Twist of Fate (37 page)

No, she decided as she changed into a swimming suit. It wasn't any harder to think here than it had been in Seattle. She was finding deep thought difficult for other reasons. She'd had enough pop psychology to recognize that on some level she was trying to avoid the issues, which had seemed so clear cut shortly before the Armitages had run her off a road for a second time. She was trying to avoid thinking about her feelings for Gideon Cage.

Two paths lay before her. Following one meant never having a second chance at the other. The certainty of that was what made the decision so frightening. The weight of the necklace around her neck seemed to impress the stark reality of the choice into her very bones. She had to choose.

She walked down to the cove, past the palm grove and into the crystal water. She savored its freshness on her perspiration-damp skin as she swam slowly out to a point where she would be able just barely to stand with her chin above the water. Small wavelets slapped playfully at her face. Then she stood, allowing herself to be enveloped by the wonderful coolness.

She loved islands. She would always love islands, just as Elizabeth Nord had always loved islands. Hannah could become as powerful in her own way as her aunt had been. The link between herself and her aunt was real.

The necklace was warm, even here in the water, but now it was a comforting, familiar warmth, a pleasant heat she was beginning to take for granted.

Two paths. One, the bright, beckoning path of unequaled personal success. That path stretched backward as well as forward. When she turned around and looked back along its length she could see the other women who had worn the necklace. They were proud, strong, coldly brilliant women whose genes she bore in some small measure. She could be like them. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind. Once she had taken the crucial step, she would be happy with that decision. Completely satisfied. That promise was as clear as the water around her. There would be no regrets.

The second path did not stretch backward, it went forward but it was unclear and unfocused. There were twists and turns in it that she could not see. There was no predicting what lay ahead if she went to Tucson. Going back to find Gideon would require strength, but it would be strength of a different kind than that needed on the other path.

Writing the book would make all the difference.
You couldn't have it all. You had to make choices.

Hannah swam for a while again, floating in the hot sunshine, diving under the surface when the heat became too much. At least her experience with Drake in the cove hadn't soured her on swimming, she thought at one point. Here in the water her leg ceased to hurt her. She felt whole and strong again.

Gideon was a hard man. If she went to him she would have to be prepared for the core of toughness in him. There were so many risks. He might change his mind about her. He might never learn to love. She might not be able to tolerate or moderate his sometimes destructive power. He could turn it against her.

She considered that last bit, floating again on her back. It didn't worry her as much as it should have under the circumstances. Not because she was feeding herself some silly line about having enough love for both of them, but because she simply wasn't genuinely scared of the risks she would be taking if she went to him.

She could handle Gideon Cage.
The thought surprised her.

Hannah waded slowly out of the water and stood on the beach fingering the necklace. For her the choices were almost excruciatingly clear. On the one hand she was being given what most people never got, a second chance to grab what she had missed a few years ago. She could have everything Elizabeth Nord had had.

Picking her way carefully, Hannah walked out along the rocky outcropping that sheltered one end of the cove. Standing at the far end she looked down at a roiling surf that had spent forever trying to invade the quiet, sheltered waters on the other side of the rocks. It was more exciting out here than it was in the safety of the cove. Foaming water splashed her, daring her to take the risk of swimming here rather than in the quiet waters. The waves rolled hugely, their energy communicating itself to her.

She wanted it all, Hannah thought. But life wasn't like that. You couldn't have it all. Choices had to be made. She would have to choose what she wanted most.

Hannah took the necklace from around her throat and held it out over the rough surf. The water below was very deep.

She drew a deep breath and feminine voices from at least three centuries called her, warning her. Hannah ignored them. This was her decision. She threw the necklace into the sea. It flashed in the sunlight and disappeared forever under the waves.

Then at last she knew the truth. It almost shattered her.

There was not nearly as much power in the necklace as there was in herself. Her future was in her own hands.

V
EGAS WASN'T
going to work this time. The cards weren't going well but that didn't surprise Gideon. He wasn't paying proper attention. All he could think about with any concentration was Hannah. Nodding distantly to the croupier, Gideon left the blackjack table and went in search of a drink. It wouldn't be hard to find. There was a choice of lounges and bars surrounding the gambling floor of the huge casino.

Gideon selected a familiar location, a dark, shadowed table that partially concealed him while allowing a view of the hectic activity out on the floor. Beneath magnificent chandeliers designed to illuminate an endless night, people in Bermuda shorts rolled dice next to women in evening gowns. The professionally polite croupiers didn't blink an eye at either extreme. Vegas was nothing if not egalitarian when it came to taking people's money.

The glass of Scotch warmed in Gideon's fingers. In a few minutes he would try another blackjack table, but it was hard to work up any genuine enthusiasm for the idea. Vegas no longer functioned in its assigned role. It no longer provided the shot of adrenaline or the short, temporary fix he got from winning. What really bothered Gideon was that he didn't even seem to care when he lost. He felt no pang of regret. There was only a deep desire to settle the future with Hannah.

He had come to Vegas for a few days because he couldn't stand the waiting. Hoping that the glitter and the fake excitement would take his mind off Hannah, Gideon had quietly slipped out of Tucson. But he might as well go back. Vegas wasn't going to work.

“Lucky as usual, Cage?”

Somehow the voice at his elbow didn't surprise him. Gideon didn't move. He kept his eyes on a man in lizard skin boots and a white Stetson who was playing blackjack. “Ballantine, don't you have anything better to do than follow me around?”

Hugh Ballantine sat down, putting himself between Gideon and the view of the man in the lizard skin boots. “No. Not at the moment.” He sipped the martini he had brought over to the table. The vivid blue eyes were shadowed and watchful. “I phoned your office and your secretary said you were out of town. I asked her if you were in the Caribbean or Seattle. She said neither.”

“So you knew exactly where to look.” Gideon gave up trying to watch the blackjack player and resigned himself to looking at Ballantine. “Why?”

Hugh shrugged. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Why?” Gideon asked again, wondering at his own patience.

“She believes you.”

“Who? My secretary? Of course she believes me. She's paid to believe me.”

Ballantine shook his head. “Hannah. Hannah believes you.”

Gideon felt his insides tighten. “About what?”

“About the past.”

“Why are you here, Ballantine?”

“I think I started believing your version of what happened after I realized that, even though she had a lot of reasons to hate your guts, Hannah believed you.”

“Don't do me any favors. I don't give a damn whether you believe me or not. If you've come all this way just to tell me that, you've wasted your time. In the end it just doesn't make any difference.”

“I know. Nothing makes much difference to you, does it?”

Gideon didn't bother to answer. He took a swallow of his drink instead.

Ballantine leaned forward suddenly. “Tell me about him.”

“About who? Your father?”

“Yes, damn it.”

“He was your father, not mine. You must have known him better than I did.”

“That's not true, Cage and you know it. I wasn't his real son. You were. I knew that from the time I was in high school. Why the hell do you think I avoided anything that was even remotely connected with the business world for so long? I couldn't compete against you.”

Gideon eyed him. “I don't recall you even trying.”

Ballantine smiled slightly. “There was no point. You were older, stronger, tougher, shrewder. You were everything Cyrus Ballantine wanted in his son.”

“He had a strange way of demonstrating his paternal affection.”

Ballantine looked at him. “That's why I couldn't believe your version of what happened nine years ago. I couldn't believe Dad would do that to you.”

“And you still don't.”

“Hannah does.”

“She's only got my word for it.”

“That seems to be enough,” Ballantine said.

“Are you trying to tell me Hannah's feelings on the subject are enough for you?”

“Let's just say she's put doubts in my mind.”

Gideon paused and then said calmly, “I can remove those doubts by telling you that Hannah has been wrong about me on other occasions. There's no reason to trust her instincts this time.”

“Tell me about him, Cage.”

Gideon sighed. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Everything. He was foreign to me. A stranger. I wanted to know him but he was always busy. Always gone. Always working on something important. And then there you were to help him with the busy, important things that kept him gone so much of the time. I just want to know something about him.”

“You set out to avenge a man you never knew?”

Ballantine's mouth curved wryly. “He was my father.”

“You want to know the truth? You're more of a man than he ever was. Cyrus Ballantine would never have changed the whole direction of his life to avenge a man he never knew. He wouldn't have bothered to do it for someone he knew well. Your father was brilliant, manipulative, and entirely self-centered. He'd have laughed himself sick if he had known that the two of us would go to war because of him. Cyrus fought his own battles but not those of other people. He did, however, have an odd sense of humor. It would have amused him to know that neither of us has been able to get him out of our lives. He'd have liked the idea that he was still manipulating us in some way.”

“You hate him, don't you?”

Gideon thought about it. “No. Not any more.”

“When did you stop?”

“I don't know. A long time ago. When did you stop hating him?”

Hugh looked down at his drink. “I didn't know I hated him until I transferred all the hate to you. Hannah told me I blamed you for killing him because I didn't want to find any weakness in Cyrus. I didn't want to admit that he could be destroyed physically and emotionally just because he'd been destroyed financially.”

“Hannah has a lot to answer for,” Gideon mused. “She's got a bad habit of handing out advice even when no one asks for it.”

“She's got a talent for it. She sees things in people.”

Gideon sighed. “I know.”

“She could do a lot with that kind of ability,” Ballantine said quietly. “She could use it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She could be dangerous,” Ballantine said simply. “She's honest and up front about handing out the advice but it wouldn't be hard for her to be less direct. Add a dose of Machiavelli to Hannah Jessett and you'd have a very dangerous combination. She's the kind of woman who could manipulate others fairly easily in subtle ways. It's a useful skill.”

It was Gideon's turn to smile wryly. “I know. But I don't think she's ever realized it. Maybe she wouldn't care if she did. She's more interested in being dangerous in other ways. She's got a ghost of her own to exorcise.”

“A ghost like Cyrus?”

“In a way.”

Ballantine was silent for a while. Gideon decided that it felt odd sitting there across from the man who had sworn to ruin him. But maybe no odder than whatever Ballantine was feeling.

“I wanted to be you,” Ballantine said finally. “I guess I wanted to be the man who was even smarter and tougher than my father.”

Gideon took a deep breath. “Change your mind?”

“I don't know yet.”

“I told Hannah that when I looked at you, I saw myself looking back. The man I was nine years ago. You can be whoever you want to be, Hugh, but if you want some free advice, I'd suggest being yourself. Your father and I aren't particularly good role models. Just ask Hannah.”

“Maybe I'll do that.”

Gideon put down his glass. “No, you won't. That was just a figure of speech. You won't go near Hannah looking for advice or anything else. She's already given you as much as you're going to get. You can have Surbrook, Ballantine. God knows you're going to pay enough for it. And you can have as many of my clients as you can steal. But you can't have Hannah.”

Ballantine cocked a brow. “You think you can have her?”

“When I really want something, I usually get it.”

“And you really want Hannah,” Ballantine said calmly.

“Yes.”

“How are you going to get her, Cage? You can't buy a woman like Hannah. I know. I tried. Do you have any idea how much I offered?”

“I saw the letter.”

“So how are you going to get her?”

“That's not your problem.”

“No, but I'm curious.” Ballantine regarded him with deep interest. “The only way you'll get her is if she comes to you. Think she'll do that, Cage?”

Gideon's fingers tightened around the glass. “I've told you, it's not your problem, Ballantine.”

Hugh got to his feet, a tinge of humor in his blue eyes. “Just trying to take a few lessons from a master. A wise man never passes up the opportunity to learn. Know what I think?”

“No, and I don't particularly care.”

“I think you haven't got the vaguest idea of how to go about getting Hannah. You're just praying she'll decide she wants you. Because if she decides differently, you're not going to be able to do a damn thing about it.”

Gideon smiled but there was no trace of amusement in the expression. “Don't go near her, Ballantine.”

Hugh considered the advice. “Hannah told me that if I wasn't very, very careful I might grow up to be just like you. It was a sobering thought.” He turned and walked away.

Gideon watched him go. Then he finished his drink and headed back to the card tables. He needed something to loosen the savage tightness that gripped him and it was clear the Scotch wasn't going to do the trick. He would try the cards again.

Time passed in Vegas the way it always did, in perpetual night. Two evenings after the encounter with Ballantine, Gideon decided that there wasn't much point remaining for another cycle of eating, gambling, swimming, and sleeping. He was bored, restless, and tense. As a means of taking his mind off Hannah, Vegas wasn't working. He sat at a blackjack table with a drink beside him and tried to find some measure of interest in the ace and jack he had just been dealt.

“Feeling lucky?”

Gideon closed his eyes as the clear, quiet, slightly amused voice flowed over him. Then slowly he turned to look at Hannah. She was standing to his right, slightly behind him. The chandeliers created a soft nimbus around the riot of tawny brown curls. She was wearing a safari dress in olive green silk that was trimmed with gold buttons on the epaulets, pockets and cuffs. She was leaning a little on her cane, smiling at him, and she looked wonderful. He saw the anticipation in her eyes and allowed himself to hope that at last everything was going to be all right.

Without a word Gideon folded his cards and left the table. He took the three steps it required to bring him to Hannah and then he just stood there looking down at her.

“I thought you'd never get here.” He reached out and pulled her into his arms. “My God, lady, I've been waiting forever.”

He kissed her then, a quick, hard, kiss full of desperation and relief and hope. Hannah responded and then Gideon knew for certain that it really was going to be all right.

 

T
HE ROUND BED
sat on a red-velvet platform in the center of the suite. It was wonderfully, outrageously tacky, just like the rest of the hotel room. The canopy overhead was mirrored, and when Hannah looked up she could see herself and Gideon reflected in garish decadence. The red-velvet spread was pushed to the foot of the bed and the gold sheets were in chaos. Gideon was lying on his stomach, half asleep, his leg and arm making Hannah a prisoner. She wasn't struggling very hard to free herself, although she was far from sleepy. She lay quietly on her back, her arms behind her head, and smiled up at the scene in the mirror.

“You make me nervous when you smile like that.” Gideon didn't open his eyes.

“How did you know I was smiling?”

“I can feel it.”

“Oh.”

“What are you thinking about?” Gideon lifted his lashes slightly, the gold flecks in his eyes glittering as he watched her.

“Nothing that should make you nervous.”

“I'll be the judge of that.” He raised himself up on one elbow. “Tell me what you're thinking about?”