“Please, Nadia,” Nate said again. “You can tell him I told you I got beat up by Angel’s bouncers because I was asking stupid questions at her club. I was half expecting to end up in some kind of mess like that anyway. Walking around a Basement club asking questions isn’t a very good survival strategy, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that it backfired on me. So tell him they beat me up and robbed me. It’s true, after all. The only part you have to leave out is the link between Angel and Kurt. And whatever you do, don’t tell him Kurt contacted you.”
Nate let out a heavy sigh and sat back in his chair, like he was trying to look relaxed. He didn’t have much success. “I understand why you did what you did,” he said, but that was a lie and they both knew it. “I’m not sure I can forgive you for it, but I’ll try. But only if you don’t tell Mosely about Kurt.”
She swallowed hard. “You want me to risk everything on the hope that you’ll
The coldness in his eyes chilled her. “How about if I try to forgive you
She let out a humorless laugh. Of all the things she’d expected from Nate, this wasn’t one of them. “Taking a page from Mosely’s book?”
“You want to protect your family. I want to protect Kurt. Our marriage was always going to be a business arrangement anyway, so let’s make it official.”
Nadia’s throat ached, and there was a lump in it the size of a tennis ball. She’d confessed all under the understanding that it would destroy the engagement, that she would doom herself to a future marriage of convenience with a stranger she could never love. Nate was offering her hope where none had existed. So why did the offer hurt so much?
When the smoke cleared, it would look to all the world as if her life had returned to normal. She would marry the Chairman Heir, her father would be promoted to the board of directors, and all her immediate family members would become eligible to have periodic backups and even Replicas. She would have all the material trappings and powers she would have had if none of this had ever happened. The only thing she
“Do we have a deal?” Nate prompted as she struggled with the pain.
Her chest and throat too tight to speak, Nadia could only nod.
CHAPTER TWELVE
When Nadia got home from Nate’s, she found that a courier had delivered a package to her from Gerri. She hurried to her bedroom, where she could open it unobserved. Inside was a pair of dangly earrings of gold filigree with a smattering of faceted pink stones. There was a handwritten note from Gerri informing her that there was a tiny toggle switch on the backing of one earring. When activated, the hidden transmitter would send whatever it picked up to a secret location.
“I’ve shared that location with someone I trust implicitly,” Gerri wrote. “Someone who knows what to do should anything happen to the two of us. It’s better you not know who, and that you don’t know where the data is being sent.” A postscript warned Nadia to destroy the note, but the warning wasn’t necessary.
Nadia put on the earrings, but even knowing she had a potential secret weapon didn’t give her the courage to contact Mosely yet, so she decided to investigate the mystery of how Bishop’s note had gotten onto her breakfast tray instead. Someone in this household must have put it there, and Nadia was determined to find out who.
Of course, Nadia couldn’t tell anyone she’d received a note from a known fugitive and suspected traitor and murderer. For all she knew, whoever had planted the note in her napkin had no idea what was in it, and, if so, it was best it stay that way. She decided the best way to play it was to pretend the envelope had contained a nasty note she suspected came from one of her Executive rivals, like Jewel. Certainly Jewel wouldn’t be above sending a nastygram just for the fun of it, and getting one of Nadia’s own servants to deliver it would add spice.
Since the tray had originated from the kitchen, Nadia started there, questioning the head cook, Mrs. Reeves. Mrs. Reeves was a grandmotherly little woman who’d been working for the Lake family since well before Nadia was born. As Nadia suspected, it was Mrs. Reeves herself who had put together the breakfast tray, but of course she hadn’t put the note in the napkin. She was outraged by the very idea that someone did such a thing, her cheeks turning a mottled red with indignation. Grandmotherly she might be, but she had a fiery temper.
“I don’t think whoever did it meant any harm,” Nadia said soothingly, and it was the truth. “They probably thought it was nothing more than some secret note passing between a couple of teenage girls acting like kids.”
Mrs. Reeves put her fists on her hips and scowled. “If anyone in my kitchen had anything to do with it, they’re going to rue the day they were born.”
So much for Nadia’s careful attempt to make sure no one got in trouble. “Please, Mrs. Reeves,” she said a little plaintively. “I really want to know who sent me that note, but no one’s going to talk to me if they’re afraid you’re going to take your meat tenderizer to them.”
Mrs. Reeves made a sound between a snort and a laugh. “Always favored the cleaver, myself. Gets the point across faster.” The hint of humor restored her mood, and the redness in her cheeks started to recede.
Nadia smiled a little. “Less of a mess with a meat tenderizer.”
Mrs. Reeves arched her eyebrows. “Clearly you’ve never seen what I can do with one.”
“Will you please ask around for me? Without terrorizing anyone?”
Mrs. Reeves frowned. “I can’t condone anyone being a sneak on my watch. I can promise I won’t fire anyone without running it by your parents first, but if I find out someone put a nasty letter on your tray, I’m going to let them know exactly what I think of them and don’t think you can stop me.”
Nadia had to concede. Mrs. Reeves was much more likely to find the answer than Nadia was, and whoever had put the note on her tray really shouldn’t have done it. It was an offense that would get someone fired in most households.
“Thanks, Mrs. Reeves. Let me know as soon as you find out something.”
“Of course.”
Nadia left Mrs. Reeves to her work and retreated to her room to freshen her makeup and firm up her resolve. She would need everything she could muster to face the inevitable specter of Dirk Mosely.
Nadia knew better than to hope Mosely would be willing to debrief her over the phone. Instinct told her he’d be in an uncommonly bad mood after having lost the tracker’s signal last night, and he would want to take it out on her. Maybe he’d even want her to come to the security station again for another more formal—and more intimidating, more reputation-damaging—interview. She circumvented him by talking to one of his underlings and making an appointment for Mosely to meet her at the apartment. He might ignore the appointment, or he might show up with a handful of officers in tow and “ask” her to come to the station, but she was pretty sure she could at least start their interview on her home turf.
The question then became, how could she lie to him without being found out?
Realizing that she had never been able to act normal around Mosely, Nadia decided her best chance of surviving the interview with him was to offer an alternative explanation for her inevitably unnatural behavior. So while she waited for him to arrive for their one o’clock appointment, she dipped into her parents’ liquor cabinet and sampled several of her favorite liqueurs. If she’d wanted to get truly drunk, she’d have gone for the vodka, but all she’d wanted to do was take in enough to make life a little fuzzy around the edges—and to make her breath smell like she’d been drinking.
By the time Mosely was announced, Nadia’s cheeks were nicely flushed from drink, and the alcohol had made her feel almost brave. The pretty little earrings with their secret transmitter helped. Just the thought that she might someday be able to make him pay for his abuses was heartening. She even managed to smile in greeting when Mosely was shown into the room, and he looked at her as if she’d gone mad. He was expecting her to cower after their last encounter, and the look on his face when she smiled at him was enough to make her want to laugh. So she did, letting the alcohol loosen her inhibitions and enjoying Mosely’s discomfort as a girlish giggle
