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She’d done her research, read every clipping on the Danvers family and the kidnapping, searched through all the old papers in her father’s desk, called her deceased Uncle Ezra’s secretary, searching, digging through every scrap of information, praying she’d find some irrefutable evidence that either proved or disproved that she was the little lost princess. Ezra Nash, a lawyer known to bend the law, had handled the adoption. Either he hadn’t bothered with records, or they’d long-since been destroyed, or there was a secret surrounding her birth that he’d wanted to keep hidden.
She’d fought the anticipation that had raced through her bloodstream when she’d learned that she might be London Danvers, that she might finally discover her true identity. She told herself the chances that she was the missing heiress were a billion to one, but in the end, she’d followed her heart—her father’s dream—and driven her beat-up Chevy steadily westward to Portland, London’s hometown. She’d nearly convinced herself that she was London Danvers, believed that she would finally find her family, and after the initial shock had worn off, they would welcome her with open arms. Now, as she tilted her head and screwed on the back of her zirconium earrings, she bit her lower lip. The teardrop earrings sparkled in the light, as if they were diamonds, but they were fakes, made to look like expensive jewels when they were really cheap and common.
Like you.
No! She wouldn’t believe the speculation she’d heard all her life from the people in the small town where she’d grown up. Wouldn’t!
She ran a brush through her hair and started working with the long, black curls. Wild, “witchy hair,” her adoptive mother had often called the long, riotous waves that Adria didn’t bother taming, and she was right.
She planned to crash the party celebrating the grand opening of the Hotel Danvers. It was time to face the family. She’d tried to call Zachary Danvers after their first meeting in the ballroom, but hadn’t been able to get past the hotel reception desk and though she’d left messages, Zachary hadn’t seen fit to call her back. She hadn’t bothered trying to reach anyone else in the family. She knew too much about them to try and trust any of them. Zachary was the one with the least to lose, the only one of Witt’s children to make something of himself on his own; the others—Jason, Trisha, and Nelson—had, from what she’d read, been content to stay in Witt’s shadow, doing his bidding, waiting, like vultures, for him to die.
But Zach was different and had been from the beginning when there had been speculation about his paternity. He’d been in trouble with the law and he and the old man had been rumored to be at each other’s throats. When Zach was still in school, there had been a major blowup and rift, though she never found out why, and Zach had been thrown out of the house and disowned. Only recently, before Witt’s death, had he been back with the family.
Adria figured that someone who had been on the outside so long would be her most likely ally. So far, she’d been wrong. So tonight, she’d make public her claims and if nothing else, get the Danvers family’s attention.
She was a fraud.
Zach could smell a fake a mile away, and this woman, this black-haired woman with the mysterious blue eyes and hint of irreverence in her smile when she claimed to be London, was as phony as the proverbial three-dollar bill.
But he couldn’t get her out of his mind. He’d tried, but she kept swimming to the surface of his consciousness, toying with his thoughts.
Already in a foul mood because of the grand opening, he poured himself a drink from the bar in the suite he’d called home for the past few months, the very same set of rooms he was to have slept in on the night London had been kidnapped. The suite on the seventh floor looked different now, as the decor reflected the turn of the century rather than the 1970s, but it was still eerie remembering that night. Witt had raged, Kat had wept, and the rest of the children…the survivors…had cast suspicious glances at one another and the police.
He ran a finger along the smooth surface of the window, then pocketed his hotel-room key. He didn’t have time to reminisce and he resented Adria for brining back the pain of his checkered past.
Right now, Zach just wanted out. He’d held up his part of the bargain, which was to renovate the hotel, and now he wanted his due—the price he’d extracted from the old man before Witt had died.
It had been a painful scene. His father had tried to break the ice and admit that he’d been wrong about his faithless wife, but the words had gotten all tangled up and once again they’d ended up arguing. Zach had nearly walked out, but Witt had enticed him back.
“The ranch is yours, if you want it, boy,” Witt had declared.
Zach’s hand rested on the doorknob of the den. “The ranch?”
“When I die.”
“Forget it.”
“You want it, don’t you?”
Zach had turned and skewered his father with a stare intended to cut through steel.
“You always take what you want, if I remember right.”
“I’m outta here.”
“Wait,” the old man had pleaded. “The ranch is worth several million.”
“I don’t give a shit about the money.”
“Oh, right. My noble son.” Witt was standing near the window, one hand in his pocket, the other wrapped around a short glass of Irish whiskey. “But you still want it. What for?” His white eyebrows had raised a bit. “Nostalgia, perhaps?”
The jab cut deep, but Zach didn’t so much as flinch. “It doesn’t matter.”
Witt snorted. “It’s yours.”
Zach wasn’t easily suckered by the old man. He was smart enough to know the ranch had a price—a high one. “What do I have to do?”
“Nothing all that hard. Restore the old hotel.”
