had described her, “not beautiful.”
The girl who Nadia knew at once was Agnes Belinski.