Invincible (8 page)

“I hardly think—”

“You sent those poor kids of yours off to boarding schools their whole lives while you partied your way around the world.” He sneered down at her. “What did you expect? You treated them like dirt. They're just paying you back.”

“That's quite enough,” Bella said quietly.

Foster stood up, but he didn't step back. “I've barely gotten started, lady. You had to come here when you knew I was trying to mend things with my wife. You've been a bad seed from the start. You insinuated yourself between Bull and the woman he was courting. You
teased him and taunted him and stole him away from the caring person—the lady—he should have married. It's a shame Bull couldn't see what I did.”

“I loved your brother.”
I still love him!
Bella wanted to cry. But that would be setting fire to gasoline, considering Foster's rage.

“You don't know what love is!” Foster said with a sneer. “You tricked my brother into marrying you. Christ, you threatened him with jail if he didn't.”

“I had nothing to do with that,” Bella protested. Her aunt, who'd stood in for her dead parents, had threatened to go to the police and have Bull charged with statutory rape if he didn't marry her. “Bull wasn't innocent,” Bella pointed out. “He did have sex with a seventeen-year-old.”

“But some other guy got there first, didn't he, Bella?” Foster snarled. “Because Oliver isn't Bull's son. For God's sake, his eyes are brown!”

Bella's face blanched. Both Bella and Bull had blue eyes. Which made Oliver's brown eyes a genetic impossibility. Some other man had to be his father. The truth had been there all along, but Foster had ever spoken it aloud. Until now.

“You love those detestable diamonds and rubies and pearls my brother lavished on you more than you ever loved him or any of those kids,” Foster ranted. “You're a lying, cheating bitch, Bella. Just stay the hell away from me and my brother!”

Bella pressed a fist against her heart and leaned for
ward, struggling to breathe. “I won't bother you…for much…”

“It's her heart!” Emily cried, rising from her Adirondack.

Foster jerked his head around and searched the horizon. “Bull!” he yelled. “Get over here. Bella's having a heart attack!”

“Y
ou had me worried, Duchess.”

Bella sat up straighter in her Richmond hospital bed. “I'm sorry, Bull.” The quiet apology should have been spoken years ago for the two great wrongs she'd done to the man standing beside her bed. Bella felt genuinely contrite, sorry enough to finally confess the lies she'd allowed to stand. If only she could find the courage to reveal the truth. About everything.

Yet, she put it off a moment longer. “You heard the doctor. It wasn't anything serious.”

Bull snorted. “A panic attack? Horseshit. You've been an ice queen since the day I met you. What's really going on, Duchess? Is there something wrong with your heart?”

The use of her nickname—and Bull's pugnacious tone—suggested the gloves had come off. He was so close to the truth, Bella felt her weakened heart wrench with fear. She didn't want Bull taking her back because she was dying. She didn't want his pity. She'd sworn the doctor to secrecy and ordered him to give her husband
a less serious reason for her fainting spell. He wasn't buying it.

“Bull, I—”

“You're awake,” Foster said as he shoved open the door without knocking and entered Bella's hospital room. “Good.”

Patsy followed him inside, smiling at Bella as they crossed to the opposite side of the bed from Bull. “Good morning, Bella. You're looking much better than you did on the ride to the hospital yesterday.”

Since it would have taken the same time for an ambulance to arrive at The Seasons as it took for them to drive to Richmond, Foster and Patsy had sat in the front seat of Foster's Mercedes while Bull held Bella in his arms in the backseat. They'd made it to the emergency room at Levinson Heart Hospital, on the Chippenham Campus of CJW Medical Center, in record time.

Bella just wished she'd been awake for more of the trip.

“I don't think I've ever seen Bull in such a state,” Patsy said with a teasing wink. “He didn't stop pacing at the emergency room door until the doctor told him you'd regained consciousness.”

Bella shot a quick glance at Bull. Did that mean he still cared? Could he possibly still love her? The thought gave her pause. And hope.

“Bull was worried how the kids would feel if you kicked the bucket on Mother's Day when none of them had shown up to see you,” Foster said.

Patsy shot her husband a look that expressed Bella's feelings about her brother-in-law's comment exactly.

“That was unkind, Foster,” Patsy said.

To Bella's surprise, Foster responded to his wife's criticism by turning to Bella and saying, “Excuse me. That was uncalled-for.”

Foster was rewarded with a smile from Patsy. Bella realized the two of them must have made up. It seemed Foster wasn't going to chance offending his wife again, even if it meant making nice with a woman he regularly wished to the devil.

“I wanted to be sure you were feeling better this morning,” Patsy said, brushing a hand across Bella's shoulder. “We'll leave the two of you to talk.”

Bella took another look at Bull and realized he must have spent the entire night at the hospital. He hadn't shaved. The gray and black stubble gave his face a rugged look. He was wearing the same docksiders, jeans and V-necked gray cashmere sweater over a white T-shirt that he'd worn to the picnic.

“Thank you, Patsy,” Bella said. “I am feeling better. And thank you, too, Foster, for getting me to the hospital.”

Foster didn't say
you're welcome.

Bella was sure he would rather she'd expired on the spot. Or in the car on the way to the hospital. Or in the hospital after she'd arrived.

Instead, Foster said to Patsy, “We'd better get going, honey. The girls need to get back to school. The jet's scheduled to leave at noon.” He turned to his older
brother and said, “Should we wait for you, Bull? Or do you want to catch a cab to the airport?”

Bella felt a jolt of surprise. She hadn't realized the girls were going back to school so soon. Or that Bull might be traveling back to Europe with them.

“I'll get my own ride,” Bull replied.

Bella noticed he hadn't said he wasn't returning to Paris with his nieces. It was time to confess. If she was ever going to confess.

She suddenly felt breathless, but not because her heart wasn't pumping enough oxygen.

Once Foster and Patsy were gone, Bull crossed and sat on the edge of her bed. “Are you going to tell me the truth, Duchess?”

“About what?” Bella asked warily.

“About what put you in that bed.”

“The doctor already told you—”

“What you told him to tell me,” Bull interrupted. “I want the truth, Bella. By God, I deserve the truth.”

Yes, he did. There was no going forward without going back. It was time he heard the truth…about the night he'd found her in bed with another man.

“There's something I have to tell you, first,” she said. “The night you found me in bed with—”

“Don't go there, Bella,” he warned.

“You wouldn't let me explain then, or even later, but—”

“There's no excuse for what you did.”

He was doing it again. Condemning her without allowing her to explain.

“The point is—” she began.

“The point is, you slept with another man. In our bed. End of discussion.”

Bella felt her cheeks heating, felt her heart thumping and put a knotted hand against her painful chest. She was going to die of a broken heart, all right. Broken by this stubborn man who wouldn't listen. Who hadn't trusted. Who'd believed the worst and never allowed her to explain. She'd felt every bit as betrayed by his lack of trust as he had by what he thought he'd seen.

“Bull, you're going to listen to my explanation or—”

He stood abruptly and said, “Keep your damned secrets, then, Bella. I don't give a damn if your heart stops. I swear I don't. I thought…I hoped…”

He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, then dropped it and shook his head.

“Thought what?” she asked softly. “Hoped what?”

“I thought I could forget what happened. I hoped…” He looked up and met her gaze. “Damn it, I can't forget. Or forgive. I forgave you for Oliver. You promised you'd never betray me again. You lied, Bella. You cheated on me once too often.”

He turned on his heel and was out the door while her mouth was still open to protest.

“You fool!” she cried as the door closed behind him. “It wasn't me! It wasn't
me!
”

Tears pooled in her eyes and slid down her cheeks as she made her explanation to the empty room. “It was my twin, you stupid man. It was Alicia. She tricked you
into sleeping with her at the start of our marriage. When I found out, I told her to leave the Abbey, to get out of my life forever. She said she'd leave, but I'd be sorry for choosing you over her.”

Her sister had wreaked a terrible vengeance.

“She made sure you found her—
pretending to be me
—in your bed with another man.”

Bella had never been unfaithful to Bull. She'd loved him—still loved him—more than life. She'd never told him about Alicia's impersonation of her—and the fact he'd been duped into having sex with her jealous twin sister—because she'd been ashamed of, and appalled by, Alicia's behavior. So he'd believed he was seeing Bella impaled on another man's shaft.

Alicia had smirked in triumph when she'd admitted to Bella what she'd done. “Let's see if your precious husband will have anything to do with you now!” she'd taunted.

Bull was gone for three days before he'd returned to confront her. When she'd tried to explain what Alicia had done, he'd demanded, “Was that him? Was that Oliver's father? I have to know. Tell me the truth, Bella.”

The problem was, somehow Alicia had chosen Oliver's father with whom to commit her supposedly adulterous act. It had been impossible to tell Bull the truth about Alicia without revealing the truth about Oliver's father.

And that was a story she would never, never, ever tell.

Bella moaned. Ruined. Everything was ruined.

Emily stuck her head in the doorway, then came hurrying across the room. “Your Grace? What's wrong?”

Bella quickly swiped the tears off her cheeks, then grabbed a tissue from a box on the side table and dabbed at the mascara that had smudged at the corners of her eyes. “Nothing that hasn't been wrong for a very long time. I have matchmaking to do and not much time to do it. Have you spoken with the appropriate parties in London?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Have you gathered all the information on the young woman?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Have you finished making our travel arrangements?”

“Your doctor said—”

“Yes or no. Have you made the arrangements, Emily?”

Emily sighed. “Yes, Your Grace. Our flight to Miami leaves first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Good. It's time I started playing cupid.”

K
ristin had just gotten the bad news from the Miami SAC. Rudy was sympathetic but there was nothing he could do. The Miami OPR—heavily influenced, Kristin was sure, by SSA Harrison—had decided Kristin should be suspended until SIRT came back with its recommendation for action on her second shooting incident.

“What am I supposed to do?” she asked.

“Get your daughter into school,” Rudy said. “Spend some time with your father. See the shrink, so you're ready to come back when the time comes.”

“So you think I will be coming back?”

“Not my call,” Rudy said. “What about that assignment with the CIA?”

Kristin frowned. “I thought you'd hate the idea.”

Rudy lifted a brow. “I'm not crazy about loaning out my agents, but this is a serious threat, Agent Lassiter. How about it? I understand you're a world-class tennis player. Sounds like you're the right woman for the job.”

At least it would be a job. The one she had seemed to be in jeopardy. “I'll think about it.”

“Be sure to turn in your badge and gun before you leave the building,” Rudy said.

That sounded more than a little final. Kristin left Rudy's office in a daze.
What if I lose my job? How will I survive?

She felt even more shaken when she dropped off her credentials and the weapon that had replaced the gun that had been sent to the FBI's ballistics lab at Quantico after the first shooting. She hadn't been without badge or gun for four years. They'd become a part of her identity. Who would she be without them?

More to the point, how was she going to survive the several financial catastrophes she was facing without her job. Maybe she could borrow some money at the bank while she still had her job. Perhaps get a home equity line of credit. Except she already had a second mortgage. And the banks weren't loaning money these days without months and months of paperwork. She needed money now. And she needed lots of it.

You could always rob a bank.

Kristin snickered. Which was better than sobbing.

She'd taken a few precious days of her vacation allowance to deal with Flick's appearance and her father's stroke. She didn't have many more left. Then what?

Her father had recently mortgaged his tennis facility to expand and improve it, so he was cash poor. He had assistants to help, but players came to the Lassiter Tennis Academy to be coached by Harry Lassiter. She
had to figure out a way to keep the academy running until Harry could at least come back and supervise players from a wheelchair.

Harry had been so fit, he'd never bought health insurance. His bills at the hospital were mounting astronomically. She didn't want to imagine what physical therapy—and perhaps a nurse at home—were going to cost.

Kristin was still in shock when she left the MFO. She felt frightened. She'd worried that she might be put on administrative duty again, but she hadn't imagined being suspended. The reality of the situation came crashing down on her.

I could be fired.

She made it to her car before her knees buckled. She sat in the hot sun, trembling as though it were bitter cold. She'd left Flick with her father when she'd come in to see Rudy and promised she'd be back within a couple of hours. She needed to go pick up her daughter.

Then what, Kristin? Then what?

The offer from Max was looking a lot more attractive. Assuming the CIA was still willing to use her when she was on suspension from the FBI. Of course, there were her “special qualifications” for the job in London. Maybe if she helped find an assassin, it would influence the FBI to keep her.

Kristin suddenly realized she had no idea how to contact Max. He hadn't given her a business card. Of course, neither playboys nor spies needed business cards. She
knew Max was living in London. But would a spy have a listed telephone number?

She could always contact his mother. But as much as Max hated the duchess, would she be likely to know where he could be found?

Kristin used the trip south on I-95 to Jackson Memorial to compose herself. She mentally worked out the exact wording she would use to explain how she'd gotten time off from work. No sense upsetting her father or Flick, both of whom had an uncanny ability to tell when she was troubled. And no sense worrying herself, until she knew for sure she'd been fired.

In the parking garage, she added some lipstick and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. She took a deep, calming breath and let it out. Then she put a smile on her face. She grimaced at how phony it looked in the rearview mirror and tried again. Better. She was as ready as she would ever be to face her family without revealing the chaos that threatened them all.

One thing at a time. One day at a time. That's how she'd survived when she was sixteen and her world had fallen apart. It wasn't so very different now that she was twenty-six. With a little thought—and a lot of luck—she was certain she could figure out a way to turn all these bitter lemons into sweet, icy-cold lemonade.

Kristin stepped off the elevator at Jackson Memorial onto the floor where her father was recuperating and stopped dead when she saw who was sitting alone in the visitors' lounge.

“Good morning, Ms. Lassiter.”

Kristin's heart skipped a beat as she eyed the elegantly dressed woman in the waiting room. Bella Benedict had eyes that were almost violet in hue and barely a wrinkle on her face. Her black hair was parted on the side, cut to shoulder length and threaded with silver that set off her ivory complexion and made her look ethereally beautiful.

She was wearing a beige silk suit, with a necklace of pearls—clearly not the famous one Kristin had heard about—hanging in ropes across the silk blouse beneath it. Her crossed legs revealed a pair of leopard-spotted Jimmy Choos or Manolo Blahniks or some other exclusive brand of heels that were higher than anything Kristin had ever owned.

The duchess was wearing the exquisite square-cut diamond ring her husband had given her on their engagement. It sparkled like polar ice in the sunlight. Was it eight carats? Eight-point-five, she remembered Max telling her. The duchess had kept it on her ring finger all through her separation from Max's father. Max had suggested she wore it in defiance of her husband, while she entertained her many lovers.

Kristin couldn't imagine a single reason—except for one, which was a well-kept secret—why the Duchess of Blackthorne had come calling. “To say I'm surprised to see you here would be a massive understatement,” she said at last.

The duchess smiled. “I'm a bit surprised to be here myself.”

Kristin felt the hairs on the back of her neck hackle,
like an animal that senses threat. She didn't trust the woman. Bella Benedict's reputation—as someone who put her own interests first—preceded her. “What do you want?”

“Please, sit down,” the duchess said, gesturing to an upholstered chair angled toward the durable leather couch where she sat. “We need to talk.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” Kristin replied.

“I'm sure that's true,” the duchess conceded. “But I know you need money. I'd like to help.”

Kristin felt her cheeks heat with shame and anger. “I don't want your help.”

“I've gone about this all wrong,” the duchess said with a moue of distress. “Please, won't you sit down? I only want what's best for my granddaughter, Felicity.”

The blood drained from Kristin's face.

“I believe you call her Flick.” And in case Kristin had any doubt that the cat was out of the bag, the duchess continued, “My son Max's nine-year-old daughter.”

Kristin's heart was threatening to beat its way out of her chest. “Does Max know?”

The duchess shook her head. “I didn't think it was my place to tell him.”

“Thank God.” Kristin had kept Flick's birth father a secret for ten years. Her first thought, her greatest fear, when Max had shown up in Rudy's office, was that he'd somehow found out about Flick. But he hadn't given any indication that he knew about his daughter. If the duchess was telling the truth, he was still oblivious to the fact he was a father.

So why had the duchess come? Not for any good reason, she was sure. The deep friendship that had grown between her and Max during the three years before she'd left the tour had flourished in great part because of Max's frustrating relationship with the woman sitting before her now.

Kristin recalled one particular incident about nine months after she'd won her first Wimbledon trophy. She and Max had been playing at the tournament in early spring at Indian Wells, California. She'd won her match and had gone searching for Max to share the news and perhaps hit some balls with him.

She'd found the handsome sixteen-year-old far from the crowd, smashing his tennis racquet against a bench near the practice courts. The frame was broken and the Wilson racquet head was bent almost in half.

“Hey,” she'd said as she approached him. “You okay?”

When he looked up, she saw his eyes were red-rimmed. He'd swiped at them and said, “What's up, Princess?”

She felt thrilled at hearing the new nickname he'd given her the past fall at the U.S. Open, when he saw her posing for a publicity picture her dad had wanted taken with all her shiny gold and silver and crystal trophies around her.

Max had said she looked like an Arabian princess with a hoard of jewels. Except for her blue eyes and blond hair, of course. If she were truly an Arabian princess, her eyes and hair would have been black. “Make
that a North American princess,” he'd corrected with a laugh.

She'd laughed back at him. But he'd called her Princess as often as K after that. She wasn't sure which she liked better. She was just happy spending time with Max, secretly loving him.

If she'd been able to see into the future, she would have tried to kill that love. At the time, she'd been blissfully infatuated. She'd even tried thinking up a nickname for him. But Max was short and sweet.

In her head she called him “sweetheart” and “honey.” But she was careful never to let on how she really felt. She knew the kind of woman he went for. Worldly. Sexually experienced. With a flashy figure.

Max might spend his nights with women like that, but he spent his free time during the day hanging around the tennis courts with her. She figured it was because he didn't have to be anyone but himself with her. She was the only one who saw him when he was feeling low. And he was usually feeling low because of something his mother had done.

Or hadn't done.

The duchess kept promising to come see him play. And making excuses why she hadn't shown up. She kept promising she'd get the family together. Then she'd tell him the family holiday in Tahiti or New York or on the Amalfi Coast had been canceled. She kept promising she'd call. And never did.

He'd told Kristin he didn't believe anything his mother
said anymore. But he kept waiting and hoping she'd change.

When Kristin found him smashing his racquet, she knew it had to be something the duchess had said. Or not done. “What did she do now?” she asked.

He examined the ruined racquet and said, “She was supposed to come see me play in the finals. I don't know why I thought she'd actually show up. She has some charity event in New York she forgot about. She's not coming.”

“Why do you even care?” she said fiercely, hurting inside for the boy she loved. “She's a mean witch!”

He'd laughed, startled at her outburst, she supposed. “Princess, you're talking about my mother,” he'd chided.

“I don't care. I'd call out anybody who treated you that way. Including that mean witch.”

He'd grinned and ruffled her hair in a way that reminded her he saw her as a kid sister.

She slapped his hand away. “Stop that! You wouldn't do that to one of your girlfriends, would you?”

He eyed her askance. “Whoa, K. What's with the attitude?”

“I'm not five years old,” she complained.

He studied her for a moment. She flushed because he seemed to notice she filled out her tennis togs better than she had the previous year at Wimbledon. “Point taken,” he said at last. “Well, K, I'll say this for you. I'm not going to break any more racquets because of anything the Mean Witch does.”

Kristin laughed as he parroted her expression.

From then on, that was how the two of them had referred to his mother. That was how she thought of the woman sitting before her now. The last thing Kristin wanted—or needed—was trouble from the Mean Witch.

She sank into the nearby chair, staring with wary eyes at the duchess. “How did you find out about Flick?”

“I employ a very good private investigator. Mr. Warren has been very helpful over the years. Please, let me start with the reason I'm here.”

“I don't want anything from you,” Kristin said.

“You may not want my assistance, my dear. But you need it.”

“I've been taking care of my family just fine without help from anyone,” Kristin flared.

“Yes, but you've just been suspended from your job, which seems to be in jeopardy. And you don't have the money to pay for your father's medical expenses or physical therapy. Or for after-school child care, or private school, for that matter, since Felicity has been thrown out of that Swiss boarding school where she had a scholarship. And you can't afford to pay a lawyer to defend you in the civil lawsuit that's been filed against you.”

“How could you possibly know all that?” Kristin demanded, aghast. “I only found out twenty minutes ago that I'm on suspension. Flick's barely been home twenty-four hours. And a person's legal business and personal finances—”

“Can be examined without too much trouble. I
sponsored Felicity's scholarship, so the headmistress informed me immediately when she was dismissed for fighting.