Best of Nora Roberts Books 1-6: The Art of Deception / Lessons Learned / Mind Over Matter / Risky Business / Second Nature / Unfinished Business

“Damn you, Mac.” Adam raced after her.

Chapter 12

Adam caught up to her just as Kirby started to slam her bedroom door. Shoving it open, he pushed his way inside. For a moment, they only stared at each other.

“Kirby, let me explain.”

“No.” The wounded look had been replaced by glacial anger. “Just get out. All the way out, Adam—of my house and my life.”

“I can’t.” He took her by the shoulders, but her head snapped up, and the look was so cold, so hard, he dropped his hands again. It was too late to explain the way he’d planned. Too late to prevent the hurt. Now he had to find the way around it. “Kirby, I know what you must be thinking. I want—”

“Do you?” It took all of her effort to keep her voice from rising. Instead it was cool and calm. “I’m going to tell you anyway so we can leave everything neat and tidy.” She faced him because she refused to turn her back on the pain or on the betrayal. “I’m thinking that I’ve never detested anyone more than I detest you at this moment. I’m thinking Stuart and Melanie could take lessons on using people from you. I’m thinking how naive I was, how stupid, to have believed there was something special about you, something stable and honest. And I wonder how I could’ve made love with you and never seen it. Then again, I didn’t see it in Melanie, either. I loved and trusted her.” Tears burned behind her eyes but she ignored them. “I loved and trusted you.”

“Kirby…”

“Don’t touch me.” She backed away, but it was the tremor in her voice, not the movement, that stopped him from going to her. “I don’t ever want to feel your hands on me again.” Because she wanted to weep, she laughed, and the sound was as sharp as a knife. “I’ve always admired a really good liar, Adam, but you’re the best. Every time you touched me, you lied. You prostituted yourself in that bed.” She gestured toward it and wanted to scream. She wanted to fling herself on it and weep until she was empty. She stood, straight as an arrow. “You lay beside me and said all the things I wanted to hear. Do you get extra points for that, Adam? Surely that was above and beyond the call of duty.”

“Don’t.” He’d had enough. Enough of her cold, clear look, her cold, clear words. “You know there was no dishonesty there. What happened between us had nothing to do with the rest.”

“It has everything to do with it.”

“No.” He’d take everything else she could fling at him, but not that. She’d changed his life with hardly more than a look. She had to know it. “I should never have put my hands on you, but I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted you. I needed you. You have to believe that.”

“I’ll tell you what I believe,” she said quietly, because every word he spoke was another slice into her heart. She’d finished with being used. “You came here for the Rembrandt, and you meant to find it no matter who or what you had to go through. My father and I were means to an end. Nothing more, nothing less.”

He had to take it, had to let her say it, but there’d be no lies between them any longer. “I came for the Rembrandt. When I walked through the door I only had one priority, to find it. But I didn’t know you when I walked through the door. I wasn’t in love with you then.”

“Is this the part where you say everything changed?” she demanded, falling back on fury. “Shall we wait for the violins?” She was weakening. She turned away and leaned on the post of the bed. “Do better, Adam.”

She could be cruel. He remembered her father’s warning. He only wished he believed he had a defense. “I can’t do better than the truth.”

“Truth? What the hell do you know about truth?” She whirled back around, eyes damp now and shimmering with heat. “I stood here in this room and told you everything, everything I knew about my father. I trusted you with his welfare, the most important thing in my life. Where was your truth then?”

“I had a commitment. Do you think it was easy for me to sit here and listen, knowing I couldn’t give you what you were giving me?”

“Yes.” Her tone was dead calm, but her eyes were fierce. “Yes, I think it was a matter of routine for you. If you’d told me that night, the next day or the next, I might’ve believed you. If I’d heard it from you, I might’ve forgiven you.”

Timing. Hadn’t she told him how vital timing could be? Now he felt her slipping away from him, but he had nothing but excuses to give her. “I was going to tell you everything, start to finish, tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Slowly she nodded. “Tomorrows are very convenient. A pity for us all how rarely they come.”

All the warmth, all the fire, that had drawn him to her was gone. He’d only seen this look on her face once before—when Stuart had backed her into a corner and she’d had no escape. Stuart had used physical dominance, but it was no prettier than the emotional pressure Adam knew he used. “I’m sorry, Kirby. If I’d taken the risk and told you this morning, it would’ve been different for all of us.”

“I don’t want your apology!” The tears beat her and poured out. She’d sacrificed everything else, now her pride was gone, as well. “I thought I’d found the man I could share my life with. I fell in love with you in the flash of an instant. No questions, no doubts. I believed everything you said to me. I gave you everything I had. In all my life no one’s been allowed to know me as you did. I entrusted you with everything I am and you used me.” Turning, she pressed her face into the bedpost.

He had, he couldn’t deny it even to himself. He’d used her, as Stuart had used her. As Melanie had used her. Loving her made no difference, yet he had to hope it made all the difference. “Kirby.” It took all the strength he had not to go to her, to comfort her, but he’d only be comforting himself if he put his arms around her now. “There’s nothing you can say to me I haven’t said to myself. I came here to do a job, but I fell in love with you. There wasn’t any warning for me, either. I know I’ve hurt you. There’s nothing I can do to turn back the clock.”

“Do you expect me to fall into your arms? Do you expect me to say nothing else matters but us?” She turned, and though her cheeks were still damp, her eyes were dry. “It all matters,” she said flatly. “Your job’s finished here, Adam. You’ve recovered your Rembrandt. Take it, you earned it.”

“You’re not going to cut me out of your life.”

“You’ve done that for me.”

“No.” The fury and frustration took over so that he grabbed her arm and jerked her against him. “No, you’ll have to adjust to the way things are, because I’m coming back.” He ran his hands down her hair, and they weren’t steady. “You can make me suffer. By God, you can do it. I’ll give you that, Kirby, but I’ll be back.”

Before his anger could push him too far, he whirled around and left her alone.

Fairchild was waiting for him, sitting calmly in the parlor by the fire. “I thought you’d need this.” Without getting up, he gestured to the glass of Scotch on the table beside him. He waited until Adam had tossed it back. He didn’t need to be told what had passed between them. “I’m sorry. She’s hurt. Perhaps in time the wounds will close and she’ll be able to listen.”

Adam’s knuckles whitened on the glass. “That’s what I told her, but I didn’t believe it. I betrayed her.” His glance lowered and settled on the older man. “And you.”

“You did what you had to do. You had a part to play.” Fairchild spread his hands on his knees and stared at them, thinking of his own part. “She would’ve dealt with it, Adam. She’s strong enough. But even Kirby has a breaking point. Melanie… It was too soon after Melanie.”

“She won’t let me comfort her.” It was that anguish that had him turning to stare out of the window. “She looks so wounded, and my being here only makes it harder for her.” Steadying himself, he stared out at nothing. “I’ll be out as soon as I can pack.” He turned, his head only, and looked at the small, balding man in front of the fire. “I love her, Philip.”

In silence Fairchild watched Adam walk away. For the first time in his six decades he felt old. Old and tired. With a deep, deep sigh he rose and went to his daughter.

He found her curled on her bed, her head cradled by her knees and arms. She sat silent and unmoving and, he knew, utterly, utterly beaten. When he sat beside her, her head jerked up. Slowly, with his hand stroking her hair, her muscles relaxed.

“Do we ever stop making fools of ourselves, Papa?”

“You’ve never been a fool.”

“Oh, yes, yes, it seems I have.” Settling her chin on her knees, she stared straight ahead. “I lost our bet. I guess you’ll be breaking open that box of cigars you’ve been saving.”

“I think we can consider the extenuating circumstances.”

“How generous of you.” She tried to smile and failed. “Aren’t you going to the hospital to be with Harriet?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You’d better go then. She needs you.”

His thin, bony hand continued to stroke her hair. “Don’t you?”

“Oh, Papa.” Tears came in a flood as she turned into his arms.

Kirby followed Cards downstairs as he carried her bags. In the week since the discovery of the Rembrandt she’d found it impossible to settle. She found no comfort in her art, no comfort in her home. Everything here held memories she could no longer deal with. She slept little and ate less. She knew she was losing touch with the person she was, and so she’d made plans to force herself back.

She opened the door for Cards and stared out at the bright, cheery morning. It made her want to weep.

“I don’t know why a sensible person would get up at this ridiculous hour to drive to the wilderness.”

Kirby forced back the gloom and turned to watch her father stride down the stairs in a ratty bathrobe and bare feet. What hair he had left was standing on end. “The early bird gathers no moss,” she told him. “I want to get to the lodge and settle in. Want some coffee?”

“Not while I’m sleeping,” he muttered as she nuzzled his cheek. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, going off to that shack in the Himalayas.”

“It’s Harriet’s very comfortable cabin in the Adirondacks, twenty miles from Lake Placid.”