Persecuted

Elena drew in a deep breath. Maybe it was better, for all of them, that they knew. She couldn’t deny the visions any longer, not to herself or anyone else. “I just know.”

“You’re talking that crazy stuff again.” The older woman stood up now and thumped a fist on her desk, scattering papers across the surface as the picture frames rattled. “You will not bring that witchcraft into my home. Do you understand me?”

Elena flashed back, not to a vision or a dream, but to a memory two decades old. The first time she’d told her grandmother of a vision she’d been subjected to a similar tirade. Then she’d been sent to counseling and therapy and prescribed drugs to treat her “disorder.” The doctors and therapists had claimed it was everything from separation anxiety to post-traumatic stress, blaming everything on her mother, like Thora always did. She hated that her son had fallen in love with Myra Cooper.

“I understand you,” Elena said, knowing that the hatred had consumed whatever decency her grandmother might have had. Elena would get no help, from Thora Jones, in locating Irina. “You’ve never understood me. So let me go—”

“Go, get the hell out of here, if that’s the way you want it,” Thora said, shaking with rage. She picked up one of the framed photos from her desk and turned the picture toward Elena. From her grandfather’s arms, a little blond girl smiled sweetly at them. “But she stays.”

Elena’s heart clenched with love and fear. “You can’t take away my daughter.”

“Funny, I think that’s exactly what your mother told me.”

Her grandmother’s laughter echoed in her ears, as Elena rushed out of her rooms. She slammed the door to the corridor, then sagged against it, squeezing her eyes shut on the image of Thora’s hateful face. Every confrontation with her grandmother left Elena this way, weak, shaking…with a little less of her soul.

“Are you all right?”

She opened her eyes, confronting Joseph’s concerned gaze again. “You stayed.”

He nodded, those deep green eyes soft again with sympathy. “Things never go well between you and your grandmother.”

“So you thought what?” She lifted a brow, relieved to feel anger, which made her so much stronger than fear. “That I might need you?”

Haughty, scornful—she’d rather Joseph see her that way than weak. Like Thora, he wouldn’t respect weakness. But why did she want his respect? He was too much like her grandmother. That was why he’d been given the job that by birthright should have been hers. But refusing to hire her had been more favor than punishment for Elena. If she’d worked for Thora, she might have begun to act like her as well, and she never wanted to become that hateful, bitter and unscrupulous.

“I tend to forget that you hate me,” he said, his wide mouth quirking into a wicked grin.

So did she. That scared her nearly as much as her grandmother’s threats, which weren’t empty. She had enough money and power to get whatever she wanted. Not that she especially wanted Stacia. She just wanted to manipulate Elena. Since she couldn’t do it through Elena’s father anymore, she would do it through Elena’s daughter.

Elena did understand the older woman. She understood that Thora couldn’t let her son go despite his death. She needed more than the pictures piled on her desk and adorning every wall of her rooms. Because Elena and Stacia were part of him, she wanted to keep them close even though she hated that Elena was also a part of her mother, and had been punishing Myra through her since the day she’d brought Elena to this house.

Joseph stepped close, the sleeve of his suit brushing against the silk of her blouse. Even through the two layers of material, his heat penetrated, raising her temperature. Her face flushed. She would have stepped away, but her back was against the door. And he towered over her, imposing, intimidating.

Was this why her grandmother had hired him? Because just his presence, his brawn and the breadth of his shoulders and chest, was threatening? Elena suspected the greater threat was the sharp intelligence burning in his green eyes.

“Why do you hate me, Elena?” he asked. His voice, deep and soft, lifted the hair on the nape of her neck. His wicked grin never slipped, amusement lightening his eyes.

Damn him, he knew. She wanted to but couldn’t quite hate him, no matter how much she tried. She opened her mouth, ready to list the reasons, some she’d vented before, like his subordinates sending her husband away on business too much. But that had been more help than hardship. She’d realized that absence hadn’t made her heart grow fonder, only Kirk more faithless. She couldn’t blame Joseph for that, since Kirk didn’t work directly under him. She couldn’t even blame Joseph for the dreams.

All she could do was ask, “Why do you work for her?”

Was it blackmail? Like what kept Elena in this house, the threat of her grandmother using the considerable means at her disposal to take away what mattered most to Elena, her daughter? What was Thora holding over Joseph Dolce? What mattered most to this man?

He shrugged, and his arm moved against hers, wool scraping against silk. “Money. She pays me well.”

“To do her dirty work,” Elena scoffed, inexplicably disappointed that he wasn’t being coerced, too. This was why she had to hate him, why she could never trust him. He was just as soulless and manipulative as his employer, willing to do whatever necessary for money and power. “I hope it’s enough.”

His dark head nodded, but his green eyes dimmed, the amusement gone. “It’s a lot of money, more than I ever really thought a kid who grew up like I did could make.” Wistfulness deepened his voice. “I used to dream about the fast cars, big houses and fancy—” the wicked grin flashed a brief appearance as he stared down at her “—women.”

He considered her a fancy woman? On the outside, she might look the part of an heiress, with the silk clothes and sleek hairdo and manicured nails. Inside, she was still that little girl who’d grown up in the back of a truck camper, eating cold canned food and wishing for a hot shower and a soft bed, one she hadn’t had to share with younger sisters who kicked and flailed elbows in their sleep. Guilt nagged at her, as it had twenty years ago, when she’d thought her wishing had caused her mom to lose her and her sisters. She’d gotten her hot shower and soft bed, but she hadn’t been able to sleep in it for a long time. She’d missed her sisters, flailing elbows and feet, too much.

“So you got what you wished for,” she pointed out to Joseph, but for some reason she suspected he wasn’t any happier than she’d been. “Was it worth it, selling out to Thora?”

She had no doubt the older woman made him do things, probably illegal things, to get her what she wanted for her corporation and herself. Perhaps that was another reason why Thora hadn’t hired her; she’d known Elena would have wanted to run the company honestly.

Irritation darkened his eyes. “You can act all sanctimonious and self-righteous,” he accused. “You don’t have a damn clue how it is growing up with nothing—”

“I’ve been poor,” she interrupted him. But she hadn’t had nothing. She’d had her mom and her sisters. Their love. She swept an arm around the wide corridor full of antiques and framed artwork. “And obviously I’ve been rich. I was much happier poor.”

He stepped even closer, his legs brushing hers, only inches separating his chest from hers. She could nearly feel the beat of his heart beneath his wool suit and silk shirt. She lifted her palms, wanting to push him away. But she dropped her hands back to her sides and fisted them, not trusting herself to touch him…because she couldn’t trust him.

Interest narrowed his green eyes as he studied her. “There’s a helluva lot I don’t know about you, isn’t there?”

“More than you could handle,” she admitted.

“That sounds like a challenge,” he said, the amusement back in his wicked grin and sparkling eyes, as he lifted her chin with the pad of his thumb.

He stroked her skin, which until that moment Elena had never known was so sensitive. She bit her bottom lip, resisting temptation. Then she lifted her fists, using them to shove against his chest so she could step away from the door and away from him.

“I’ve never backed down from a challenge, Elena,” he warned her, as she walked away.

If he learned the truth, would he look at her like Thora did? Like Kirk had started to look at her, when he dared meet her eyes?

Like she was crazy.

God, she wished she was, then she wouldn’t have to worry about her visions, any of her visions, coming true.

Elena sat up in bed, her back sinking into the pillows piled against the brass headboard. A book lay open across her bent knees, but she couldn’t concentrate on the words on the page, swimming in and out of focus. She was so tired but too afraid to sleep…for the dreams she might dream.

Tomorrow she would talk to Ariel. Together, they would find their little sister. They would make sure none of Elena’s visions of Irina came true. With that thought giving her some peace, she drifted off to sleep…until a cry awoke her. For once, it wasn’t hers, drawn out by a horrifying vision.

She threw back the blankets and ran the short distance down the hall to Stacia’s room, which was aglow with ambient light from the Strawberry Shortcake lamp next to the little girl’s bed.

“Sweetheart,” she murmured, pulling the little girl into her arms. “It’s okay. Shhh…”

Stacia hiccupped out a soft sob and burrowed against her mother. “Daddy…” she called out sleepily.

Elena brushed her daughter’s blond curls off her damp forehead. “It’s okay, honey. Mommy’s here.”

The same could not be said of Daddy. Elena knew she’d done the right thing, taking the first step to end her sham of a marriage, for her daughter’s sake. If Mommy and Daddy no longer lived together, she would understand why he was never around, instead of her confusion giving her nightmares. She rocked the warm little body in her arms as Stacia snuggled against her.

“Where’s Daddy?” the little girl asked.

No doubt in another woman’s bed. But she couldn’t tell her daughter that. “He’s away, honey. Remember? He had a business trip.”

Stacia rubbed her eyes, which were the same pale blue as Elena’s and Thora’s. “I saw him in my dream,” she said.

Of course she had to dream about the man; he was never around. Why wouldn’t he just sign the papers and officially end their marriage? Elena suspected he’d grown too accustomed to their big house and his fast cars and didn’t want to give them up. He’d worked with Thora and Joseph too long.