Blood Royal (42 page)
Authors: Harold Robbins
“You’re not going to tell me…”
“Right! She cut off the girl’s heel. Then the same thing happens, the prince takes her away and discovers the bleeding foot.”
“What happens next?”
“Cinderella lives happily ever after, but her two sisters didn’t.”
“What happened to them?”
“If I tell you, you’ll never believe in another fairy tale. I can tell you this—it’s worse than cutting off a toe.”
“Is there a moral to all this? Or did you just tell it to get me sick?”
“The moral, luv, is that there are no fairy tales, but life doesn’t have to be a horror story. They made their lives into a mess themselves. The prince and the princess were mere mortals, just like the rest of us. They didn’t want to show it, because when they did, they would disappoint us. We want them to be special, but they put their pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us. They should have just been honest with each other and the world, done their thing, and told the rest of the world to screw off.”
Marlowe kissed him long and hard. “Dutton, when it comes to philosophy about the mysteries of life, I think you should stick to alien abduction theories.”
the wedding with the King’s son was to be celebrated, the two false sisters came and wanted to get into favor with Cinderella and share her good fortune.
When the betrothed couple went to church, the elder was at the right side and the younger at the left, and the pigeons pecked out one eye from each of them.
Afterwards as they came back, the elder was at the left, and the younger at the right, and then the pigeons pecked out the other eye from each.
And thus, for their wickedness and falsehood, they were punished with blindness all their days.
—CINDERELLA
63
Rome
Two young women, sales clerks in a department store in the Eternal City, huddled together near a cash register and whispered to each other.
“What a strange man that foreigner is over there at the sock rack.”
“What’s so strange about him?”
“He’s buying a pair of socks, but he’s taking forever to do it. He doesn’t know his size or that one size fits most men, can’t make up his mind about the colors. He asked me whether he was supposed to coordinate the color of socks with his shoes or with his clothes. All this for buying a pair of socks. I wanted to ask him, is your mama still dressing you?”
“He
is
a little odd. He’s looking at the price tag like he’s trying to figure out what it means. Did you notice his ears, too?”
“Aren’t they strange? Both are bandaged, like he’s just been operated on.”
felt Aladár’s fingers undoing her gown, and as it fell to the floor he lifted her in his arms.
With his mouth holding her captive, he carried her away into a glorious secret kingdom of their own where there was no pride … only a fiery, uncontrolled, ecstatic love.
—BARBARA CARTLAND,
THE PROUD PRINCESS
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously.
BLOOD ROYAL
Copyright © 2005 by Jann Robbins
Excerpt from
The Devil to Pay
© 2006 by Jann Robbins
All rights reserved.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
Forge
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN-13: 978-0-765-34722-0
ISBN-10: 0-765-34722-9
First edition: September 2005
First mass market edition: October 2006
eISBN 9781466833708
First eBook edition: November 2012
FORGE BOOKS
BY HAROLD ROBBINS
Blood Royal
(with Junius Podrug)
The Betrayers
(with Junius Podrug)
Heat of Passion
Never Enough
Never Leave Me
The Predators
The Secret
Sin City
P
RAISE FOR
H
AROLD
R
OBBINS
“Robbins’s dialogue is moving.… His people have the warmth of life.”
—The New York Times
“Robbins has the ability to hold his readers absorbed.”
—Chicago Tribune
“His characters are compelling, his dialogue is dramatic, and his style is simple and straightforward.”
—Los Angeles Times
“International settings … steamy sex scenes.”
—Romantic Times BookReviews
on
The Betrayers
“Robbins’s literary legacy remains very much alive, and his thousands of fans should experience a pleasant sense of déjà vu as they race through this latest installment.”
—Publishers Weekly
on
Heat of Passion
“Robbins’s sixth posthumous novel finds new cowriter Podrug outwriting the hormonal ghost.… Podrug’s strong, crisp style excels.”
—Kirkus Reviews
on
The Betrayers
“Robbins’s fans will not be disappointed in this latest book.”
—Booklist
on
The Betrayers
“Splendid pulp … Stunningly well-written.”
—Kirkus Reviews
on
Heat of Passion
“An intriguing story … fascinating.”
—Romantic Times BookReviews
on
Heat of Passion
A preview of
THE
DEVIL TO PAY
by HAROLD ROBBINS
AND JUNIUS PODRUG
Now available
From Tom Doherty Associates
1
Decaf Latte with Low-Fat Milk and Artificial Sweetener
“I’ve inherited what?”
I stared in disbelief at the man who had just told me I had come into an inheritance. Behind me, my coffee and muffin store—Café de Oro, an Urban Coffee Plantation—was in ashes … literally.
The man was waiting as I staggered out of the rubble, choking from smoke and ash. An explosion had destroyed not only my business but my financial vision for the future. Worse than the loss of my shop and the damage to adjoining buildings, one of my employees was dead. I hardly knew the victim, a Chinese emigrant named Johnny Woo who had worked for me for a couple weeks. Not a very agreeable type, but I’m sure someone somewhere loved him.
A leaky gas line was the probable cause, a fireman told me. I had gone into the smothering rubble against the shouts of firemen to find the cash box that held my weekend receipts and a vitally important document. I came out empty-handed except for a coating of gray-black ash, smoke in my eyes and lungs, and a charcoal face streaked with tears that erupted when I found out my business was gone and an employee dead.
As I came half-blind and stunned out of the debris, this suit with a Gucci briefcase and well-fed face was waiting to tell me I came into an inheritance. A bad joke on a day my dream went up in smoke and someone died.
“Screw off,” I said. That wasn’t the way I usually talked, although by today’s standards of thirty-one-year-old women it was pretty mild. But with my business trashed, an employee dead, and the owners of adjoining businesses no doubt already calling their attorneys to crank out lawsuits, I was in no mood for some jerk to make a joke.
Fighting back tears, too devastated to pounce on him and his expensive gray suit with whatever force 125 pounds of angry female could muster, I brushed by him to find a taxi to get away from the smothering ruin.
He spoke to my fleeing back. “I’m with the law firm of Kimball, Walters and Goldman. You’re walking away from a substantial inheritance.”
“He looks like a real lawyer to me,” a fireman said. “I know; my wife’s hauled me into court plenty of times.”
I turned and sized up the man. The fireman was right—he had the smug look of someone who wins no matter what side loses. A business lawyer, not a clever street lawyer like Johnnie Cochran or a charismatic showman like Gerry Spence, but the type who had an office in an ivory tower, billed for every breath he took, and was a master at those quiddities, quillets, and tricks Hamlet complained about.
Tasseled cordovan loafers were the clincher. A female lawyer friend told me that along with their thousand-dollar Armani suits, male business lawyers wore tasseled loafers while criminal lawyers preferred cowboy boots.
He approached me, a little hesitant. My knees were wobbly, my heart pounding, I needed a bath, a good cry, and a plane ticket that would take me far away from the mess my life had suddenly become. From his point of view, I suppose I looked like a slightly scorched maniac.
“Miss Novak, we represent the Estate of Carlos Castillo. Mr. Castillo owned a coffee plantation.”
“My shop—”
“Yes, you called your little coffee drink store a coffee plantation. But Mr. Castillo’s business was an actual plantation.”
“You mean a place with coffee plants—”
“I believe coffee grows on trees.”
“Is this a joke?”
“I’ve tried to explain to you that—”
“Just tell me, is this a joke?”
“This is not a joke. Mr. Castillo passed away and left you his plantation.”
“Left … me … his … plantation.” I let the words swish around my brain, trying to make sense of them. I didn’t know a Carlos Castillo. Or anyone who owned a coffee plantation. But I was desperate enough to clutch at what appeared to be a miracle. Or a mistake.
“Are you sure you have the right person? My name is Nash Novak, but I may not be the only Nash Novak in the world.”
“I would hope that you are the only Nash Novak who owns a coffee store in Seattle named Café de Oro.” He shook his head. “It’s not a mistake; the only address we were given for you was your store.” He glanced at the mess. “Former store.”
“All right, tell me exactly what’s going on; give me the bottom line.”
He took a step closer but stayed out of arm’s reach. “You have inherited a coffee plantation. I can understand why the news is such a surprise. We were advised that you had never met Mr. Castillo, your benefactor. My impression is that he was someone who knew of you and decided to benefit you.”
“I inherited a coffee plantation. From a stranger.” I could repeat the information, but my brain was having a difficult time processing it.
My store was in Pike Place Market, a cluster of quaint shops between First Avenue and the waterfront, overlooking Puget Sound. I stared out at the Sound, trying to get my feet under my brain. It was a gloom-and-doom morning; a haze of fog hadn’t burned off the Sound yet. Neither had the fuddle in my mind.
I tried to deal with it logically: Someone—a stranger—died and left me a coffee plantation. A real coffee plantation, not just a name like I used on my shop. The “coffee plantation” extension of my store’s name came from the interior decorations of green plastic plants and coffee bean sacks.
I struggled with the man’s name—Carlos Castillo. It didn’t connect. The name conjured up nothing except for the fact it sounded Spanish or Portuguese. It wasn’t possible a complete stranger would leave me an inheritance.
But that was exactly what this lawyer with tasseled shoes was telling me.
“This place … this plantation … what’s it worth?”
“We haven’t been given a valuation, but one can imagine that an actual coffee plantation would be worth a significant amount of money. Millions, for all we know.”
I nearly swooned. I know, modern women don’t swoon, but having your dreams and livelihood go up in smoke can ruin your whole day and send you back to basics. I gasped for air.
“Are you all right?”
I shook my head. “It’s been a bad morning, the worst in my life. Tell me about the snake.”
“The snake?”
“There’s always a snake in paradise, a catch, someone or something that’s going to throw cold water on winning the lottery, waiting for me to scratch the last number just to find out it’s a loser.”
“I honestly don’t know that much about the situation. Like you, I’ve never met Mr. Castillo. We were hired through a law firm in Miami simply to notify you of the inheritance.”
“Where’s this plantation?”
“Colombia.”
“Colombia? The country in South America?”
He smirked. “The last time I looked at a globe it was a country in South America. Just below Panama, I believe.”
“Isn’t that the place where there’s so much violence? Civil war, murder, kidnappings, the government always on the verge of being overwhelmed by drug lords and commie guerrillas?”
“I believe there is a history of trouble in Colombia.”
“How do I get my money?”
“Your money?”
“From my inheritance. Is this place going to be sold—”
“I really know little about the situation. The firm in Miami instructed us to give you the particulars on the lawyer in Colombia who handles the estate.” He raised his eyebrows. “I understand the plantation is in the jungles of Colombia. My impression from the Miami firm is that they also know little about the situation. It appears that not all the information coming out of the country can be relied upon. They believe that you will have to go to Colombia to get the details and claim your inheritance.”
I nodded, as if I was getting the big picture. “Okay, let me get this straight. You’re saying that a stranger has left me a coffee plantation thousands of miles from here, and in order to claim it, I have to go to one of the most dangerous places in the world?”
He cleared his throat. “Naturally, the firm of Kimball, Walters and Goldman will expect a complete waiver, holding us harmless for any prospective detriment that might occur in claiming this inheritance.”
“What makes you think I’d go to—”
“Nash! You bitch! I’m going to sue your ass!”
Vic Ferrara, the owner of the fish shop next to my coffee store, shouted and shook his fist at me. He was being restrained by two firemen. The smell of burnt cod was in the air.