Beautiful Lies

Dear Reader,

My love affair with all things Australian began almost a dozen years ago when my family and I had the opportunity to spend four months in Adelaide. Two years ago when we had the opportunity to return, I knew that the time was ripe to research and write a story that had haunted me since my first visit.

At the beginning of this century there really was an unlucky pearl found off the coast of Broome. Some years later that pearl was lost in a storm at sea and lives on only in legend and in the seed of this story. But in the same way that a pearl is formed, that tiny seed grew and transformed itself over the years into this tale of two families tempted and torn apart by their own flaws and by their lust for a pearl that has none.

I'm grateful to so many people for extending the hand of welcome along the way, but none more so than the congregation of the Unitarian Church of South Australia. I found on both my visits that Australians are among the world's most generous people, always willing to help and unwilling to take credit for their kindness.

But may I say thank you, anyway?

Australian history is almost always picturesque;
indeed, it is so curious and strange that it
is itself the chiefest novelty the country has
to offer…. It does not read like history,
but like the most beautiful lies.

—Mark Twain,
Following the Equator,
1897

The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
Shall come again, transformed to Orient pearl

—William Shakespeare
Richard III
(IV, iv)

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

San Francisco—Present Day

“H
ey, lady! Better watch out for sharks.”

In a different context, the warning might not have seemed so ominous to Liana Robeson. Spoken by a mother lecturing her adolescent surfer, or a retiring CEO handing over the reins to his young and eager replacement, it might have seemed like good advice. But in the middle of a San Francisco sidewalk, when she was fast approaching the epicenter of the worst panic attack she'd experienced in months, the words sent a screech of alarm up and down Liana's rigid spine.

She was surrounded by sharks, and she could feel them circling.

“You won't forget now, will you?”

Liana batted at the hand puppet the homeless man continued to wiggle in front of her face. “No…no, I won't forget.”

The puppet, a grinning dolphin, fell away. The man,
dark-skinned and lean, moved a little closer. He spoke over the clanging of a cable car across the busy street. “You all right, honey? You looking pale.”

“I'm…” The words wouldn't form. She wasn't all right. She was a thirty-eight-year-old businesswoman who could not walk down a sidewalk by herself. She was afraid of open spaces, afraid of the unfamiliar, terrified of all the forces in her life that she couldn't see or control. She was a mother who just hours before had committed her son to a 737 and the great unknown. At 8:16 that morning she had watched her only child board the plane that would deliver him into his father's arms. Now she was paying the price.

Concern filled the man's eyes, but he waited for the cable car to depart. “Didn't mean to scare you. Flipper here, he won't hurt you.”

Liana squeezed her eyelids shut, so tight that the tentative sun rays piercing the afternoon gloom disappeared. For a moment she was in her own little world, fog sliding along overheated skin that would quickly turn icy cold if she didn't pull herself out of this.

Skin icy cold, heartbeat faster than a firing squad drum-roll, a million fiery needles stabbing at her extremities—oh, she'd been here before. She knew what she could expect.

“Honey, you had anything to eat today?”

Liana opened her eyes. The man was still there. She was dressed in Thai silk and Irish linen; his T-shirt had been old five years ago. Under his arm he held a stack of newspapers published by a coalition of the homeless. She always had her driver buy a copy, but she'd never actually read one.

“I'm fine, thanks.” In an effort to take charge, she pointed to the papers. “I'll take one.”

“Well, that's just fine. Flipper says thank you.” He and
Flipper began to shuffle through the papers, looking for the best of the stack.

Belatedly, Liana wondered if she had any money. She was a vice president of one of the Bay Area's largest development companies. In the hours since she had accompanied Matthew to the airport, she had represented Pacific International Growth and Development at two meetings and picked over a seafood salad at Tarantino's with real estate magnates from four continents. As always, she had been driven from one location to another with no thought of carfare or parking fees.

Then she had made the mistake of abandoning the limo to walk the final three blocks to the Robeson Building. She had forced herself to take this journey down California Street on foot, forced herself because her world was growing narrower, and she had to fight.

Or one day she would wake up and find herself unable to leave her bedroom.

She wrenched open her purse, but a search turned up nothing except a crumpled dollar bill. Officially it was more than enough, but she didn't often encounter kindness.

“Look, take this.” She shoved the dollar bill at him as a bicycle whizzed by. She was not surprised to find her hand was trembling. “And this.” She put her hand on the lapel of her black blazer, which was embellished with a brooch from the days when she was young and foolish enough to believe she should follow her heart. The pearls were small but pristine, six of them tucked in a spray of lily-of-the-valley forged from fourteen-carat gold. The only man she'd ever loved had created the pearls. She had created the brooch.

The clasp gave way, and she took a second to lock it before she held it out.

His eyes widened. “I can't take—”

“Sure you can.” She reached for his hand and curled his dusty fingers over the brooch. “Take it to a good jeweler.”

He was staring at the brooch in fascination when she turned away. The look on his face carried her to the door of her building and across the black-and-white marble floor to the brass filigree elevator screen. Inside the empty car she pulled the emergency lever and closed her eyes.

Why should she be surprised that today of all days panic had burrowed straight through to her soul? This was June, and in June her beloved son belonged body and soul to his father, Cullen Llewellyn. Right now, if all had gone well with his flight, Matthew was already at LaGuardia, wrapped in Cullen's hearty embrace.

For weeks Matthew had thought of nothing but being with his father. They were going on a camping trip to the White Mountains, then to the coast of Maine, where Cullen had rented a boat and a primitive fisherman's cottage. Cullen, raised in the Australian outback on kangaroo milk and water-buffalo meat, Cullen, who was part Mad Max, part Crocodile Dundee, was going to teach their son to be a man.

At fourteen, Matthew was already tall enough for the role, but he still had a child's sensitivity. He was broad-shouldered and big-hearted, this man-child who was the very center of her existence. He had never by word or deed communicated that he preferred his father to her, but each June, despite an ironclad custody agreement, as she watched Matthew board his flight into Cullen's arms, she was never convinced he would return.

And why should she be convinced of anything where Cullen Llewellyn was concerned? A century ago an ancestor of Cullen's had nearly destroyed the Robeson family. Ten years ago Cullen had nearly destroyed her.

Liana sagged against the wood paneling and covered her eyes with her palms. She told herself she was sheltered securely in the building that was her second home. Matthew was gone, but of course he would come back.

She was safe.

Eventually the comfort of the familiar began to work its magic. Her mind continued to race, but mixed with adrenaline-laced forecasts of doom was the beginning of logic. By the time she restarted the elevator and waited for it to reach the offices on the top floor, she was in control again. When the doors opened and she stepped out of the car, her eyes were wide-open and her spine was as straight as the path she cut through the crowded hallway.

“Good afternoon, Miss Robeson.”

She nodded to personnel as she skirted walls of opalescent white hung with calming pastel seascapes. The decor was soothing, but the atmosphere was not. The most expensive interior design firm in the city hadn't found a way to veil the tension that permanently infused the air. The world of real-estate development was always cutthroat, and nowhere more so than in this building.

“Liana?”

Frank Fong, director of marketing, stepped into her path, forcing Liana to swerve and slow her pace. Oblivious to Liana's stony gaze, he fell into step beside her. “Your ex called. Twice.”

Liana didn't slow. She nodded to her stepbrother, Graham Wesley, Pacific International's CEO, who was having a conversation with another employee in the hallway outside his office. He returned her nod, but unlike Frank, he heeded Liana's somber expression and didn't approach her. At the desk nearest her office, her secretary, Carol, a quiet young woman who was easily wounded, didn't even meet her eyes.

Liana waited until she was inside her office with the door shut before she faced Frank. “He sounded upset,” Frank said. “Carol put him through to me. She was shaking in her Guccis.”

“Frank, this is a game divorced people play. Cullen calls to tell me Matthew's arrived, then he launches into a list of complaints. He doesn't like the clothes I sent along, or my arrangements for Matthew's flight home….”

“This sounded like more than picking a fight about blue jeans or Dockers.”

Liana clipped each word. “Cullen is incapable of repressing his feelings. When we were married, that made him great in bed and a complete washout the rest of the day.”

Frank affected a lisp. “Well, dahling, I wouldn't have been so quick to divorce him. On the timeclock of life, that puts him at least an hour ahead of the men I'm acquainted with.”

Liana leaned against the edge of her desk. Frank smiled, and, reluctantly, she did, too. She and Frank were distantly related, but any resemblance was subtle. Frank, one hundred and fifty pounds of honed muscle, had a ready smile that was as appealing as the streets of Chinatown, where he had grown up. Serious, tightly-wired Liana had a thin, angular body that barely topped five feet. But the shape and set of her dark eyes and the parchment tint of her skin hinted that she, like Frank, had family roots deep in the fertile soil of the Far East.

Liana glanced at her watch, a Cartier that was much less her style than the brooch she had given away. “Did Cullen say if Matthew got in on time? I heard there were storms expected over the Rockies. And he was changing planes in Denver.”

“No, he insisted he'd only speak to you.”

Liana didn't show her annoyance. “Well, he's not going
to have the chance. Graham and I are leaving in ten minutes for an interview.”

Frank turned away. “I told him you had an appointment and might not be available.”

Liana looked up again. “And he said?”

“Fuck the bloody appointment.” Frank managed a credible Australian accent. At the door, he faced her again. “Do you think a war with your ex is a good idea? What if he really does have something he needs to discuss?”

Liana thought of all the discussions she and Cullen had engaged in during the years of their marriage and the ten years since. There had been a century to discuss, a century in which the Robeson and Llewellyn families had murdered and betrayed each other. She and Cullen were star-crossed lovers, but there had been a time when they believed they could forge a future, despite the intrigues of the past.

They had been wrong.

Frank grew impatient. “Liana?”

“If I'm still here the next time Cullen calls, tell Carol to put him through. Otherwise, he can call me at home tonight. In the meantime, see if Carol can talk to Matthew. Maybe she can find out how the flight went.”

As the door clicked shut, Liana's shoulders sagged, but before she could take a deep breath someone rapped on the door again. It swung open, and Graham walked in.

“I saw Frank leaving. I'm not interrupting, am I?”

She told him part of the truth. “I'm just preparing myself to make PIG look like the best thing to happen to San Francisco since sourdough bread.”

She watched him wince at her nickname for the company he ran so effectively. “We could do without the acronym.”

“Sure. Let's be even more direct and call ourselves Pacific International Land Swindlers.”

“Maybe you ought to stay here and let me handle the interview.”

Liana motioned him inside. She and her stepbrother were not friends—her father, Thomas, had seen to that. But she and Graham understood each other. Together they had lived through Thomas's abuse, his tantrums, his plots and intrigues. In the end they had survived being pitted against each other to develop a grudging mutual respect. Blond-haired Graham, who at forty was still battling baby fat, did not resemble Liana, but underneath a thousand differences, one similarity bound them together: a helpless connection to the despicable man who had raised them both.

Graham closed the door and stood with his back against it. “Jonas called a little while ago.”

Jonas Grant was a reporter for the business section of the
San Francisco Chronicle.
Liana shrugged. “I sent him complete portfolios of everything we're involved in right now—at least, everything we want him to know about. Does he need something more?”

“He wants you to bring the pearl.”

For a moment Liana just stared. There was only one pearl Graham could be referring to. The Pearl of Great Price. The pearl that had been shifted back and forth between her ancestors and Cullen's since it had been plucked from the Indian Ocean floor. The pearl that was featured prominently on PIG's glorious logo.

“You're kidding,” she said at last.

“No. He claims the pearl will make a nice lead for his article and a good visual reference. They want a photo.”

Liana fell silent, mulling over Jonas Grant's request. The panic, which had subsided to a distant nagging buzz, threatened to rise inside her again. She circled her desk to gaze at the city stretching toward the bay.

“I don't like handling it, Graham.” She didn't add the postscript. The Pearl of Great Price had a tumultuous history. For all its rare, flawless beauty, it had never brought good luck to anyone. She didn't like the idea of handling the pearl today, not after Matthew had just left for the East Coast. She turned. “It's not like I can throw it in my purse with my tissues and lipstick.”

Graham nodded in sympathy. “Then don't bring it.”

Despite his casual tone, Liana knew Graham was hoping she would take his suggestion. Then he would have one more story about her reluctance to give her all for the corporation.

She faced him. “We'll need security, of course. Will you ask Frank to see to it?”

“If you really don't want to handle it, I can do it for you. It's only a pearl.”

She didn't pretend to consider his offer. “I just want to be sure we make the appropriate arrangements to protect it.”

The door closed behind Graham, and after several seconds she crossed the room and locked it. Then she leaned back against it and stared at the Georgia O'Keeffe print hanging on the wall to the right of her desk.