Larger Than Life

by Kay Hooper

  He was rewarded by her smile and kissed her quickly before rising and heading for the door, which he swung open with the intention of getting rid of their visitor fast.

  Matt Preston stood there, looking at Travis with his unreadable blue eyes. They were much the same in height, and both were powerful through the shoulders, narrow at the waist. They stared at one another in silence for a long moment.

  Then Travis stepped back and gestured for the older man to enter. It wasn’t what he wanted to do, but he knew that Preston brought with him Saber’s past, and that it was time for them to face it.

  Preston said nothing until the door was closed behind him and Travis had moved to stand with unconscious protectiveness near Saber’s shoulder; she was on her feet and gazing steadily at the older man.

  But he didn’t return her stare. Instead, he looked at Travis, his expression still inscrutable. “You trust her,” he said. “Without knowing, you trust her.”

  “I trust her,” Travis replied evenly.

  Preston nodded as though some private deduction had been confirmed. Then he looked at Saber. In one hand, he held a large manila envelope. “And you trust him.”

  “Yes.”

  He held out the envelope to her.

  Without looking, Saber took it and tore it neatly in half before handing it back to him.

  Preston looked down at the torn envelope, his mouth twisting a little. “I thought you’d do that. Funny—I didn’t read it, either.”

  Saber looked quickly at the envelope and saw that the flap was still sealed. Then her eyes lifted to Preston’s. “Why?”

  “Because … because I heard you sing. I got the report and went looking for you, and you were singing. I knew then that whatever was in this envelope wouldn’t matter … to either of us.”

  “I told you it wouldn’t.”

  He nodded. “Yes, you did. And I knew then that I’d lost you. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself.”

  She reached out quickly to touch his arm but said nothing.

  The older man took a sighing breath, then nodded. Silently, he turned on his heel and left the cottage, closing the door behind him.

  Quietly, Travis said, “He’s your father.”

  TEN

  SABER TURNED TO stare at him. After a moment, she smiled. “You guessed. I thought you would.”

  “I guessed. When I could think clearly, I realized it was the only thing that made sense.” Curious, he added, “What was the report about?”

  “You,” she answered as she sat down on the couch. “From the day you were born until now, it contained everything Matt’s investigators could find about you.”

  “Why?” He sat down beside her, knowing the answer.

  “He was trying to protect me,” she said.

  “Protect you from me?”

  “You. Anyone who could hurt me.” Saber sighed softly, searching for words. He knew, but it was important—so important—that he understand. “Have you ever watched a magician work, Travis?”

  He frowned. “Yes. So?”

  “Sleight of hand. Legerdemain. To make an illusion convincing, the magician creates a plausible diversion; the audience is so busy watching the diversion that they never see the trick.” She sighed. “Matt Preston created a diversion years ago, Travis.”

  “A son,” he murmured.

  She nodded. “A son born and raised in secret. A nameless, faceless son, secure in his anonymity.” She smiled, a twisted smile that had alerted Travis unconsciously. “Matt pulled the trick of the century … and he got away with it. The secret son was so diverting that no one ever thought to look for a daughter.”

  Travis sighed. “I knew about Preston’s past because I’d researched it,” he said. “And you were just the right age. Then, when I thought of the blankness of your past … it fit. It all fit.”

  “After losing his first two children and his wife to tragedy, he wasn’t about to lose me. So Matt directed everyone’s attention to a fictitious son, and while the press scrambled to find that son, he was able to watch his daughter grow.”

  “But—all these years,” Travis protested. “There was never the least hint.”

  “Matt spent a fortune,” she said dryly. “And he has the ability to win intense loyalty from friends and employees. You were right when you guessed I’d attended school outside this country. A succession of schools—under assumed names. Select, expensive schools, where children of the very rich were hidden away like the precious offspring of a rare breed. I had a number of fictitious backgrounds, all ultimately untraceable—like most of the other kids I went to school with.”

  “Then you didn’t see much of … of your father?”

  “More than you’d think, given the secrecy. There was always an aunt or uncle—employees or friends of Matt’s—to come for me at vacation or holidays, a jet to whisk me away to wherever he happened to be. He was reclusive in his personal life; security was everywhere.” Again the twisted smile. “Many of the ‘friends’ of my childhood wore coats specially cut to hide the guns they carried to protect me; I thought of them as uncles. Alex, for instance, has known me all my life.”

  “You poor kid,” Travis said.

  Saber laughed softly. “Oh, I was a princess. Guarded, pampered, spoiled. Always the best of everything. And Matt loved me; I never doubted that. He loved me so much he spent twenty-six years pretending to the world that I never existed.”

  She gazed into distance and memory. “It wasn’t easy for him. I could never even call him by anything but his name for fear someone would hear and guess the truth. And he was terrified of losing me the way he’d lost everyone else who mattered to him. When I was small, every upset stomach or cold threw him into a blind panic. He worried about accidents, about kidnapping if my identity became known. And when I was older … well, there were other worries.”

  Travis knew now why Saber hadn’t dreamed of castles and princes. She had led what most would have considered a fairy-tale existence; what Saber had hungered for had been a quiet, gentle reality.

  He cleared his throat. “What other worries?”

  “Men. Whether I wanted it or not, I stood to inherit an empire. That’s quite an inducement for an ambitious man. Matt was afraid I’d be taken advantage of, that I was too … innocent and easily hurt.”

  “And you were,” Travis murmured, remembering the studio photo of a delicate, gentle face.

  “Once I was.” She looked at him intently. “I was nineteen when I thought I fell in love. I was at school in Switzerland. I told Matt how I felt, because I’d promised him I’d never tell anyone who I was without his approval. He flew over a couple of days later—with a report.” Saber shook her head. “And the report was too complete to be denied. It seemed that this man I thought I loved had tried more than once to marry money. He didn’t know who I was, but he knew what I was.”

  “What happened?”

  “Another school. Another name.”

  “No.” Travis reached to take her hand, gazing at her steadily. “What happened?”

  She knew what he was asking. “I cried. Oh, not for that shallow man, or for the loss of him. I cried because … until then, I hadn’t known what Matt was protecting me from.”

  “Saber …”

  She gestured slightly, pleadingly, needing to tell it all now and, if possible, put the past behind her. Travis nodded.

  “I don’t want you to think I wasn’t happy. I was, for the most part. Especially when I could be with Matt. But the only thing I ever wanted was the one thing Matt could never give me.”

  “A normal life?”

  Saber nodded. “Matt’s kind of notoriety is a very rare thing. I could put a year of fame behind me because there’s nothing as dead as old news and yesterday’s legends. But Matt … he’s a world-mover. If he spent the remainder of his days in total seclusion, the world wouldn’t forget. Wouldn’t leave him alone. He learned to live with that. But in the end, I couldn’t.”

  “Life i
n a fishbowl.” Travis shook his head. “But it wasn’t really that for you, was it?”

  For a moment, she was silent; then she sighed. “No. It was the world in a fishbowl, and I was outside it. It was so hard to find an identity for myself. No name, no past I could claim. Who I was … was so much bigger than what I was—and yet who I was, I couldn’t claim. I was so confused for such a long time. I could—could have raised an army to guard me with a word, but I couldn’t point to a speck on the map and say, ‘That’s home.’”

  He squeezed her hand. “Was that when you decided on a career?”

  “Yes. I never wanted fame, Travis. I just wanted to … to take care of myself. To make some small mark on the world as myself—not Matt Preston’s daughter.”

  “He couldn’t have been happy about that.”

  She laughed hollowly. “No. Oh, no. He wasn’t a bit happy.” Then her face tightened. “I knew what I was doing to him. And for me to choose a career as a singer … up onstage in front of people, unprotected. Crazies taking shots at anyone with a claim to celebrity. We argued for months.” She paused. “I’d never argued with him before.”

  “And he let you go.”

  “Yes, he let me go. He would have wrapped me in cotton wool if I’d let him, but he knew I wouldn’t. The only thing I’d let him do for me was to fabricate yet another fictional background.”

  “Saber Duncan was born.”

  “Yes. He insisted on providing a checking account and charge cards until I was on my feet. And we agreed that I’d never tell anyone who I was.” She sighed. “I even agreed on birth control, because he was still so worried that someone would take advantage of me. Then I went out on my own.” She smiled ruefully. “And failed.”

  “Those first two records?”

  “Horrible, weren’t they?”

  “No,” he corrected gently. “Just not strong.”

  “Failures. I … I couldn’t deal with that. So I ran. I didn’t want Matt to know how upset I was; I decided to create the fiction of a vacation, and call him when I got there.”

  “Where?”

  “New Zealand.”

  “Where you crashed?”

  Saber nodded. “I was feeling a bit reckless. I knew one of Matt’s jets made a weekly run to New Zealand, so I sneaked aboard and convinced the pilots—both of whom I knew—to let me hitch a ride. They were longtime employees of Matt’s, and they knew who I was. So they kept quiet about a passenger, and took off on their regular run.”

  “He must have gone out of his mind when you disappeared.”

  “I—Yes, he did. And the worst part for him was that he had to search quietly and secretly. He didn’t dare publicize my disappearance for fear that I’d become even more of a target. When the report of the crash came in, and the pilots’ bodies were found, no one could have guessed I’d been on board. There was no clue to my whereabouts. He had to carry on as if nothing were wrong, while he mobilized a secret army to find me.”

  “Did they find you?”

  “Oh, yes. Without thinking, I used a credit card to buy some clothes and a backpack. Alex was waiting for me at the airport in Auckland.”

  “You hadn’t called your father?”

  “Funny—Alex made some comment about that. No, I hadn’t called him. Cruel of me, I know.” She looked at Travis steadily. “You know what I went through after the crash. I felt like I was a different person. I think a part of me knew Matt would grieve for the girl I could never be again. It was a second loss I was to blame for. I turned away from the life he wanted to give me, and then I destroyed the gentle girl that reminded him so much of my mother.”

  “You grew,” Travis argued softly. “You changed. It was inevitable, Saber. He must have known that.”

  “Yes. But it didn’t make things easier.”

  “Was he the one who was unnerved by the lightning?”

  She smiled a little and nodded. “I could see that it bothered him. And it seemed to bother other people, too.”

  “So you hid it, except onstage.”

  Saber nodded again, watching him with an expression torn between hope and dread.

  Travis smiled slowly at her. “Was all this supposed to make a difference to me, darling?”

  “It … it very well could have. Travis. I don’t want the empire my father built. But it could be mine one day. I hope not, but it’s possible. Unless and until that happens, I won’t be acknowledged as Matt’s daughter and heir. He won’t make me a target. But you must realize that could change. Somewhere down the road, we could find ourselves the focus of a worldwide spotlight.”

  “I assume,” he said dryly, “you expected me to take to my heels?”

  She couldn’t help but smile at his expression. “Well, not recently. But I have thought that maybe …”

  Travis gazed at her for a long moment. “Tell me something, love. Why didn’t you read your father’s report?”

  Saber was surprised. “Because I love you, and trust you. Whatever it said wouldn’t—” She broke off abruptly.

  “Change how you felt?”

  She nodded.

  “Yet you thought your past might change how I felt?”

  “Well …”

  “I should turn you over my knee,” he said severely.

  “I was afraid,” she admitted.

  His green eyes sparkled as he laughed at her; then, without warning, he sobered. “I love you, Saber. And right now my major emotion is relief because Matt Preston is your father rather than the rival who’s been haunting my nightmares.”

  “I thought you might have been considering something along those lines,” she murmured.

  “You did, did you?”

  “It was rather obvious. I told you I wasn’t in love with him.”

  “And then immediately said that you loved him.”

  “I couldn’t explain, Travis.”

  “I knew that, darling. And then a little later, I overheard you talking to your father.”

  Saber looked at him blankly, then nodded. “In front of the cottage. Just before you—”

  “That straw broke the camel,” he murmured.

  “You were afraid I’d been Matt’s mistress?”

  Travis thought about it. “Earlier it had crossed my mind—when I first met him out by the pool. Later, I was certain that wasn’t the relationship, but I knew he was important to you, a part of your past.”

  “You never guessed he could have been my father?”

  “Not until today. All my fine analytical instincts were on holiday as far as you were concerned. Moments before I realized Preston knew you, my brain had drawn its own logical conclusion as to his missing ‘son.’”

  “And that was?”

  “Mark.”

  After a startled moment, Saber giggled. “Mark?”

  “Well, dammit, it could have fit. He’s the right age, and he and your father both have blue eyes. In addition to that, I decided that it was possible Preston was still concealing his son’s identity because that son was Mark; he certainly wouldn’t fit into the business world. It seemed logical that Preston would keep quiet to allow Mark a life of his own.”

  Saber laughed quietly. “I can see how you might have jumped to that conclusion. We’ve both known Mark about eight years—since he started coming up here from time to time. He fascinates Matt; all that talent wrapped in a blanket of vagueness, but with flashes of shrewdness. I doubt if Mark has even realized that Matt could be the world’s best patron for a young artist: he just enjoys their conversations and loves to paint Matt. He says Matt has a face like Charlemagne.”

  “You mean the face of a king?”

  “It’s what Mark means, I gather.”

  “He’s right.”

  She laughed again. “How ridiculous it all is! I couldn’t tell you anything; since you’d slated Mark for Matt’s son, it never occurred to you until today that I could be that ‘son’; Matt was worried about a journalistic writer interested in my past—”

  �
�Was that what bothered him the most?” Travis nodded as he thought it through. “Yes, I could see how it would.”

  “That’s why he came up here,” she murmured.

  Startled, he said, “Why he came? You mean he expected to find me here?”

  “Not exactly.” Saber smiled slightly. “Matt’s been keeping a very close eye on me, Travis. You went through my manager to arrange a meeting with me. Now, I don’t know who it is, but somebody on Phil’s staff is Matt’s employee—there for the express purpose of keeping Matt informed of possible problems. Such as … curious journalistic writers.”

  “I see.”

  “Yes. Well, Matt was tipped that you were interested in doing a biography on me. He knew I’d refuse, but he also knew your work and reputation. He called the hotel—remember?—to find out for sure where I’d be going on vacation. Then he arranged to spend a few days up here, intending to discuss with me just how much of a threat you might be.”

  Travis grimaced. “And promptly met me by the pool.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He has quite a poker face,” Travis noted admiringly. “He was so charming I never guessed I might have been a threat to him.”

  Saber giggled a little. “Yes, well—like another tiger I know, his charm is one of his most dangerous assets.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “I thought you would.”

  “I’m going to ignore that,” Travis informed her regally. “Go on with the story, please, ma’am.”

  “Well, Matt instantly requested his people to gather a report on you. He decided that if you were serious enough to follow me up here, you were quite definitely a threat.”

  Travis frowned a little, thinking. “I see that. But … I remember now that when he asked Cory if she’d told you he was here, he seemed almost to expect that his arrival would anger you.”

  “Was that when you wondered if I were his mistress?” she asked, interested.

  “It crossed my mind, and can we drop that, please?”

  She giggled. “Certainly. Well, to answer your implied question: Yes, Matt expected me to be angry, because his presence here proved he had a spy on Phil’s staff and was therefore keeping a closer eye on me than I liked. He knew I’d be mad, and I was.”