'Yes,' she whispered. 'This.'
'The first time it hit me I felt as if I'd stepped off the edge of a cliff.' Nick pushed slowly, heavily into her. 'I wondered if I'd finally snapped, the way they say high-class matrix-talents do sometimes.'
'I thought I'd just met a real psychic vampire.' She held her breath as her body stretched to accommodate him.
'I would never hurt you.'
But you will, she thought. When Hobart Batt finds you the perfect wife, the woman who will fit into your grand plan for the future, you will marry her. And when you do, you will hurt me far more than you ever could with your psychic talent,
Nick thrust fully into her. In that moment she knew that he was not thinking about the nameless, faceless woman he would someday marry. In typical matrix fashion he was completely absorbed in the task at hand.
And that task was making love to her.
She would worry about the future when it crashed down around her, she promised herself.
On the metaphysical plane, vibrant energy pulsed through the crystal-clear prism. Zinnia gloried in the knowledge that, for a little while, whether or not he knew it, Nick was as much in love with her as it was possible for him to be.
Nick absently analyzed the pattern of the rain as it beat down on the glass roof. He felt as if he was still drifting, but it was an illusion. He was no longer in the pool. He and Zinnia were both wrapped in thick towels and stretched out on loungers that had been placed side by side.
Everything was supposed to be under control now. He had achieved his goal. She had agreed to the affair. So why couldn't he get rid of the cold uneasy chill of wrongness that had settled in his gut.
It was as if some element or coordinate was still missing from the design. But he could not figure out what he lacked to complete the matrix. He only knew that it was not yet right.
'Nick?' Zinnia turned her head and smiled at him. Feminine satisfaction gleamed in the depths of her warm languorous eyes. 'Something wrong?'
'I was just thinking.'
'Always a bad sign with a matrix.'
He ignored that. 'Why did you agree to the affair?'
'Complaints already?'
'I'm serious.'
'You're always serious.' She paused. 'Or, almost always.'
'I just want to know why you decided to go ahead with it.'
'Nick, I know you're a matrix and therefore inclined to obsess on details that don't seem to fit into the pattern, but some things you just have to accept.'
He gazed steadily at her. 'Is it because of what we feel when we link?'
'No.' She smiled. 'Although I'll admit it's interesting.'
'Is it because the sex is great?'
'No, but that's very interesting, too.'
'Is it because you got tired of waiting for Mr. Right to show up and decided to experiment with me, instead?'
'No.'
'Is it because you feel sorry for matrix-talents in general and since I'm the highest-class matrix you've ever met you feel more than the usual degree of pity?'
'You're starting to slip into paranoia, here, Nick.'
He levered himself up and looked down at her. 'Tell me why you agreed to have an affair with me.'
'For heaven's sake, isn't it obvious?' She rolled off the lounger, tightened her grip on the towel, and started toward the cabana. 'I decided to have an affair with you because I'm in love with you.'
Nick stopped breathing. By the time he managed to fill his lungs with air, she had vanished into the changing room.
And the patterns in the matrix had tumbled into disarray.
He was still reeling from the shock of Zinnia's words three hours later when he walked into the richly paneled bar of the exclusive Founders' Club.
She loved him.
She didn't know it, but she had completely screwed up his entire world. He had been struggling to make her simple words fit into the matrix ever since she had flung them at him with such devastating nonchalance.
She probably hadn't intended the words to be taken literally, he told himself for what had to be the seventy- sixth time in three hours. She had probably meant that she loved the sex. After all, she didn't have much in the way of comparisons.
Which meant that she had undoubtedly confused passion with love. An understandable mistake for a woman who had never had another lover.
But even if that was true, he would never forget Zinnia's words of love. They had warmed something inside him that had been cold for a very long time. He did not know what would happen if he doused the cheerful blaze. The thought of confronting the chill again was not an inviting one.
He forced his new problems to the side of his attention when he spotted Orrin Chastain sitting alone in a booth. The older man's shoulders were hunched. A scotch-tini sat on the table in front of him.
Nick crossed the heavily carpeted room to join Orrin. The day was winding down and the club bar was beginning to fill with expensively suited members.
The Founders' Club catered to the business and political elite of New Seattle. The heavy, dark, Later Expansion Period decor provided the discreet ambience needed by those who made the kind of decisions that affected the politics and economy of the entire city-state.
As he walked through the room Nick could hear snippets of muffled conversations. They involved a wide variety of topics, but he knew that at the core of each lay the subject of money. It always came down to money, he reflected.
'Hello, Uncle Orrin.'
Orrin looked up, startled, when Nick came to a halt beside the table. Belatedly he squared his shoulders. 'What in five hells are you doing here?'
'I want to talk to you.' Nick slid into the booth on the side opposite Orrin. 'I have a question to ask you.'
'How did you get into this club?' Orrin cast a disgruntled glance toward the entrance. 'It's supposed to be private. Members only.'
Nick smiled humorlessly. 'I got in the same way everyone else in here did. I bought my way in.'
Orrin's jaw clenched. 'I don't believe it.'
'Want to see my membership card?'
'Goddamn it, I've got a business meeting here in a few minutes.'
'How are the talks with your new potential investor going?'
'I have no intention of discussing the future of Chastain, Inc. with you.'
Nick shrugged. 'Suit yourself.' He reached into his pocket and withdrew the gold cuff link he had found in Wilkes's workshop. 'Mind telling me where you lost this?'
Orrin's brows jerked in surprise. 'That's mine. I've been looking for it. Where the hell did you find it?'
'It was just lying around.'
'Give it to me.' Orrin held out his hand in an imperious manner. 'That is one of my Chastain cuff links. I thought I was going to have to commission a duplicate to replace that one.'
Nick closed his fingers around the cufflink. 'What happened to my father's set?'
Orrin's face turned an unpleasant shade of purple. 'That is none of your concern. The tradition affects only the legitimate branch of the family. Give me that cuff link. It belongs to me. If you don't hand it over, you're no better than a thief.'
'I want to know where you lost it.'
'I have no idea,' Orrin exploded in muffled tones. 'I simply noticed that it was missing a few days ago. I'd like to know how you came across it.'
