The Zaanics Deceit (Cate Lyr #1)

by Nina Post

  “Cate.” Noah sounded out of breath.

  “What is it?”

  “I found a letter …” he caught his breath, “in the loft. Jude told me to get it — I thought it was insurance information, but it’s not, it’s Gaelen’s letter.” He took a deep breath.

  “What does it say?”

  “I’d rather show you. I’ll meet you anywhere.”

  “I’m at the opera with Benjamin.”

  “I want him to see it, too.”

  “I’ll drag him out.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Benjamin and Cate met Noah in the lobby, then stood out of the way behind a huge column.

  Benjamin put on his reading glasses and took the letter from Noah. He read silently, muttering “My God” when he finished. Cate took it from him so fast that Benjamin hissed. “Cate, you gave me a paper cut!”

  She read the letter then looked at Noah, her eyes wide. “Which one wrote this? Typed this, rather.”

  “It doesn’t say, but it was on Jude’s coffee table. Someone’s clothes and purse were there.”

  “Whose?”

  “I thought they were Gaelen’s,” Noah said. “There was something … Gaelen-y about them.”

  “We need to warn Philip,” Cate said.

  “What? No, we have to be more careful,” Benjamin said. “He’s too loyal to Gaelen.”

  “Not anymore,” Cate said dryly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They had a blow-up at the hospital,” Cate told Benjamin. “Philip said he was going to sic his lawyer on her.”

  “For a divorce?” Benjamin asked.

  She nodded, and Noah said, “It was magnificent. It was like his conscience was gestating this whole time.”

  It wasn’t until they were splayed over the bed, tangled in the sheets, that Gaelen remembered what she came there to do.

  “Jude, I need you to call Romane and find out where she is.”

  “Should I tell her I need to see her?” Jude teased.

  “No, just find out where she is. After she and that Tartarean hop-on of hers blinded your father, she went poof.” She flicked out her thumb and fingers.

  Jude propped an elbow on the bed and Gaelen took her time looking over his well-defined muscles. She trailed a hand down from his broad chest to his hip. But he was staring off at nothing in particular.

  “Are you going to go see him?” she asked, referring to his father.

  Jude’s jaw muscles flexed. “I don’t know. No. His shiny new toy of a family can visit him.”

  “Your father never remarried after Noah’s mother died. What was her name?”

  “Geneviève. So?”

  “So he must have loved her,” Gaelen said.

  Jude chuckled darkly. “She was a trophy wife, nothing more. Nothing but a doll.”

  Gaelen suspected Geneviève was more than that, but Jude was so sensitive about family, and what did it really matter? She knew very little about it, and didn’t spend time with him for heart-to-heart conversations, so she directed him back to her task. “It won’t be hard for you to persuade Romane to reveal her location. She’s desperate to believe you want her.”

  Jude’s mouth curved in a sly, teasing grin. “So I tell her that I can’t stop thinking about her, that I can’t wait to — ”

  “Stop, you’re being awful.”

  “Then maybe I’ll call your other sister and tell her I can’t stop thinking about her, that I can’t wait to — ”

  Gaelen laughed and smacked his arm. Jude pushed her down on the pillow and hovered over her, arms and shoulders taut. “You think I don’t know how to talk to women?”

  “You know too well,” Gaelen said, folding one of her long, strong legs around him, then the other, tightening.

  “You’re the only woman I need, Gaelen.” His voice melted her tension. “Your sister doesn’t compare to you.”

  Romane, being a Lyr, had a natural advantage over most women, but Gaelen knew she was superior to Romane in every possible way: intelligence, appearance, charisma, discipline, every subject in school, athletics. It was both self-assurance — something she had and Romane didn’t — and objective fact.

  But Jude slept with her sister, more than once, before she let him into her bed.

  Gaelen eased him off. “Do it now?”

  He rolled his eyes and got out of bed, naked. He took his phone off the nightstand and called her sister. Gaelen felt a twinge of jealousy despite herself, despite knowing Jude was hers.

  Before he hung up, he told Romane he would call her back once he could get free to meet her. “Never doubt my powers. Romane’s at the Fairmont. Nob Hill. Now what’s my reward?”

  “I already gave you your reward,” she answered, pulling on her black lace panties.

  He pouted and sat on the edge of the bed. “That’s not fair play.” He wrapped his hands around her hips and kissed her from the bottom of the bra to the top of her panties. She turned and went to put on her dress. “I’m a busy woman,” she said, with a sly smile. “I have to get back to the office.”

  “You’re the boss,” he protested.

  “I’m working on a very important side project. A partnership that should give me the power to steer the future.” She paused. “The future of the logistics industry, I mean.”

  “You’re a wicked, wicked woman.”

  “You don’t know the half of it, babe.”

  When she took control of Lyr Logistics, Gaelen expected to feel more like it was a huge change. Yes, it pleased her to finally be CEO of the multi-billion-dollar family enterprise, and yes, it was the culmination of a long, often grueling journey, but it was really just a foregone conclusion. If there was any emotion in her achievement, it had been in the anticipation of what it would feel like to reach that goal. But now that she achieved what she’d been working toward, she felt empty.

  She made a call herself — without using Yuji as give a show of her position — to the CEO of an agricultural biotechnology corporation. It took ten minutes, but she was eventually put through to him.

  He played reticent at first, but they had spoken before and it was only a matter of time. He wanted nothing less than to control the world’s food supply, and she wanted nothing less than to mold the future. She was confident that in a few weeks, they could finalize their partnership.

  “I’m not sure this is the direction we want to go,” the CEO said with a slightly condescending tone. Gaelen, who had spoken to many white male corporate executives, knew that was their most common tone. She liked to vary hers in more subtle shades to get what she wanted. But men of his generation were like a hive mind, and used two primary modes of speaking: slight condescension, and off-putting heartiness.

  “I strongly believe this will cement your role in history.” Gaelen paused a beat to let him soar on that image. “The instructions are in the books. And I am the only person in the world who can make this happen without any evidence pointing back to you.”

  “Maybe I should just have our R&D department execute the strategy on our own,” the other CEO deflected.

  “Go ahead and try,” Gaelen said. “But do you want to take the chance of doing it wrong, when I already have the entire recipe for what you want to do ready to go? Do you want to have government agencies around the world breathing down your neck because of your own botched attempts, while a savvier competitor uses my plan to do it right and stay under the radar?”

  He cleared his throat. “Well, maybe if you get the cost down to something remotely similar to our own estimates, we can talk.”

  Gaelen smiled. He was definitely interested, because not only did he have his R&D department come up with an estimate to build something similar, but he was trying to convince her they didn’t really need it, which told her that they did.

  “If price is your only issue,” she said, “then let’s sit down and work out a compromise that meets both our needs.”

  “I’ll have my secretary contact you to schedule another call.” />
  “Don’t wait too long,” Gaelen warned him. “I will offer it to your competitors if we don’t have a deal worked out in the next few days. You know how to get in touch with me.” She hung up and turned in her chair to look out the window. The sky beamed blue between swaths of clouds, and the boat-dotted Bay sparkled in the sun.

  The one thing that actually excited her was something she could still work towards. Something that was risky and unknown in its process and results. Something that promised power in a way that truly mattered because it wasn’t just a family business — it was a way to influence and control the course of humanity and the future. Real power.

  The condescending CEO hadn’t committed, but he would. And if he didn’t, someone else would.

  Funny, how this would come from the language. One of the reasons she resented spending her time after school and on weekends learning Zaanics was that she couldn’t leverage it to get what she wanted. She couldn’t put it on her college applications because it was secret, a tangible legacy the two bloodlines guarded. And no one else knew it, anyway.

  Sure, her father fed her the party line. Zaanics connects you to your heritage. The ceremony will be something you’ll be proud of for years to come. It’s a sacred duty. Learning it instills discipline … and on and on.

  But now! Now she could leverage Zaanics.

  You never knew how things would turn out, though now she had potential business partners who believed she did. She didn’t know precisely how the books would help them. Her father used the training materials, not the content of the books, to teach her.

  What was the point of waiting to translate the books until things looked dire? She would be doing the future generations of the family a favor.

  Her intercom buzzed.

  She pressed a button. “Yes.”

  “I have Jude Severn on the line for you,” Yuji said.

  “Patch him through.” She paused, then took the call. “What is it?” she answered, not curtly.

  “Just like you asked, I waited and then called Romane again,” Jude said. “I’m meeting her at the Fairmont in twenty minutes.”

  “No, you’re not. I am.” Gaelen jotted down the room number and left the office.

  Romane greeted Gaelen in a black-and-pink lace push-up bra, matching panties, and gartered, thigh-high stockings. She had done a blow-out on her hair.

  “Aw, for me?” Gaelen said sweetly, and pushed her way into the suite, relishing how her sister’s face fell. Delicious.

  Romane grabbed the hotel robe from the closet and put it on, punching her fists through the sleeves and tying the belt with an angry flourish. “What do you want?”

  “All anyone wants.” Gaelen put up her hands in a conciliatory gesture, hung her coat behind the door, then unwrapped her scarf. The room was in the Tower facing the Bay, which you could see in-between the blinds.

  “Where the hell is Jude?”

  “He couldn’t make it,” Gaelen said, posing a sad pout.

  “How did you know where I was? Did he tell you?” Romane tightened her brows.

  “Of course,” Gaelen said, smoothing her dress over her thigh. “Jude tells me everything.”

  Romane snorted. She took a few steps toward Gaelen and tilted her chin to meet her eyes. “He may be in your bed this week, but you’re nothing but a trophy fuck.”

  “It’s true that I’m a trophy fuck,” Gaelen said in a matter-of-fact voice. “And why isn’t Jude with you right now?”

  “Jude has strong appetites,” Romane said, chin raised. “To stand in his way would be … injudicious. He can’t be reined in, but he’ll always come back to me.”

  Gaelen laughed. It wasn’t put on; she really couldn’t help herself.

  Romane glared at her. “What exactly was funny about that?”

  It was almost too easy to raise a cloud of hornets around her sister. Gaelen felt an odd stab of affection for her, and turned it over in her mind. No, it wasn’t so much affection as pity. Her sister would never come out ahead. She lacked mettle.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Romane said. “That I have no idea what’s really going on. That you see all the layers, and I see one. That I’m a simpleton who doesn’t know any better. But I do know better, and I can tell you that Jude is mine. I’m just letting you borrow him.” She smirked a little. “Remember Chris Soderholm?”

  Gaelen resented having a meaningless scrap of the past thrown back at her. It was such a waste of time to think about it. When she was stuck at home learning Zaanics, fulfilling her duty and unable to do as much as she really wanted, Romane took advantage of that. Her sister moved in on Chris, who was a lethal combination of intellect, looks, and athletic prowess. Chris would have been hers, Gaelen was sure of it, but her free time was so limited. She couldn’t attend his events, couldn’t “accidentally” run into him at the movies, couldn’t show off in front of him.

  Gaelen knew he was hers for the taking, but Romane, who was just pretty enough, who had just enough charm when she made a concerted effort, made it her life’s work to be his girlfriend. And since Chris was as tractable and undiscerning as any other seventeen-year-old boy, he started to date Romane, and her sister rubbed it in her face every chance she got.

  “Not really,” Gaelen answered, assessing the king-sized bed. The covers were neatly drawn back, revealing the Frette linens and Romane’s hope that Jude would disarrange them. So sad.

  “Bullshit,” Romane said. “I won. Chris liked me more.”

  Gaelen shook her head, went to the bar and poured drinks. She gave Romane the short glass garnished with lime. “Gimlet. Your favorite.”

  Romane took the glass and immediately drank three-quarters of it. Gaelen smiled. Her sister wasn’t one to pace herself. When they ran the same 10K or half-marathon, Romane would always sprint off the starting line with a smirk over her shoulder, expend all her energy too soon, then struggle to the finish line, way behind Gaelen. When would her foolish sister learn she would never beat her?

  “He’s with you now, so you say,” Romane said. “But tomorrow he could be with me, again.”

  Romane didn’t have her resiliency, her longview, her commitment. But what if …? Gaelen took in a breath. What if this was another Chris Soderholm? She was busy running the company, busy with her side project. What if Jude was getting bored?

  Gaelen kept her face neutral. Chris had been with Romane only because she wasn’t available to compete, and it wouldn’t have been any competition if she were. And because while Romane wasn’t Gaelen, she was still a Lyr, part of a long, prosperous family that tended to produce smart and attractive offspring. Even Cate, she could reluctantly concede.

  “Whatever you say.”

  Romane’s eyes blazed. “You know it’s true. Just like you know that Jude is mine.”

  “What about Jason?” Gaelen asked, innocent.

  “What about him?”

  “Last I heard, he was your husband.”

  “And Philip is yours,” Rome said. “So what?”

  Gaelen waited, just a second, then tilted her head. “You know that Jason is dead, right?”

  Romane put her hand on a nearby chair to steady herself. “You’re a liar.”

  Gaelen smiled to herself. So her sister didn’t know. She assumed Romane had done it. “I just identified his body at the morgue. They pulled him out in a drawer and drew back the sheet.”

  Romane opened her mouth to speak and froze.

  Gaelen opened a miniature bottle of tonic water and poured it into a glass. “You’re probably wondering, why did they call me and not you? Well, they couldn’t reach you. No one knew where you were. I don’t know what kind of trouble you’re in, but I did this favor for you.”

  “You did a favor for me?” Romane said with disgust.

  “Here’s what I know,” Gaelen said. “I know that you and Jason blinded Gregory Severn. I know that Severn’s housekeeper, the dowdy one, came back to the house after one or both of you committed the act. T
hough of course it was Jason; you’re incapable of taking action on your own.”

  “You are totally incapable of being anything aside from a horrible bitch,” Romane said through clenched teeth. “Jason is dead and you tell me like it means nothing?”

  “Of course it means something. It means the world has one fewer self-absorbed, sadistic asshole.”

  Romane lashed out at her and Gaelen caught one of her bracelet-laden wrists in her hand. A jewel pressed against the flesh of her palm. “Uh-uh,” Gaelen chastised. “And don’t pretend you care. Jude has a letter stating the opposite.”

  “What letter?”

  Gaelen spoke through her teeth. “The one that expresses your keen interest in having Jude kill your husband. Remember, your husband? The one you’re all broken up over.”

  Romane yanked her arm away and went across the room to the window. “You should talk. You can’t stand your husband.” She paused to drink the last of the gimlet, then set the empty glass on the nightstand. “You said we should get rid of Severn,” she added in a chastened voice.

  “I do things my own way,” Gaelen said firmly. “I don’t need two incompetents doing tasks for me. I would at least hire a professional. You don’t need to go off half-cocked to act on anything less than a specific directive from me.”

  “Severn knew,” Romane said, petulant, crossing her arms. “He knew what you were planning with the language.”

  Gaelen finished her tonic water and left the glass by the sink. “No one knows what I’m planning with the language. Not exactly.”

  “We needed to get Severn off the board.” Romane’s voice was tight with anger and frustration. “Jason thought — ”

  Gaelen made a derisive noise in her throat. “Jason thought. Jason was like a single-celled organism, reaching out toward money. That’s one of your many problems — you let men do the thinking for you.”

  “I was helping you, but why should I expect you to be grateful? It’s your due.”

  “You’re not smart enough to help me.”

  Romane rose an arm to slap her and Gaelen pushed her sister’s arm to the right with a palm-block when she saw that telltale cock of the elbow. She’d deflected many of her sister’s slaps over the years. “You’re so predictable.”