Trust Me (9 page)

To her surprise, Max was not waiting in the car, or anywhere out in front of the house. Carly called his name, but there was
no answer, so she went back inside. She walked through the entry hall into the huge, echoing living room. The velvet drapes
were closed, as they usually were, and the room was dim until Carly flipped the switch that illuminated the central chandelier.
Glittering crystal light fell in ripples over the ornate furniture, but the room was empty.

She frowned, walking forward. “Max?”

There was light coming from the dining room, through an opening between the tall wooden doors. She called again and heard
the creak of old floorboards, then his voice.

“In here.”

The dining room drapes were open, and the evening sunlight streamed in to illuminate the heavy mahogany table and chairs.
Max was standing silently in front of a wall of framed oil portraits, and the tension in the set of his shoulders warned Carly
to approach cautiously.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

He didn’t look at her. “Pauline was right,” he said. “I do have the Tremayne eyes.”

Astonished, Carly followed his gaze to a picture of Alan Tremayne, Henry’s son. In the portrait, he was standing in front
of one of the old oak trees in the backyard. He looked young, like a college student, with long light brown hair and sideburns,
in the style of the early sixties. Alan had been killed in an accident, many years ago, and that was all Carly knew about
it. Henry did not talk about his personal life, preferring to focus their afternoon discussions on neutral subjects like literature
and animals, and Carly had never pressed him. She had always sensed a sadness underlying the old man’s courtly manner.

“I never knew that Alan had a son,” she said.

There was no humor in Max’s tight smile. “Neither did Alan.”

“But Henry—”

“Found out about me a little more than a year ago. After I hired an agency to find him. Someone got greedy, I guess. How’s
that for a confidential investigation? Those people are supposed to be the best in the business.”

“That’s pretty bad. But it did bring you and your grandfather together, so maybe—”

“Actually,” Max said, “it didn’t. I’ve never met Henry Tremayne.”

Carly stared at him. “But if you knew about him a year ago, and he knew about you, then why haven’t you met?”

“Why do people ever make the wrong decision?” Max asked harshly. “We screw up our lives and wonder why everything looks so
damn clear in retrospect.” The room was quiet for a moment, then he exhaled heavily. “I don’t know. It never seemed like the
right time to impose myself on him.”

“But I wonder why Henry never—” Carly stopped herself. For anyone who knew Henry Tremayne, the answer was obvious. “Of course,”
she said, thinking out loud. “He was waiting for you to come to him. That would be his style. He’s too polite to force his
way into anyone’s life. He knew that you had found him, so he was waiting…”

Max winced, and Carly wanted to bite her tongue off. This, then, was the darkness she had sensed yesterday in the clinic when
she had confronted him with accusations of neglecting his grandfather. No wonder he was suffering silently. Something, a reason
that she couldn’t have imagined, had kept him from contacting his grandfather, and now he knew he had waited too long.

“Why weren’t you ready, Max?” she asked, putting a gentle hand on his arm. He seemed hot under her fingers, as if there were
a fire smoldering just under his skin. He stiffened when she touched him, but didn’t pull away. “You were the one who searched
for him. What made you stop? When you found him, didn’t you want him?”

Max turned on her. “Want him!” he said hoarsely. “My own blood? He’s the only family I have left. I’ve been wanting him since
I was a kid. He just didn’t have a face or a name until fourteen months ago. But then, when I learned who he was…”

“He’s your grandfather. What else matters?”

“It’s not that simple. What was I supposed to do, show up at Henry Tremayne’s door, almost forty years after the fact, and
introduce myself? ‘Hi, Grandpa. You don’t know me, but I’m the product of Alan’s affair with a boozed-up cocktail waitress.
He would have provided for me, I’m sure of it, if it hadn’t been for that drunk-driving accident. Aren’t you glad to have
me as a reminder of how much your boy liked to party?’ ”

Carly knew that the anger in his voice was not directed at her, but still, she felt it sharply. She took a deep breath, rocked
by the turbulence around him, and reached out again.

“Max, you need to believe me. That’s not how Henry would see you. You don’t know him yet, but—”

“I know enough about him,” Max said. “And I know this: Long-lost relatives of rich old men tend to be looking for love of
the green paper variety. I’m no damn fortune hunter, and I’m not going to let myself look like one.”

“You?” Carly said incredulously. “You couldn’t.”

“I could. He’s too rich.”

“But so are you,” she said, then blushed when he raised his eyebrows at her. “Richard mentioned something about your company.
What I’m trying to say is, how could anyone possibly think of you as a fortune hunter? You have plenty of money.”

“Not enough,” Max said. “Not yet.”

“
M
ax Giordano?” Jeannie Martin-Schwartz paused over the bag of groceries she was unloading and considered the name. “Nope. Never
heard of him.”

“Good,” Carly said. “That makes it easier.”

“Why, who is he? Oh, Carly, get the baby. He’s making a break for it.”

Nine-month-old Nathan Martin-Schwartz was on all fours, doing a fast crawl toward the back door, which stood ajar.

“Hold it, kid,” Carly said, picking up her small nephew and turning him in the other direction. The baby paused, looking puzzled,
and Carly tickled his foot. “Max Giordano is Henry Tremayne’s grandson. I had dinner with him last night.”

“Oh, that sweet old guy with all the pets. How’s he doing?”

“Not well. He fell down the stairs and hurt his head on Wednesday night. He’s in the hospital.” It was Saturday morning, and
it seemed incredible to Carly that so much could have happened in so little time. She hadn’t said a word to anyone about Henry’s
trust, and she didn’t intend to. She preferred to think that he would be fine, which meant that she was really only pet-sitting
until he came home.

“Who’s his doctor?” Jeannie asked. She was an ER nurse by training, but she had quit before Nathan was born. “I hope it’s
Bill Sheaffer. He’s the best.”

“I don’t know. Listen, Jeannie, I was thinking of bringing Max to one of the infamous Martin family Sunday dinners. Not tomorrow,
that would be too soon, but maybe next week.”

“Oh?” her sister said innocently, but there was a gleam in her eye.

“No, no,” Carly said. “It’s not like that. He’s just a friend. Well, he’s not even a friend, actually. He’s more of a case
study. I think it might do him some good to hang out with a family for a while.”

Jeannie made a face. “That depends on how much family he can tolerate. Is he up to it?”

“I don’t know. It could be a disaster. He’s a bit prickly, but I don’t think that he’s a bad guy at heart. I think he’s just
lonely. I think he needs—”

“Hold it,” her sister interrupted. “Lonely? Needy? I’ve heard this before. Is this another one of your lost-soul boyfriends?
I thought you were over that. Loser men aren’t kittens, and you can’t just adopt them.”

“Richard wasn’t a lost soul,” Carly said. “He didn’t need me at all, and you can see how well that worked out.”

“That’s not how you told it at the time. I remember those stories about his rich family in Beverly Hills, and how nobody paid
any attention to him when he was growing up. How he would wake up with nightmares about his father yelling at him, and you
would have to sit up with him until he went back to sleep. We were all misty about him—until we met him.”

“Come on,” Carly protested. “Richard’s an incredibly talented and dedicated surgeon. He’s actually very emotionally fragile.”

“Breaking up with him was the smartest thing you’ve done in years. And you can’t let yourself go ricocheting back into your
old habits. Do you remember Paul the tormented poet who would write you mournful haiku right on Mom and Dad’s front door?
In black permanent marker?”

“He took his art very seriously,” Carly said.

“So did Dad, by the fourth time he had to repaint. And what about that guy who burst into tears right in the middle of Eric’s
birthday party? Then locked himself in the upstairs bathroom and threatened to jump out the window?”

“He had self-esteem issues. He was working on it in his therapy group.”

Jeannie snorted. “All I remember is that the party went downhill after the rescue squad showed up with a net.”

Carly winced. “Low blow, Jeannie.”

“This is for your own good, little sis. You’re not so young anymore, you know. There’s no time to waste on another emotional
charity case.”

“Thanks a lot! Twenty-eight is hardly over the hill. And Max Giordano is not an emotional charity case. He’s an interesting
and complicated man, and I think that it would be good for him to get out into the country for an evening with a nice group
of people.”

“Twenty-eight is a good age to get serious and to look around for a man who is stable and reliable. Isn’t your biological
clock telling you anything?”

“No,” Carly said. “I’m too busy working to be worrying about reproduction.”

“It’s all Richard’s fault,” Jeannie said, setting down a can of stewed tomatoes with a thump. “He’s taking advantage of you.
It’s not fair.”

“Jeannie, please.” Carly had heard the same argument many times before, and she wasn’t in the mood to deal with another one
of her sister’s indignant monologues.

“It’s true, Carly, and you know it. That place is making plenty of money. So why are you broke all the time?”

“Rich isn’t paying off student loans like I am, and he owns a much larger share of the clinic than I do. It’s perfectly fair.”

Jeannie snorted. “Well, he’d have a lot less income without you. And he acts like he’s doing you some favor. It’s just wrong.”

Carly sighed. “Do we have to talk about this right now?”

Jeannie looked contrite. “No, of course not. I shouldn’t be nagging you about money when you’re worried about Henry. What’s
his status, exactly?”

“He’s not conscious yet, but he’s stable. Max told me that they have a whole team of doctors and therapists working with him.
I’m sure he’s getting the best care that money can buy.”

“Hmm. He’s… eighty? Is that right?”

“Yes, but he’s always said that he comes from healthy stock. His father and grandfather both lived to be almost a hundred.”

“Just the same, Carly,” Jeannie said gently, “I think you had better prepare yourself for the possibility that he may not
recover. Eighty is pretty old, and even if he comes from a long-lived family, it’s no guarantee that he’s going to do the
same.”

“I don’t like to think about it,” Carly muttered. Just the idea of Henry dying, and what that would mean to everyone, raised
such a tumult of emotion inside her that she couldn’t let herself consider it.

“I know,” Jeannie said. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m sure they’re doing their best for him. If he makes it through the first week,
he’s got a pretty good chance of long-term survival. Of course, the degree of recovery is the issue. Even if he doesn’t die,
it doesn’t necessarily mean that he’ll be… hmm. Well, we won’t talk about that now, either. Maybe he’ll pull through.”

“I hope so,” Carly said.

“I do, too. And if Henry’s grandson can handle total chaos with a bunch of lunatics, I say bring him to dinner. He might enjoy
it. Although, of course…”

“What?”

“Well, I can just see Mom and Dad trying to be sly, asking him significant questions about marriage and babies and his future
plans regarding both.”

Carly shuddered. “Yikes.”

“So you might want to brief them first.”

“Good idea,” Carly said vigorously. “Very good idea.”

Self-control.

It was the most basic and the most formidable weapon in a man’s arsenal, Max thought as he pushed his way into the fifth mile
of his run on Ocean Beach. The ability to control anxiety, or anticipation, pride or anger, and to proceed without the distraction
of emotion was what separated the winners from the losers. He had spent many years cultivating his own self-control, and he
had a record of wins to show for it.

So, what the hell had happened to him last night?

He and Carly had missed their dinner reservation after all, not that it had mattered. The head waiter at Mistral had been
fawningly helpful and ushered them to a table right away, despite the fact that they had arrived almost an hour late. A damned
hour late to dinner, and why? Because he had gotten snarled in the very net that he had tried to throw at Carly Martin. How
ironic that he, of all people, would have gotten so caught up in the rising flood of his own half-assed hopes and fears that
he would find himself spilling his guts to some woman he barely knew!