Children of Dynasty

by Christine Carroll

  The phone on the desk rang.

  Rory … no, not Rory. She would have to stifle this knee jerk reaction to every call.

  As she reached to answer, she noted her bare left hand. Only two days ago, she’d planned to visit her safe deposit box at First California and get the ring as a surprise for Rory. Now she resolved to sell it at the first opportunity.

  The phone rang again.

  Not Rory, but someone with good news, a big deal. Even the sale of Grant Plaza would now be acceptable if the company could be preserved. It made her ache to see the spire from the window, glowing in the perfect morning that mocked her troubles.

  On the third ring, she managed to break out of her reverie. “Mariah Grant.”

  “Glad I caught you in,” Lyle Thomas said, so warmly she could almost see his thousand watt grin. “Whatever plans you had for lunch just changed.”

  All she wanted was to go home, climb into bed, and pull the covers over her head. Except that she would not be doing that, but making more calls. She could not give up the reins of Grant Development until they were torn from her hands.

  “Lyle, I can’t have lunch with you.”

  “You have to eat.”

  “It’s a long story, but things couldn’t possibly be any worse right now.”

  “Trust me, it’ll be worse if you don’t go.”

  When things had fallen apart at Wilson McMillan’s, Lyle had been on her side, but she couldn’t go off on a noontime jaunt. “Time is of the essence on the foreclosure. It all ends tomorrow.”

  “Heard it on the street.” Lyle’s voice firmed. “What if I told you I could solve that?”

  CHAPTER 23

  Ten minutes later, Mariah stood on the curb while Lyle pulled up in his Mercedes. He had the convertible top down and his Viking looks had both male and female heads turning on the sidewalk.

  She opened the substantial door and got in.

  Lyle guided the car into the lunchtime traffic on Market Street. “Tough day?”

  “The pits.” Mariah twisted in her seat to look at him. “What did you mean about something that could save the company?”

  He put on his turn indicator and headed west on Geary. “Could I ask you to wait until we get where we’re going? What I have to show you is important, and I don’t want to louse it up.”

  A few blocks later, Lyle took a right onto Van Ness.

  “Where are we going?” Mariah asked a few minutes later, as he took Lombard west toward the ocean.

  He gave his most attractive smile. “I thought Sausalito.”

  Sausalito was the last place she wanted to go. Memories of Rory haunted every waterfront shop, the marina calling her to step onto the dock and see if his boat was there. A vision of the sailboats, the music of their shrouds …

  “Can’t we go someplace else?” At least in his trousers and fine silk shirt, Lyle wasn’t dressed for boating.

  “Not for the meeting I’ve set up.”

  All right, then it would be Sausalito, for anything that might save the company must be considered. Though impatient to know what Lyle was up to, Mariah settled back into the luxurious leather seat.

  A few minutes later, he drove up the approach to the Golden Gate. They passed through the tollbooth and he accelerated onto the bridge.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked kindly.

  “Don’t ask. I’m at wit’s end trying to think of a way out of this.” As he had refused to enlighten her before they got to Sausalito, she changed the subject. “What’s been up with you?”

  “Let’s see.” His tone was teasing. “I’ve been watching ‘On The Spot’ quite a bit.”

  Her face went hot. “How can you joke about that?”

  “How can you not?” he countered.

  She couldn’t smile about anything, especially not since she and Rory had been the topic of the video mag. “Just thinking about it makes me feel like I’ve got a stone on my chest.”

  Lyle gave her a sidelong glance. “Is the stone for the show or for Campbell?”

  The weight got heavier. “It’s over with him.”

  “You satisfied with that?” This time his blue gaze skewered her, reminding her of his reputation in the courtroom.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. From the high bridge, the Bay appeared and disappeared between the rapid-fire strobing of openings in the rail. The far tower rose in salmon-tinted majesty, supporting the huge conduits that swept up from the center of the bridge.

  When she did not answer, Lyle’s attention went back to the road. The wind ruffled his blond hair. Another minute passed and they were in the middle of the bridge.

  “If I play my cards right, I can make ‘On The Spot’ next,” he said with a casual air.

  “Have you landed a high-profile case?”

  “No such luck.” He gave an exaggerated grin. “I figure ‘On The Spot’ will have me on with Sylvia Chatsworth, since I’m planning to take her to dinner tonight.”

  Mariah burst out laughing. “You and Sylvia?”

  Lyle’s expression shifted to a pout. “You don’t approve?”

  Her laughter died. For all his mugging, he was apparently serious.

  She looked out at a container ship piled with cargo boxes. If Sylvia took up with Lyle, she wouldn’t be with Rory anymore.

  Tamping down a ridiculous surge of joy, Mariah focused on Lyle. “You and Sylvia could be a wonderful political move.”

  His jaw clenched enough for her to know she’d struck the wrong chord.

  “You’ve really fallen for her,” she amended.

  “I have fallen for her,” Lyle agreed. “She puts on a tough act sometimes, but underneath there’s a woman who could be for me.”

  Better Lyle under Sylvia’s spell than Rory …

  Had she said that out loud? No, for Lyle continued to drive with hands relaxed on the wheel.

  It was past time to stop this. Rory would never leave DCI. He’d remain a single playboy or get into another bad marriage, if not with Sylvia, then with someone of whom Davis approved. Imagining herself scouring the papers and watching “On The Spot” for news of him, she wondered what it was going to take to get him out of her mind.

  After the end of the bridge, the Sausalito exit came up fast. Lovely steep hills with secluded homes clinging to their sides passed in quick succession. Before she knew it, they were in the picturesque village overlooking Richardson Bay. Paintings in the local galleries played up Sausalito’s Mediterranean flavor, portraying the often fog-shrouded town in brilliant sun-washed color. After yesterday’s black rain and overnight clearing, today had turned into one of those picture postcard images.

  Despite the town’s placid beauty, Mariah’s apprehension grew as they approached the waterfront. There was the market where she and Rory had bought lunch supplies and had coffee after their memorial sail for Charley. The proprietor had thought they were married.

  “Lyle …” This was a mistake.

  Then her heart started to play timpani, for three cars over sat a black Porsche.

  Lyle took her arm in a gentle grip. “Mariah.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. There’s somebody here who needs to see you.” He nodded toward the head of the pier.

  Rory looked snappy in black slacks and an open-collared blue shirt. In the crook of his arm, he carried a sack bearing the logo of the Italian market.

  She pulled away from Lyle. “This is too much.” He thought Rory “needed” to see her? What were the two men doing, deliberately deceiving her by the lure of something to save Grant?

  Mariah slammed out of the car and rushed toward the dock. Rory’s dark eyes flashed at her approach and his lips lifted in a smile. It died when she scowled at him. “You’ve got a lot of nerve getting Lyle to trick me.”

  Rory shifted the groceries from one arm to the other. “Better hear what I have to say before you start yelling at me.”

  “There’s nothing you could say after you came into Grant yesterday
afternoon. Haven’t you and your father hurt my family enough?”

  “There’s been too much hurt.” He bore her anger with an oddly placid look. “It’s time to start the healing.”

  Lyle caught up with her. “Rory phoned me last night and brought me up to date. He asked if I’d help.”

  Rory shifted the sack again. “This is getting heavy. Let’s go out to my boat and I’ll put it down.” He turned and walked away, his long legs taking easy strides over the boards.

  “Take me back to the city,” Mariah told Lyle.

  He smiled down at her from his great height. “Do you trust me?”

  “You, I trust,” she said with a baleful look at Rory’s receding back.

  “Then, believe me when I say you should listen to him.”

  Rory reached his boat and disappeared on board. The little ache in her chest when he went out of sight once more betrayed her. “What can he say to make anything different?” she asked Lyle.

  “Remember what I told you at McMillan’s? That there ought to be a way for you two to work things out?”

  “Idle talk. What can Rory do to save Grant Development? He’s a DCI man to the bone.”

  Lyle’s hand at the back of her waist gave a little push. “I can go out to the boat with you and referee, but I’d rather not.”

  Going to Rory, after he had stood with his father against the Grants was against everything in her. “I can’t.”

  “You can,” Lyle said. “It’s time to end this Grant versus Campbell thing.”

  Of all the dreams she’d dared since she and Rory had been reunited, that was the most dear. If he were still standing before her, she’d challenge how he expected to accomplish such a goal.

  “You decide to stay, wave goodbye and I’ll drive off.” Lyle turned away, his steps crunching on the gravel.

  To go or stay? She did trust the burly D.A., but how could he vouch for Rory? The two men scarcely knew each other.

  Torn, she considered that ultimately it all did boil down to trust. She had to believe that whatever Rory wanted to discuss was vitally important or Lyle would not have consented to get involved. And, he had indicated in good faith that it had something to do with saving the company.

  Yet, it went deeper than that. Lyle said Rory needed her, and Rory had spoken of healing. If there were the smallest chance to alleviate the agony that threatened to cut her in half, she must go to him. If she did not, she would continue to wonder “what if” for the rest of her life.

  With a deep breath, she moved forward, forcing her steps to be slow and deliberate. The salt breeze riffled her blouse and the familiar tune she’d remembered in the shrouds made something twist inside her. Passing Davis Campbell’s Privateer, huge and shiny with mirror-like teak and fresh white hull paint, she found her heart pounding. It wasn’t difficult to picture a younger, more timid version of her creeping along the dock in tennis shoes.

  Four slips farther on, Rory’s smaller, less pretentious vessel had been backed into the slip. On the bright blue stern, fresh white letters a foot high proclaimed her the Mariah.

  She gasped as she had that long-ago rainy Sunday morning when the sight of Rory had taken her breath. Today was no different as he waited for her at the head of the companionway ladder. She approached; he came to the rail and offered his hand.

  “The Mariah?”

  “I finally figured out her name.”

  They touched. His palm felt smoother than it once had, now softened by office work. His eyes were the same intense gems, but surrounded by tiny lines that spoke of living. Slipping off her dress shoes to come aboard, she felt the silky black slacks she’d worn to work drag the dock. Her wardrobe had improved from when she was eighteen.

  Rory’s clasp was firm as he helped her step over the rail. Just as she had eight years ago, she felt she left her world behind.

  He brought out wineglasses and began laying out lunch in the cockpit. The familiar repast was of crusty bread, assorted cheeses, and a straw-bottomed bottle of Chianti. When all was ready, he turned and handed her a glass of wine.

  She was tempted to give in to the sensuous atmosphere and the entreaty in his eyes but first she needed to know. “What am I doing here?”

  He gestured at the bench covered with food. “Having lunch with me.”

  The roller coaster she’d ridden ever since she met Rory took another dip. She waved her free hand at their surroundings. “Paint my name on your boat, a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and what?” A penetrating gaze designed to seduce her? Then back to DCI for him? “It’s not that simple.”

  He spread his hands. “It can be, if you want it badly enough.”

  “What are you thinking? What was Lyle thinking to bring me?”

  Rory raised his glass. “You’re here to drink to us.”

  “There is no us.”

  She wanted to stamp her bare foot on the deck, to slosh the contents of her glass in his heartless face for toying with her, but most of all she craved for him to contradict her.

  “You said that before.” Rory lunged to his feet and dragged her up beside him. “I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again … the hell there isn’t.” His mouth descended to hers, his arms dropped to pull her against him. Heat was instantaneous and incandescent, a brushfire out of control.

  There was no denying she wanted him in the most elemental way, no mistake in her sensing his instant arousal. In a heartbeat, she could go below with him, fall into the berth as she had on his father’s boat …

  She shoved at his shoulders until he lifted his head.

  “You’re thinking again, Mariah. We always get in trouble when you think too much.”

  She tried to think, but he made her feel. It was like this with them every time, and as he held her, an insidious little voice whispered that what she felt was the purest truth she had ever known.

  His kiss softened, an entreaty that spoke to her parched and lonely places. It was as though he meant her to know this wasn’t about the gut level animal magnetism between them. No, it was more, an end to the credo she’d subscribed to in L.A., the fantasy that she didn’t need anyone in her life.

  Rory raised his head and his expression sobered. “When I phoned Lyle, it took some pretty powerful persuading to get him to ask you out here. He would never have helped if he hadn’t believed …”

  She wanted to believe, as never before in her life, while Rory studied the bay beyond the stern like a diver deciding whether to plunge.

  At last, he said, “Marry me.”

  Mariah leaped to her feet. The boat gave a little dip. “Are you crazy?”

  Rory captured both her hands. “Go easy on a man’s ego, will you?”

  She stared down at him and kept shaking her head. If a tidal wave had swamped the marina, she could not have been more surprised.

  “I am asking you to marry me.” He wasn’t exactly on one knee, but he gazed up at her from the cushioned seat.

  The tilt on her world dizzied, while flashes of a future she’d only dared to imagine strobed; dinner with him at an intimate candlelit table, loving together late on weekend mornings, or rising early to catch the sunrise.

  “Listen to me,” he insisted. “You said we needed to bring our families back together. This is the way.”

  “After what we saw of our fathers yesterday, it’s impossible.”

  Yet, he looked serious. And there was Lyle, a perceptive man, trained in the nuances of human behavior for the courtroom. He’d believed Rory was sincere or he would never have brought her.

  After years of agony, when she’d believed in Rory’s betrayal, after her lack of trust had made her believe he was carrying information to his father, every act of perfidy had been traced to Davis, Senator Chatsworth, Thaddeus Walker, and even Tom Barrett. Since they’d met again, Rory had been nothing but straight with her.

  “You’re not joking.” Her voice sounded far away and she stopped trying to get her hands free. Remember this, she thought strangely. Alw
ays see how the sun played on his hair and remember when the gray threads through it.

  He turned her hand over and kissed the palm. “We’ll go to Lake Tahoe this afternoon.”

  Just like that, they could be married this day. Her head spun with the wildness of it.

  “Now?” She was more organized than that. “Things like this need planning.”

  “You went to Big Sur without planning. We have to do this the same way.”

  The same treacherous temptation that had swept her off to a weekend seized her now. This time it could be for keeps.

  When she did not speak, Rory went on, “The loans are due tomorrow.”

  Mariah felt as though she’d been struck in the chest. Here she was thinking romance, while he and Lyle had been covering the business angle.

  Her face heated with embarrassment, for this was not the proposal she’d dreamed of, one accomplished with declarations of love and promises of fealty. Except for his tacit acknowledgment of their undeniable sexual chemistry, not one word of devotion had been exchanged.

  “DCI and Grant merge,” Rory said.

  “Dad swore he would never sell to your father.”

  “I said merge, not sell. Once we’re married, both men will have to see there’s no more sense in keeping the companies separate. Tomorrow, we’ll get Father to call off First California and tell them to hold pending the merger … our merger, Mariah.”

  The offer on the table was that of a corporate union, to save the assets of Grant from liquidation because John refused a straight sale to Davis.

  “What do you think?” Rory still held her hands, but there was no fire in her now.

  Pride made her want to pull away and tell him she wasn’t for sale. It was all very well for him to guard his heart by not giving all of himself, but what about her? She loved him with the kind of desperation she had sensed in Kiki Campbell’s unguarded gaze at Davis. If she married Rory, would it be her fate to end up in the same hopeless circumstance?

  She could jump up and rush down the pier away from Rory’s boat and his father’s Privateer. How aptly named that blade-like vessel, whose owner stabbed at the heart of all she stood for.