Children of Dynasty

by Christine Carroll

  Stretching her arms over her head, she tried to relax and forget her troubles. She was here to help save Grant Development, but the evening reception wasn’t for an hour yet. Surely, for a little while she could enjoy this lovely place.

  Looking down at the terrace, she inhaled a long slow breath. There was the carved stone balustrade where her mother had been standing when John had first seen her. As Catharine had gazed at the same sea Mariah now watched, what had she been thinking before she turned to John and found her life forever changed?

  Mariah had believed in that kind of magic when she’d come upon a lithe, dark youth on the deck of his father’s yacht. Now, she knew dreams didn’t last, not for her parents, or for her and Rory.

  Would he be here? After his swift exit from the hospital cafeteria, she could imagine him revving up his Porsche, pulling out his cell and dialing Sylvia Chatsworth’s preprogrammed number. Pain stabbed at the thought of the black-haired siren’s manicured nails sliding over Rory’s muscled back.

  Offshore, the sun silhouetted a sailboat beating to windward over the shining sea. As she watched the prow cutting through the waves, she heard the sound of a door opening from the room next to hers. She remained at the rail with her back turned, to preserve her neighbor’s privacy and because she didn’t feel like meeting anyone right now. After a shower, she’d put on her company face.

  Out on the horizon, the boat changed course, coming up on the wind to tack. She remembered Rory at his boat’s helm with the wheel in competent hands, his face intent on their heading.

  Footsteps approached her from behind.

  The sails flapped as the helmsman turned the wheel.

  “Hard alee,” said Rory’s voice.

  She turned to find him smiling, his tousled hair lending a rakish air. Faded jeans sheathed his thighs below a black golf shirt.

  The DCI logo over his chest drove her back to reality. “Are you next door with Sylvia?”

  “I’m next door,” he said with faint emphasis on the first word.

  She knew she should stop, but only a moment ago she’d been tormented thinking of them together. “Did you bring her?”

  His expression betrayed nothing. “I believe I saw you drive up with Lyle Thomas.”

  “Eyes of an eagle.” Okay, let him think she was with Lyle if he was truly sharing a room with the Senator’s daughter.

  “Now that we have the table cards arranged, what shall we do?” Rory slid a hip onto the balustrade and cocked a dark brow. “Fight about our fathers?”

  His dry tone infuriated her. “It always seems to boil down to that.”

  “How is your Dad?” he asked in a softer tone.

  “Much better.” That was relative, but she had to assume the information would go to Davis Campbell. “Back to work part time in a few more weeks.” She hoped.

  “That’s good.” His lips curved into a smile, and he sounded genuinely pleased.

  She turned her head away so he wouldn’t see her disquiet at thinking of her father’s health.

  “Hey.” Rory’s voice lowered to a more intimate range. When she did not turn back to him, he took her arm. “Still feeling guilty?”

  How quickly he cut to the heart of what kept them apart. Not Sylvia or Lyle, but the sense of being pawns in their fathers’ chess game.

  Rory’s hand was warm on her. “Look at me.”

  Wondering if she were playing the fool, she did … and the compassion in his dark eyes made her answer. “I suppose I will always feel guilty.”

  The corner of his mouth went down. “Have you asked his doctors if what you did could have caused his attack?”

  The memory of the hurtful things she’d said to him at the hospital hung between them. She stared out over the long emerald slope toward the sailing vessel in the restless sea.

  “For God’s sake, Mariah.” Rory shook her arm, his fingers digging in. “Does John blame us?”

  Her gaze was drawn to his wounded look, and she relented. “The doctors made it clear his clogged arteries were a time bomb. It could have happened any time.”

  His hand relaxed and slid down to hers. “What has John said about it?”

  The caring in his tone made her go on, “He told me to stop blaming myself.” Then, because Rory seemed to be holding his breath as he awaited her next words, she admitted, “He said people can’t always choose the one they love.”

  Rory exhaled a long breath. “I’ve missed you,” he murmured, lifting her left hand. She saw the question in his eyes when he saw it was bare of his ring.

  She could tell him it was some place safe, but realized she was falling into the old trap. All Rory had to do was touch her, and she turned into a marshmallow.

  As he lowered his lips and touched them to her hand the way he had at the Italian café in Sausalito, she fought the familiar melting warmth. He probably had come with Sylvia. She was no doubt inside taking a shower or something without knowing Rory was playing both ends against the middle on the balcony.

  Yet, his lips persuaded, and the warm tip of his tongue flickered over her skin. She wondered if he could feel the pounding of her blood.

  “Rory, I …”

  From the terrace below, “Really, Davis, I haven’t had a drink since lunch.”

  “You’re practically staggering.”

  Rory gripped Mariah’s hand and yanked her away from the rail. His quick movement shocked her.

  The fracas below continued with Kiki’s strained voice. “I’m entitled to a little fun now and then. God knows you’ve been a barrel of it this past month.”

  “Pipe down, will you?” Davis said cruelly.

  Rory stopped in the shade of the trellis outside her room, out of sight from below. His face looked flushed.

  Her cheeks heated as well. “You still don’t want your parents to see us?”

  He stared at her without answering, and she challenged him with her own gaze.

  “Why, hello.” Lyle Thomas stepped out from her bedroom. He cut an elegant figure in his dinner clothes.

  Rory dropped her hand. She whirled, thinking she must have left her hall door off the latch. Lyle’s eyes flicked from Rory to her.

  “You’ve met Rory Campbell?” she offered. Lame, but it was the best she could do.

  Lyle put out his hand. “Sylvia make it?”

  Rory shook. “She’s probably putting on her face for this evening.”

  Mariah gasped. He’d been playing word games, sweettalking her while he never actually said he wasn’t with Sylvia.

  She tried to control her voice. “I need to dress as well.”

  Shoulders square, she put a light hand on Lyle’s arm and guided him toward her room. When she turned back to close the door behind them, she did not miss the hard look Rory shot her.

  “Did I interrupt something?” Lyle asked.

  She went to the closet and opened it blindly. While she’d been outside, McMillan’s house staff had unpacked her clothes and set out her toilet articles.

  “Mariah,” Lyle insisted. “You and Campbell looked upset.”

  She talked to the clothes rack. “I need to dress.”

  Lyle’s heavy tread came closer and stopped a few feet behind her. “After the little scene between you two at the Marriott, I was tipped to curiosity. Now, I guess I know.” On his way to the door, he patted her shoulder. “Fair lady, your secret is safe with me.”

  As he went out Mariah figured she should not be surprised. Lyle, with his incisive courtroom eye, knew raw emotion when he saw it.

  With fumbling fingers, Rory shoved a ruby cufflink into his sleeve. The mirror reflected his flared nostrils and the cords in his neck standing out. That Mariah had gone so quickly to another man wouldn’t seem possible if he hadn’t seen the evidence with his eyes. For God’s sake, if Lyle had shown up ten seconds later, Rory would have made a fool of himself trying to kiss her.

  He began to insert matching ruby studs in his tuxedo shirt. The stones weren’t as large or as fine as
the one he’d bought Mariah, but they had sentimental value. He’d inherited them from his grandmother Mainwearing.

  Thinking back to when he was a small boy, he sensed that his mother’s parents had been happy in their marriage. It tore him up inside that in public this afternoon Kiki and Davis had been unable to keep from airing their differences. To leap back from the sound of their stridence had been instinctive, both for him and to keep Mariah from being exposed to the unpleasantness.

  Now he told himself it didn’t matter what she thought about his parents, not with Lyle sharing her bedroom.

  Rory brushed back his shower-damp hair and went down onto the main terrace where an array of animated guests gathered. The first person he greeted was the distinguished senator from the state of California.

  With a sweeping glance, Chatsworth appraised Rory’s tuxedo studs. They must have passed, for the older man offered a firm handshake, “Call me Larry.”

  Sylvia materialized at Rory’s side. As always, she looked stunning. Her shining fall of black hair set off a trademark red dress that hugged her curves. In contrast to the extravagant display of her assets, her face was set in innocence; as though the last time she’d seen Rory, they’d been close as lovebirds. She took his hand, her long red nails garish compared to Mariah’s pale pink crescents.

  Rory did not immediately pull away to avoid offending the Senator Chatsworth … that is, Larry.

  “You will take me in to dinner?” Sylvia asked archly, placing her other hand firmly on his chest over his heart.

  “Aren’t you with someone?” he hoped aloud, trying to take a subtle step back.

  “Just Daddy and Mama,” she pouted, staying with him and stroking the satin lapel of his tux. Larry smiled beatifically at the two of them.

  Thinking how to escape gracefully, Rory suddenly saw Mariah framed in the archway leading into the house. She sparkled in a gold dress he remembered too well, her lips and cheeks pink from rouge or having just-been-kissed. Lyle’s arm rested around her shoulders.

  Was it Rory’s imagination, or was there a subtle clouding of her smile when she saw Sylvia caressing him? He couldn’t be sure, but what she did next sent his temper soaring.

  Mariah met his eyes for a beat, enough for him to be certain she was looking directly at him. Then she turned into the crook of Lyle’s arm, stood on tiptoe and whispered something that made the big blond laugh loud enough to project all over the terrace.

  Rory had been a fool on the balcony upstairs. He wasn’t about to be again.

  Forcing a smile, he bent to accept Sylvia’s dinner offer. “Since we’re both alone, we must definitely go in together.”

  She smiled almost shyly. His daughter placed, Chatsworth excused himself to press the flesh.

  As if a switch had been thrown, she dropped the little girl act. “So my father says, Sylvia, you could do a lot worse than Rory Campbell.” Her laugh sounded victorious.

  “He did, did he?”

  Thoroughly miserable now, Rory stood beside the wrong woman, while Mariah smiled up at Lyle Thomas.

  Lyle led Mariah to Wilson McMillan, introduced her, and melted into the gathering.

  “So sorry John couldn’t be here.” Wilson moved briskly for his seventy-odd years, taking her hand in both of his. Eyes as keen as an owl’s peered at her from his golf-tanned, leathery face.

  “Dad sends his fond regards,” she told him.

  “My best to him. And to you, the little lady who is filling his shoes.” He made a sweeping gesture to include his guests. “I’ll introduce you around.”

  True to his word, he stayed with her for half an hour, gracefully insinuating his way into conversations and presenting her. With each group, she accepted good wishes for her father’s speedy recovery and made her pitch. “With Dad’s illness, we’re going to have to pull in our horns, temporarily, you understand. We’re thinking of selling some properties before they’re complete. Just too much on our plate.”

  She tried to keep it casual, all the while aware of First California’s ticking clock. There wasn’t time for any sales to close in the five working days before the June 6 deadline. She hoped letters of intent would do.

  Takei Takayashi of Golden Builders listened to her presentation with more enthusiasm than most. Once Wilson had left her alone, he came up to her. “I’d be interested in talking. I’m not long on cash, but for the right price …”

  “We’ll have to see,” she countered his opening preparation for a low bid. “There’s no need for us to rush into anything.”

  “No rush?” said a deep male voice behind her. Something sinister and memorable in the tone identified Davis Campbell.

  She turned to find him looming over her in a black tuxedo. Gold Cape buffalo studs stared belligerently from his crisp shirtfront, his study of her as bold. “I thought you had to raise some major capital in a week or so.”

  It was a gut punch, but, “I don’t know what you mean.”

  She was afraid she knew all too well. This was not something she’d told Rory, and no one at Grant Development would have broken confidentiality and talked to him. That left Thaddeus Walker.

  “Why, I mean those loans you have to retire at First California.” Davis looked appropriately solemn. “I know it couldn’t come at a worse time, what with John’s illness and your safety problems.”

  Takei nodded gravely. “Yes, the safety problem at Grant Plaza.”

  “It was an accident,” she snapped. A trembling began inside her.

  “Of course, an unfortunate accident,” Davis soothed.

  Any sympathy she’d had when John told her of Davis’s love for Catharine evaporated.

  People did terrible things for vengeance and what better candidate to have set this terrible chain of events in motion than Davis Campbell?

  Staring up at him, she said, “The police have been informed that someone might have sabotaged the cable and the emergency brake.”

  Davis crooked a dark brow. “Indeed?”

  Her mouth half open to accuse him, she noted Takei’s listening pose. Anyone who would hire a welder to rig the hoist cable and disappear had to expect that someone would die … Tom Barrett had suggested the target might have been her.

  She stared up into the coldest eyes she had ever seen and swallowed her words. One did not accuse Davis Campbell of murder in Wilson McMillan’s drawing room. Not without some fine evidence.

  With a racing heart, she turned to Takei and attempted to sound steady. “Why don’t we talk about Grant’s properties?”

  He inclined his head in a slight bow and preceded her away from Rory’s father. She started to follow.

  A hand shot out; Davis’s thumb and forefinger pressed her wrist. She tried to pull away, and his grip tightened into a vice. “You’ve always been the image of your mother. The same passion.”

  With her fingers beginning to numb, she jerked free. “You think you ever really knew her?”

  The corner of his mouth went down the same way Rory’s had earlier on the balcony outside their rooms. The challenge in his eyes corroborated everything John had told her of Davis desiring Catharine. “Better than you. Do you even remember her?”

  Though her palm fairly itched with the urge to slap him, she decided not to make a bad scene worse. Instead, she started away from him as though the back of her skirt was on fire.

  A few feet away, she collided with Rory. In a dark tuxedo like his father’s, he cut an imposing figure. His ruby studs were beautiful, but nothing like the one in the ring he’d bought her.

  He put out his hands and caught her bare shoulders, his touch defining that she was still shaking from her encounter with his father.

  “Let me go,” she said.

  “Steady,” he returned softly. “I heard.”

  “I’m fine,” she insisted.

  Rory slid his hands down her arms; the caress sent a shudder through her. “You’re no more fine than I am. I heard the way he stripped you down and flayed you.” He murmur
ed at her ear, but his words had the impact of a shout. “Quite clever, the way he drew blood without touching you.” She believed she heard the full force of his battle to be different from his father.

  As she dared to wonder if she’d been wrong about his ducking his parents on the upstairs balcony, an acid female voice cut in. “Hey. Dance with the one you brought.” Bold as ever, Sylvia Chatsworth pushed close to Rory.

  Like the last time Mariah had seen her, Sylvia wore red, clinging stretch velvet that left little to the imagination.

  Extricating her hands from Rory’s, Mariah escaped down marble stairs onto Wilson McMillan’s grounds. The sea air failed to cool her hot face as, heart pounding, she ran until she was out of breath and had to stop with a stitch in her side.

  Finally, a breeze started to soothe her brow. Walking more slowly, she wandered gravel paths through a rose garden worthy of a palace. Fountains made music in the deepening twilight, but did nothing to improve her mood. She sank onto a bench, the stone cold against the backs of her legs.

  Replaying the ugly scene with Davis Campbell chilled her further. Guilty though he might be of impossible arrogance and dirty tricks, was she truly ready to call Rory’s father a premeditated killer? She honestly didn’t know, but if Davis had done this awful deed, with a senator in his pocket he would have no trouble with SFPD. He belonged to the elite club of those who might be able to get away with murder.

  And Rory. His comforting her in full view of his father had set her heart yearning once more, only to watch Sylvia Chatsworth publicly claim him.

  Lyle loomed out of the darkness. “You’ve been busy working the crowd.”

  “Yes.” She kept her face turned away until she was sure it was composed. “I appreciate your bringing me.”

  He stopped her with a palm out gesture. “I saw what happened to you in there. Campbell is a piece of work.”