Justin heaved a long sigh. “You’re right about that.” And then looked at her: “You just gave me that information on Patil to track whether or not I’d let it leak.”
“I know you won’t. You’re good on other things I’ve told you.”
A small, sorrowful laugh. “No, I’m not likely to. Lack of opportunity, maybe. I’m not in anyone’s social circles. So I take it you’re wondering if I’ll be crazy and take it to Jordan.”
“Florian was right in what he did: you needed to be out of Jordan’s reach unless youinitiate the contact.”
Justin muttered something under his breath, and pushed the data stick in a circle, where it lay. “I won’t ask you for favors. I know your security requirements. I know they’re justified. I won’t become a problem to you.”
“I couldn’t replace you,” she said. “I really couldn’t.”
He gave a short laugh. “Seems that’s what we do here, isn’t it?”
“Not in my lifetime. I’d miss you terribly. I really would. I’ve lost a lot of people I relied on.”
“Giraud. Denys.” That was a gibe. Giraud hadn’t been one of his favorite people. Denys wasn’t one of hers.
“My mother.” she said, matching dark for dark.
Lips tightened, and he didn’t look at her when he said, bitterly: “My father.”
“Right now,” she said soberly, “one of my worst problems is that I can’t be absolutely sure that Denys didn’t install some feature in the systems that just hasn’t gone off yet. Right now security has me completely walled in, same as you, because they can’t figure what else to do with me. Same as you. But that’s going to change, starting with my getting a security presence that’s mine, no one else’s. I’ll have a much longer reach and a way of knowing what’s going on that I don’t have now. I’ll be able to protect myself if I can trust it. And maybe if I’m safer, it can change things for your father–if he calms down. If you can talk him toward common sense. He took my gift and got off the plane looking for a fight, with Yanni, with me…”
“With everyone. No question of that.” A small silence, Justin looking hallward, in Grant’s general direction, then back. “I’ll talk to him, best I can. Whenwe talk. I’m not meeting with him until he calms down.”
“Tranquilizer in his coffee might be a good idea.”
He laughed, shortly. “Coming from someone who could actually do it.”
“It wouldn’t be real peace.” She got up. “You’ve got work to do, and I’m bothering you. Let me know what you think of those sets as soon as you can. It’s a priority. I’ll be back for a lesson Monday afternoon.”
“Will do,” he said, and she walked outside, where Grant and Florian waited, not in conversation.
“I think I’m going to have a small dinner party tonight,” she said to Grant, “just Justin and you, Jordan and Paul. What do you think?”
“You may have to send security to bring Jordan.”
“Maybe not,” she said. Jordan was rather like a bomb with a motion switch: thus far, she’d hesitated to jostle him. If you were going to Work someone you needed a good hook, and a theory had begun to gel. Jordan wanted dominance, wasn’t well socialized, had to be the center of attention, but didn’t like to be talked at by fools, because there wasn’t an ounce of tolerance in him. He couldn’t tolerate, say, a cocktail party, or someone who bored him for a minute. But his curiosity suffered in that isolation of his, the engine of that curiosity being a very keen intellect. She’d gotten that much long‑distance–that and the fact he was Justin’s twin as well as his father… Justin had been very much his twin until the first Ari ran an intervention and set a broad streak of insecurity into Justin’s pattern: insecurity, a strong sex drive, and self‑doubt.
The first two, Jordan certainly had. Self‑doubt was the big difference, self‑doubt in Justin that constantly put out feelers toward other people, constantly checked the environment and analyzed it, all with a high emotional charge. It hadn’t made Justin more brilliant than Jordan, but it had made him much, much more social, much more reachable.
She had the entire record of that encounter. It was hard to deal with. It told her what the first Ari could do. It told her what she could turn into. It told her the Ari who’d fought with Jordan had had some of Jordan’s characteristics–and tolerance of a rival hadn’t been high in the first Ari’s own list of qualities. The first Ari had actually tried…she’d tried very hard to work with Jordan. But he’d wanted to dominate their partnership and she absolutelyhad wanted to run things, as natural as breathing. What kept bringing the first Ari back, she suspected, what might even have sexually fascinated her, was the fact that she hadn’t been able to Work him: that would have kept her mentally engaged with him. The fact she hadn’t been about to work withhim–that was the thorn in the arrangement. The same terrible boredom had afflicted the first Ari: the first Ari had shared that trait of impatience with Jordan, but, unlike Jordan, the first Ari would at times tolerate fools–would analyze them, and use them, sometimes ruthlessly. Challengeset her off, challenge that would rouse her out of her boredom–so even that thorn in the arrangement might have been just one more attraction. She met challenge: she provoked it, enjoyed it until it potentially threatened her, and then she absolutely crushed it.
There was an extreme watch‑it in that mix, wasn’t there?
A very extreme watch‑it, for Jordan and for herself…because that challengething stirred something so visceral in her. It did, and she tried to keep the anger in it down. She could tolerate parties. She had friends–Sam, and Amy and Maddy, that she didn’t see nearly often enough these days. She valued people like Justin, who’d disagree with her. She valued him extremely She defined challengeas a threat to people she loved. And that was different than the first Ari, wasn’t it? She didn’t let a challenge to her as what she was…become personal. Anger was the bad part of it, and she kept that way back, bottled, stoppered, and far back on the shelf.
She walked on her way, saying nothing to Florian at first, knowing Catlin had heard the exchange with Grant, too, and both her bodyguards knew that what she wanted was ultimately what would happen, even if her staff didn’t like it. Scary notion, a supper with Justin and Jordan, in her hitherto off‑limits premises. Deliciously, excitingly scary. Maybe stupid. But she wasn’t sure it wasn’t smart.
She’d been patient, she’d been so good, but she was close to freedom, was what, and, out in the wide world, things were all of a sudden happening that she didn’t like. With that gift of security personnel from ReseuneSec, if they passed Justin’s scrutiny as well as hers and Florian’s, she established a presence inside Reseune Security. And once she had that, she’d know things; she’d know when it was safe to go somewhere, and she’d know when she needed to deal with a situation. She’d be much less reliant on others filtering what got to her attention…like secret meetings in Novgorod.
Interesting, what she felt. Aggression was part of her motives: she recognized that when it reared its head, and it was potent. The challenge impulse. Curiosity. Much more than Justin was Jordan, she wasthe first Ari. It felt good to go on the attack in this long waiting. It felt very good.
That was a suspect emotion, too. She was having strong reactions to this news about more freedom; she was having emotional reactions to the business with the card and someone having told Jordan about Patil, and at least part of what Patil was up to.