The Enemy's Daughter (Dynasties: The Danforths Book 9) Page 13

  Selene’s father was going to flip out. He forced himself to read the article, his features hardening in disgust. Of course they had to drag that old story up. Poor Karis. Her husband George was going to be livid, too. When the story had broken a decade ago, he’d nearly called off the engagement. But Adam and Karis had finally been able to explain the misunderstanding, and Karis’s wedding had gone forward as planned. The couple still lived in the Savannah area and George wasn’t going to be happy at this latest smearing of his wife’s character.

  Character smearing. His father’s campaign was going to take a hit from this mess with Marcus, and to have Adam falsely broadcast across the media as a playboy wasn’t going to help. John Van Gelder must be dancing a jig this morning if he’d seen this article, even if he was furious that Selene was involved with Adam.

  If he was furious…how far would Selene go to earn her only parent’s love? Although he despised himself for it, he couldn’t banish the stirrings of suspicion that curled around the edges of his mind.

  Adam thought of the pain in her eyes, the longing that lingered in her tone when she spoke of her father despite the flashes of resentment he’d also seen. It was obvious she’d never felt loved. What, he wondered, would she do to gain his attention, his approval?

  And then the cold, unwanted thought he’d been fruitlessly trying to evade exploded in his brain. Could she possibly have planned all this?

  He remembered his shock when he’d learned her last name. He’d been too caught up in the romance of the moment to ask what a Van Gelder had been doing at his father’s campaign event, but he’d wondered about it off and on ever since. He’d intended to ask Selene but he’d forgotten. Several times.

  His mouth tightened into a grim line as he recalled why he’d forgotten, the explosive passion they’d shared, their last happy discussion of a future complete with children. Had it all been an act?

  Another knock on the half-open door interrupted his anguished thoughts, and he and Marcus both turned as their father strode in. He carried another copy of the paper, folded back to the same page at which Adam had been staring.

  “Are you all right?” Abe’s voice was gentle.

  Adam swallowed. He shook his head. “I don’t know. God, Dad, I’m sorry. This can’t be good for the campaign.”

  Abe shrugged. “There are things in life a lot more important than the campaign.” He held up the paper. “I didn’t even know you knew her.”

  There was a long moment of silence in the room.

  Finally, Adam admitted the hard truth. “Apparently, I didn’t.”

  Marc stirred. “How, exactly, did you two meet?”

  Adam swallowed. “She was at the Twin Oaks fundraiser in July.”

  Both his father’s and his brother’s eyes went wide with disbelief.

  “What was she doing there?” Marc demanded.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask her at the time, and since then, I keep forgetting when I’m with her.” It sounded unbelievably naive and feeble when he said it aloud. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  There was a silence in the room.

  Then his father chuckled. “Women have a way of making you forget any common sense you have. I knew Selene’s mother. If the daughter is half as beautiful, no wonder you forgot.”

  “Oh, she’s beautiful,” Marc growled. “On the outside, at least.”

  Adam felt too sick to speak.

  Abe laid a hand on Adam’s shoulder and squeezed briefly. “Don’t worry about it. If people are so easily swayed by ridiculous tabloid stories that they choose not to vote for me, then so be it.”

  He swallowed. “But I don’t want to cost you votes,” he said, “and I may have been stupid enough to—”

  “Adam,” said his father, “is—was she important to you?”

  Was oxygen important to breathing?

  Before he could answer, Marc nodded his head. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “She was.”

  His father and brother left the room again, but Adam barely realized they’d left. Numbly, he picked up the offensive newspaper again, looking at Selene’s smiling face. Sharp claws of pain ripped at his heart. He’d thought she really cared for him. He’d thought he’d finally found a woman who didn’t want anything from him, didn’t need anything except his love.

  He’d been wrong. Again.

  Selene was growing more frantic as the day wore on. Since she’d walked away from the breakfast table that morning she’d been trying to get hold of Adam without success. She’d called his home repeatedly, had left several messages there as well as on his cell phone. There was no answer at his office and the machine merely said that the D&D offices were closed temporarily, that someone would be in the office tomorrow.

  Four times, her father had knocked on the locked door of her bedroom suite, but she’d ignored him. If she never saw him again, her life would be perfectly fine. He’d treated her like secondhand goods for her entire life, fobbing her off on others and ignoring her as much as possible. And she’d learned to survive it. But he’d gone too far this time.

  How could he have hired someone to report on her movements? The very fact that he didn’t appear to understand how bizarre such an action was showed her just how out of touch her father was with the whole concept of being a parent. It had never occurred to him to simply ask her where she was going. No, he paid someone to report on her. And according to her father, it was simply an unfortunate mistake that the man he’d hired had been unethical and taken photos even though he hadn’t been instructed to.

  Pain squeezed her heart. If he’d loved her, he never would have let this happen. She shunted aside the pain and concentrated on the hard core of anger settling in her heart. She would never forgive him for this. He’d done something which could harm Adam’s family and through them, him.

  Adam, she thought on a wave of longing. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t called her. Was it possible he hadn’t seen the picture and accompanying article? She doubted it. More likely, he was holed up somewhere avoiding the media.

  God knew, she couldn’t blame him if he couldn’t contact her right now. Answering the phone had been a nightmare. But she was afraid she might miss a call from Adam if she didn’t answer it, and many of the calls couldn’t be identified with the caller I.D. screening system. She’d said, “No comment” so many times today that she’d lost track. So she’d suffered through the nosy questions in stony silence each time and simply hung up, hoping that the next time she lifted the handset, she’d hear Adam’s voice.

  If only she could go to him. But she couldn’t leave because there were at least five members of the media camped outside her father’s house. And even if she could, where would she go? He wasn’t home, he wasn’t at his office.

  And then it struck her. Crofthaven. He’d gone to his family home. Or possibly to his uncle’s. But she’d bet he’d wanted to speak to his father when the news broke, and perhaps he still was there. And she’d completely forgotten his brother’s troubles. If Marc was at the family estate, Adam would want to be with him.

  New hope flared within her heart. He probably hadn’t called for fear her father would answer. Not because Adam feared her father, but because he would be worried that his call might make things more difficult for her.

  Fingers trembling, she found a phone book and looked up the home number for Abraham Danforth.

  It rang three times before the connection opened.

  An unfamiliar male voice said, “Danforth residence, Whittaker speaking. May I help you?”

  “Yes,” she said. She had to stop and take a deep breath. “I’d like to speak to Adam, please.”

  “Who is calling?”

  “Selene Van Gelder.”

  There was a long pause. “Selene Van Gelder?” There was a distinct emphasis on her last name.

  “That’s correct.” Even to her ears, it sounded defiant and she winced. She didn’t want anyone in Adam’s family to think badly of her.

  “Just
a moment.”

  She waited and waited. And waited some more. He must have put her on hold because she heard none of the ordinary noises of a household, no approach of footsteps, nothing. Finally, there was a click and she heard a new voice. “Adam Danforth.”

  “Adam! I’m so glad I found you. I’ve left you dozens of messages at your home and on your cell. Are you all right?”

  Silence.

  Uncertainty assailed her. “Adam?”

  “Selene.” His voice was oddly flat. “What do you want?”

  She was taken aback. “I want to know if you’re all right. You had to rush off last night to help Marc and then this morning that odious article—”

  “About which you knew nothing, of course.” There was a distinct note of sarcasm in his voice now.

  “No, I—” She stopped as the tone and the meaning penetrated. “You think I…? Oh, no, Adam, it was my father. He—”

  “You, your father, what’s the difference?”

  Now it was her turn to be silent. He’d never spoken to her like that, faintly accusatory and without a shred of the warmth and intimacy with which his tone usually was imbued. “What,” she finally said, very careful to keep her voice neutral, “do you mean, what’s the difference between my father and me?”

  “Never mind,” Adam said. “What were you doing at my father’s fund-raiser in July? The one where we so conveniently met?”

  He thought she’d set him up. The pain was so sharp and sudden she nearly dropped the telephone. “My father made me go,” she said truthfully, knowing it would only nail shut the coffin of his former good opinion of her.

  “I see.”

  No, he didn’t see at all. And though a part of her already recognized that it was futile, she loved him so much she had to try to explain. “I didn’t want to go,” she said, “and I refused to spy on your family, but I said I would attend just to shut him up.”

  “What a sacrifice,” he said. “I suppose you went out with me just to shut him up, too.”

  “No! You know better than that.”

  “Do I?”

  There was another silence.

  “I knew I shouldn’t get involved with you,” she said. “I knew my father wasn’t rational in his dislike of your family. But when I saw your note, I couldn’t stop thinking about how perfect that night had been…”

  “Perfect, all right. It was the perfect opportunity to do something that would get you into your father’s good graces.”

  “No!” She was growing frantic. “I only wanted to be with you.”

  “You wanted,” he said deliberately, “to do anything that would make your father notice you.”

  That was when she realized how hopeless it was. His voice was cold and hard, completely unlike the man she’d grown to love.

  “What happens now?” She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth to hold back the sobs that made her throat ache.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.” And the receiver on his end went dead.

  Selene clung to the receiver, pressing it against her ear. Her last link to Adam. Finally, feeling as if she would break if she wasn’t very, very cautious, she pressed the button and killed the buzzing of the disconnect sound that was all he’d left her. Slowly she set the handset down. Then, very carefully, she lay down across her bed and laid her head on her crossed arms as the tears began to flow.

  Adam thought she’d betrayed him. On purpose. Funny, but to her the concept of betrayal had always had some sort of medieval overtone. She’d grown up in Europe, where generations had fought over lands since ancient times, and where betrayal of family and fealty featured prominently in many of the old tales. Now, however, it had become very modern and very real.

  Her father had betrayed her trust and the unconditional love she’d offered. And in doing so, he’d ruined her chance at a future with the man she loved.

  Adam thought she’d betrayed the love and trust he’d offered her. Did he really believe she wanted her father’s approval so desperately?

  Apparently, he did. How had it all gone so wrong?

  She cried for a long time, until her duvet was tear-soaked and her emotions were dulled. Until pain had given way to numbness and blank despair. She sat up finally and reached for a tissue, feeling stiff and far older than her years. Sliding off the bed, she looked at her swollen eyes in the mirror. Bleak shadows of loss met her when she gazed into her own eyes.

  What was she going to do? She had no reason to stay in Savannah, and yet she had no reason to go, either. There was no one who would miss her, no one to welcome her.

  And then she thought of Willi. Of Paris. An ocean away from the memories that would haunt her forever if she stayed here. Picking up the phone, she dialed the airlines. The earliest flight out was tomorrow just after eleven.

  She took it.

  He didn’t go home that night.

  For one thing, there were reporters everywhere, according to Ian and Jake. Marc had decided to brave the hordes and had escaped earlier in the company of his female bodyguard. Emphasis on body, Adam thought with perhaps the one real flash of humor he’d felt all day. His brother had seemed more alert and alive in the short hours since he’d met his attractive new bodyguard—more as if he gave a damn whether he lived or died—than he had in a year.

  The house was stifling him. He wished he could leave like Marc had, but the sad truth was that he really had nowhere to go. If he went home, he’d just be hounded by the press. And he’d already screwed things up enough for the old man without courting more trouble.

  Courting…he stepped through the French doors onto the terrace, closing them gently behind him. When he was a child and the house had become too oppressive, he’d escaped in this very same manner. He walked across the perfect lush green of the lawn, prettier now in early autumn than it had been during the heat of the summer, and headed past the gardens, past the peach orchard into the grove of trees at the far edge of the property.

  As a child, he’d spent hours beneath the cool, dark canopy of leafy branches festooned with Spanish moss. Even then, he’d been convinced he’d see the ghost that had haunted the property since the time of his great-grandfather Hiram.

  Today, for the first time he could remember, he didn’t even bother looking around as he stomped his way along the path. The trees gave way to massive bayberry and other shrubs as he neared the cliff above the property’s private beach, but he didn’t intend to go that far. He liked the solemn anonymity of the forested land.

  All he could think of was Selene, which was the height of stupidity after what she’d done. How could he have been so wrong about her? The night they’d met, he’d felt an astonishing sense of rightness with her that he’d never felt with any other woman. Certainly he’d never felt it with Angela—that had been nothing more than a crush. He was even more grateful to have escaped that mistake now that he knew what a real, loving relationship should entail.

  But you don’t, he reminded himself brutally. You don’t have any idea what a real relationship would be like. You’ve been living a lie with a woman who was using you.

  But his anger had begun to fade, replaced by a sweeping sadness that pervaded his thoughts and sapped his energy. Had it really all been a lie? He’d been so sure of her love.

  And she’d sounded so miserable on the phone. If she’d truly intended to string him along for the sake of making him look like a philandering fool in the media, why had she been so upset? For that matter, why had she called him at all? She had to know he’d figure it out, realize that she’d only been with him in an effort to dredge up gossip and tarnish his father’s campaign.

  He snorted. She’d gone awfully far. What would she have done if the media hadn’t picked up this story? Accused him of rape?

  The pain he’d buried returned with a vengeance and he sank down onto a fallen tree trunk along the side of the path, putting his head in his hands.

  “Adam.” It was a mere whisper of sound but it scared th
e hell out of him. He’d thought he was alone. He leaped to his feet, realizing even as he did so that at the far side of the clearing was something he’d never seen before in his life. Goose bumps rose along his arms, prickled up the back of his neck and along his scalp.

  A young woman stood on the far side of the small clearing where he’d stopped to sit. But she was no ordinary young woman. She was barely visible, a mere cloud shimmering in the afternoon light and he swallowed as he realized he could see right through her to the shrubby undergrowth behind her.

  She wore a traveling cloak from decades past over a floor-length gown. What little he could see of the dress was modest and unassuming, and she carried a small ladies’ bag and a bonnet over one arm. Her hair appeared to be dark and was parted down the middle and tightly pulled back from her face, woven into a braided twist that was anchored at the back of her head. Strangely, despite the fragile appearance of the…the vision, or whatever she was, her pretty features were plainly visible. She was young. Very young, probably not even twenty, he’d guess, if one could apply age to a…a ghost.

  His mouth was dry as a dust. His heart was thumping as if it would jump right out of his chest. For all the times he’d longed to see a ghost, it had never occurred to him that such an encounter would scare the pants off him. “Who are you?” he managed.

  “Priscilla Carlisle.”

  He was caught by her eyes, gazing straight at him with an expression of ineffable sadness. “Miss Carlisle.” He realized, even as he said it, who she was. “The governess.”

  She nodded somberly. “You know of me.”

  “Only a little. You were hired by Hiram Danforth. But as your coach arrived, a fierce storm hit. Your carriage overturned and you—you died.” He nearly pinched himself, just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. He was talking to a ghost!