Chapter 20
Raine picked at her breakfast, acutely conscious of the clothes on her body. A blue cashmere sweater by Armani. Boots by Prada. It seemed ungracious to complain when the clothes were so beautiful and fit so much better than her own, but they still made her nervous.
Seth sat down across from her and set down his third plate from the breakfast buffet, loaded with a seafood omelet, bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon, fried potatoes, sausage and biscuits. He dug in his fork and nodded at her plate. “Eat, Raine,” he said quietly. “Hanging with this crowd really burns those calories.”
“You're the one who makes me burn calories “ she murmured.
Seth's gaze focused over her shoulder. She turned, and saw Victor shaking hands with the museum curator she had talked with at dinner. Sergio. She waved and smiled at him, and he waved back.
Victor got himself a cup of coffee from the urn and came towards them, beaming. “Good morning, my dear. How lovely you look in that color. I trust you both slept well?”
Raine blushed helplessly.
“Well enough.” Seth forked a bite of sausage into his mouth.
“And what is your agenda for the day, Mr. Mackey?” Victor asked.
“Raine and I will be going back to Seattle.”
Victor sipped his coffee, his eyes calculating above the rim of the cup. “Actually, I planned to spend some time with Raine this morning. I'm sure you'll understand. I'm coming back to the city myself this afternoon, so it will be no problem at all to bring her—”
“That's OK,” Seth said. “I can wait. She can go back with me.”
“I hate to think of your valuable time being wasted.”
“No problem,” Seth said. “I've got my laptop. I can amuse myself just fine while you guys have your family bonding experience. If you want, I can design a more up-to-date surveillance system for your guest bedrooms. A lot of the stuff I dismantled last night was pretty passé”
Victor's gaze hardened. “How kind of you to offer, but please don't trouble yourself. Stone Island is for relaxation, not work.”
“Suit yourself.” Seth gave him a cheerful grin.
Victor turned to Raine. “Have you finished your break-fast?”
She pushed away the yogurt and fruit and got up. “Yes,” she said.
Seth's hand shot out and caught her wrist as she passed. He pulled her close and gave her a hard, possessive kiss. She blushed, flustered by the amusement on Victor's face.
'There's a bit of sun today” Victor said. “Shall we go outside and take advantage of it?”
She followed Victor out onto the porch and down the path. They stood side by side at the dock, watching the sun glitter on the water. “You used to be afraid of the water,” Victor remarked. “Remember when I taught you to swim?”
She winced at the memory. “You were ruthless.”
“Of course I was. You didn't want to learn. You didn't want to learn to ride a bicycle, either. Or shoot. But I insisted”
“Yes, you most certainly did.”
The bicycle episode had been particularly awful. She'd been scraped and bleeding and blubbering, but Victor had been pitiless. He'd forced her to get back on the hellish thing until she finally mastered it. It had been the same with the swimming. He'd yanked her head above water, sputtering and flailing, to let her grab a breath of air and some advice. “Pump with your legs,” he ordered calmly, before letting her drop back down into the green liquid underworld.
But she had not drowned. She had learned. Even to use the pistol, although she had hated the noise, the violent kick, the bruises it left in her small hands. The concentrated violence in the small object had terrified her, but she had learned. He had given her no choice.
She turned away from the water and met Victor's eyes. “You thought it was your duty to toughen me up,” she observed.
“Peter and Alix were lazy and soft,” Victor said. “If it had been up to your parents, you would have ended up a sniveling coward.”
It was true. She had Victor to thank for that crazy, joyful feeling of accomplishment, when her body finally understood the trick of equilibrium on the bike. And when she'd emerged from her first wobbly dive, Victor had applauded briefly, and then told her to get right back up onto those rocks and do it again until her technique was better.
Alix and her father hadn't even bothered to come down to watch.
She gazed at the water, lost in memories. She had worshiped and feared Victor as a child. He had been unpredictable. Demanding and mocking. Sometimes cruel, sometimes kind. Always vivid and engaging. The direct opposite of her drifting, absent father, sipping his cognac, lost in his dreams and his melancholy reflections. “I thought for a time that your mother had succeeded,” he said.
“At what?”
'Turning you into a sniveling coward. But she didn't quite manage it. The Lazar genes breed true. She didn't quite manage it.”
There was fierce, exultant pride in his silvery eyes. He could read her mind, follow her thoughts as if they were projected on a screen. He could understand her like no one else. Something inside her responded to it. The rest of her recoiled, horrified. She could not let herself bond with him, or care for him in any way. Not after what he had done. She groped for a way to break the spell. “Where is my father buried, Victor?”
“I was wondering when you were going to ask. He's buried here.”
“On the island?” She was startled.
“He was cremated. I buried the ashes and raised a monument to him here “ Victor said. “Come along. I'll show you.”
She was unprepared to confront the reality of her father's grave in Victor's company, but there was no escaping it. She followed Victor up the winding, rocky path that led to the crest of the island, trying to breathe. There was a small valley hidden in the windswept rocks. It was a velvety bowl of green moss, bare of trees. A tall black marble obelisk stood on a pedestal in the middle of the hollow.
Identical to the one in her dream.
She stared at the obelisk, almost expecting blood to start trickling from the words etched on the gleaming stone.
“Are you all right, Raine? You're very pale all of a sudden.”
“I've dreamed of this place.” Her voice sounded strangled.
Victor's eyes lit up. “So you have it too, then?”
“Have what?”
“The dreaming. It's a Lazar family trait. Your mother never mentioned it to you?”
She shook her head. Her mother had complained about Raine's crazy nightmares until Raine had learned never to mention them.
“I have it. Your grandmother, too. Vivid, recurrent dreams, sometimes of future events, sometimes the past. I often wondered if I passed it on to you.”
“You? To me?” she faltered.
“Of course, to you, from me. I would have thought that such a bright girl would have figured it out for herself by now.”
He waited patiently as she gaped. She finally found her voice again. “You're saying that you—that my mother—”
“Your mother has many secrets.”
She felt as if the earth was opening beneath her feet. “You seduced her?”
Victor snorted. “I wouldn't go so far as to call it that. Seduction would imply a certain amount of effort on my part.”
Raine was so stunned, she barely registered the insult to her mother. “Are you sure?”
Victor shrugged. “With Alix, nothing could be sure, but from your looks and your dreams, you are certainly either my daughter or Peter's. And I, personally, am convinced that you are mine. I can feel it.”
Mine. The possessive word echoed in her head. “Why?”
He made an impatient gesture with his hand. “She was a beautiful woman,” he said casually. “And I wanted to make a point with Peter, I suppose. Not that it worked. My brother was soft. I spoiled him, did all the dirty work for him. It was a mistake. I thought he could protect my innocence for me, and in return, I would spare him the ugly side of life. But it didn't work. He went looking for it anyway. He found it in Alix.”