The color drained from her face. She vibrated with anger and emotion. A white line circled her tight lips. He wouldn’t be surprised if she slugged him. “I hope you burn in hell right next to my father.”
“Lying in that hospital bed knowing I’d killed our baby, that my wife didn’t want me and that I’d probably never walk again was hell. This is playing the game called life. I play to win and I play fair. If I’d wanted to fight dirty, I would have let you sleep past your midnight curfew the night we made love.”
“How magnanimous of you.” The pain in her eyes made his gut ache. “I lost everything that day, Lucas. The man I loved. Our child and any chance of ever having another one. A month later I learned my mother chose to kill herself rather than stick around and love me. She left me as if I didn’t matter. And you did, too.
“I lost everything important—everything money couldn’t buy. So don’t tell me about hell. Or life. Or fighting. Or playing the damned game. I’ve survived and I’ve fought and I’ve done nothing but play the damned game. Because I had to. Or I’d have ended up like my mother. And trust me, there were days when I seriously considered dying the best option. Because I thought I had nothing to live for.”
She choked out a mirthless laugh. “But I forgot. You have no conscience. Knowing I spent the better part of four years wishing I’d died in that car with you would have meant nothing to you. You wanted to know why I didn’t go to New York and study fashion design? Because I didn’t think it mattered what I studied in college. I didn’t intend to live long enough to graduate. I was too busy trying to find the nerve to kill myself.”
She yanked the door again. In his shock over her words he let her go.
She crossed the hall, shoved her key in her lock and glared at him over her shoulder. “Stay out of my face and out of my way. Or I will take out a restraining order against you so fast you won’t know what hit you. And then I’ll go to the press and tell them what a mean, selfish, conniving ass you really are.”
Her door slammed in his face and the dead bolt shot home as loud as a gun.
Lucas reeled. He braced himself against the doorjamb.
Nadia had considered suicide.
And if she’d ended her life, it would have been his fault.
Trapped.
Nadia curled in a chair in the corner of her patio as far away from Lucas’s apartment as she could get. The heavy night air closed around her. Hot. Humid. Suffocating.
She couldn’t leave Dallas.
Her brothers were counting on her. The library was counting on her. She was counting on herself. Running from her problems and calling for someone else to bail her out was no longer an option. Her daddy was right. It was time she grew up.
She picked up her cell phone for about the fiftieth time. She had to make the call, but it was the hardest one she’d ever had to make. Calling her brother to tell him she’d screwed up. Again. She’d been betrayed. Again. Used for what she could give someone. Again. No new territory there.
She’d rehashed every conversation she and Lucas had had, picking each sentence apart and trying to decide if she’d given him any crucial, confidential information that would help him in harming KCL. She didn’t know.
Taking a bracing breath, she hit Auto-dial.
“Rand Kincaid.” He sounded as if she’d woken him.
How late was it? She didn’t have a clue. She tipped her head back. The sky overhead was inky dark and star-studded.
“I-It’s Nadia. I’m sorry to call so late.”
“What’s wrong?” Any trace of grogginess in his voice had vanished.
“You were right. It is a personal vendetta. Lucas is behind Andvari and Teckitron and Mardi Gras.”
Rand’s curses blistered her ears. In the background she heard Tara asking questions and Rand’s muffled response. She couldn’t make out the words. “Tell me what you know.”
She recapped the afternoon’s discoveries. Rand didn’t rush her. He let her choke out her words. When she was done she sagged against the wall, out of breath, out of energy.
“Nadia, are you okay? I’ll charter a jet tonight—”
“No! We’re not blowing this or handing that bastard everything. I’m staying here. You’re staying there. We’re fighting until the end.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Nothing. Just keep on taking care of business the best way you and Mitch can. I’ll be fine.”
The questions she’d been asking herself since she’d left Lucas’s apartment pounded inside her skull.
“Why would he do it, Rand? Why would Dad threaten to leave everything to a man he paid to get out of my life? Why would he choose Lucas over his own children? He had to know who he was dealing with.”
“Dad was twisted. It’s impossible to make sense out of his actions. But, yes, this seems more whacked than anything I’ve seen thus far. He detested Stone. Partly because he thought your husband was a fortune hunter and partly because Dad couldn’t stand to lose his stranglehold on you.”
She blinked and straightened. “Stranglehold?”
“Dad smothered you, Nadia. You reminded him of Mom. You look like her. Your voice and your laugh sound like hers. And you’re as artistic as she was.”
Rand would know. He’d been fourteen when their mother died, old enough to remember her. Nadia didn’t have as many memories. The few she’d had contradicted each other. Sometimes her mother had adored her. Sometimes Mary Elizabeth Kincaid couldn’t seem to stand the sight of her youngest child.
“When those bozos tried to kidnap you when you were twelve, Dad went a little crazy. He didn’t like letting you out of his sight after that.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“He loved you probably as much as the old bastard was capable of loving anyone.”
She hugged the words close. “You think so? Because it didn’t feel like it.”
“I know so.” Rand cleared his throat. “Are you sure you’re…okay?”
She knew exactly what he meant. The uncomfortable hesitation was a dead giveaway. He’d been there too many times for her in the past not to know how fragile she’d been in her grief. “I’m fine. I’m not sad or depressed. I’m fighting mad. And Lucas had better not cross me.”
“About Stone…”
She clutched her anger around her like a cloak. “Don’t worry about him. Now that I know where I stand with him I know how to handle him.”
Brave words and a bald-faced lie. But one hint of vulnerability and one or both of her brothers would be in Dallas. And Lucas, the lying snake, would get everything. She couldn’t let that happen.
She would figure this out on her own. No calling in the reinforcements. This was her battle and she’d win it on her turf and her terms.
“You have a hell of a nerve showing up here, Stone,” Rand Kincaid growled.
Lucas hadn’t expected a warm welcome when he reached Kincaid Cruise Line’s Miami offices. He’d expected a fist in his face—if he’d gotten past security at the reception desk. Judging by the anger vibrating off the Kincaid brothers as they glared at him across the boardroom table he might get a pair of punches before he left the building.
“How is Nadia?”
It had been a damned long two weeks. She’d refused to open her door when he’d knocked and wouldn’t speak to him when they passed in the hall. She’d refused the gourmet meals and flowers he’d had delivered.
“None of your goddamned business.” Mitch bit out the words.
“The bodyguard is unnecessary. I’m not going to hurt her.” One of these turkeys had hired a mountain-size goon to keep him away from her. Nadia never left the apartment without the knuckle-dragger by her side to run interference.
It frustrated him that she lived yards away and couldn’t have been more unreachable if she’d been on another continent.
“What do you want?” Rand barked.
“To broker a deal.”
The terse curse and redundant hand gesture from the oldest Kincaid didn’t surprise him. Lucas knew his single-minded selfish need for revenge had hurt Nadia deeply. Her brothers wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, forget that. If she were his sister, he wouldn’t.
He hadn’t expected making amends and finding a solution or forgiveness to come easily. It had taken him ten days of meetings with a legal team and business advisors to find a potential way around the mess of Everett Kincaid’s last wishes.
Neither of the Kincaids invited him to sit.
“My understanding is that if the terms of your father’s will aren’t met, Mardi Gras cruising becomes the owner of everything he possessed. Correct?”
Rand planted his fists on the table and leaned across aggressively. “How do you know that?”
“Nadia told me part of it. The rest I discovered when I read a copy of Everett’s will.”
“Son of a bitch,” Mitch snarled. “How did you get a copy? It’s not public record yet.”
“I believe your father’s favorite phrase was ‘Everyone has a price and a weakness…look hard enough you’ll find them.’ Everett exploited my weakness and found my price. I was wrong to take his payoff and abandon Nadia. I hurt her. There’s no getting around that. My reasons for taking the money don’t matter. I make no excuses for being a stupid, greedy coward.”
Their raised eyebrows told him he’d shocked them.
“My vendetta was with your father, but as Nadia pointed out, he’s gone. It’s time to end this. I want to sell Mardi Gras to KCL.”
Identical Kincaid chins jacked up. Lucas had Mitch’s and Rand’s undivided attention. Taking advantage of their stunned silence, he laid his briefcase on the table, popped the locks and withdrew a sheaf of documents. He slid the stack across the wide table and focused on Mitch’s eyes—eyes the same green as Nadia’s.
“I’ve had my attorney draw up the sales contract.”
“Why?” Randasked, his tone guarded and suspicious.
“Because if Kincaid Cruise Line owns Mardi Gras Cruising then no matter how this year ends and whether or not the three of you fulfill the terms of Everett’s will, KCL and every other property Everett owned will remain in Kincaid hands.”
“You’re saying if we forfeited, we’d be forfeiting to ourselves. That’s twisted logic,” Rand said as he flipped through the pages. “But it might work. We’d have to have our attorneys and accountants go over this.”
“Of course.”
Shaking his head Mitch stepped back from reading over his brother’s shoulder. “We can’t do it. We don’t have the ready cash—as you no doubt know since your company bought off KCL’s loans. This is an empty gesture. And if you call the loans, then we’re in worse shape than when we started.”
“I’m not calling the loans, although I admit that was my initial plan. The terms will remain exactly as stated in the original loan documentation. As for whether or not you can afford the deal…I don’t believe you’ve seen my asking price. Page fifty. Last paragraph.”