Children of Dynasty (2 page)

Shaken by the recollection of Davis’s unleashed rage upon catching his son with John Grant’s daughter, Mariah nonetheless drew herself up. “I was invited.”

Davis’s scowl deepened; now he would demand she leave. She wondered if Rory might object and admit he was the one who had wanted her here.

To her surprise, Davis put on a calculating expression. “Our guest lists are long,” he said at last, dismissing her with a wave of his hand.

Mariah gave Rory an uncertain glance. Had he been playing games about inviting her?

“I told you to visit with Senator Chatsworth,” Davis growled at his son.

It was happening again, as it had years ago. Expecting Rory to do his father’s bidding, she said coldly, “Your jacket,” and held it at arm’s length.

Rory took it with a deft motion and slipped it on. Yet, even as her spirits sank, he gave his father a defiant look and took her elbow. “Come and meet the Senator,” he urged.

Her instantaneous reaction to his touch reminded her not to risk getting hurt again, but it suited her evening’s mission to allow him to lead her through the French doors.

Inside, Rory bent to kiss the cheek of a petite woman. “Mother. You remember Mariah Grant.”

Eight years ago, Kiki Campbell had been an attractive, rather plump woman. Now, she wore the ascetic look of a woman who dieted religiously. Her red hair was obviously the result of salon visits, and though her face wore the faintly surprised look that comes with plastic surgery, Mariah suspected she really was astonished to see John Grant’s daughter with her son.

With a gulp from her half-empty wineglass, Kiki said, “Love your dress.” An out-of-place giggle suggested she’d had enough to drink.

Mariah studied Kiki’s lime green bouffant dress, fashioned for a woman half her age. “You look nice, too,” she said gently.

Behind his wife, Mariah saw Davis enter from outside, his alert gaze assessing and lingering on the gathering’s beautiful, elegant women. Kiki noticed, too, and for an instant her green eyes rested on her husband with what could only be yearning. “On the Spot” routinely implied that she endured his philandering, just as the gossip rags suggested that Rory, too, discarded women like used tissues since his divorce.

Despite that Mariah had agreed to come in with Rory, this reminder of his marriage and the news stories about his recently playing the field made her turn away as though she had business with someone. The next feat was making it happen in a crowd where she knew so few people.

No one familiar was in sight, yet she left Rory and his mother with purpose in her steps. Fortunately, she spotted a man standing next to the buffet of jumbo shrimp, lobster, and caviar, his face familiar from development industry magazines. Takei Takayashi, a hearty middle-aged man with the compact muscles of a linebacker, watched her approach with alert dark eyes.

“Hello, I’m …”

“Mariah Grant.” Takei’s broad face broke into a smile. “You’re the image of your mother.” His California accent suggested he was American-born, but he dipped his head in a series of traditional Japanese bows.

“How are things at Golden Builders?” she asked. A fleeting glance told her that Davis Campbell was taking in their conversation.

“We’re now the third largest in the Bay Area.” Somewhat importantly, Takei adjusted a silk tie patterned with colorful crested cranes. “I figure on overtaking Grant next and then going toe to toe with Campbell.” His smile softened his challenge, and she recalled that, in spite of their rivalry, he was a friend of John Grant.

Mariah nodded, though the much smaller Golden Builders was in no danger of overtaking either of its major competitors. She couldn’t imagine why he would think so, except a man was entitled to dream.

Recalling that Rory had worked as an architect at Golden for seven years, she spoke before she could stop herself. “Why did Rory Campbell leave you?”

Takei sobered. “It was time he took his place in the family business, learning the kind of things his father’s showing him on the executive floor. You also must identify, after paying your dues in L.A.”

“That’s true.” In southern California, she’d been busy if not happy, running hard in pursuit of her dream to return in triumph.

Rory appeared at her elbow and greeted his old boss. Then he touched Mariah’s arm. “There’s an opening with the Senator now.”

She studied Lawrence Chatsworth, who was shaking hands with Davis. A high-energy man, the Senator’s pale sharp eyes were always moving. He wore his light brown hair a bit long in back, perhaps to appeal to baby boomers.

“Excuse me,” she told Takei and went with Rory.

When he presented her, Chatsworth said smoothly, “A pleasure, Miss Grant. I don’t know your father well, but I was sorry to hear his company isn’t doing as well as it once did.”

Mariah tried to hide her shock by keeping her chin high. “Where did you hear that? Grant Development is doing fine.”

Davis gave a soft chuckle that set her on edge, and she believed she knew where the rumors had gotten started. Takei must have heard them, too.

Looking at the Senator, Davis said, “It’s a shame you didn’t know the buzz on Grant wasn’t true, Larry. Maybe you wouldn’t have passed the word in Washington.”

Mariah nearly gasped, but managed to press her lips together. From the corner of her eye, she saw Rory’s head snap up.

Chatsworth sipped at his drink and mused, “But you know what they say, Davis. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

“True,” Davis returned. “And even if we were wrong, there’s no place for apologizing in this tough world.”

Rory murmured at Mariah’s ear, “So he always says.”

Davis gave him a black look.

The Senator focused his spotlight on Mariah. “So, what does Grant have in the works to pull things back up?”

Her mind raced. There were several large tracts of ranch land coming up for bid in the late summer. She knew that her father had his eye on at least two of them with Pacific frontage. And as surely, she knew that mentioning any interest in either of them in front of Davis Campbell would be foolhardy. Better he go to the bid table ignorant of which contest John Grant intended to enter.

“I can’t discuss our plans,” she parried.

Davis shot a sidelong glance at the Senator, and Mariah gave up any thought of further conversation with the powerful politician. His allegiance was clear.

“I see someone I must speak to,” she said with as much coolness as she could muster.

Walking away, she was once more aware of the sea of unfamiliar faces that surrounded her. To hide that she was meeting no one, she searched for and found the powder room off the main foyer. The decorator’s gem of a bath with solid gold fixtures underscored the difference between Davis Campbell’s ostentation and the simpler way her father preferred to live.

A gilt-framed mirror over the alabaster sink showed her color was high. Taking deep breaths, she smoothed her blond hair, wind-blown from the terrace, over her shoulders. Then she washed her hands and pressed a damp paper towel to the sides of her neck. Noting the décolletage of her small breasts in the sequined dress, she tugged at the neckline and blushed at the folly of wearing it to make Rory see what he’d missed out on.

Could it be true that he’d invited her tonight? A flush darkened her already pink cheeks at the memory of his steady regard when he spoke of them being prisoners of their inheritance. Yet, if Davis had been the one to include her on his guest list, as he’d implied, he might have hoped inexperience would loosen her tongue. Prying questions delivered so casually from the Senator could have been engineered to start her bragging about Grant’s plans. Then Davis would know where to place his chips against his rival when the next package of raw land came up for bid. The question was whether Rory would have begun his own sly exploration had they not been interrupted on the terrace. If her own dedication to her family company was any yardstick, his allegiance to DCI must run deep.

Freshening her lip gloss, Mariah debated leaving, but she refused to be driven away so early in the evening. The last thing she wanted was for Rory’s father to believe he’d gotten the better of her.

She returned to the party, head high and smiling.

As she moved from group to group, she saw that Davis kept up with her movements, watching those with whom she spoke and often drawing near enough to eavesdrop. In turn, she noted the people he cultivated. A young and eager state representative, a florid older gentleman who was current head of the Bay Area Regional Planning Commission, and there was Thaddeus Walker, Grant Development’s usually lugubrious, big-eared banker at First California. Mariah moved closer, but was unable to hear what he and Davis discussed with such animated camaraderie.

She also watched Rory. Standing easily on the balls of his feet, he seemed to fit here in his father’s house. Could he be trusted, or had he grown into a man cut from the same cloth as Davis and the Senator?

As if he felt her looking at him, Rory turned and met her eyes with a peculiar emphasis that seemed to charge the air. After a moment that had her breathless, he took two glasses of champagne from a caterer’s tray and came toward her. “Thirsty?” Pinpoint bubbles of effervescence welled in the crystal flute.

Torn between suspicion and the rekindled magnetism between them, she reached for the stem. “I suppose I should thank you for the fine food and wine, that is, if you did invite me.”

Before she could take the glass, Davis appeared beside them with a striking twenty-something beauty who snagged it ahead of her.

Mariah recoiled.

Sylvia Chatsworth, the Senator’s daughter and the latest woman linked with Rory in the tabloids, lifted the champagne and drank. In her twenties, with a spill of sleek black hair over bronzed shoulders, she had what Mariah’s high school art teacher would have called “good bones.”

While Davis beamed as though he’d found a match for his son, Sylvia kissed Rory, missing his mouth and leaving a smudge of crimson on his cheek.

He swiped at his face. “Mariah …”

She had had enough. As violent as her reaction to seeing him again was, she must put a stop to this. He might have the gift of transforming a woman’s bones to putty, but she refused to get caught in the Campbell web again.

“Lovely party,” she announced coldly, looking toward the mammoth carved doors where she had come in from the front courtyard. With a false smile curving her lips, she walked blindly through the foyer toward the exit.

From behind, she heard Rory call for her to wait. For the barest instant, she hesitated, but too many unanswered questions sent her on into the spring night.

The day after the party, Mariah drove through the Sunday evening rain to the Stonestown neighborhood where she had grown up. The older, but pleasant, district lay south of Golden Gate Park and east of Ocean Beach. Once rolling sand dunes, the terrain now marched up and down gentle hills where modest stucco homes built with post World War II financing lined quiet streets.

Parking in front of her father’s bungalow, she was struck once more by the contrast between the simple way he lived, plowing every spare dime back into Grant Development, and Davis Campbell’s lifestyle. Her jaw set as she prepared to break the news about Campbell and Chatsworth’s scheme to defame him.

Dodging raindrops up the walk between double rows of pampered rosebushes, she let herself into the house and pocketed her key.

In the narrow hall, she paused beside a wooden chessboard to study the move her father had made since she was last there. This set was dedicated to an ongoing match that only moved forward when she dropped by home. When she was in L.A., this had lain dormant for months. Of course, then they had played on the computer, sending moves back and forth by e-mail. Mariah studied the board, lifted a knight, and moved it two spaces forward and one to the right, a little closer to her father’s king.

From the hall, she followed the familiar mouth-watering smell of marinara sauce to the kitchen. Golden oak cabinets glowed and produce spilled over white marble countertops.

“You didn’t call.” John smiled from where he was stirring the contents of a saucepan. “I hope I have enough pasta.” He wore his usual at-home uniform of khaki slacks and a worn out blue dress shirt, the ceiling spotlights accentuating his shock of silver hair.

Setting her keys and purse down, she stretched to kiss his cheek. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine as can be.” He appeared well rested, his gray eyes alert and clear.

“You do look better than you did Saturday,” she tempered, checking the sauce, and finding a generous amount of Italian sausage.

He saw her gaze. “Fat’s where the flavor is.”

The familiar sight of him stirring a pot touched her heart, reminding her of days when he cooked, and she did homework at the kitchen table. Now he asked her to make a salad with cherry tomatoes and peppers and to boil salted water laced with olive oil.

While she was washing lettuce, he held out a spoonful of sauce. “Taste.”

“I don’t have to. It needs more sugar.”

“Wrong.” He grinned. “When I saw your car pull up, I added some.”