Twist of Fate (8 page)

Hannah said the first words that came into her head. “People in this building are getting far too casual about security. Who let you inside the gate?”

“A very nice man who looked like James Dean. He and his boyfriend said they were your neighbors.”

“What are you doing here, Gideon?”

“Would you believe me if I said I came by for a little counseling?” He smiled at her as he reached out to take the sack of groceries but there was a strange wariness in his eyes.

Hannah brushed aside his dry question. She looked at him searchingly. “My brother said it was all over. He said you were out of the picture.”

“There are a few minor loose ends,” Gideon began carefully.

“I don't believe you. Have you changed your mind? Decided to try to take over the company after all?”

“If I said yes would you offer me another game of cards?”

“I can't make the offer, can I? You stole my deck.” She realized that she was following him up the stairs to her apartment. There wasn't much else she could do. He had her groceries.

“I didn't steal the cards. I kept them as a souvenir.” He paused outside her door, waiting for her to fish out the key. “Do you always dress as if you're heading out on safari?”

She chose to ignore the question. “Gideon, tell me what this is all about. I'm busy getting ready for my trip to the Caribbean. I don't have time for playing games with you.” She shoved the key in the lock and twisted it with a vengeance.

“I don't need any more games. I've been trying to play them in Las Vegas for the past twenty-four hours. No fun.” He unzipped the lightweight windbreaker that was all the protection he had against the rain.

“My heart would bleed for you except that I'm kind of busy at the moment.” She dropped the leather and linen tote bag and sank down wearily into the nearest cushioned rattan chair.

“The leg still hurts?” Gideon put the groceries in the kitchen and came to stand in the doorway.

“Occasionally it hurts like hell.”

“Is now one of the occasions?” he asked.

“I'll make a deal with you, Gideon. You don't waste any false sympathy on me and I won't waste any on you, okay?” She closed her eyes and reached down to lightly massage the knee through the fabric of her olive green bush pants. She shouldn't have tried walking to the store this morning. It was about one block too far for comfort. Now her leg would ache for a good hour.

She didn't hear Gideon cross the room but the instant his fingers settled in the vicinity of her knee she stiffened. Without opening her eyes, she said very evenly, “Touch that leg and you're a dead man.”

He pulled away. “I get the feeling you mean that.”

Hannah looked up at him from under half-closed lids. “The last person who tried to do me the favor of massaging my knee had a Ph.D. and she nearly killed me. Your qualifications aren't nearly as impressive. No telling what might happen if I let you try your hand at massage. I might never walk again.”

“You don't trust me.” It was a statement, not a question.

“About as much as I'd trust a junkyard dog,” she agreed cheerfully. Hannah watched as he moved across the room to examine her bookcase. “What are you doing here, Gideon?”

“I'm not sure.” He reached up and pulled down a copy of
The Amazons of Revelation Island
. “But if we're going to talk trust, it seems to me I'm the one who should be cautious.” He glanced up from reading the inscription on the flyleaf of the book. It was to Hannah from her aunt.

Hannah had memorized the inscription long ago. It read: “To Hannah with a reminder that we must sometimes shape our own reality.” She met Gideon's eyes. “If you're here to complain about the fact that I rigged the cards the night I invited you to draw for the shares, forget it. The game was irrelevant, anyway, wasn't it?”

“No sense of shame at all?” he mocked, closing the book and replacing it on the shelf.

“None, I'm afraid. I had my priorities that night. My honor as a gambler wasn't high on the list.”

“Way behind your brother's best interests.” He nodded. “I can understand that.” Gideon took the large, fan-back wicker chair across from her, his mouth curving briefly in amusement as he dodged a huge fern that hung from the ceiling. He looked around at the rest of the furnishings.

“Gideon, for the last time, why are you here?”

“I flew in from Vegas early this morning.”

“Oh, yes. The second trip of the summer.”

“How well you know me,” he murmured.

She rubbed her knee. “You always go to Vegas at this time of year.”

“I know,” he sighed.

“So why did you leave the bright lights of the Strip for the drizzle of Seattle?”

He leaned his head back against the fanned back of his chair. “I'm still not sure. I think it has something to do with getting a firsthand look at history repeating itself.”

Hannah sensed the odd weariness in him and frowned. “Gideon…”

“Could I have a cup of coffee? I didn't get much sleep.”

She gritted her teeth briefly. “Help yourself.”

He uncoiled from the chair and disappeared into her small kitchen. Hannah listened to him opening cupboard doors and filling the kettle. He was going to make instant. At least he wasn't complaining, as her brother did, that she didn't own an espresso machine or keep unground coffee beans safely stored in the freezer to maintain their flavor. When he came back into the room a few minutes later Gideon carried two cups. He set one down beside Hannah, who had to bite off the automatic thank you.

“All right. Tell me about history repeating itself,” she invited as ungraciously as possible.

“Are you really interested?”

“It might be the only way of getting rid of you.” She stirred the coffee and tried to ignore the ache in her leg.

“It's great to feel so wanted.” He resumed his seat and stretched out his legs.

Hannah drowned her comment beneath a sip of too-hot coffee. For instant the stuff wasn't bad. Gideon must have made a lot of it in his past.

“Someone's after me, Hannah.”

She nearly choked on the thick brew. “After you!”

“A man named Hugh Ballantine. He's dedicating his life to crushing me. Do you think I should be flattered?”

“I realize that the business world, like the food chain, requires predators but it's much more fun for the rest of us when they hunt each other instead of people like my brother.”

He winced. “Coming from a woman who was anxious to save me from myself not so long ago, that's a little harsh, don't you think?”

“I tend to be a little short-tempered when my leg is bothering me.”

Gideon put down his coffee cup, an air of sudden determination in his eyes. “Move over to the sofa. I'm going to massage that knee for you.”

“Over my dead body.” She calmly sipped her coffee and ignored him.

“Hannah, if I hurt you, you can just tell me. I promise I'll stop.”

“Ah, but I don't trust you, remember? What good is a promise from someone you can't trust?”

“You tell me. You're the one who was using a marked deck the night I took you out to dinner.” He took the coffee cup from her hand and more or less hauled her to her feet.

Sensing the inevitability of the situation, Hannah surrendered. She allowed herself to be settled on the sofa, her leg stretched out along the flower-print cushions. Gideon went down on one knee and touched her leg through the khaki pants with a gentleness that was astounding.

All the difference in the world, Hannah thought in relief. Vicky's touch had been powerful and painful. Gideon's hands contained strength and power but he knew how to control both. Beneath his massaging fingers the tight muscles of her leg began to relax. The next thing she knew, Hannah began to relax inwardly as well.

“So tell me about the guy who wants to crush you,” she heard herself say before she could think.

“He's the son of a former partner of mine.”

“Former?”

“His name was Cyrus Ballantine. He was about fifteen years older than I was and he was a brilliant businessman. I learned a lot from him. Just about everything I know, in fact. We went into business together. We formed an investment syndicate.”

Hannah closed her eyes as the warm relief of muscle relaxation took hold. This sort of thing could become addictive, she decided. “What happened?”

“It's a long story. I won't bore you with all the details. In the end, after a great deal of skillful maneuvering, my good friend and mentor, Cyrus, left me holding the bag of a bankrupt syndicate while he walked away with most of the assets and used them to set up another investment syndicate. The whole thing was really brilliantly handled,” Gideon added reflectively as his fingers found the long muscle just above the knee and went to work on it. “I never knew what hit me until the dust had settled.”

Hannah slanted him a curious glance. “Where's Cyrus today?”

“Looking out at me from his son's eyes.”

“The father is dead?” she pressed.

“His son thinks I killed him.”

Hannah thought about that. She felt the strength in Gideon's hands, considered the layers of steel in the man, and decided that Gideon might be capable of murder under certain circumstances. “Did you?”

“Cyrus Ballantine died of a heart attack a couple of years ago,” Gideon told her shortly. “I never touched him.”

“But the son thinks you did?”

Gideon moved his head in a slow nod. “He holds me morally responsible for the heart attack.”

“Why?”

“Because after Cyrus left me behind in the mud of financial ruin, I decided to take revenge,” Gideon explained. “At the age of thirty, I dedicated my life to it. I hounded the man, moving in on the companies he wanted and grabbing them first, even if it cost me far too much. I systematically destroyed his reputation as a man who could find the shrewdest investments. Within three years I was the one his clients came to when they wanted to hand their money over to someone who knew where to put it. Cyrus Ballantine filed for bankruptcy a few years ago. He never really came out of it. He was no longer a winner and he couldn't handle that.”

Another piece of the puzzle that was Gideon Cage suddenly fell into place. Hannah realized with a strange twist in her stomach that she had subconsciously never stopped working on the problem, not even after she had assumed she wouldn't see him again. Now, at least, she knew what had tripped the initial switch that had locked him on target. He had been like a guided missile for nine years, unable to veer off course even though the first target had long since been zapped. “You achieved your goal.”

“It's not hard to achieve that kind of goal if nothing else in the world matters.”

Hannah shivered a little.

“Am I hurting you?” Gideon stopped his work on her leg.

“No.” She waited a moment longer before speaking. She turned the details of his tale over and over in her mind. She reached for one intricate piece of the puzzle after another, building a more and more complete picture of the man who was massaging her leg with such unexpected skill. But no matter how many elements she added, she couldn't bring the whole image into focus. Something eluded her. “So you turned around and destroyed Cyrus Ballantine. You took your revenge for his betrayal.”

“Yes.”

“And now his son is coming after you.”

“Some people would call it justice,” he said dryly.

“It's not justice, exactly. Merely a sort of internal logic built into the system, I think. The only way to break the pattern is to step out of the system.” Hannah smiled briefly. “But I've already told you that. You're a captive of your own way of doing things. You've made it clear you don't particularly want to change. You've become addicted to the power and the constant winning.”

“So I'm stuck with my fate?” he asked, looking amused.

“You're like one of those professional gunfighters of the Old West. You may be the best there is, but sooner or later someone younger and just as mean will be coming along. The only way he can prove himself is by trying to take you. Look at it this way. You may be able to crush Cyrus Ballantine's kid instead of being crushed by him. You'll probably come out on top again, Gideon. I have great faith in your predatory abilities. I've seen you at work. How old is the kid?”

“Thirty. The same age I was when I went after his father.”

“Well, it should be interesting. Maybe I could sell tickets,” Hannah mused. “This could be a real cock fight, you should pardon the expression.”

His hands stilled on her leg. “I think,” he said slowly, “that I came here looking for something more than that from you.”

Hannah opened her eyes and found herself unable to look away from the night darkness of his gaze. There was a tension in him that she hadn't anticipated. How could he work such magic on her leg when he, himself, was almost vibrating with an inner tautness? Another piece of the puzzle. Her voice gentled slightly even though she refused to allow herself to feel any pity. This man had created his own world. Now he had to live in it. “Then you're out of luck, aren't you? What could I possibly do for you besides give you a discount on one of the tickets to the slaughter?”