Three Fates (5 page)

And if he didn’t steer the conversation as he was steering her, Malachi thought, they’d be right back in lecture mode. “You’re right, of course. I’m from a country that prizes its myths. Have you ever been to Ireland?”

“Once, when I was a child. I don’t remember it.”

“That’s a shame. You’ll have to go back. Are you warm enough?”

“Yes. I’m fine.” The minute she said it, she realized she should have complained of a chill and gotten away. The next problem was she’d been so flustered she’d paid no attention to the direction. Now she hadn’t a clue how to get back to the hotel. But surely it couldn’t be difficult.

The streets were straight and neat, she noted as she worked to calm herself. And though it was moving toward ten at night, crowded with people. It was the light, of course. That lovely, luminous summer light that drenched the city in warm charm.

She hadn’t even looked around until now, she admitted. Hadn’t taken a stroll, done any foolish shopping, had a coffee at one of the sidewalk tables.

She’d done here what she did all too often in New York. Stayed in her nest until she had to fulfill an obligation.

He thought she looked a bit like a sleepwalker coming out of a trance as she studied the surroundings. Her arm was still rigid in his, but he thought it less likely she’d bolt now. There were enough people around to make her feel safe with him, he assumed. Crowds and couples and tourists all taking advantage of the endless day.

There was music coming from the square, and the crowd was thicker there. He skirted the bulk of it, nudging her closer to the harbor, where the breeze danced. It was there, by the edge of that deep blue water where boats, red and white, bobbed, that he saw her smile easily for the first time.

“It’s beautiful.” She had to lift her voice over the music. “So streamlined and perfect. I wish I’d taken the ferry from Stockholm, but I was afraid I’d get seasick. Still, I’d have been sick on the Baltic Sea. That has to count for something.”

When he laughed, she glanced up, flustered. She’d nearly forgotten she’d been talking to a stranger. “That sounds stupid.”

“No, it sounds charming.” It surprised him that he meant it. “Let’s do what the Finns do at such a time.”

“Take a sauna?”

He laughed again, let his hand slide down her arm until it linked with hers. “Have some coffee.”

 

 

IT SHOULDN’T HAVE been possible. She shouldn’t have been sitting at a crowded sidewalk cafe, under pearly sunlight at eleven at night in a city thousands of miles from home. Certainly she shouldn’t have been sitting across from a man so ridiculously handsome she had to fight the urge to glance around to be sure he wasn’t talking to someone else.

His wonderful head of chestnut brown hair fluttered around his face in the steady breeze. It waved a bit, that hair, and caught glints of the sun. His face was smooth and narrow with just a hint of hollows in the cheeks. His mouth, mobile and firm, could light into a smile designed to make a woman’s pulse flutter.

It certainly worked on hers.

His eyes were framed by thick, dark lashes, arched over by expressive brows. But it was the eyes themselves that captivated her. They were the deep green of summer grass, with a halo of pale gold ringing the pupil. And they stayed fixed on hers when she spoke. Not in a probing, uncomfortable way. But an interested one.

She’d had men look at her with interest before. She wasn’t a gorgon, after all, she reminded herself. But somehow she’d managed to reach the age of twenty-nine and never have a man look at her in quite the way Malachi Sullivan looked at her.

She should have been nervous, but she wasn’t. Not really. She told herself it was because he was so obviously a gentleman, in both manner and dress. He spoke well, seemed so at ease with himself. The stone-gray business suit fit his tall, lanky form perfectly.

Her father, whose fashion sense was laser keen, would have approved.

She sipped her second cup of decaf coffee and wondered what generous gift of fate had put him in her path.

They were talking of the Three Fates again, but she didn’t mind. It was easier to talk of the gods than of personal things.

“I’ve never decided if it’s comforting or frightening to consider your life being determined, all before you’ve taken your first breath, by three women.”

“Not just the length of a life,” Tia put in, and had to bite back the urge to warn him of the perils of refined white sugar when he added a generous teaspoon to his coffee. “The tone of it. The good and the evil in you. The Fates distribute that good and that evil justly. It’s still up to a man what he does with what’s inside him.”

“Not preordained then?”

“Every act is an act of will, or lack of it.” She moved her shoulders. “And every act has consequences. Zeus, king of the gods, and quite the ladies’ man, wanted Thetis. The Moerae prophesied that her son would be more famous, perhaps more powerful in some way, than Zeus himself. And Zeus, recalling just how he’d dealt with his own father, feared siring this child. So he gave Thetis up, thinking of his own welfare.”

“It’s a foolish man who gives up a woman because of what may happen down the road.”

“It didn’t do him any good anyway, did it, since Thetis went on to mother Achilles. Perhaps if he’d followed his heart instead of his ambition, married her and loved the child, showed pride in his son’s accomplishments, Zeus would have had a different fate.”

What the hell had happened to Zeus? Malachi wondered, but thought it wiser not to ask. “So, he chose his own destiny by looking into the dark inside himself and projecting that on a child yet unconceived.”

Her face lit at his response. “You could say that. You could also say the past sends out ripples. If you follow mythology, you know every finger dipped into the pool sends those ripples out, and they touch on those who come after. Generation after generation.”

She had lovely eyes, he mused, when you got close enough to really look into them. The irises were a clear and perfect blue. “It’s the same with people, isn’t it?”

“I think so. That’s one of the core themes of the book. We can’t escape fate, but we can do a great deal to carve our own mark in it, to turn it to our advantage, or disadvantage.”

“It seems mine’s turned to advantage by scheduling this particular trip at this particular time.”

She knew the heat was rising to her cheeks again, and lifted her cup in hopes of hiding it. “You haven’t said what business you’re in.”

“Shipping.” It was close to the truth. “It’s a family business, several generations now. A fateful choice.” He said it casually, but watched her like a hawk watches a rabbit. “When you consider my great-great-grandfather was one of the survivors of the
Lusitania.
”

Her eyes widened as she lowered her cup. “Really? That’s so strange. Mine died on the
Lusitania.
”

“Is that the truth?” His astonishment was exactly the right tone. “That’s a strong coincidence. I wonder if they knew each other, Tia.” He touched a hand to hers, and when she didn’t jolt, let it linger. “I’m becoming a champion believer in fate.”

 

 

AS HE WALKED with her back to the hotel, Malachi debated how much more to say, and how to say it. In the end he decided to temper his impatience with discretion. If he brought up the statues too soon, she might see through the layers of coincidence to cold calculation.

“Do you have any plans for tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” She could barely get over that she’d ended up having plans tonight. “No, not really.”

“Why don’t I pick you up about one. We’ll have lunch.” He smiled as he led her into the lobby. “See where it takes us.”

She’d intended to pack, call home, work a bit on her new book and spend at least an hour doing her relaxation exercises.

She couldn’t think why.

“That would be nice.”

Perfect, he thought. He’d give her a little romance, a little adventure. A drive to the sea. And drop in the first mention of the little silver statues. At the desk he asked for her key and his own.

Before she could reach for her key, he had it in his hand and with the other pressed lightly to the small of her back, walked with her to the elevator.

It wasn’t until the doors whisked shut and she was alone with him in the elevator that she tasted the first bubble of panic. What was she doing? What was
he
doing? He’d only pressed the button for her floor.

She’d broken every rule in
The Businesswoman’s Travel Handbook.
Had obviously wasted $14.95 and all the hours she’d spent studying every page. He knew her room number and that she was traveling alone.

He would force himself into her room, rape and murder her. Or,
or
with the imprint of the key he could be making even now, he’d sneak in later and rape and murder her.

And all because she’d paid no attention to Chapter Two.

She cleared her throat. “Are you on four as well?”

“Hmm? No. I’m on six. I’ll walk you to your door, Tia, as my mother would expect. I need to find a present for her, some glass, I’m thinking. Maybe you’ll help me choose the right thing.”

The mention of his mother, as he’d expected, relaxed her again. “You’ll have to tell me what she likes.”

“She likes anything her children buy her,” he said as the elevator doors opened again.

“Children?”

“I’ve a brother and a sister. Gideon and Rebecca. She went biblical on the names, who knows why.” He stopped at her door, slid her key into the lock. After he’d turned the knob, eased it open a crack, he stepped back.

He heard and nearly chuckled at her quiet sigh of relief. And because he’d heard it, been amused by it, he took her hand. “I have to thank you, and the gods, for a memorable evening.”

“I had a lovely time.”

“Until tomorrow, then.” He kept his eyes on hers as he lifted her hand, brushed his lips over the knuckles. The little quiver of response did a great deal for his ego.

Shy, delicate and sweet. And as far from his type as the moon from the sun. Still, there was no reason a man shouldn’t experiment with a new taste now and again.

He might just have a sip of her tomorrow.

“Good night, Tia.”

“Good night.” A little flustered, she backed into the door, her gaze locked with his until she stepped over the threshold.

Then she turned. And she screamed.

He was in the room ahead of her like a bullet. Under other circumstances she’d have noted and admired the speed and grace with which he moved. But at the moment, all she saw was the wreck of her hotel room.

Her clothes were strewn everywhere. Her suitcases had been slit to pieces, the bed overturned, and all the drawers dumped. Her jewelry case had its contents spilled out and its lining ripped free.

The desk in the sitting area had been ransacked as well. And the laptop that had sat on it was gone.

“Bloody hell,” Malachi stated. All he could think was the bitch had beaten him to it.

Fury dark on his face, he whirled around. And one look at Tia had him biting back the rest of the oaths. She was white as a sheet, her eyes already going glassy with shock.

She doesn’t deserve this, he thought. And he had no doubt it was his hunting her down that had brought this on her.

“You need to sit down.”

“What?”

“Sit.” Brisk now, he took her by the arm and pulled her to a chair, dumped her in it. “We’ll call security. Can you tell if anything’s missing?”

“My computer.” She tried to catch her breath, found it blocked. Fearing an asthma attack, she dug in her briefcase for her inhaler. “My laptop’s gone.”

He frowned at her while she sucked on the inhaler. “What was on it?”

She waved a hand as she drew in medication. “My work,” she managed between gulps. “New book. E-mail, accounts—banking.” She rooted through her bag again for pills. “I’ve got a disk copy of the book in here.” But it was a prescription bottle she pulled out.

Malachi nipped it out of her hand. “What’s this?” He read the label, and his frown deepened. “We’ll just hold off on this for now. You’re not going to be hysterical.”

“I’m not?”

“You’re not.”

She felt the telltale tickle at the back of her throat that presaged a panic attack. “I think you’re wrong.”

“Stop that, you’ll hyperventilate or some such thing.” Straining for patience, he crouched in front of her. “Look at me now, breathe slowly. Just breathe slowly.”

“Can’t.”

“Yes, you can. You’re not hurt, are you? Got a mess on your hands is all.”

“Someone broke into my room.”

“That’s right, but that’s done. You gobbling down tranquilizers isn’t going to change it. What about your passport, any valuables. Important papers.”

Because he made her think instead of react, the constriction on her chest loosened. She shook her head. “I have my passport with me all the time. I don’t travel with anything really valuable. But my laptop—”

“You’ll buy another, won’t you?”

Put that way, she could only nod. “Yes.”

He got up to close the door. “Do you want to call security?”

“Yes, of course. The police.”

“Take a minute to be sure. You’re in a foreign country. A police report’ll generate a lot of red tape, take a lot of time and trouble. And there’d be publicity, I’d imagine.”

“But . . . someone broke into my room.”

“Maybe you should go through your things.” He kept his voice calm and practical as he thought it the best way to handle her. It was the way his own mother handled temper fits, and what was hysteria but a kind of temper?

“Make sure exactly what was taken.” He glanced around, then toed a little white machine with his foot. “What’s this?”

“Air purifier.” When he picked it up, set it on the desk, she got shakily to her feet. “I can’t understand why anyone would do all this for a laptop computer.”