by Nora Roberts
His suit was Italian, a navy pinstripe that was tailored for his strong frame.
He turned, glanced her way. After an almost imperceptible hesitation, he smiled. He passed an invoice to the clerk he’d been speaking to and crossed to her.
“So, the wanderer returns.” He bent to kiss her cheek, his lips barely meeting her skin. She had a rush of memory of being tossed high in the air, of squealing with terrified pleasure, of being caught again by those big, wide hands.
“I don’t mean to interrupt you.”
“It doesn’t matter. How was your trip?”
“It was good. It was very good.”
“Have you been by to see your mother?”
“Yes.” She shifted her gaze, stared hard at a display cabinet-on-chest. “I’ve just come from there. I’m sorry, we had a disagreement. I’m afraid she’s upset with me.”
“You had a disagreement with your mother?” He took his glasses off and polished the lenses with a snowy white handkerchief. “I believe the last time that happened was sometime in the early nineties. What did you argue about?”
“We didn’t really argue. But she may be upset when you get home tonight.”
“If your mother isn’t upset every other evening, I think I’ve walked into the wrong house.”
He gave her an absent pat on the shoulder that told her his mind was already moving away from her.
“I wonder if I could talk to you a minute about something else? The Three Fates?”
His gaze and his attention snapped back to her. “What about them?”
“I had a conversation the other day that reminded me of them. And of Henry Wyley’s journal. It sparked my interest when I was a child, and I’d like to read it again. In fact, I’ve been thinking I may be able to work a section on the mythology of those pieces into my new book.”
“The interest may be timely. Anita Gaye brought them up in a conversation a few weeks ago.”
“So Mother told me. Do you think she has a line on one of the other two that still exist?”
“If she does, I couldn’t get it out of her.” He slid his glasses back on and gave her a wolfish smile. “And I tried. If she locates one of the others, it would be of some interest in the community. Two, and she’ll make a reasonable splash. But without all three, it’s no major find.”
“And the third, according to the journal, must be lost in the North Atlantic. Still, I’m interested. Would you mind if I borrowed the book?”
“The journal is of considerable personal value to the family,” he began, “as well as its historic and monetary value given its age and author.”
Another time, she would have backed off. “You let me read it when I was twelve,” she reminded him.
“I had some hope you’d show an interest in the family history and the family business when you were twelve.”
“And I disappointed you. I’m sorry. I’d very much appreciate seeing the book. I can study it here if you’d prefer I didn’t take it home.”
He made a little hiss of impatience. “I’ll get it for you. It’s up in the vault.”
She sighed when he strode off, then retreated back into the foyer to sit on the edge of the settee and wait for him.
When he came back down the stairs, she rose. “Thank you.” She pressed the soft, faded leather to her breast. “I’ll be very careful with it.”
“You’re very careful with everything, Tia.” He walked to the door, opened it for her. “And that’s why, I think, you disappoint yourself.”
“WHERE DID YOU go?” Malachi danced his fingers over the back of Tia’s hand and watched her attention shift back to him.
“Nowhere important. Sorry. I’m not very good company tonight.”
“That’s for me to decide.” What she’d been, all evening, was broody. So far she’d barely touched her polenta, though he was sure it had been prepared following her specific instructions. It was clear to him that her mind kept drifting, and when it did, a sadness came over her face that made his heart ache.
“Tell me what’s troubling you, darling.”
“It’s nothing.” It warmed her when he called her darling. “Really. Just a family . . .” She couldn’t call it an argument. No voices had been raised, no angry words tossed. “Disagreement. I managed to upset my mother and irritate my father, all in the space of a couple of hours.”
“How did you do that?”
She poked at her polenta. She hadn’t told him of the journal yet. As it was, by the time she’d gotten back to her apartment, she’d been too tired, too depressed, to open it. She’d wrapped it carefully in an unbleached cloth and had tucked it in her desk drawer. In any case, she thought, it wasn’t the journal that had caused the problem. It was, as usual, herself.
“My mother wasn’t feeling well, and I spoke out of turn.”
“I’m forever speaking out of turn to mine,” Malachi said easily. “She just gives me a cuff, or that terrifying look mothers develop while you’re still in the womb, I imagine, and goes about her business.”
“It doesn’t work that way with mine. She’s worried about me.”
Worried I’m endangering my health, worried I’m letting myself care about a man I know little to nothing about. “I had a lot of health problems as a child.”
“You seem pretty healthy to me now.” He kissed her fingers, hoping to tease her out of her mood. “I certainly feel . . . healthy when I get close to you.”
“Are you married?”
The absolute shock on his face gave her the answer, and made her furious with herself for asking the question.
“What? Married? No, Tia.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. I mentioned to my mother that I was seeing someone, and before I knew it you were married and after my money, and I’m having some wild, illicit affair that will leave me penniless and heartbroken, and probably suicidal.”
He let out a breath. “I’m not married, and I’m not interested in your money. As to the affair, I’ve been giving that considerable thought, but I’ll have to rearrange my plans for the rest of this evening if getting you into bed could result in leaving you broke, heartbroken and suicidal.”
“Jesus.” She wrung her hands. “Why don’t we skip all of that and you can just shoot me now and put me out of my misery.”
“Why don’t we skip dinner instead and go back to your flat so I can get my hands on you. I give you my word that when we’re done, you won’t be after jumping out the window.”
She had to clear her throat. She had an urge, an outrageous one, to lean over and slide her tongue over the long, strong line of his cheekbone. “Maybe I should get that in writing.”
“Happy to.”
“Why, it’s Tia Marsh, isn’t it? Stewart Marsh’s daughter.”
It was a voice Malachi would never forget. His fingers tightened convulsively on Tia’s as he shifted, looked up and met Anita Gaye’s glittering smile.
Seven
MALACHI’S grip on her hand was enough to make Tia jolt. But she got over that quickly enough, as the fact that she couldn’t put a name to the face of the woman smiling sharply enough to drill holes in her brought on a quick spurt of social panic.
“Yes. Hello.” Tia struggled furiously for the connection. “How are you?”
“I’m wonderful, thanks. You won’t remember me. I’m Anita Gaye, one of your father’s competitors.”
“Of course.” Conflicting emotions trickled through the wash of relief. Malachi’s grip on her fingers had eased slightly, but still held firm. Anita’s eyes glittered like suns, and her companion looked politely bored.
Tia began to wonder if the strangling tension she felt came from a source other than her own social clumsiness. “It’s nice to see you. This is Malachi Sullivan. Ms. Gaye,” she began, shifting to Malachi, “is in antiques. As a matter of fact—” She had to bite back a yelp when his hand vised on hers again. “Ah, she’s one of the top dealers in the country,” she finished weakly.
“No.” The single syllable was clipped and as rude as a slap. Anita only purred and touched a hand lightly to Tia’s shoulder.
“Our table’s ready, so I won’t keep you. We must have lunch sometime soon, Tia. I read your last book and was just fascinated. I’d love to discuss it with you.”
“Of course.”
“Give your parents my best,” she added, and sent one last, laughing look at Malachi as she glided away.
Deliberately, Tia drew her hand from his, then reached for her water glass to soothe her throat. “You know each other.”
“What?”
“Don’t.” She set her glass down again, then folded her hands together in her lap. “You must think me the perfect fool, both of you. She’s never said two words to me in my life. Women like her don’t notice women like me. I’m not her competition.”
His blood was up, which made it difficult to think clearly. “That’s a ridiculous thing to say.”
“Stop it.” She gathered herself, let out a breath. “You knew each other, and you were surprised, you were angry when she came over. And you were afraid I was about to mention the Fates.”
“That’s a great deal of conclusions for such a short interlude.”
“People who stay in the background tend to develop good observation skills.” She couldn’t look at him, not yet. “I’m not wrong, am I?”
“No. Tia—”
“This isn’t the place to discuss it.” Her voice was dismissive, as was her slight shift away from him when he touched her arm. “I’d like you to take me home.”
“All right.” He signaled for the check. “I’m sorry, Tia, it’s—”
“I don’t want an apology. I want an explanation.” She rose and, because her legs were unsteady, kept moving. “I’ll wait outside.”
She didn’t speak in the cab, which was just as well. He needed time to figure out how and where to begin. He should have anticipated Anita would muck up the works; he should have anticipated her making a move. And he’d wasted valuable time. Wasted it, he admitted, because he enjoyed being with Tia and hadn’t been able to make himself push her too hard and fast toward the goal.
And, he thought, because the longer he knew her, the more he wished he’d approached the whole matter differently. Instead he’d tangled himself up in lies.
Still, she was a reasonable woman. All he had to do was make her understand.
She ignored the hand he offered to help her out of the cab. He began to feel a little sick. When they reached the door to her apartment, he braced for her to try to slam it in his face, but she walked inside, left it open, and walked straight across the room to the windows. As if, he thought, she still needed air.
“It’s a complicated business, Tia.”
“Yes, deceit and underhanded behavior often are.” She’d had time to think. Concentrating on the puzzle of it helped distance her from the hurt. “It all deals with the Fates. You and Ms. Gaye want them. I’m a link. She’d work on my parents, and you . . .” She turned back now, her face cool and set. “You’d work on me.”
“It’s not like that. Anita and I are in no way partners.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “Competitors, then, working against each other. That does make more sense. Did you have a lovers’ spat?”
“Christ.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “No. Listen to me, Tia, she’s a dangerous woman. Ruthless, completely unscrupulous.”
“And you’re just loaded with scruples? I suppose you misplaced all those scruples when you lured me away from my hotel in Helsinki, spent all that time charming me, making me believe you were interested in me so someone could break into my hotel, search it. Did you really think I carried clues to the Fates around on a book tour?”
“I didn’t have anything to do with the break-in. That was Anita. I’m not a fucking criminal.”
“Oh pardon me. Just a fucking liar, then?”
He reined in his fury. What right did he have to be pissed off? “I can’t deny I lied to you. I’m sorry for it.”
“Oh, you’re sorry? Well, that’s different, then. All is forgiven.”
Malachi slid his hands into his pockets, balled them there. The woman facing him wasn’t the soft, sweet, slightly neurotic one who’d snuck under his skin. This woman was coldly furious and tougher than he’d believed. “Do you want an explanation, or would you rather just pound on me?”
“I’ll have the first, and reserve my right to the second.”
“Fair enough. Can we sit?”
“No.”
“Be easier if you pounded on me first and got it out of your system,” he responded. “I told you some of the truth.”
“You’ll have a long wait for your medal of honor, Malachi. Is that your name, or did you make it up?”
“It’s my name, goddamn it. You want to see my bloody passport?” He began to pace now as she stood cool and still. “I did have an ancestor on the Lusitania. Felix Greenfield, who survived and married Meg O’Reiley and settled in Cobh. The experience changed his life, turned it around and made something out of him. He worked the fishing boats with his wife’s family, had his children, converted to Catholicism and by all accounts was quite devout about it.”
He paused, ran his fingers—as she’d allowed herself to imagine doing herself—through his thick chestnut hair. “Before that time, before the ship sank under him, he wasn’t such an admirable man. He’d booked passage on that particular vessel as he was on the run from the police. He was a thief.”
“Blood tells.”
“Oh, stop it. I’ve never stolen a flaming thing.” The insult grated and had him whirling on her.
He didn’t look so much the cultured gentleman now, Tia thought dispassionately. Despite the handsome suit, he looked more the brawler. “I don’t think you’re in a position to be so touchy.”
“I come from a good family. We may not be as fancy and fine as yours, but we’re not thieves and bandits. Felix was, and I can’t be blamed for it. In any case, he turned a corner. It just happened he turned it after he’d taken a few items from the stateroom of the Henry W. Wyleys.”
“The Fate.” She had to wait until her mind could absorb it. “He took the Fate. It was never lost.”
“It would’ve been if he hadn’t pinched it, so you might want to consider that in the grand scheme of things. He didn’t know what it was, only that it was pretty and shiny and it, well, it called to him, so to speak. It was passed down through the family, along with the story, and kept as kind of a good-luck charm.”
Fascinating. Fantastic. Beneath the hurt and fury, she felt interest stirring. “And it came to you.”
“It came to my mother, and through her to myself and my brother and sister at this point.”
He was calmer now. He was Catholic enough himself to feel some of the weight of the lies lift by the confessing of them. “I had some curiosity about it, and there’s where I made my fatal mistake. I took it to Dublin. I thought to have it identified, if possible, appraised certainly. My sister, who has a knack for such things, said that she’d see what she could find out through researching books and on the Internet. But I took it with me, impatient, and walked like a sheep into Morningside Antiquities.”
“You showed it to Anita.”
“Not at first, no. I told her about it. Why shouldn’t I?” he asked, frustrated all over again. “She was supposed to be an expert on such things, and a reputable businesswoman. I didn’t burst out with the history of it right off, but over the next few days . . .”
He trailed off as impotent embarrassment shimmered around him.
“Yes. I can fill in the blanks.” Because it made it worse, it somehow, perversely, made it better. She wasn’t the only one who could be blinded stupid by her own hormones. “She’s very beautif
ul.”
“So’s a mako shark to some points of view.” There was bitterness there, for the woman who’d duped him, and for the one who stood placidly with the dark river at her back.
“Well, she got enough of it out of me before I noticed the teeth. She came by my hotel so she could see it privately. She thought that would be best. Naturally I agreed because she’d already demonstrated a keen personal interest in me. She uses sex the way other women use lipstick,” he declared. “Putting it on and taking it off on a whim. I handed it right over to her.”
She thought of Anita Gaye. Sharp, sexy, confident. Predatory. Yes, she could understand why even a clever man might be a fool around her. “No receipt?”
“I might have thought to ask for one if she hadn’t been undoing my trousers at the time. We had sex, and we had wine. Or I had wine. The bitch must’ve put something in it because I didn’t wake up until past noon the next day. She was gone, and so was the Fate.”
“She drugged you?”
He caught the edge of disbelief, set his teeth. “I don’t pass out near to twelve hours on a bounce and two glasses of wine. I didn’t believe it myself at first. I went to Morningside and was told she was in meetings and unavailable. I left messages there and at her hotel. She never returned them. When finally I managed to contact her after she’d come back to New York, she told me she had no idea who I was or what I was talking about, and not to bother her again.”
It wasn’t easy hazing the image of him and Anita romping in a hotel bed, but she worked at it so she could think clearly. “You’re telling me that Anita Gaye, of Morningside Antiquities, drugged you unconscious after sleeping with you, then stole from you, then denied ever meeting you?”
“I’ve just said so, haven’t I? Made a fool of me in the bargain, using sex, pretending to care—” He broke off when he caught Tia’s arch look.
“Yes, it’s mortifying, isn’t it?”