“I know her name.” He pushed away from his desk and stood. His standard power stance. “Olivia, if you’ll excuse us now, I have some things to discuss with Joanna alone.”
She didn’t move, but bit her lower lip uncertainly and glanced again at me. I patted her hand again. Xavier’s face reddened, his nostrils widened, and that solitary brow lifted high. I waited for the snort and hoof stomp. “Olivia!”
“Yes, Daddy.” She rose.
I shot her a reassuring smile. “I’ll talk to you later.”
The door shut with a soft click behind her. It sounded like the report of a gunshot in the ensuing silence.
“So who is he?” I said without preamble. There was no need for pretense now.
“Who is whom?” he said, flipping open the humidor next to his desk.
“The man who fathered me,” I said. “My real father?”
He waited until his Cohiba was cut and lit, and puffed twice before his eyes found mine. “I neither know nor care.”
No, he wouldn’t. He never had. “So you’ve done it, then. Finally washed your hands of me. Gotten rid of the great embarrassment of the Archer family dynasty.”
“Don’t be dramatic, Joanna. And, remember, this was your mother’s doing, not mine.”
“But you must be so relieved,” I continued, honeyed sarcasm dripping from my voice. “No more pretense. No more stilted introductions, or uncomfortable silences at Thanksgiving. Why, you never even have to see me again.”
“That’s right,” he said, and in spite of myself I flinched, immediately hating myself for it. “Your inheritance is disavowed, obviously. I had the papers changed yesterday. I won’t support another man’s child. Olivia will receive everything.” He looked at me, the smoke rising between us, beautifully symbolic. “You are not my daughter.”
“But Xavier.” I stood too, and leaned forward on his desk, passing through the smoke. “How will it look?”
He’d already thought of that. “As far as the world is concerned you will remain my daughter. Estranged, but still mine. Understand?”
Just another possession, I thought, carelessly cast aside.
“You’ll keep your house, your car, and a small monthly allowance since my daughter seems to care for you, but the family business, the homes and investments, they all belong to Olivia, and rightfully so.”
“And the name?” I said, my voice going dead soft. “Do I get to keep the name?”
He hesitated. “It was your mother’s too.”
“One she obviously cherished.”
He stiffened. “You may leave now.”
I almost laughed at that. I had left long ago. He’d just never noticed.
“Oh, and Joanna?” His voice stopped my hand on the doorknob, and I turned. He was already seated again, angling a stream of smoke upward. He spoke from the corner of his mouth. “Stay out of Valhalla. If I hear of one more incident compromising the reputation of my property, I’ll throw you out myself.”
I used the only weapon I had left. “No wonder she left you.”
He picked up his pen and began writing again, never looking up. “She left you too.”
Well, that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? My mother
But there was no point rehashing all that now, I told myself. My mother had walked away from her family— simple as that—and like the rest of my joyful past—not—it was behind me. So as I left Xavier’s office I imagined stomping down on the memories that voicing my mother’s name had evoked, grinding them back down with the heel of my boot into the mental grave where all my old pains rested. I was no longer that fragile-minded teen with a damaged body and a weary soul. I didn’t need or want my mother in my life anymore.
I’d just reached the foyer and was shooting imaginary bullets at Xavier’s giant portrait when I heard the snuffling. It was a faintly strangled sound, and as easily recognizable as the beating of my heart. I found Olivia standing at the large leaded windows overlooking the side lawns, her body in silhouette, her curves and curls and color mocking the severe lines of the cold glass panes. Her arms were wrapped around her core like she was holding herself together…and had been, I thought, for a long while. My heart dipped at the fragile, if stunning, picture she made, and I descended quickly into the sunken living room. I knew she heard me; her head tilted, but she didn’t turn.
“Hey,” I said softly, laying a hand on her shoulder. “Where’s the One Name Wonder?”
“Outside,” Olivia sniffled, and I knew it was bad when she didn’t insist I call Cher by her proper name. “Waiting in the car.”
“You’re going to be late for high tea,” I said, turning her toward me and wrapping my arms around her. All the latent maternal instincts I’d never wanted scuttled forward whenever I saw my sister with tears in her eyes. Sure, I teased her about things we both knew didn’t matter, but if anything truly touched her heart, my hackles went up like a she-wolf protecting her cub.
“Are you sure we can’t get together tonight?” she asked, looking down into my eyes with her own imploring ones. We were usually the same height, but she was teetering on four-inch Manolos. “I really want to spend some time with you.”
“I have a date,” I said quietly, and watched her face fall. “With Ben.”
She clasped her hands together with a surprised cry of delight, and her teary eyes suddenly shone with something more. “Oh, Joanna!”
“Don’t make too much of it,” I said, but even I was having a hard time keeping the excitement from my voice. “It’s just a date.”
“But it’s Ben. Benjamin Traina,” she sighed heavily, and crossed her hands over her heart. “I always knew you two were meant for one another. Oh, you have to tell me everything!”
“I will,” I promised. “Tomorrow.”
“Tonight,” she insisted, squeezing me.
“Olivia…” I tried to make my voice firm, but her excitement was contagious. Besides, she was the only one who knew, who could know, what this meant to me. “All right. I’ll stop by your place around eleven-thirty or so. We should be finished by then.”
“I’ll give you your gift then too, though it can’t compete with Ben Traina!”
What could? I thought, pulling from her grasp. I smoothed her hair from her face and smiled. “You should go clean up. You’ll be a mess for tea time.”
She nodded but didn’t move. “Are you okay?”
I shrugged. “I’m used to it.” And then, because I knew she needed to believe it, I forced a bright smile. “Really. I’m fine.”
Another nod, then she squeezed my hand before we both turned toward the door. We couldn’t talk in Xavier’s house. Nothing happened within these walls that he didn’t somehow find out about. Yet Olivia surprised me. As we exited the foyer into a bright winter day and I turned in the opposite direction of Cher’s waiting Corvette, Olivia grasped my forearm, her grip unusually strong.
“You’re the only family I truly have left,” she said, looking me hard in the eye. “Without you, I’d probably believe all the things they say.”
I didn’t have to ask who she meant. People who wrote magazine articles about her but never dreamed of conversing with her. People who looked her in the chest rather than the eye. People who forgot there was a person beneath all the beauty and gloss, and, yes, that included Xavier.
“Olivia Archer,” I said, taking her hands in mine, “you
She nodded, teary, and I let her go before we both started blubbering on Xavier’s palatial steps. I wouldn’t give him the pleasure. Still, halfway down the steps I turned. “And Olivia?”
She paused, and I raised my voice so it would carry to her, Cher, and whatever listening devices might be
