Replica

“I know you’re not really a servant,” she said, “and I know that in theory you shouldn’t be overly concerned about protecting your position, but somehow I suspect your real boss would be unhappy with you if you got fired.”

Dante’s eyes narrowed, and there was a flash of anger in his eyes. But behind that anger was fear, and Nadia’s conscience cringed. She managed to keep her expression cold and regal, keeping her disgust at her own words hidden behind her Executive mask.

“You wouldn’t,” Dante growled.

No, she wouldn’t. But Dante didn’t have to know that. “We’ve been down here alone in the schoolroom together for a good long time,” she said. “I know Mosely ordered my father to hire you, but if I make certain accusations…”

Dante’s hands clenched in his lap, and the way he was looking at her made her feel like the lowest scum on the face of the earth. Maybe she should just let him keep his secrets, whatever they were.

“And here I thought you were different from the rest of the Executive girls,” he sneered. “You may be nicer than they are when things are going your way, but as soon as someone doesn’t do what you want…” He shoved his chair back and leapt to his feet, then gave the chair an extra shove for good measure.

Nadia rose more slowly. She couldn’t blame Dante for being angry. She was acting exactly like a spoiled Executive girl who couldn’t accept the reality that not everything was going her way. She was threatening to ruin his career, maybe even his life, by fabricating a story about sexual misconduct. The fact that she knew she wouldn’t do it didn’t make her behavior any more palatable.

“This isn’t how I act when things don’t go my way,” Nadia said, her voice shaking ever so slightly. “This is how I act when I’m cornered and desperate and everything that’s good in my life is crumbling around me. This is how I act when your boss has got his hooks into me so deep I’m surprised I’m not bleeding.”

She managed to keep herself from crying, but it was a near thing. If she could somehow follow the trail of breadcrumbs from the message all the way back to Bishop, if she could be the one to bring him and Nate back together, then maybe someday Nate would find it in his heart to forgive her. And maybe she’d even find it in her heart to forgive herself.

She didn’t expect Dante to relent. After all, he already knew about the hell she was living through, had infiltrated her household to make sure she was as trapped as Mosely wanted her to be. He was part of the problem, certainly not part of the solution, even if he did have secrets she couldn’t yet fathom.

Dante apparently considered it his life’s mission to surprise her. Instead of telling her how little he thought of her excuses, he took a step toward her, reaching out to touch her shoulder in an awkward gesture of comfort. The expression in his eyes softened from anger to sympathy, perhaps tinged with a touch of guilt.

“I’m sorry, Nadia,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “I know you’re in a terrible position, and I know it’s really, really hard on you.”

Nadia’s breath caught in her throat as she met his gaze, trying to figure out what to make of his sudden change of heart. His hand remained on her shoulder, feeling inordinately warm through the fabric of her blouse. He was standing too close to her, gazing at her with too much intensity. He opened his mouth a couple of times as if to say more, each time thinking better of it.

She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but whatever it was had brought a lost, unhappy look to his face. He broke eye contact and let his hand drop from her shoulder. She immediately missed the warmth of his touch. In those few seconds when he’d stood too close, when his hand had been on her shoulder, she’d caught a glimpse of a tortured soul buried deep inside, and for the first time, she wondered if he did Mosely’s dirty work any more willingly than she did.

Nadia took a step backward, putting a more comfortable distance between them. She couldn’t afford to be intrigued by Dante, nor could she afford to see him as anything but the enemy. She had to remain firm, use every method at her disposal to get him to spill whatever secret he was hiding from her, even if her methods left her feeling dirty and low.

“Even though you’re not really a servant,” she said, drawing herself up stiffly as if offended, “you should never address me by first name even in private.”

She expected the coldness in her tone to bring back the anger and the contempt she’d seen in him before. She didn’t like having those feelings directed at her, but at least they helped her keep her emotional distance, helped remind her who and what he was. Instead, he ran a frustrated hand through his hair and suddenly plopped back down in the chair he’d recently vacated.

“I am going to get in so much trouble for this,” he muttered under his breath. Then he squared his shoulders and looked up at her.

“For your information,” he said, his eyes a little wide as if what he was about to say frightened him, “you’ve been calling me by first name all along. My name isn’t Robert Dante, it’s Dante Sandoval. And the person who gave me that message to deliver to you was Bishop.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Paxco headquarters was located in what most people still called the Empire State Building, despite its official renaming. Nate hadn’t set foot in the place since he’d awakened as a Replica, even though as Chairman Heir he was expected to spend most of his waking hours there.

The day after he’d had the crap beaten out of him didn’t seem like the best time to change that, but Nate wasn’t up to taking evasive action, so he was sitting around at home when his father finally reached the end of his fuse and sent one of Nate’s own bodyguards to fetch him—by force if necessary.

Nate fixed the bodyguard, Fischer, with a fierce glare. His whole body ached from the beating and his head was throbbing from too little sleep, too much stress, and too much to drink last night. All of which made him so not in the mood to have Fischer manhandle him. Fischer was unmoved by the glare, and Nate knew he had no choice but to go along.

He tried not to wince or gasp too much as he made his way downstairs to the limo with Fischer close at his heels. Getting into the limo was no fun, and Nate hoped he wouldn’t be expected to move around for the commercial he would no longer be able to avoid doing. His head ached even more as he thought about how many takes he would need to get it all right in his current condition.

The Empire State Building had once been a major tourist attraction, but now that it was Paxco Headquarters, tourists had to jump through enough security hoops to get in that they often didn’t bother, especially when so many parts of the historic building were off limits. The Chairman and his staff, including Nate, had their own private entrance on the far side of the building from where the tourists and office workers entered.

Nate had seen in the news that some protesters had set up shop around Headquarters, but since there was always somebody protesting something, he hadn’t paid much attention. Which meant that he was totally unprepared for the welcoming committee that awaited him outside the Chairman’s entrance, waving placards and chanting. There were more of them here than there had been when Nate had left the Fortress, and they seemed angrier.

Security was keeping the crowd well back. They’d set up sawhorses to make a generous perimeter, and they also formed a human wall, ready to beat back any overly enthusiastic demonstrators. Nate wasn’t surprised when a couple of the building’s security officers hurried over to the car to give him extra protection.

One of the security officers opened the door for him, letting in a wall of sound the glass and steel of the car had been muffling. The demonstrators were shouting, and they waved their placards more wildly when they caught sight of him. Those who didn’t have placards settled for shaking their fists in the air. Nate wasn’t sure how many people were out there, but they numbered in the hundreds, and they were stunningly loud.

“Sorry for the inconvenience, sir,” the security officer said, holding the door while his eyes continued to scan the crowd for threats.

Inconvenience. That was one word for it.

Nate stepped out of the limo, and the crowd went wild. Shouts turned into howls as people began to push and shove to get closer to the barriers. Then the howls turned into a chant: “Replicas aren’t people!”