Twist of Fate (3 page)

Then her attention switched to the tablet waiting for her in the room. One thing at a time. Pain definitely took precedence over sexual attraction or her progress in recovering her driving nerve. Pain, when it struck, took precedence over just about everything, she had discovered.

 

G
IDEON DRESSED FOR DINNER
with absentminded attention. He'd phoned room 432 an hour before and calmly told Hannah that he would be there at six-thirty. He'd apparently awakened her from a nap.

“Does this mean you've agreed to my bet?” she'd inquired in a sleep-fuzzed voice.

“It means I'm taking you to dinner. One thing at a time, Hannah.”

“Just what I told myself when I left you a couple of hours ago. See you at six-thirty. Would you mind if we ate in one of the hotel restaurants?”

“Suit yourself.” She probably didn't want to venture far on that leg, he decided.

Gideon buttoned a white, open-throated shirt and fastened a belt on his dark slacks. The Vegas life-style tolerated anything from Bermuda shorts to a tuxedo. He chose the middle ground. Tie and jacket would be sufficient for this evening.

The classiest of the six hotel restaurants was done in a typically overwrought Vegas style. Greek pillars, splashing, lighted fountains and a staff dressed in togas. But the food was surprisingly good for a casino restaurant. It was one of the reasons Gideon returned to that hotel year after year. He frowned in the mirror, remembering what Hannah had said about his predictable habits. Her comments had been bothering him all afternoon.

Something about Hannah Jessett had gotten to him. Gideon knotted his tie, mildly irritated as he remembered the image of her sitting by the pool. She had worn the khaki bush shirt with its epaulets, button-studded pockets and dashing, quasi-military air with a certain defiant panache. She was not built like a Vegas showgirl on top. The outline of her breasts beneath the shirt had been small and gently curved. A wide, heavy leather belt with a sturdy brass buckle had defined a slim waist and emphasized the nice shape of her rear, which was encased in a pair of snug-fitting jeans.

The thought of the petite breasts and rounded derriere stopped Gideon for a second and then he found himself grimacing wryly at himself in the mirror. This evening hardly qualified as a dinner date. It was really more of a business skirmish.

But there was no doubt that it was going to be supremely entertaining. And it had been so long since he'd really enjoyed himself for an evening. Perhaps he should date more guidance counselors. He was curious to know how she would respond to the final act of the little farce she had staged.

He was curious about other aspects of Hannah Jessett, too, Gideon decided as he picked up a light sport jacket and started toward the door. She'd been oddly on target that afternoon when she'd accused him of finding that his victories were growing hollow. How had she known of the increasing lack of satisfaction in each new triumph? How had she guessed at something he hadn't even wanted to confront himself?

Maybe it was curiosity that had made him phone room 432 and tell her he'd take her to dinner. Hannah Jessett was a new and unexpected element in his world. His mouth crooked upward at one corner as he fished in his pocket to check for the room key. On the other hand, he might have been motivated strictly by the soft, round shape of her tail in that pair of too-tight jeans she'd been wearing.

Actually, she'd been pleasantly soft looking all over. Her loose khaki shirt hadn't revealed a lot of detail but he'd been able to tell that she wasn't wearing a bra.

Her hair had been soft, too, a cascade of little curls rather than a sleek businesswoman's cut. Even her face had seemed soft, except for a certain tightness around the mouth that he knew betrayed the pain in her leg. The lady had good eyes, Gideon reflected, as he put his hand on the doorknob. The wide, hazel-green gaze was direct and probably far too honest for her own good. He liked that. It gave him one more advantage. It was his nature to operate from a position of advantage.

All in all she looked a bit like an ex-liberal-arts grad student. He pegged her age at around thirty or thirty-one. He guessed she did her guidance counseling at a college. When the phone rang, Gideon was reflecting on the fact that he hadn't ever received any professional guidance counseling in his life.

For an instant he contemplated ignoring it, and then the thought that it might be his new counselor made him step back into the room.

“Gideon? It's Steve. I'm about to leave for the airport.”

“Don't let me hold you up. If you miss the flight back to Tucson, Angie will sure as hell blame me.” The polite, running battle Angie Decker conducted in defense of her husband always amused Gideon. She was convinced that Gideon was far too demanding and that her husband should be more assertive. She never quite grasped the fact that Steve Decker preferred to follow orders in the business world rather than give them.

“I checked with the office an hour ago. Mary Ann was on her way out the door but she said there was a message from Taggert. It was about Ballantine.”

Gideon glanced at his watch. It was getting late. “Okay, let me have it.”

“Not much, really, just that Taggert says he's on the move. Rumor has it that Ballantine really is going to go after Surbrook.”

“Well, hell.”

“I know.”

“He doesn't stand a chance,” Gideon murmured.

“No, but he knows you want the company and he can drive the price way up by acting as though he's interested in making a counteroffer. Hell, we've pulled that stunt ourselves a few times.”

Gideon found himself staring at the framed reproduction of the 1569 world map by Gerhard Mercator that hung on the wall. Part fantasy, part reality, it was, nevertheless, a genuine effort to make sense out of that which was only partially known and largely misunderstood. That was the thing about maps, Gideon had always thought. They were monuments to the human need to comprehend and control the environment. He had found it astonishing that a Las Vegas hotel would have the taste to use such an item in its room decor. Reality was not a big deal there in Vegas. Gideon always asked for that room because of the map. Another habit. He'd more or less abandoned the collecting that had once been an important part of his life, but something in him still responded to an interesting map. “There's nothing we can do about it tonight. I'll call you in the morning. Make sure Taggert's available.”

“All right. Just thought you ought to know Ballantine will definitely be challenging us.”

No,
Gideon thought,
not us. He'll be challenging me
. “Thanks for the update on the Marsden deal and the Jessett move, Steve. Sorry you had to fly here on such short notice. Make my apologies to Angie.”

“I'll do that. Maybe it will get me off the hook for having to miss Terry's school play last night. Goodbye, Gideon. See you when you get back to Tucson.”

Gideon tossed the receiver back into its cradle and started for the door. For a moment he allowed himself to dwell on the news about Ballantine. It was bound to happen sooner or later. The young cub was going to take on the full-grown wolf. The time to crush Hugh Ballantine was now, while he was still young enough and weak enough to be dealt with easily. Gideon opened the door and stepped outside into the thickly carpeted hall. Time enough in the morning to think about that. He had other things to do this evening.

He was going to give a certain career counselor a small but hopefully salutary bit of guidance.

 

H
ANNAH REACHED SURREPTITIOUSLY
under the table and tried to knead her left knee as she munched on a bite of stuffed salmon. She had barely touched the glass of sauvignon blanc Gideon had ordered. She had to keep the alcohol intake down, she warned herself. The last thing she wanted was trouble from mixing the painkiller with wine. She'd kept the afternoon dose to a minimum, though, and it hadn't been enough to completely dull the ache in her leg. God, she would be glad when this was all over. It was tough to appear casually chic under the circumstances.

“Tell me more about your vacation plans,” Gideon was saying conversationally as he worked on his curried lamb. “Where in the Caribbean are you going?”

“To a little island near the U.S. Virgin Islands. It's called Santa Inez. My aunt had a home there.”

“Had?” He glanced up politely.

“She died a couple of months ago. I'm going to go down there and pack up her things, especially her books and notes. According to her will, she wanted me to have them. She lived down there for several years, but she was always something of a recluse. No one but members of the family knew where she'd retired. She forbade us to tell anyone else. A fanatic about privacy.”

“Were you close, you and your aunt?”

Hannah thought about that, remembering the vivid, intelligent woman she had seen only occasionally during her life. “I don't think my aunt was close to anyone, not even her sister, my mother. Aunt Elizabeth was rather a loner. Very brilliant in her field. She was a cultural anthropologist. Her best known work is probably
The Amazons of Revelation Island
.”

Gideon looked surprised. “That rings a bell.”

Hannah chuckled. “Which only goes to prove that somewhere along the line you must have taken a class in cultural anthropology. It's a classic text in the field. Still being used even though she wrote it in the forties. It was based on work she had done on Revelation Island in the South Pacific.”

“I don't really recall too much about it. I'm afraid my interests were more focused on business classes. I only lasted a couple of years in college.” Gideon searched his memory. “Something about a matriarchal society, wasn't it?”

“Yes. It upset a lot of theories about male-female relationships among primitive peoples. It was very controversial at the time. My aunt didn't mind being controversial, though.”

“As I recall the controversy was generated by the fact that no one could ever disprove her conclusions,” Gideon said slowly. “Didn't something happen to Revelation Island?”

“It became a strategic piece of ground during World WarII. By the time the U.S. and Japan had fought back and forth across it a few times there wasn't much left of the original culture, let alone the inhabitants. After the war it became a long-range supply depot for ships. By the time anthropologists got back to Revelation Island in the early sixties everything had changed. There have been a lot of arguments about my aunt's work but no one has been able to discount it.” Hannah grinned. “A fact my aunt found vastly amusing. She was quite a character. Had absolutely no respect for the formal academic world even though she was a product of it. I think she saw herself more as a philosopher than an anthropologist.”

“Did she ever marry?”

“No. Followed a fine tradition of unmarried women, which litters my mother's side of the family. Back in the last century there was another female relative who was equally outstanding in her field. She never married either.”

“What field?” Gideon asked.

“Mathematics. She did very sophisticated work in the area of number theory. And don't ask me to tell you anything about that. Math is not my strong point. I was strictly liberal arts in college. Then there was the artist. She lived around the turn of the century. Her work brings huge amounts at auctions today. There were a few other maverick ladies in the family whom I've heard about over the years.”

Gideon surveyed her with genuine curiosity. “Are you going to follow in the tradition?”

Hannah's eyes gleamed for an instant. “Of not marrying? It has its merits.”

“Somehow,” he murmured, “I don't see you as the celibate type.”

“Who said anything about celibacy?” She took another bite of stuffed salmon and wondered what had possessed her to order salmon in the desert. A mistake. She was spoiled by the fresh fish that was so available in Seattle. “Let's get back to the main subject here. I assume you're willing to take my bet?”

“Don't ever make the mistake of assuming too much about me, Hannah. I could be here simply because I didn't have anything better to do this evening.”

“You
don't
have anything better to do. What's your alternative? Pick up some blond bimbo of a showgirl whose main concern is getting you to spend money on her? You can do that anytime. How often can you play a game such as the one I'm providing? Even here in Vegas, this will be a novelty.”

“You seem awfully sure you're going to win.”

Hannah sucked in her breath, knowing now that he was going to do it. “I have a chance. If I can't convince you to play then there's no chance at all. My brother will ultimately lose Accelerated Design. All he can do at this point is stall and make the takeover process as expensive as possible for you.”

“Assumptions. You really ought to be cautious about making assumptions, Hannah.”

She waved that aside. “I've got a pack of cards in my purse. We'll draw for high card when they clear the dishes. The staff will assume we're just cutting the cards to see who pays for dinner.”