Zach glared at his sister. “It’s always been complicated.”
“I know, but I mean for you two.”
The waiter came by with a refill for Trisha. Zach ordered a beer. Adria, swallowing hard, asked for chardonnay and noticed the curl of Trisha’s lip. “White wine, the drink of choice in-was it-Elk Hollow, Montana?”
“Stop it, Trisha,” Zach warned.
“Oh, little brother, you’ve got it bad, don’t you? And for your half-sister. That’s a real pisser.” She picked up her first drink and finished it off. “A real pisser.”
The waiter dropped off fresh glasses and Adria picked up the stem of her wineglass with trembling fingers. Her nerves were strung tight, but seemed jangled. Too much was happening too fast-she couldn’t absorb everything. “Why did you want to meet me?” she asked.
Trisha’s smile was brittle. “To tell you to stay away from Mario Polidori.” At the lift of Adria’s eyebrows, Trisha explained. “We go back a long time.”
“I’m not seeing him.”
“Oh?” Trisha obviously didn’t believe her.
“Not the way you mean. I met him for drinks. We talked business.”
“He held your hand, laughed at your jokes.” Trisha took another drag and squashed her cigarette in the tray. “Look, don’t play games with me, okay? Mario’s off limits.”
“Who do you think you are?” Adria asked, her temper, already frayed, finally splitting apart. “Both of you. You,” she turned on Zach, “trying to keep me a virtual prisoner, and you, Trisha, telling me whom I can or cannot see. Give me a break. I’m outta here-” She started to leave, but Zach caught her arm and held her firmly against him.
“Just a second,” he said, then turned his blazing eyes on his sister. “Is that it?”
“Not quite.” Trisha shook her head. “Just in case you’re not quite sure about a few things, I think you should know that if you two are involved, it’s a big problem.”
“Back off, Trisha,” Zach growled.
“If you’re London, Adria, and it’s starting to look like you are, then you’d better accept the fact that Zach’s your half-brother. I’ve heard all the rumors and so has Zach for all of his life, and I’ll bet you both are banking on the fact that he’s supposed to be Anthony Polidori’s son. He’s not.”
Zach’s jaw clenched so tight the bone showed beneath the skin of his chin. “I’m warning you-”
“That’s right. Mom checked it out years ago. Remember, Zach, when you accused me of listening at cracks and peeking through keyholes? Well, I did. Every chance I got. It was the only way I could survive, the only way I knew what was going on. And I learned a helluva lot. I remember the day Mom, through rather discreet methods, found out Anthony Polidori’s blood type. She was devastated because it proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was no way he could be your father. You, her favorite, the son she hoped didn’t belong to Witt.”
Adria felt sick inside.
“So, if you two have been screwing around, just remember that you’re closer than you ever thought possible.”
“Shut up, Trisha.”
“It’s sick, Zach. Just plain sick.”
“Let’s go-” He pushed Adria toward the end of the seat.
“Wouldn’t the press love to hear this new little twist,” Trisha asked. “I wonder what they’d say about all this…well, incest is such an ugly word. It could get tricky,” she added, before plucking another cigarette from the open pack sitting on the table.
“Do anything of the sort and I’ll wring your neck,” Zach warned.
“Sure, you will. Christ, Zach, give up the melodrama. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Try me,” he warned. “I wouldn’t push it, if I were you.”
Adria couldn’t stand it another minute. She had to get away, to think clearly, to breathe fresh air, to put some distance between her and all the horrid, tangled emotions. Barely able to find her feet, she scrambled from the booth. She started running, across the carpet, through the doors, past the lobby, and outside to the night. Rain was pouring from the sky, peppering the street and gurgling through the gutters. People on the sidewalk huddled under umbrellas, their collars turned to the wind as they rushed from street corner to street corner, under the shimmering glow of street lamps.
Adria kept running, around the block, darting through traffic, ignoring the blast of horns, feeling the cold, wet drops catch in her hair and slide beneath the collar of her jacket. Her body ached, her heart felt battered, and she was certain she’d never been so alone, so alienated in her life. Oh God, how had she trusted him, touched him, fallen in love with him? The city was cloying, the truth about the Danvers family as dark as the night.
“Adria!” Zach’s voice boomed from somewhere behind her and she nearly stumbled over a man sitting in an alcove, his legs sticking out.
“Spare change?” he begged as she raced onward, blindly, running to an unknown destination and away from all the pain, the rage, the fatal mistake of loving the wrong man. Tears mingled with the rain and she gasped. Why had she come to Portland? Why? What did she care if she did turn out to be London?
“Stop! Adria!” He was getting closer-she could hear the soles of his boots slapping the wet pavement and she willed her legs to move faster.
At the crosswalk, she stepped off the curb, against the light. A car sped past her, nearly clipping her leg and throwing up a sheet of water that drenched the lower half of her body.
Zach’s arms clamped around her and she screamed, “No!”
“Shh. It’ll be all right,” he said, pulling her close, back to the safety of the curb, letting her hit and sob and cry. She wailed like a wounded animal, striking at him madly, giving in to the rage that consumed her.
Several people stopped to stare, then hurried along their way.
“Adria, please…shh. It’ll be all right. I’ll make it right.”
“How can you?” she cried wretchedly as rain drizzled down her cheeks. “It’ll never be all right!” But the smell of him, the feel of his warm body pressed against hers, the soft, wet denim of his jacket brushing her cheek, calmed her. Sobbing, her heart shattered, she clung to the lapels of his jacket and he held her beneath the streetlight, kissing her wet crown, promising her that everything would be fine.
“I didn’t want this,” she said brokenly, great sobs coming from her soul. “I didn’t want to love you.”
“I know. Hush.”
“And now…and now.” He kissed her then, silencing her lips with his own. She tasted sweat and tears and rainwater and saw, when she looked into his eyes, the torment, as deep as her own, the anguish of it all.
His dark hair was lank and flat against his head as he broke off the embrace and whispered her name, his voice cracking a little.
If only they could run away to a place where the truth and the press and the Danvers family would never find them. She watched his throat as he swallowed. “Come on,” he said gruffly.
“Where…?”
His lips thinned dangerously as he guided her back toward the hotel. “We have to go to San Francisco. This isn’t finished yet.”
Adria’s nerves were strung tight as piano wires as they approached the house on Nob Hill in San Francisco. After camping out in the Portland Airport, then taking the first flight to the bay area, they’d landed and Zach had rented a car and located a hotel where he’d reserved separate, but connecting, rooms. Just like before. Only this time, she knew, she’d never be able to see him again; never be able to trace the scar that lined his face, never touch his flat male nipples beneath his dark, whorling chest hairs.
She’d never make love to him again.
God, she was crazy just being alone with him.
Somehow, out of sheer exhaustion, she’d dozed for a few hours in the hotel while Zach had started trying to locate Ginny Slade. He’d begun by calling the number that Sweeny had given him, and then when a woman told him Ginny-or Virginia-no longer worked for her, he’d forced the issue, getting more numbers of people who had contacted the first woman, checking on Virginia’s references, then dialing each and every one.
It had taken hours, but he’d finally gotten lucky and reached Virginia’s current employer, Velma Bassett. Now
