by Nora Roberts
“I don’t think I appreciated you enough when I worked here.” She set her mug aside and rose. “Marty, I want to talk to the partners. All of them. I think it’s time I took a stand.”
He nodded as though he’d merely been waiting for her to say so. “I’ll see if I can arrange it.”
It didn’t take him long. He might have been considered the puppy dog of Bittle, but he knew what buttons to push. Within thirty minutes, Kate was again seated at the long, polished table in the conference room.
In keeping with the strategy she’d outlined on the drive over, she made eye contact with each partner, then settled her gaze firmly on Bittle Senior. “I’ve come here today, without my lawyer, in an effort to keep this meeting informal. Even personal. I realize your time is valuable, and I appreciate each of you taking that time to listen to what I have to say.”
She paused, once again glanced at the faces around the table, once again addressed herself to the senior partner and founder. “I worked for this firm for nearly six years. I dedicated my professional, and a good deal of my personal, life to it. My goals were not selfless. I worked very hard to bring in accounts, to keep accounts assigned to me satisfied and viable in order to increase Bittle’s revenue and reputation, with the ultimate aim of sitting at this table as a partner. Not once during my employment here did I ever take one penny from an account. I was raised, as you know, Mr. Bittle, by people who value integrity.”
“It is your accounts that remain in question, Ms. Powell,” Amanda put in briskly. “Your signature. If you’ve come here today with an explanation, we are prepared to hear it.”
“I haven’t come here for explanations. I haven’t come to answer questions or to ask them. I’ve come here to make a statement. I have never done anything illegal or unethical. If there is a discrepancy in the accounts, I am not responsible for it. I’m prepared to make this same statement, if necessary, to each client involved. Just as I am prepared to go to court and defend myself against these charges.”
Her hands were beginning to shake, so she gripped them tightly together under the table. “If charges are not brought, and this matter is not satisfactorily resolved within thirty days, I will advise my attorney to file suit against Bittle and Associates for unjustified termination and slander.”
“You would dare to threaten this firm.” Though his voice was quiet and clipped, Lawrence fisted a hand on the table.
“It’s not a threat,” she said coolly, even as her stomach jittered and churned. “My career has been sabotaged, my reputation impugned. If you believe I would sit idly by and do nothing about that, then I’m not surprised that you believe I would embezzle from my accounts. Because you don’t know me at all.”
Bittle leaned back in his chair. He steepled his hands, considered. “It’s taken you some time to come around to this position, Kate.”
“Yes, it has. This job meant everything to me. I’m starting to believe that everything is just too much. I couldn’t have stolen from you, Mr. Bittle. You of all people know me well enough to be sure of that.”
She waited a moment, wanting him to remember her, personally. “If you want a question to ponder,” she continued, “ask yourselves this: Why would I have pilfered a measly seventy-five thousand when if I had needed or wanted money, I would only have had to go to my family? Why would I have worked my butt off for this firm all these years when I could have taken a top position in the Templeton organization at any time?”
“We have asked ourselves those questions, Kate,” Bittle told her. “And those questions are the very reason this matter hasn’t been resolved.”
She rose, slowly. “Then I’ll give you the answer. I’m not sure it’s an attractive one, but I know the answer is pride. I’m too goddamn proud to have taken a dollar from this firm that wasn’t mine. And I’m too proud to do nothing when I’m accused of embezzlement. Ms. Devin, gentlemen, thank you for your time.” She shifted her gaze, smiled. “Thanks, Marty.”
Not a single murmur followed her out the door.
She stopped shaking when she hit Highway 1 and realized where her instincts were taking her. Even before she pulled her car to the shoulder, got out to walk toward the cliffs, she was calm again.
There were fences to mend, work to do, responsibilities to handle. But for a moment, there was just Kate and the soothing roar of the sea. Today it was sapphire, that perfect blue that called to lovers and poets and pirates. The foam, far below the lapped shale and rock was like the froth of lace on the hem of a woman’s velvet skirt.
She climbed down a ways, enjoying the swirl of wind, the taste of salt and sea that flavored it. Wild grasses and flowers defied the elements and grew, fighting their way out of thin soil and cracks in stone. Gulls wheeled overhead, their breasts as white as moonlight, the golden sun flashing off their spread wings.
Diamonds glittered on the water, and further out, whitecaps rode the sea like fine horses. The music never stopped, she thought. The ebb and flow, the crash and thunder, the eerily female screams of the gulls. How often had she come here to sit, to watch, to think? She couldn’t count the number of hours.
Sometimes she was pulled here simply to be, other times to sit in solitude and work out some thorny problem. In her early years at Templeton House she had come here, to these cliffs, above this sea, under this sky, to quietly grieve for what she had lost. And to struggle with guilt over being happy in her new life.
She didn’t dream here, had always told herself to wait for that until next year, or the next. The present had always taken priority. What to do now.
She stood on the comfortably wide ledge and asked herself what to do now.
Should she call Josh and tell him to go ahead with preparation for a suit against Bittle? She thought she had to. As difficult and potentially dangerous as such an action was, she could no longer ignore—or pretend to ignore—what had been done to her life. She hadn’t been born a coward, nor had she been raised as one. It was time she dealt with that part of herself that was constantly in fear of failure.
In a way, she supposed, she had acted like Seraphina, metaphorically tossing her life over a cliff rather than working with the hand she’d been dealt.
That was over now. A little late, she admitted, but she had done the right thing. The Templeton thing, she thought with a smile as she picked her way down a rough and crooked incline. Uncle Tommy had always said that you couldn’t be stabbed in the back if you faced your attackers.
The first step she needed to take was to face her aunt. Somehow she had to make things right there again. Kate looked back, and though she was too far down the slope to see the house, she could picture it.
Always there, she mused, tall and strong and waiting. Offering shelter. Hadn’t it been there for Margo when her life had smashed around her? For Laura, and her girls, during the most difficult period of their lives?
It had been there for her, Kate thought, when she had been lost and afraid and numb with grief. Just as it was there now.
Yes, she’d done the right thing, Kate thought again as she looked back out to sea. She hadn’t given up. She’d finally remembered that a good noisy fight was better than a quiet, dignified surrender.
She laughed a little and drew a deep breath. The hell with surrender, she decided. It was no more palatable than a cowardly plunge off the cliffs. The loss of a job, a goal, a man wasn’t an ending. It was just another beginning.
Byron De Witt was another step she needed to take, she decided. Time for another beginning there. The man was driving her crazy with his patience, and it was past time for her to take control again. Maybe she would just ride over there later and jump him.
The thought of that had her laughing loud and long. Imagine his reaction, she mused, clutching her stomach. What did a proper Southern gentleman do when a woman threw him down and tore off his clothes? And wouldn’t it be fascinating to find out?
She wanted to be held and touched and taken, she realized as the laughter in her stom
ach melted into warm, liquid need. But not by just anyone. By someone who could look at her the way he did, the way he looked deep, as though he could see places inside her that she hadn’t dared to explore yet.
She wanted the mystery of that, wanted to match herself against a man strong enough to wait for what he wanted.
Hell, she admitted, she wanted him.
If she was strong enough to screw up her courage and face the partners at Bittle, if she had enough left inside her to deal with the damage she’d done to the aunt she adored, then she damn well had enough grit to handle Byron De Witt.
It was time she stopped planning and started doing.
Turning, she started back up the narrow path.
It was right there, as if it had been waiting. At first she simply stared, sure that she was imagining things. Hadn’t she just come that way? Hadn’t she and Laura and Margo combed every inch of this section of the cliffs over the past months?
Slowly, as if her bones were old and fragile, she bent down. The coin was warm from the sun, glinting like the gold it surely was. She felt the texture, the smooth face of the long-dead Spanish monarch. She turned it over in her palm twice, each time reading the date as if she expected it to change. Or simply vanish like a waking dream.
1845.
Seraphina’s treasure, that small piece of it, had been tossed at her feet.
Chapter Eleven
Kate broke records on the drive back to Pretenses. Even the state trooper who stopped her to issue a lecture on traffic laws and a speeding ticket didn’t dampen her spirits—or slow her down. She made it into Monterey in under twenty minutes.
Too wired to cruise for a legal parking space, she zipped through traffic, double-parked, and raced through the strolling wall of tourists.
She spun to the left, narrowly avoiding a collision with a kid on a skateboard, and all but stumbled through the door of the shop.
Her eyes were more than a little wild.
“I started to call from the car.” Gasping, she pressed both hands to her thudding heart as Margo gaped at her. “I’m winded,” she realized. “I’m going to have to take those workouts Byron’s come up with more seriously.”
“You had an accident.” Margo bolted from the customer she’d been waiting on and made it to Kate seconds before Thomas got there. He was calling for Susan as he hurried over to take Kate’s arm.
“Are you hurt? You’d better sit down.” He halfway carried her to a chair.
“I’m not hurt. There wasn’t an accident.” Her adrenaline was so high, she was surprised everyone couldn’t see it bouncing off the walls. “Well, there was the skateboard incident, but we both escaped unharmed. I didn’t call because it wouldn’t have seemed dramatic enough over the phone.”
Then she began to laugh, so hard and so deep she was forced to clutch her ribs. Margo’s hand snaked out and pushed Kate’s head between her knees.
“Get your breath back,” Margo ordered. “Maybe she had a flare-up. Maybe we should call the doctor.”
“No, no, no.” Still laughing, Kate dug into her pocket and held up the coin like a trophy. “Look.”
“Damn it, Kate, how’d you get my coin?”
“It’s not yours.” Kate nipped it back before Margo could make the grab. “This one’s mine.” She bolted up and kissed Margo hard on the mouth. “Mine. I found it on the cliffs. It was just lying there, out in the open. Look, it didn’t even have any sand or salt on it. It was just there.”
After deciding the glowing flush on Kate’s face didn’t jibe with an ulcer attack, Margo exchanged a quiet look with Thomas. “Sit down, Kate, catch your breath. Let me finish up here.”
“She doesn’t believe me.” Kate grinned hugely as Margo moved off to her customer. “She thinks I snatched hers and went crazy. It’s all the stress I’m under.” Letting her head fall back, she laughed like a loon. “Stress is a killer.”
“Maybe some water,” Thomas murmured, and looked up in relief as his wife hurried down the stairs. “Kate seems to be a little hysterical.”
Calmly efficient, Susan took the bottle of champagne from the ice bucket and poured half a glass. “Drink,” she ordered. “Then breathe.”
“Okay.” Kate obeyed, but she couldn’t stop snickering. “You’re all looking at me as if I’d grown another head. I haven’t snapped, Uncle Tommy. I promise. I just found part of Seraphina’s dowry. I was walking on the cliffs and it was right there. Bright as a penny and a lot more valuable.”
“Just sitting there,” Margo hissed as she walked by carrying a Limoges box in the shape of a sun hat. “Like hell. Take her upstairs, will you, Mrs. T? I’ll be up as soon as I can.”
“Good idea,” Kate agreed. “There’s more champagne up there. We’re going to need a lot of it.” She tucked the coin back in her pocket, toyed with it as she climbed the winding stairs. First things first, she ordered herself, and turned as she stepped into the kitchen. “I need to talk to you, Aunt Susie.”
“Hmm.” Her back stiff, Susan crossed to the stove and put a kettle on to boil. The pretty little eyebrow windows were open to the breeze and all the bells and whistles that were summer on Cannery Row. But Susan said nothing.
“You’re still angry with me.” Kate sucked in both breath and triumph. “I deserve it. I don’t know how to apologize, but I hate knowing that I hurt you.”
“I hate knowing you feel the way you do.”
Kate shifted her feet. Staring at the pretty footed glass bowl filled with fresh fruit that sat on the counter, she tried to find the right words.
“You never gave anything to me with strings attached. I put them there.”
Susan turned, met Kate’s eyes. “Why?”
“I’m no good at explaining things that don’t add neatly up. I’m better with facts than with feelings.”
“But I already know the facts, don’t I?” Susan said quietly. “You’ll have to make an attempt at explaining your feelings if we’re going to settle this, Kate.”
“I know. I love you so much, Aunt Susie.”
The words, and the simple emotion in them neatly sliced away a layer of Susan’s anger. But the bafflement was still there, and under it, the hurt. “I’ve never doubted that, Kate. I wonder why you should doubt how very much I love you.”
“I don’t. It’s just . . .” Knowing she was already fumbling it, Kate slid onto a stool, folded her hands on the counter. “When I came to you, you were already a unit. Whole. Templeton House, you and Uncle Tommy, all so open and perfect. Like a fantasy. A family.”
Her words stumbled over each other in their hurry to get out. “There was Josh, the crown prince, the heir apparent, the clever, golden son. Laura, the princess, sweet and lovely and kind. Margo, the little queen. Stunning, dazzling really, and so sure of her place. Then me, bruised and skinny and awkward. I was the ugly duckling. That makes you angry,” she said when Susan’s eyes fired. “I don’t know how else to describe it.”
Deliberately, she made herself slow down, choose her words with more care. “You were all so good to me. I don’t mean just the house, the clothes, the food. I don’t mean the things, Aunt Susie, though they were staggering to a child who’d come from my barely middle-class background.”
“Do you think we would have treated you differently if we hadn’t had certain advantages?”
“No.” Kate shook her head briskly. “Absolutely not. And that was only more staggering.” Pausing, she stared down at her hands. When she lifted her eyes again, they were glossy with threatening tears. “All the more staggering,” she repeated, “now, because . . . I found out about my father.”
Susan simply continued to stare, her head angled attentively. “Found out?”
“About what he did. About the charges against him.” Sick and terrified, Kate watched her aunt’s brow crease, then slowly clear.
“Oh.” She let out a long, long sigh. “God, I’d forgotten.”
“You—you’d forgotten?” Stunned, Kate ran a hand throu
gh her hair. “You’d forgotten he was a thief? You’d forgotten that he stole, was charged, that you paid off his debts and took his daughter into your home? The daughter of a—”
“Stop it.” It was a sharp order rather than the sympathy Susan would have preferred. But she knew her Kate. “You’re in no position to judge what a man did twenty years ago, what was in his mind or heart.”
“He stole,” Kate insisted. “He embezzled funds. You knew all of it when you took me in. You knew what he’d done, what he was. Now I’m under suspicion for essentially the same thing.”
“And it becomes clear why you sat back and took it, and made yourself ill. Oh, you poor, foolish child.” Susan stepped forward, cupped Kate’s face in her hands. “Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you let us know what you were thinking, feeling? We would have helped you through it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me what he had done?”
“To what purpose? A grief-stricken child has burden enough. He made a mistake, and he would have paid for it.”
“You paid for it.” She tried to swallow, couldn’t. “You took your own money and made restitution for him. For me.”
“Do you think that matters, that Tommy or I gave that part of it even a moment’s thought? You mattered, Kate. Only you mattered.” She smoothed back Kate’s hair. “How did you find out?”
“A man, a client who came in. He was a friend of my father’s. He thought I knew.”
“I’m sorry you found out that way.” Susan dropped her hands, stepped back. “Maybe we should have told you when you were older, but after a while, it just passed away. What timing,” she murmured, heartsick. “You found this out shortly before the business at Bittle?”
“A couple of months before. I looked into it, found articles from newspapers, hired a detective.”
“Kate.” Susan wearily pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Why? If you’d needed to know, to understand, we would have explained. You had only to ask.”