She opened the front door, and her smile abruptly faded. Jess Jessup was standing on her porch, his dark hair tousled as if he'd been running his hands through it—or, more likely, some eager woman on the beach had rumpled his hair after Sara left. Judging by the grim expression on his face, the lady's attentions must have been unsatisfactory. Injecting as much ice into her voice as she could, Sara said scornfully, "If you're not here on official police business, go away and don't ever come back here again. For Sloan's sake, I'll be polite to you if she's with you, but if she's not, you stay away from me!" She wanted to say more, and worse, but she suddenly felt like crying, which made her feel stupid and even angrier.

His brows snapped together as she finished her tirade. "I came here to apologize for the things I said tonight," he said, sounding angry, not apologetic.

"Fine," Sara said coldly. "You've done it. It doesn't change my mind." She started to shove the door closed, but he blocked it with his foot.

"Now what?" she demanded.

"I just realized I didn't come here to apologize." Before she could react, he caught her shoulders and pulled her toward him. "Get your hands off me—" she stormed; then his mouth swooped down and captured hers in a hard kiss that was easy to resist—until it softened. Shock and anger and an awful twinge of pleasure made her pulse race, but she stayed perfectly still, refusing to give him the satisfaction of struggling or cooperating.

As soon as he released her, Sara stepped back, her right hand groping for the doorknob. "Is assault a turn-on for those bimbos you date?" she demanded, and before he could reply, Sara gave the door a mighty shove that sent it slamming in his face.

Paralyzed, Sara stayed where she was until she heard his car start; then she slowly turned and leaned limply against the front door. Dry-eyed, she stared at the carefully chosen accessories she'd bought for her living room—a beautiful porcelain vase, an antique footstool, a small Louis XIV table. They were cherished items, of fine quality—beautiful symbols of the beautiful life she planned for herself and the children she would someday have.

11

It was dusk when Carter Reynolds hung up the telephone in his office at home and swiveled around in his chair, gazing out the large circular window behind him. The San Francisco skyline stretched out before him, shrouded in fog—mysterious, exciting. In two weeks, he had to exchange all this for the monotonous blue skies of Palm Beach in March, a pilgrimage that his family had taken for generations, a tradition that his grandmother would not allow him to forsake.

In recent years, he'd come to regard the biannual trips to Palm Beach as increasingly irksome, unavoidable intrusions on his life, but after this last phone call, the trip was suddenly ripe with life-altering possibilities. For nearly an hour, he remained where he was, contemplating a complex variety of scenarios; then he swiveled around and pressed a button on the telephone that activated the house intercom. "Where is Mrs. Reynolds?" he asked the servant who answered.

"I believe she's resting in her room before dinner, sir."

"And my daughter?"

"I believe she is with Mrs. Reynolds, reading to her, sir."

Pleased that the women were together, he stood up and headed for the third floor, where forty years ago, his grandfather's architect had decided the family's suites should be located. Ignoring the elevator, he walked up a broad staircase with an ornate black wrought-iron railing; then he turned to the right, down a paneled hall where portraits of his ancestors brooded back at him from their heavy, richly carved frames.

"I'm glad the two of you are together," he said when Paris answered his knock and let him in. The room made him feel claustrophobic with its maroon brocade draperies perpetually drawn over the windows to block out the light and the cloying scent of lavender hanging in the air. Trying not to let it depress him, he looped his arm over Paris's shoulder and smiled at his grandmother, who was seated in a baroque chair beside the fireplace. With her white hair in a chignon and her frail body garbed in a gray dress with a high collar held together by a large filigree and ruby broach, Edith Reynolds looked like a well-to-do Whistler's Mother, except her spine was more rigid.

"What is it, Carter?" she demanded in her imperious voice. "Do be quick, will you. Paris was reading to me, and we're in a very good part of the story."

"I have exciting news for you both," he said, waiting politely for Paris to be seated.

"Sloan just called me," he told them. "She's had a change of heart. She's decided to join us in Palm Beach and stay with us for two weeks."

His grandmother relaxed back in her chair, and Paris shot out of hers, their expressions as opposite as their physical reactions to the news.

"You've done well," his grandmother told him with a regal inclination of her head and a slight thinning of her lips that was the closest she ever came to a smile.

His chestnut-haired daughter stared at him like a tense thoroughbred about to bolt over the gate. "You—you can't just walk in here and spring this on me at the last minute! I thought she wasn't coming. This isn't fair. I shouldn't have to deal with this. I don't want to go to Palm Beach!"

"Paris, don't be ridiculous. Of course you're going to Palm Beach." He turned toward the door, his last words spoken politely but with the quiet force of an edict. "And while we're there," he added, turning to face her, "I will expect you to spend as much time as possible with Noah. You can't expect to marry a man when you avoid him at every possible opportunity."

"I haven't been avoiding him; he's been in Europe!"

"He'll be in Palm Beach. You can make up for lost time while you're there."

Courtney Maitland perched on the arm of a leather chair in front of her brother's desk, watching him load files into two briefcases. "You just got back from Europe and you're already leaving again," she complained. "You spend more time away than you spend here at home."

Noah spared a glance for his fifteen-year-old half-sister, who was wearing a tight, shiny, black spandex skirt that barely covered her upper thighs and a hot pink tank top that barely covered her breasts. She looked like a pretty, sulky, overindulged teenager with an appalling taste for lewd clothes, all of which was true of her in his opinion. "Where the hell do you shop, anyway?" he demanded.

"I happen to be dressed in the height of fashion—my fashion," she informed him.

"You look like a hooker."