Trisha. They both cared too much about the old man and his bank accounts.
Leaving Jason and Trisha to worry and fret over Witt’s affection for London, Zach walked to the edge of the crowd.
He managed to grab a champagne glass from an unattended table, then sauntered over to the bank of tall, arched windows that overlooked the city and turned his back on the party. He felt a bit of satisfaction as he stared through the glass to the hot July night and swallowed champagne. Traffic flowed in a steady stream along the street. Taillights winked and blurred as cars and trucks labored through the city and over the yawning Willamette River, a sluggish black waterway that separated the west side of the city from the east. Steam rose from the city streets and the humidity level was high.
In the distance, beyond the expanse of city lights, a ridge of mountains, the Cascades, guarded the horizon. Thunderheads that had been gathering all day blocked out any view of the stars, and the quick, sizzling forks of lightning added unwanted tension to the brackish night. Zach finished his champagne and, hoping no one would notice, half buried his empty glass in the soil surrounding a potted tree.
He felt out of place, as he always had with his family. This black-tie affair thrown by Kat made him all the more aware that he was different from his brothers and sister. He didn’t even look like the rest of the Danvers clan, all of whom were fair-skinned, blue-eyed, and were favored with varying hues of blond to dark brown hair.
He resembled his half-sister, London, more than anyone else in the family. Which didn’t win him any points with Jason, Trisha, and Nelson, his younger brother, all of whom on one occasion or another professed to hate their half-sister.
With a snort, he considered London. He didn’t care much about the kid one way or the other. Sure, she bothered him. Any four-year-old was a pain in the ass, but she wasn’t as bad as the others made out. In fact, Zach found it amusing that she was already showing some of the traits Kat had perfected over the years. It wasn’t London’s fault the old man treated her like some kind of priceless jewel.
As if she’d read his mind, London pushed through the crowd and grabbed hold of his leg. He turned to tell her to get lost, but by that time she’d discovered his glass pushed deep into the potting soil.
“Leave that alone!” he whispered in a harsh voice. She glanced up sharply, a naughty twinkle in her eyes. God, if he could just step out on the balcony and grab a smoke-another vice of which his father and stepmother disapproved, though Kat was never without her gold cigarette case and Witt enjoyed his share of cigars smuggled in from Havana.
She dropped the glass back into the dirt. “Hide me from Mommy!” With a wicked little giggle, she ducked behind his legs.
“Hey, don’t get me involved in your stupid games.”
“Shh. She’s coming!” London hissed.
Great. Just what he needed.
“London?” Katherine’s husky voice drifted over the slow strains of a ballad.
Behind him, London tried to smother a giggle.
“London, where are you? Come on now…it’s time for bed. Oh, there you are!” Katherine sidestepped a group of men, her practiced smile well in place. Waving her fingers as she passed, she tracked down her wayward daughter with the precision of a bloodhound.
“No!” London cried as her mother approached.
“Come on, sweetheart, it’s nearly ten.”
“Don’t care!”
“You’d better do what she says,” Zachary offered, his gaze flicking slightly to his stepmother’s. He knew what the old man saw in his young wife. Katherine Danvers was probably the sexiest woman Zachary had ever met. At seventeen he understood about unbridled sexual desire. Hot and thundering, it could roar through a man’s body and turn his brain to mush.
“Come on.” Katherine leaned down to pick up her daughter. The silk stretched across her shapely rump and her breasts seemed to bulge a bit, as if they might fall out of her plunging neckline.
“I’ll get her into bed,” another woman, London’s nanny, Ginny Something-Or-Other, offered. She was a small, plain woman in sensible shoes and a drab olive-green suit. Next to Katherine she looked frumpy and old, a dowdy matron, though she was probably just over thirty, not much older than Kat.
“I don’t want to go to bed,” London insisted.
“She’s being a brat.” Katherine looked up and noticed one of the waiters motioning toward her. With a sigh, she turned back to her daughter. “Listen, honey, it’s almost time to bring out the birthday cake. You can stay up and watch Daddy blow out his candles, then you have to go upstairs.”
“Can I have some cake, too?”
The corners around Katherine’s mouth tightened, though she said, “Of course, darling. But then you go with Ginny upstairs. We’ve got a special room for you, right by Daddy and Mommy’s, and we’ll be up later to tuck you in.”
Mollified somewhat, London headed back to the party and Katherine straightened, smoothing her dress over her hips as Ginny followed her wayward charge.
Zach hoped that Katherine would hurry to the bandleader and order the musicians to strike up “Happy Birthday To You,” but she inched her chin up a fraction and eyed her stepson. Zach was three inches taller than Kat. Nonetheless, she had a way of making him feel small. “Stay away from the booze.” She plucked his empty champagne glass from the dirt and twirled the stem between her long, slim fingers. Even while reprimanding him, she was sexy as hell. As if she knew her power over him and any man who wasn’t blind, she puckered her lips sweetly, then waggled the glass under his nose. “We wouldn’t want anything to spoil this party for your daddy now, would we? If you were to get caught with one of these, there could be trouble.”
“I won’t get caught.”
“Don’t think you’re so smart, Zach. I saw you swilling champagne, and I don’t think I’m the only one who was looking in your direction. Anyone else could have seen you, including Jack Logan. You remember-he’s with the police department. I think you two have met before.”
Zach’s teeth clamped together. Hot embarrassment climbed up the back of his neck. “As I said, I won’t get caught.”
“You’d better not, because, if you land your cute little butt in jail or end up in the juvenile hall again, Witt won’t bail you out. So”-she smiled sweetly-“use your head.”
As she sauntered away, mingling with one group of guests after another, Zachary seethed. His blood boiled through his veins and he fantasized about wrapping his fingers around her neck and shaking some sense into her, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her ass and the way it shifted beneath the shimmering black silk of her dress. She moved slowly, as if each step were a deliberately sensual movement designed to make him squirm. The rose petals were crushed beneath her heels. Her smooth back, visible to the curve of her lower spine, was unblemished and supple, and he imagined it would arch perfectly beneath the right man.
He felt an erection beginning, and turned away from her image. Half the time he thought she put on a sexual show for him intentionally. Other times he told himself that it was his imagination, that he was finding sexual overtures in the most innocent of gestures.
To cool his blood he placed his head against the window. Steam fogged the inside of the glass. The room was so hot he felt that he was suffocating and his blood still pounded at his temples. At seventeen he was still a virgin, which wasn’t a big deal, unless he had to spend any time alone with Kat, something he tried to avoid.
Stuffing one hand into his pocket to hide the swell in his pants, he walked to the nearest tray of filled glasses, grabbed one and downed it quickly, all the while staring at his stepmother. She didn’t seem to see him. Buoyed by his newfound source of rebellion, he sauntered over to another unattended tray, snatched another glass, and downed the champagne in one gulp. A few drops drizzled along his chin but he didn’t care.
The room began to get warmer still and he loosened his tie. A flush stole up his face and he felt a little light- headed. He was definitely getting a buzz. Well, good. He didn’t want to be here anyway. Might as well enjoy himself.
Halfway through his next drink, he felt a smooth hand close over his arm. He jumped and champagne splashed down the front of his jacket and shirt. Kat’s long fingers dug into the muscles beneath his sleeve. Her eyes were dark with rage, her full lips clenched in fury. “You just don’t know when to give up, do you?”
He shook off her arm. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
