Endocrine thinking, she said to herself. The first Ari consistently warned her about that, told her do something to get rid of it. Sex could work, if it was a passing urge. But that just touched off more flux‑thinking, and sometimes complicated things worse than before. Rational thought was the long‑term cure for problems.
That was what the first Ari had said, out of Base One. Steady down. Think.
Florian asked quietly, as they walked: “What are we to expect tonight, sera?”
“I don’t quite know,” she said, still wondering if she’d just done something very unwise. But something to break the stalemate between Justin and Jordan once and for all–was that unwise? “Something interesting, at least.”
BOOK ONE Section 3 Chapter iv
MAY 2, 2424
1528H
Maybe, she still thought, she should have been a little less aggressive, and a little more cautious. Justin wouldn’t turn down her invitation, if his father was going. She was relatively sure of that: he’d be there partly out of unbearable curiosity, partly to be there to fling himself between his father and a bullet, so to speak–or literally. Jordan would be there out of pure curiosity, and because he wanted to hear what calumnies his son would say about him–she’d bet on that, even more than she’d bet on Justin.
So she sent an invitation to Jordan that said dinner at 1800h. And one to Justin that said 1830. Justin would turn up five minutes early because he worried about being late. Jordan was guaranteed to be at least a quarter of an hour late, just to prove he could be. She bet on that, too.
Her staff was not happy with the arrangement. Wes and Marco were taking the security station, Florian and Catlin were dining early, to be actually on duty in the dining room. Gianni, their pro tem cook, was in a state, and dented one of their pots. The unprecedented clang set off house alarms and scrambled her security to alert.
But she dressed in silvery satin, her current favorite gown, and her hairdresser did her hair in a modern way, nothing at all like the first Ari in the portraits. It was her coming‑out, like in the old stories, though not for a ballroom full of people–just two. She wore her hair upswept, wore a single diamond, a modest one, and her rings, several, and had the servers light the candles the very instant Jordan turned up in the hall–no way could he look at a quarter of an hour’s candle‑melt and feel smug in being late.
Marco showed her first guests into the hall and took their coats…precisely at 1816h. Ari met him just outside the dining room.
“Jordan Warrick,” she said in her nicest, warmest tone, and offered her hand. “I’m so glad you’ve come. Paul.” That for the quiet, handsome man who shadowed him.
“Ariane.” Jordan took her hand, a chilly and unenthusiastic grip, and what he was seeing, or remembering in that moment, there was no telling: certain things weren’t in the first Ari’s records, lost, lost except for this man’s memory. “Is my son here?”
“Soon, I’m sure. Would you like a drink?” Service staff was hovering just inside. And Catlin moved in, very deftly, to cut Paul off with conversation and steer him aside.
“You always made a good Vodka Collins.”
“ Idon’t.” She flashed her brightest grin, and signaled staff. “I haven’t the least idea how. A Collins, Callie. Paul?” She glanced over her shoulder. “What will you have?”
“Wine, sera, white.”
“Wine for me, too. I had my juvie fling with hard liquor. It does my head no favors. I’m so glad you came, Jordan.”
What are you up to? was likely the question he burned to ask her. He didn’t. “Invitations are rare. I’m a little out of the social circuit these days.”
“Well, there hasn’t been much social circuit lately, not since Denys died. It’s all been too grim here. Guards everywhere. Locked doors. Minders on high alert. But that’s changing. I’ll imagine a lot of things have changed.”
“Some have. Some haven’t.”
“Oh, Catlin, do entertain Paul. I’m aching to talk to Jordan a moment. Jordan, do come into the dining room. Please.” She snagged his arm, moved him, solo, the two further steps through that doorway. “I’m so curious about you,” she said brightly. He was warm, and smelled like Justin. “There aren’t many people in my acquaintance who really remember from way back, way back when everything was starting up in Reseune.”
An eyebrow lifted as she let go his arm. He looked at her, just like Justin. “I’m not that old.”
“But you did actually meet my sort‑of grandmother.”
“I did.”
“Was she really the bitch everybody says she was?”
That got a little flare of the pupils, and an immediately suspicious shutdown, no laughter at all. “I never knew her personally. But she was reputed to be that. Andpassed the trait on.”
She took that with a silent laugh. And just then Callie showed up with the drinks, damn her timing, but she took hers and let Jordan take his own. “I know about your feud with the first Ari. Two very bright people trying to work together. Two people who each hadto run things.”
That didn’t sit totally well. “You could say so.”
“She valued you, though, as the most brilliant designer in Reseune, right along with her. She couldn’t get along with you, you weren’t in the same field, exactly, but she did respect you.”
“The hell.”
“I have her notes. She also warned me you were pigheaded.” Sip of wine. Jordan hadn’t touched his Collins. “Is it all right?”
“What?”
“The drink. Did Callie do it right?”
Jordan just looked at her.
“You surely,” she said, “can’t think I’d pull something as silly as that.”
“You did on my son.”
Wide eyes. “ Whatdid I do?”
“You know what your predecessor did.”
Lowered lashes, a nod to the correction. “I know what she did. I’m sorry for that.”
“Of course you are.”
“I don’t like what she did, understand. I don’t like what happened to you, either. Let me tell you the truth. Uncle Denys thought he was going to make me into his own model. But he didn’t. I came out something else, and not liking him much at all, especially for what he did to Justin. And the way you couldn’t work with the first Ari, I canwork with Justin. I don’t ever want it otherwise. I just wish you could be part of that arrangement.”
A sardonic smile. “Is that so?”
She drew in a breath. “You’re going to see it doesn’t work, aren’t you?”
“That’s your conclusion? You have us bugged, you have my office bugged, you have our apartment bugged, including the bedroom. And that’s the best guess you can manage? I’d have thought you understood us inside out.”
“Who’s Dr. Patil to you?”
Ah. He didn’t control that look, not well at all. She’d got him mad, and she got a reaction.
“Friend of a friend. Someone I’d like my son to know, outside the cloistered halls of Reseune. Is that a crime?”
Florian walked into the dining room. That was the arranged cue: Justin was arriving.
She smiled. “Denys would have thought it was a crime. Hewas your enemy. Heset you up. Heblamed you and made your son’s years here–and mine–more difficult than you know. I doubt Justin’s told you the half of it. You should ask him.”
The front door opened, a hall away.
“When,” Jordan asked, “am I going to get that chance?”
“Not over tonight’s dinner, I hope.” She put on her warm smile again. “Let’s make peace, just for the hour. I can’t offer you explanations on everything, but I’d like to see things work themselves out. I’d like to know the things you know about my grandmother. I can’t call the first Ari my mother, really not the way Justin can call you his father. It wasn’t, obviously, that kind of relationship.”