Thirty Nights

The older man blanched, the color fading from his too bright cheeks. “You couldn’t prove a thing!”

“That’s where you’re wrong. But it’s a moot point. Because the tables have turned. Whom do you think people would believe? A man recently voted the most brilliant scientist of his time? Or a broken-down has-been, clinging desperately to tenure with both hands, while trying to drown his failures in a bottle?”

“You wouldn’t.”

Hunter looked him straight in the eye. “In a heartbeat.”

He stood up and looked dispassionately down at Cassidy. “Since I have no desire to interrupt her tour, I’ll give Gillian seven days to show up.”

“If it were up to me, I’d send her to you,” George said. “But she’s always been ridiculously stubborn. Even those ruler-wielding Swiss nuns at the convent school in Lucerne couldn’t make the girl do anything she didn’t want to.”

He shook his leonine head again and looked balefully up at Hunter. “I’ll try. But I can’t promise anything.”

His former mentor’s response proved that there were no depths to which he’d sink to save his miserable career and overblown reputation. Despite his victory, Hunter found himself vaguely sickened by Cassidy’s willingness to act as pimp for his own daughter.

“Now, that’s where we’re different again. Because I can promise something. I promise to ruin you if Gillian isn’t here by the end of the week.”

With a defeated slump of his shoulders—though for himself or for his daughter, Hunter wasn’t quite sure— Cassidy silently left the room.

As Hunter stood at the window, watching the car that was taking Cassidy back down the cliff, he allowed himself, just this once, to enjoy the feeling of long-overdue satisfaction.

Then, as he remembered Gillian Cassidy’s soft green eyes and lush pale mouth, satisfaction gave way to anticipation.

Cambridge

GILLIAN COULDN’T BELIEVE what she was hearing.

“Let me get this straight.” She dragged her hand through her hair and faced her father across the lush Persian carpet covering the mahogany-plank study floor. “After thirteen years, Hunter St. John suddenly invites you to his home, then threatens to blackmail you?”

“The man’s a devil,” Cassidy grumbled, pouring another two fingers of whiskey into the Waterford old-fashioned glass.

“So you’ve said.”

Gillian was having trouble with that idea. Although she admittedly may have once gazed at Hunter St. John through foolishly romantic, rose-colored glasses, she didn’t believe her father’s harshly derogatory description fit.

There was something more to all this. Something her father wasn’t telling her.

“But it doesn’t make any sense,” she argued, every instinct she possessed on alert. She couldn’t remember once, in all her twenty-five years, her father ever revealing this much emotion. “You’re a respected scientist. How could Hunter possibly ruin your reputation?”

A log shifted on the fire, creating a shower of sparks. Appearing openly grateful for the diversion, George leaped from his bark brown leather chair and began jabbing at the fragrant applewood with the poker.

Gillian was not to be distracted. “I asked you a question, Father. Does Hunter know something you’ve neglected to mention? Was there something about the project you two were working on—”

“We weren’t working on any project together!” George’s ruddy cheeks were made even brighter by his anger. “Hunter St. John was a graduate lab assistant. No different from hundreds of others who have worked for me over the years.”

“He was obviously more intelligent than most,” she pointed out. “While flying back from New Zealand, I read in Newsweek that many in the scientific community consider him a genius.”

Wondering how old a woman had to get before she outgrew schoolgirl crushes, Gillian had been disgusted by whatever knee-jerk impulse had made her read the entire cover article. Twice.

The bombing that had nearly killed him had made the news, and although details had been sketchy, reports at the time had suggested that the assassination attempt was due to some top secret government project he’d been working on. The Newsweek journalist had reported that while Hunter had recovered well enough to resume his work—which had relieved Gillian greatly—he’d subsequently become more reclusive than ever. The fact that he’d refused to be interviewed for the article had not surprised Gillian, who remembered Hunter being very private.

“The man’s bright enough,” Cassidy allowed, his grudging tone jerking her wandering mind back into the murky conversational waters. “In that respect, he obviously inherited his parents’ genes. But Isabel Montgomery and David St. John were logical, scientific thinkers. Neither could have ever been described as given to emotional tantrums as St. John unfortunately is. Even during his student days, the boy was far too headstrong for his own good….

“He refused to follow my instructions, always thinking he knew best. And he wasn’t dependable.” The still-firm jaw jutted out defiantly. “Which is why I had no choice but to let him go.”

“So you said at the time.”

That afternoon, like everything else about Hunter, was emblazoned on Gillian’s memory. Even now, thirteen years later, she could recall with vivid clarity how livid he’d been when he’d stormed out of the laboratory.

“So.” She sat down with a flurry of flowered gauze skirt that was too thin for the frosty December Massachusetts morning, but had been just right when she’d boarded the plane in Auckland fifteen hours earlier. “Since there’s no basis for his threat, why are you so concerned?”

“Because he can make waves.” George tossed back the whiskey, then refilled the glass, this time nearly to the rim. “St. John always was a loose cannon. A damn troublemaker. If he costs me my tenure—”

“That’s ridiculous.” While her music was emotional, Gillian had always prided herself on being a woman of unwavering logic. “You achieved tenure years ago, before I was born. The only conceivable way you could possibly lose it would be to…”

Her voice trailed off as a flicker of comprehension began to tease at the back of her mind.

No, she assured herself. It couldn’t be true. Nothing had ever been as important to her father as his work. Not his colleagues, his students, his wives, nor his daughter. Gillian had long ago given up trying to win a love he was incapable of giving. But she’d always considered him to be a man of honor.

Unfortunately, as she watched him gulping down the Irish whiskey like a drowning man going under for the third time, she had to wonder.

It made sense, she considered grimly. She’d never believed her father’s unpersuasive explanations regarding Hunter leaving the project. And, even more surprisingly, MIT. Students were taken off research projects all the time, for all sorts of reasons. She’d witnessed varying levels of disappointment and frustration. Yet never had she seen the murderous depth of rage she’d witnessed in Hunter that day.

“Father.” She leaned forward and put her hand on his knee. “Look at me.”

When he reluctantly dragged his gaze to hers, Gillian saw something that looked horrendously like guilt flash across his red-veined eyes.

“Hunter was working toward his doctorate that year,” she said slowly. Carefully. “He had his own project—”

“It was a radical, unproved idea.”

“Knowing Hunter, that could well be. You always said that he thought outside the box. But if he’s as intelligent as everyone says he is—”

“He was on the wrong track,” George said, cutting her off with an impatient wave of an unsteady hand. “It wouldn’t have worked. It didn’t work, until…” This time he was the one to stop in midsentence.

Gillian closed her eyes and rubbed at her temple as the truth struck home.

Dear heavens, she didn’t need this. She’d just come off a grueling nine-month tour; she’d caught a cold in London that had stayed with her for weeks; she’d been traveling for hours; and exhaustion was beginning to catch up with her, along with the jet lag she’d been struggling to outrun as she’d raced around the world performing to standing-room-only crowds, talking to the press, trying to remember what she’d said one day in Sydney so as not to repeat herself exactly in Melbourne….

“You stole his project.” Her flat tone revealed a deep disappointment she felt all the way to the bone.

“He can’t prove a thing,” George insisted, dodging the question.

Gillian sighed and allowed herself a moment of profound sadness as her last illusion regarding her father shattered. Then, with a strength of spirit that had gotten her through far worse than this, she began to think the problem through.

“Given Hunter’s fame and reputation these days, he wouldn’t need to prove his accusation,” she mused out loud. “It would be his word against yours. And I’m afraid that just may be a battle you couldn’t win.” It had, after all, been a very long time since her father had been featured in Newsweek.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you, dammit,” he said grumpily. “The devil’s going to cost me everything I’ve spent my life working for, Gilly.”