Deep Waters (2 page)

It was her responsibility to solve problems. She was good at that kind of thing. People expected her to take command, to manage whatever crisis happened to present itself.

Charity's hands tingled. She could not get any air into her lungs. She was going to faint, right here in front of some of the most influential and powerful people in the Northwest.

She had a humiliating vision of herself collapsed facedown on the Oriental rug, surrounded by bemused friends, business associates, competitors, rivals, and, worst of all, a few chosen members of the local media.

“Charity?”

The sound of her own name startled her. Charity whirled, red silk skirts whipping around her ankles, and looked up at her stepsister, Meredith.

A long way up.

At twenty-nine, Charity was five years older
than Meredith, but she was only five foot four inches tall on her best days. Even the three-inch red heels she wore tonight did not put her at eye level with five-foot-ten Meredith, who was also wearing heels.

Statuesque and crowned with a glorious mane of strawberry-blond hair, Meredith was always a stunning sight. Never more so, however, than when she was dressed to the teeth, as she was this evening. No one, Charity thought wistfully, could wear clothes the way her stepsister did.

With her strong, classical features and subtle air of sophistication, Meredith could have made her living as a professional model. She had actually done some in-store fashion work for the Truitt chain during her college days, but her savvy talent and her love of the family business had propelled her straight into management.

“Are you all right?” Meredith's light, jade green eyes narrowed in concern.

“I'm fine.” Charity glanced around quickly. “Is Davis here?”

“He's at the bar, talking to Brett.”

Unable to see over the heads of the people who stood between her and the club bar, Charity peered through cracks in the crowd. She managed to catch a glimpse of her stepbrother.

Davis was a year and a half older and three inches taller than Meredith. A deeply ingrained flare for retailing and boundless enthusiasm for the Truitt chain had defined his career path, also. Charity had recognized his abilities from the start. Six months ago she had decided to ignore whining accusations of nepotism and promote him to a vice presidency in the company. It was a
family
business, after all. And she, herself, had become president at an extraordinarily early age.

Davis's hair was the same arresting shade as his
sister's, and his eyes were a similar pale green. The colors and the height had come from Fletcher Truitt, Charity's stepfather.

Charity had received her own dark auburn hair and hazel eyes from her mother. She had few memories of her biological father. A professional photographer, Samson Lapford had abandoned his family when Charity was three years old to travel the world shooting pictures of volcanoes and rain forests. He had been killed in a fall while trying to get a close-up of a rare fern that only grew on the sides of certain South American mountains.

Fletcher Truitt was the only father Charity had ever known, and he had been a good one. For his sake and the sake of her mother, she had done her best to fill his shoes since their deaths five years before and hold the family inheritance together for her step-siblings.

The crowd shifted slightly, allowing another view of the bar. Charity saw Brett Loftus, sun-bright hair gleaming in the subdued light, broad shoulders looking even more massive than usual in a tux. A good-natured Norse god of a man, he lounged with negligent ease next to Davis.

Charity shuddered. Once again all the oxygen in the room seemed to disappear. Her palms were so damp she dared not dry them on the expensive fabric of her gown.

Davis was big, but Brett was huge. Charity told herself that there were any number of women in the room who would have traded their Truitt credit cards for a chance to be swept off their feet by Brett Loftus. Sadly, she was not one of them.

The reality of what was happening sent a shock wave through her. With searing certainty she suddenly knew that she could not go through with the engagement, not even for the sake of her step-siblings' inheritance,
the altar on which she had sacrificed the past five years of her life.

“Maybe you need a glass of champagne, Charity.” Meredith took her arm. “Come on, let's go join Brett and Davis. You know, you've been acting a little strange lately. I think you've been working too hard. Maybe trying to combine the merger with your engagement plans was a bit too much. Now there's the wedding to schedule and a honeymoon.”

“Too much.” The panic was almost intolerable. She would go crazy if she didn't get out of here. She had to escape. “Yes. Too much. I have to leave, Meredith.”

“What?” Meredith started to turn, an expression of astonishment on her face.

“Right now.”

“Calm down, Charity. What are you saying? You can't just run off. What would Brett think? Not to mention all these people we've invited.”

Guilt and the old steely sense of duty swamped Charity. For a few seconds, the combination did battle with the anxiety and managed to gain control.

“You're right,” Charity gasped. “I can't run away yet. I have to explain to Brett.”

Meredith looked genuinely alarmed now. “Explain what to Brett?”

“That I can't do this. I tried. God knows, I tried. I told myself that it was the right thing to do for everyone. But it's not right. Brett is too nice, he doesn't deserve this.”

“Deserve what? Charity, you're not making any sense.”

“I've got to tell him. I hope he'll understand.”

“Maybe we should go someplace private to discuss this,” Meredith said urgently. “How about the ladies' room?”

“I don't think that's necessary.” Charity rubbed her
forehead. She could not concentrate. Like a gazelle at the water hole, she kept scanning the bushes, watching for lions. “With any luck, I won't be sick until after I get out of here.”

Through sheer force of will, a will that had been tempered in fire when she had assumed the reins of her family's faltering department store chain, Charity fought the panic. She made her way through the crowd toward the bar. It was like walking a gauntlet.

Brett and Davis both turned to her as she emerged from the throng. Davis gave her a brotherly grin of welcome and raised his wineglass in a cheerful toast.

“About time you got here, Charity,” he said. “Thought maybe you got held up at the office.”

Brett smiled affectionately. “You look terrific, honey. Ready for the big announcement?”

“No,” Charity said baldly. She came to a halt in front of him. “Brett, I am very, very sorry, but I can't go through with this.”

Brett frowned. “Something wrong?”

“Me. I'm wrong for you. And you're wrong for me. I like you very much. You've been a good friend, and you would have made a fine business partner. But I can't marry you.”

Brett blinked. Davis stared at her slack-jawed. Meredith's eyes widened in shock. Charity was dimly aware of the hush that had descended on the nearby guests. Heads turned.

“Oh, lord, this is going to be even worse than I thought,” Charity whispered. “I am so sorry. Brett, you're a fine man. You deserve to marry for love and passion, not for friendship or business reasons.”

Brett slowly put down his glass. “I don't understand.”

“Neither did I until now. Brett, I can't go through with this engagement. It would not be fair to either
of us. We don't love each other. We're friends and business associates, but that's not enough. I can't do it. I thought I could, but I can't.”

No one said a word. Everyone in the room was now staring at Charity, transfixed. The panic surged through her again.

“Oh, God, I've got to get out of here.” She swung around and found Meredith blocking her path. “Get out of the way. Please.”

“Charity, this is crazy.” Meredith caught hold of her shoulders. “You can't run off like this. How can you not want to marry Brett? He's perfect. Do you hear me?
Perfect.”

Charity could hardly breathe. She was reeling from the shock of her own actions, but she could not pull back from the brink. A devil's brew of guilt, anger, and fear scalded her insides.

“He's too big.” She flung out her hands in a helpless, desperate gesture. “Don't you see? I can't marry him, Meredith.
He's too big.”

“Are you crazy?” Meredith gave Charity a small shake. “Brett is a wonderful, wonderful man. You're the luckiest woman alive.”

“If you think he's so damn wonderful, why don't you marry him yourself?” Horrified at her loss of control, Charity jerked free of her stepsister's grip. She hurtled straight into the crowd.

The stunned onlookers dodged this way and that to clear a path for her. Charity dashed across the Oriental carpet and out through the French doors of the lounge.

She did not pause in the mellow, old-world club lobby. A startled doorman saw her coming and leaped to open the front door for her. She rushed past him and went down the front steps, precariously balanced
on her three-inch heels. She was breathless when she reached the sidewalk in front of the club.

It was five minutes after eight on a summer evening. Downtown Seattle was still basking in the late sunlight. She spotted a cab that was just pulling up to the curb.

The rear door of the cab opened. Charity recognized the middle-aged couple who got out. George and Charlotte Trainer. Business acquaintances. Invited guests. Important people.

“Charity?” George Trainer looked at her in surprise. “What's going on?”

“Sorry, I need that cab.” Charity pushed past the Trainers and leaped into the backseat. She slammed the door. “Drive.”

The cab driver shrugged and pulled away from the curb. “Where to?”

“Anywhere. I don't care. Just drive. Please.” From out of nowhere, an image of the open sea flashed through her mind. Freedom. Escape. “No, wait, I know where I want to go. Take me down to the waterfront.”

“You got it.”

A few minutes later, Charity stood at the end of one of the tourist-oriented piers that jutted out from Seattle's busy waterfront. The breeze off Elliott Bay churned her red silk skirts and filled her lungs. She could breathe freely at last. At least for a while.

She stood there clutching the railing for a long time. When the sun finally sank behind the Olympic Mountains, briefly painting the sky with the color of fire, Charity forced herself to face reality.

She was burned out at the age of twenty-nine.

At a time in life when others were just getting their careers into high gear, she was going down in flames. She had nothing left to give to the family business.

She could not go back to the presidential suite of the Truitt department store chain. She hated the very thought of ever stepping foot into her own office.

Wearily she closed her eyes against the guilt and shame that seized her. It was almost unbearable. For five long years, ever since her mother and stepfather had died in an avalanche while skiing in Switzerland, she had tried to fulfill the demanding responsibilities she had inherited.

She had done her best to salvage her step-siblings' legacy and preserve it for them. But today she had reached the limits of whatever internal resources had brought her this far.

She could not go back to Truitt, the corporation that she had never wanted to run in the first place. She could not go back to Brett Loftus, whose bearlike embrace induced panic.

She had to escape or she would go crazy.

Crazy.

Charity gazed down into the dark waters of the bay and wondered if this was how it felt to be on the edge of what an earlier generation would have called a nervous breakdown.

Prologue: Elias
 
 

Revenge and deep water have much in common. A man may get sucked down into either and drown before he understands the true danger.

—“On the Way of Water,” from the journal of Hayden Stone

Elias Winters looked into the face of the man he intended to destroy and saw the truth at last. With a shock of devastating clarity, he understood that he had wasted several years of his life plotting a vengeance that would bring him no satisfaction.

“Well, Winters?” Garrick Keyworth's heavy features congealed with irritation and impatience. “You demanded this meeting. Said you had something to discuss concerning my company's business operations in the Pacific.”

“Yes.”

“Let's hear it. You may have all day to sit around and shoot the breeze, but I've got a corporation to run.”

“This won't take long.” Elias glanced at the deceptively thin envelope he had brought with him.

Inside the slim white packet was the information that could cripple, perhaps even fatally wound, Keyworth International. The contents represented the culmination of three years of careful planning, endless nights spent studying the host of variables involved, countless hours of cautious maneuvering and manipulation.