The Heir's Proposal

She looked at Marc. He stared back, not letting go of the jacket. For a long moment, their gazes held. There was a look deep in his eyes, a mood, something that told her he was a bit of a loner, that he couldn’t trust anyone enough to let go. Her heart seemed to melt, something in her yearned toward him. Someone ought to teach him how to trust. Too bad she was exactly the wrong person to expect that from.

She was the one who’d been lying to him all along. When he found out, he would discard her like yesterday’s news.

But Carl was coming and it was obviously time to draw apart.

“Just keep that in mind, Mrs. Marino,” Marc said coolly. “I’ll be watching you.”

He gave her one last impenetrably hard look, then turned and walked away.

Torie groaned as she watched him go. Marc Huntington would be watching her. Great. Maybe this was turnabout for the way she used to watch him when she was fifteen. She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing a bit hysterically, and she turned just as Carl reached her.

Tall and slim with thick auburn hair, Carl was handsome in an older way, and came across as very sure of himself. But right now, the man looked nervous.

Maybe Marc had threatened to watch him, too.

“What are you doing?” Carl whispered loudly, glancing toward where Marc was disappearing through the brush. “You’re going to ruin the whole thing if you start messing around with young guys.”

Messing around?

She drew back, offended. “He just saved me,” she told him tartly. “I was in danger. Sort of.”

“Where were you?” Carl asked, looking perplexed.

“Where were you?” she countered, pulling the jacket close around herself. “I heard you were out looking at the vineyard. I thought it was the house you were interested in.”

His gaze shifted in a way that startled her. Was that a guilty look? He grabbed her arm and started leading her toward the stairs, muttering as he went.

He was annoyed but not really angry. She knew he didn’t really care anything about her personally, he just didn’t want anyone to get suspicious. And when you came right down to it, she felt the same way about him. The two of them were more like partners in this enterprise than anything else. They were definitely not a couple.

Carl looked back over his shoulder as they started up the wooden stairway. “Stay away from that guy,” he said. “I can tell he’s nothing but trouble.”

“His name is Marc Huntington,” she told him, in case he didn’t know. “He’s Marge Huntington’s son.”

“He didn’t recognize you, did he?” he asked in alarm. He knew all about her childhood here in Shangri-La.

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Good.”

She eyed him curiously. “I would think you might want to get friendly with him, not avoid him,” she said. “He would probably be a good source of information about the property. And maybe have a little different perspective than his mother has.” And then she remembered what he’d said just before Carl arrived. Maybe there was really no point in getting closer to Marc. Maybe it would be safer all around if Carl kept his distance.

Carl shrugged. “I think I can gain more by exploring the place on my own,” he said, giving her a pointed look. “And that is something you are going to help me with.”

“I am?”

He nodded. “Sure. What do you think I brought you for? You grew up on the place. You know all the secrets.” He gave her a crafty smile. “Don’t you, darling?”

They’d reached the wide front porch and Marge Huntington was holding the door open for them, clucking over how everyone had been worried about Torie, freeing her from having to answer Carl’s surprising statement. But she couldn’t stop thinking about it. As she went up the stairs to dress for dinner, his words echoed in her mind.

You know all the secrets.

Something in his words chilled her. Maybe it was time she faced a few facts. She’d ignored her own doubts about Carl because he was giving her a chance to come back to Shangri-La, a chance she’d never have had without him. He’d told her he wanted her along to give the impression he was a stable married man, to help his chances of buying the place.

But now that they were here, she was beginning to realize there was more to it. When he’d quizzed her about her life her as a kid, she’d been happy to spill out just about everything she could think of. The trip down memory lane had been worth it. But now his interest seemed more pointed, less general. What was he after, anyway? That started her shivering again, despite the warmth of Marc’s jacket.

The room she’d been given was a little heavy on the pink accents for her taste, but it was certainly charming. There was an old-fashioned canopy over the bed and plush, heart-shaped cushions everywhere. There were two doors besides the entryway—one to the private balcony and the other to the bathroom.

She shrugged out of Marc’s jacket and threw it over the back of a chair, then walked out onto the little balcony and leaned out over the white wooden railing with its Victorian ornamentation. She could just barely make out the red tile roof of the butler’s cottage where she’d lived as a child. Just seeing it brought a lump to her throat.

“I’m back, Huntingtons,” she whispered to herself. “I’m back and I’m going to find out what really happened fifteen years ago when you fired my father and destroyed my family.” She flipped her thick blond hair back with a toss of her head. “Get ready for it. I want some answers, too.”

Shangri-La.

The name conjured up images of the mysterious East, and yet, the Huntington estate was plunked right in the middle of the California central coast and looked it. The house was a huge old rambling Victorian, perched on a cliff over the ocean, and there was nothing mysterious about it.

Torie did a little exploring, disappointed to find the grounds had been changed here and there. The beautiful rose garden that Mr. Huntington had been so proud of was a barren mess, and the trellis along the ocean cliff was gone. A new set of buildings lined the driveway and a new pool complex filled what had once been the tennis court area. The changes gave her a sick, empty feeling and she went back into the house, slipping quietly down the hallways to get a feel for the place.

She found the kitchen, and just as she turned to go again, Marc appeared in the doorway.

“Looking for something?” he asked, gazing at her skeptically.

She blinked, feeling guilty for no reason at all. “Just a drink of water.”

He went to the cabinet and got down a glass, then poured her a drink from the pitcher next to the sink. Turning, he watched her levelly as she drank it down.

“Shouldn’t you be attending to your husband?” he said, his voice soft but filled with a sense of irony.

“My…?”

Funny. Whenever Marc came near, she completely forgot that she was pretending to be married to someone.

“Uh, no,” she said quickly, using a phony smile as a cover-up. “Carl is actually pretty self-sufficient.”

“Lucky you,” he noted, his gaze cool.

She smiled at him but he didn’t smile back and she retreated quickly, pulse beating a bit too fast. This might be Shangri-La, but it wasn’t paradise. Too many conflicting emotions for that.

Another name came to mind as Torie sat at the dinner table, looking at the eclectic gallery of other perspective buyers. Actually, she was reminded of the cantina scene in the original Star Wars. A den of villainy, no doubt about it. Not to mention strangeness.

There was Tom, the jovial Texan whose booming laugh filled the room and bounced from the walls. Sitting next to him was the stylishly dressed Lyla, a pretty young widow from Los Angeles, who looked upon them all with a sense of disdain flaring her elegant nostrils. Andros, a Greek restaurateur, and his wife Nina, seemed pleasant and friendly, but Phoebe, the voluptuous blonde in the low-cut dress, and Frank, the vaguely sinister-looking real estate broker who dressed as though he was trying out for a role in a local production of Saturday Night Fever, were a couple she wouldn’t have wanted to meet in an alley on a dark night.

Marge Huntington presided at the head of the table, attempting to tame them all with pleasantries and offers to pass the au jus. She hardly looked any older than she had fifteen years ago, her flaming red hair flying like a flag. Torie remembered seeing her out sunbathing on the beach and hosting luncheons for the local women’s groups.

She’d been jumpy at first, wondering if the woman would remember her, but Marge hadn’t given her a second glance. She didn’t recognize her—and why should she? Her name had been Vikki then, short for Victoria, and she’d been short and chubby, with mousy brown hair and no personality that she could remember having. A typical plain Jane sort of girl, short on friends and scared of her own shadow.

That was then. This was now. She’d learned a thing or two about making herself ready for her place on the stage of life. She was taller, thinner, blonder—and definitely more confident.

Even so, sitting at the table with the woman made Torie a little nervous. Every time her eyes met Marge’s, she felt a little surge in her heart rate. She couldn’t help but think her hostess was going to begin to recognize her at some point.