In his mind’s eye he saw her, a little wicked, a little innocent, her eyes round and blue and filled with desire as she’d lain beneath him, begging him to love her. She’d sacrificed herself for him, flinging her body into that ugly river when it should have been the other way around. He should have been the one trying to save her. He should be dead and she should be alive and vibrant and starting life as London Danvers.
“Son of a bitch,” he growled as he uncapped his friendly bottle of Scotch again and poured a long stream into his empty glass—one that he’d picked up in the bathroom of this—his albatross—the Hotel Danvers. He wondered if his father could see him now. “Hope you’re laughing your ass off!” He glared at the ceiling, then thought better of it, because if there was an afterlife, Witt Danvers wouldn’t be wandering around on the other side of the pearly gates, no sirree, he’d be down in hell, trying to cut a deal with the devil.
Zach’s teeth ground together in silent fury.
The press had enjoyed a field day with even more scandal, compliments of the infamous Danvers family, and still they were camped outside the hotel, the yacht, the ranch, the sawmills, logging operations, and the damned company headquarters. Zach tossed back three fingers of Scotch and checked the clock. It was barely ten. Christ, he was a mess. His mouth tasted like crap and his guts burned. The phone rang near the bed and he picked it up, silently hoping to hear her voice, knowing that he never would again. “Yeah?”
“You in charge now?”
“Who’s this?” he asked.
“Don’t tell me you don’t recognize me?”
“Sweeny,” Zach said with a sinking sensation.
“That brother of yours, the one in jail, he owes me.”
“I’m sure he does.”
“Thought you might like to do the honors.”
Zach found the half-empty bottle and took a long pull. “I don’t think so.”
“Got new information.”
“Screw you.”
“It’s about London.”
Every muscle in his body clenched. Don’t fall for this. He wanted to slam down the phone, but he didn’t. Just held his breath and waited.
“You gotta pay me first.”
“Fine. I’m in room 714.”
“I’ll be there.”
Click. Zach eyed the bottle and wondered if he could finish it before he had to deal with the likes of Oswald Sweeny.
Ignoring his crutches, he climbed off the bed, looked in the mirror, and winced. His face was still discolored and what he’d thought was a two-day growth of beard looked like it was really about six. “Shit,” he muttered as he stripped off his clothes and sat in the shower, trying not to get his damned cast wet, hoping the hot jets of water would sink into his flesh and flush away all thoughts of her. But the steamy spray did little to quiet the images that seemed to be with him always.
He shaved, looked at his reflection, and glowered. He still looked like hell.
Sweeny arrived to find him dipping into the bottle again. Balanced on the crutches, the bottle swinging from one hand, he opened the door. Without preamble, he asked, “How much do we owe you?”
Oswald hesitated as he walked into the room.
“I’ll check it out when I see Jason,” Zachary said, knowing the man was going to bluff him out of a few extra bucks. He hobbled to the desk and rested a hip on the corner. “Want a drink?”
Sweeny smiled, showing off his little teeth, but something in Zachary’s gaze, probably the hard, dead edge, convinced him to decline. “I got a bill right here.”
He handed it to Zach, but he didn’t bother opening it. “Tell me what else you know.”
“Not before I get paid.”
Zach didn’t move a muscle, just stared at Sweeny, glaring at him like the cockroach he was.
“The papers will pay plenty for what I know.”
“The tabloids?” Zach snorted. “Don’t cut off your balls to spite your face.”
“All right, all right.” He held up his fleshy palms. “Look, I couldn’t just give it up. The whole London thing was too intriguing. I thought, hey, I might just write myself a book, one of those tell-all exposés.”
The look Zach sent him stopped him short.
“Anyway, I kept digging and guess what I found out? Your old man was impotent.” He let that sink in for a minute, but Witt’s limp dick wasn’t big news. Not to Zach. What was Sweeny getting at?
“That’s right,” Sweeny said when Zach’s eyes narrowed over the rim of his glass. “Witt Danvers couldn’t get it up, at least not very often. Not often enough to ensure him siring another child—fathering London. I checked, and it took a while, but I found out that your stepmother, while she was supposed to be visiting friends in Victoria, really ended up at a clinic in Seattle where she got herself artificially inseminated by a private donor.”
Zach’s head snapped up. “What are you saying?”
Sweeny grinned that evil, little smug grin as if glad that he’d finally got Zach’s attention. “I’m telling you that Adria Nash is London Danvers, but she’s not Witt Danvers’s kid, not technically—or biologically—speaking.”
The glass fell from Zach’s hand and Scotch splashed on the floor and the bottoms of his jeans. His head pounded.
“If she were alive, she’d still inherit it all, I suppose. It would take a team of lawyers to figure it out, but since she was the kid Witt was so crazy about, she’d still be his princess—heiress to it all, and since half your family is dead or behind bars, she’d get it. No doubt?”
“If she were alive,” Zach ground out, his lips barely moving.
“Yeah, well…nothin’ I can do about that.”
“You can substantiate this, I assume.”
“Of course. Records could be pulled—court-ordered, you know—and I found a nurse who’s willing to talk. It’s just a shame that London’s dead.”
Zach carried his bags down to the hotel lobby. He’d stayed in Portland longer than he’d planned. It had been over a week since he’d talked with Sweeny and the media was no longer laying siege to anything with the Danvers name. He was still wearing a cast, but he could walk and he wanted to get the hell out of town. He doubted that he’d ever come back.
It was time to move on.
On impulse, he left his bags by the lobby desk, then mounted the stairs to the ballroom, to the first place he’d seen her. He opened the doors, half expecting her to appear, but as he snapped on the lights, he found the room empty and cold and without a breath of life.
He was left only with memories, a bad ankle, and the sober realization that he’d never be the same.
“Fool,” he ground out, walking inside the huge room and letting the door swing shut behind him. He remembered London on the night she was kidnapped, how impish she’d been, how precocious. Well, she’d grown into one helluva woman. Adria in the black coat or the shimmery white gown, her eyes blue, her lips teasing—a little naughty and a little nice.
He felt dead inside.
But, he was a practical man. At least he always had been. Whether he liked it or not, he’d have to face the fact that she was gone, that he’d loved her, and that he’d never love again. It was probably all for the best. He wasn’t cut out for emotional entanglements. Again the hot tears stung his eyes and he swore at himself. He didn’t believe in grieving. It didn’t solve a thing.
Angry with himself, he switched off the lights and left the room. He would drive to Bend and then get so drunk Manny would have to drive him home, but he wouldn’t go looking for a woman. Not for a long, long time.
He had parked on the street and as he carried his bags outside he felt the pale heat of the winter sun filtering between the towering office complexes and past the leafless trees that had been planted in front of the hotel. Sunlight danced on the wet streets and he slipped a pair of shaded aviator glasses onto the bridge of his nose before he rounded the corner and stepped toward the Jeep, only to stop dead in his tracks.
She was there, one jean-clad hip propped against a fender, her eyes as blue as the sky, her witch-wild hair catching in the breeze. A vision.
“What the—”
“You gonna stand there all day with your mouth hanging open, or are you gonna take me home?” she said and her voice cut a slice right out of his heart.
“Adria—”
It couldn’t be!
His heart kicked into double time, but he wouldn’t believe the image. He couldn’t.