“Yes.”
The single word sounded like a boom in the wake of his silent chill.
“You took advantage of my attachment to that estate. You knew I would go as high as you wanted.”
Forcing a laugh, which sounded as artificial as it felt, she took a step back, her nerves stretching tighter and tighter.
“Actually I took advantage of your hatred for me and Jackie.” And because his silence confirmed it, she continued, battling the ugly truth. “I wasn’t even sure it would work. Maria just barely tolerates me. How would I know she would come tattling to you?”
Shaking his head, he covered another step. Though it was cowardly, Riya couldn’t stop herself from stepping back again. “Don’t minimize your accomplishment now. You knew exactly what you were doing.”
Heat flamed her cheeks. “Fine. Something she had said a few months ago stuck with me. About how you might have considered coming back long ago if only Jackie and I were gone. About how much you loved the estate, even the staff, and how dare Robert give it to me? About how I was stealing even this from you.”
“So you decided luring me here would make you the maximum amount of money on the estate.”
“That’s not true. I felt guilty. I never asked Robert for the estate. I know it’s not—”
“And your guilt, your insecurities give you the right to play games with me?”
The depth of his perception awed Riya. Despite constantly reminding herself that she had been too young to change anything, she had remembered his grief-stricken words again and again, felt guilt carve a permanent place inside her gut.
His gaze met hers, an icy resolve in it, and Riya forgot what she had been about to say. There was not an inch of that grief-stricken boy in him. Only a cold fire, an absolute detachment.
He reached her, and her heart slammed against her rib cage. She couldn’t blink, couldn’t look away from that piercing blue. And a slow tremor took root in her muscles. Like the time when she’d had the flu. Only in a less hurting and more disconcerting way. As if every fiber of her were a stringent pulse vibrating in tune to his every move.
His lean body neatly caging her against the alcove, his gaze was a fiery frost. “Why are you doing this?”
“You were gone for eleven years. Eleven years during which time I helped Robert with the administration of the estate, with the staff, with everything. You were off doing who knows what and I slogged over every account, every expense and income number, in the face of a staff that hated the very sight of me. I did everything I could to keep that place going.” She had tried to be a model daughter to Robert and Jackie, had taken care of him when he fell sick.
Nothing she had done had removed the shadows of guilt and ache in Robert’s eyes.
“That’s what this is all about? What I offered wasn’t enough?” Nathan said, coming closer. Satisfaction practically coated every word. “Name your price.”
“I don’t want money. I was trying to explain how much that estate means to me...I was—”
“Then what the hell do you want? How dare you manipulate me after your mother turned my mother’s last few days into the worst of her life?”
It took every ounce of her will to stand still, bearing the judgment in that gaze. The pain in his words cut through her. “I want you to see Robert.”
The silence that dawned was so tense that Riya felt the tension wind around them like a tangible rope. The knot in his brow cleared; the icy blue of his eyes widened. It was the last thing he had expected to hear. That she had surprised him left her only shaking in her leather pumps.
“No.”
Fisting her hands behind her, Riya pushed the words that refused to come under his scornful gaze. “Then I won’t sign it over. Ever.”
She could practically hear him size her up, reassess his assumptions about her in the way disbelief and then pity filled his gaze. He looked at her as though he was seeing her anew.
“Don’t lose what you’ve built trying to alleviate some weird guilt. Don’t push me into doing something I don’t want to. That estate, it’s the one thing in the entire world that means something to me.”
His words were laden with emotion and so much more. And she understood that attachment, because she loved the estate too. But she couldn’t weaken now, now that he was here in San Francisco, so close to Robert.
“I’ve already made my decision.”
He ran his fingers through his overlong hair, his gaze a winter frost. There was a tremble in the taut line of his shoulders, a hoarse thread in his tone when he spoke. “I’ll drag you through the courts. Your company, I’m going to tear it to pieces. Is it still worth it?”
Riya swayed, the impact of what he was saying sweeping through her with the force of a gale. To see her company pulled apart and sold for pieces... Every inch of her revolted at the mere thought. Desperation filled her words.
“I deceived you. My staff has nothing to do with this. Can you be so heartless to take away their jobs?”
Their gazes locked and held. And every second felt like an eternity to her.
Finally he spoke, his mouth a tight line. “Yes.”
The fight deflated out of Riya and she held herself together by sheer will. Her company was everything to her. But if Robert hadn’t been there for her when she needed an adult with a kind word, Riya couldn’t bear to imagine what her life would have been today.
“Fine. The estate, it’s rightfully yours, I believe that. And eventually it will be. But a legal battle will take years. Robert said he made sure the deed was ironclad, exactly to avoid this kind of battle if he died suddenly.”
“Because he’s determined to rob even this from me?”
“No. You’re misunderstanding him. He thought he was going to die. He... A long, drawn-out court battle is what you want for your mother’s house? For Maria and the staff who have looked after the house all these years, for your mother’s memory?”
His jaw flexed tight, the vein in his temple flickering threateningly. “You have no right to speak of her.”
The utter loathing in his words slashed through her. Because he was right. His fury was justified.
She had no right to even speak of his mother, no right to her estate. To this day, she was equal parts amazed and perplexed that Robert had even deeded it to her.
For the first time in her life, she truly wished she was more like her mother—carefree, blissfully ignorant of everything around her but her own happiness. Wished she could turn her back on this man who threatened everything she had built, wished she could turn her back on the shadows that haunted Robert’s eyes.
“I’ve no right to speak of her, true, but I’m sure she would never have wanted you to hate him all your life. Everyone’s always talking about what a generous and kind lady she was and—”
He flinched as though she had laid a hand on him. “You have no idea what she’d have wanted.” He stood at the window, just as Drew had done, his wide frame blocking the sunlight from coming in. Contrary to the cold, heartless man she had called him, he looked like a volcano of simmering emotions.
“Get out. I have nothing more to say to you.”
Riya closed the door behind her, her legs shaking. Panic pounded through her.
Would he break Travelogue into pieces? How could she fight to keep what was hers? How was she to convince him that it was only Robert’s haunting pain that had driven her to this?
Her head reeling, she stepped into the huge, open area laid out with open cabins.
The staff had already figured out that Drew was gone. The faint scraping and shuffling of chairs, the concerned glances in her direction—they were looking to her to provide some direction.
But Riya had no way to save the day, no answer to give to those hopeful looks. She grabbed her handbag and left, unable to think of anything else but temporary escape.
* * *
Nathan stared at the closed door, still trying to control his raging emotions. One flimsy, fragile woman had so nearly eroded his self-control.
It had taken him a few years to get over the grief of his mother’s death, to accept the fatality of his own condition. He’d been so scared, alone and he’d lashed out at the world.
But in the end, he had not only accepted it but also tailored his life to live it without being haunted by the fear of dying every minute. Had made sure he’d not formed an attachment to anyone, made sure that no relationship could leave him weak. Like the way it had left his mother in the end.
Had gloried in each day he had, lived it to the fullest.
Today, he hadn’t been able to help himself from taunting the manipulative minx, from pushing her. But for all the steely will with which she had manipulated him, there was a naiveté to her that cooled his interest. In a million years, he wouldn’t have expected his father to command such loyalty in anyone. So much that she was risking everything she owned.
But nothing he did or could do would shake that resolve. Despite the very clever way she had manipulated Maria and taken advantage of his attachment to the estate, he had to admire that resolve. And she was right about one more thing.
Engaging his father in a legal battle would gain him nothing but a deadlock for years to come. He would win in the end, but when, he didn’t know.
Time was the one thing that Nate didn’t have the luxury or certainty of.