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From the stairs, Zach glanced around the lobby and thought of his father. Witt Danvers. A royal pain in the ass.
Right now, Witt would have been proud of the son he’d disowned half a dozen times. Not that it mattered. Witt Danvers was dead and cremated, his ashes spread across the rolling forests of the Oregon hills two years ago. A just end to a timber baron who had spent all his years raping the land.
Through the leather of his jacket, Zach rubbed the scar in his shoulder, the result of being the son of Witt Danvers. His jaw tightened. It had taken him years to come to terms with the old man, and now it was too late to make amends.
“Rest in peace, you miserable bastard,” Zachary said, his lips flattening as he opened the doors. His father had always treated Zach differently from the rest of his children. Not that he cared now. Zach had his own business, his own identity. The noose of being the son of one of Portland’s wealthiest men didn’t seem quite so tight.
He took two long strides into the ballroom, then stopped dead in his tracks. The woman was there, dressed in a black long coat and matching knee-length boots. She turned at the sound of his entrance, and before she could say a word he knew why she was waiting for him.
Glossy black curls swirled away from a flawless face. Round blue eyes fringed by lacy black lashes stared straight at him. Thin black brows arched inquisitively. He felt as if his heart had stopped for a second as she smiled, showing off beautiful teeth, finely carved cheekbones, and a strong, slightly stubborn chin.
His breath seemed
to stop somewhere in his lungs.
“You’re Zachary,” she said, as if she had every right to stand in the middle of the ballroom—as if she belonged.
Zach’s throat was suddenly dry and hot and forbidden memories struggled to the surface of his mind. “Right.”
“Danvers,” she supplied, her voice low, her lips tightening just a fraction. She smiled slightly, and with her hand extended, walked slowly toward him. “I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time,” she said, forcing a smile. “My name is—”
“London,” he supplied as every muscle in his body grew taut with the pain of the past.
“You recognize me?” Hope lighted those blue eyes.
“There’s a resemblance. I guessed.”
“Oh.” She hesitated, the wind suddenly out of her sails.
“But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“You think you’re my long-lost sister.” He couldn’t hide the cynicism in his words.
Those clear blue orbs clouded and her hand, the one she’d offered and he’d ignored, dropped to her side. “I think so, but I’m not sure. That’s why I’m here.” She seemed to find her confidence again. “For a long time my name’s been Adria.”
“You’re not sure?” For a minute he could only stare into those wide blue eyes—eyes like another treacherous pair that had seemed to see right through him, but quickly his senses came back to him in a rush. Why did he think for even a second that this woman could be London? Hadn’t he been close enough to elaborate frauds to smell one a mile away? So she looked like his stepmother. Big deal. “My sister’s been dead for almost twenty years,” he said in the flat tone he reserved for liars and cheats.
“Half-sister.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
She glanced around the room. “I just wanted to see if I remembered this place—”
“London was only four.”
“Almost five. And even four-year-olds have memories…maybe just impressions, but memories nonetheless…” She looked at one corner near a bank of windows. “The band was over there in that alcove, and there were plants…trees, I think.” Her eyebrows bunched together as if she were trying to catch hold of a fleeting memory. “And there was a huge fountain and an ice sculpture—a…horse, no, not just a horse, a running horse, and—”
“You’ve done your research.”
Her lips tightened. “You don’t believe me.”
“I think you’d better leave.” Zachary cocked his head toward the door. “London’s dead. She has been for over twenty years, so take whatever it is you’re peddling and go back home, before I haul you out of here and drop you on the front steps with the rest of the garbage.”
“How do you know London’s dead?”
His throat closed and he remembered, with gut-wrenching clarity, the accusations, the fingers thrust in his direction, the suspicious looks cast his way. “I’m serious. You’d better leave.”
