Everlasting (3 page)

He wondered what the board members of the
gigantic Shaman Copper Company would say to such an offhand reference. “Or something. It seems you've done a little research on my humble enterprises.”

She gave a distinctly unladylike snort at that blatant understatement. “I looked you up in the library. I had to find some way of tracking you down. You're an elusive man, Mr. Damon. And Marna was no help at all.”

He went still. “Marna?”

She gave a sigh of relief. “You remember Marna? I was afraid you'd forgotten her, and that would have blown everything. It's been so many years.”

“No. I remember Marna Debuk very well.”

“She said you would, but then she clammed up on me.” She ran her fingers distractedly through her curls. “I've seen her be maddeningly inscrutable with other people, but never with me.”

There was hurt as well as bewilderment in her expression and Zack had a sudden impulse to cross the space between them and take her in his arms to comfort her. His hands on the arms of the chair tightened until his knuckles showed white.
Not yet. “She loves you very much. I'm sure if she thought it best to—”

She impatiently held up her hand. “I know. I know. It's just that I'm so worried about her. I need all the help I can get, and she picks a time like this to become mysterious.”

“I think you'd better start at the beginning.”

“Am I being incoherent?” She grimaced. “It's one of my worst faults. Verbal chaos.” She bit her lower lip. “The beginning. I don't have any idea how much you already know. Blast Marna, anyway.”

“The beginning,” he repeated softly.

“Well, you do know Marna is a Gypsy and a member of one of the largest tribes in Tamrovia. It's a long-established custom for a member of her tribe to serve in the royal household in each generation. Marna became my nursemaid when I was born and has been with me ever since.” Her expression softened. “My parents and Stefan never had much time for me and Lance was in Sedikhan, so there was really only Marna. She was everything I needed or wanted.”

“That's quite an accolade.”

“She's quite a woman.” Uneasy, Kira hesitated. “Quite an unusual woman. She has certain…”

“Powers,” he suggested softly.

Her breath came out in a little rush. “You know about that?”

“I know that she told me she could work spells and sometimes see what others could not.”

“And you believed her?”

“My grandfather was a shaman and I spent a good deal of my childhood alone with him in the hills. I know that power exists.”

“That simplifies things a bit. I could see myself quite futilely trying to explain about Marna's powers. Well, anyway, my brother Stefan is a bit of a
chitka.”

“Chitka?”

“Sorry. It's a Tamrovian word. It means fool or idiot. Stefan decided when I was sixteen that I should make a marriage of state, and he tossed me to the lions, or rather to the title hunters. He forced me into contact with every head of state and powerful tycoon in the world.”

“Not every tycoon,” Zack corrected quietly.

“If you hadn't been hiding in the mountains
playing Howard Hughes, I can assure you that you would have topped Stefan's list. Stefan was very determined.” Her lips tightened. “But so was I.”

“Hence, the Corfu dock incident?”

She nodded. “Marna and I managed very well at first. Sometimes it was almost amusing. Then, last year, Stefan got impatient with the game and decided to end it. He imprisoned Marna to pressure me to give in.”

“Rather a drastic solution. Don't you have a habeas corpus law in Tamrovia?”

She shook her head. “It's an absolute monarchy. Stefan claimed she was aiding me by casting harmful spells on prospective suitors.”

He lifted a brow. “And was she?”

She shrugged. “Nothing very important. Maybe a minor rash now and then.” She bristled. “And they deserved it.”

“I'm sure they did.”

“Well, naturally I couldn't just leave her in prison. Clancy Donahue, Chief of Security of Sedikhan, and I broke her out and smuggled her across the border to Sedikhan.”

“I've heard of Donahue. I once tried to hire him as head of my security force.”

She shook her head. “Clancy would never leave Alex Ben Raschid or Sedikhan.”

“I found that out. Pity. He's a remarkable man. Go on. I gather your troubles weren't over when you reached Sedikhan.”

“They should have been, but Marna was miserably unhappy in Sedikhan. She has very close ties to her tribe and she missed her people. So I went back and tried to pacify Stefan.”

“Pacify?” All humor vanished from his face. “How?”

“I thought if I was pleasant to some of the men Stefan wanted me—”

“Pleasant.” The word was razor sharp. “Is that a euphemism for sleeping with them?”

Her eyes widened with surprise. “Of course not. I told you, those kinds of men really were interested only in my title. I'm not exactly a sex symbol, you know.”

She honestly believed what she said, Zack realized. She didn't know that her extraordinary vitality alone was a sexual draw. “I'm afraid I forgot,”
he drawled while wondering how a woman in her position could have remained so damned naive.

“Well, it isn't important. It didn't work out anyway. I'm not very docile and things happened…”

He was sure he would be fascinated to know about those “things,” but at the moment he needed to get her to the crux of the story. “And?”

“I returned to Sedikhan to wait for Stefan's temper to cool. I was going to try again, but Marna was impatient. She wanted to see her people, if only for a visit. So I smuggled her back across the border into Tamrovia.”

“Quite a busy border.”

“It's not amusing. Stefan had men waiting at the Gypsy camp when we got there.” She frowned. “I don't know how he knew that we'd be there. No one in Sedikhan would have betrayed us.”

“So Marna is in prison again?”

“She's under guard in an apartment close to mine at the palace. Stefan thought it would be more difficult for me to bribe the palace guards.” She added dryly, “Not that I would have had the money to do it.”

“So that's the present situation?”

She hesitated. “That's not quite all of it. About six months ago Stefan appointed a new adviser, Sandor Karpathan. I think he might be manipulating Stefan by pitting us all against each other to further his own ends.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I don't know. He's always very polite and charming. It's just that there's something—”

“Woman's intuition?”

“Woman's
judgment
,” she corrected. “Besides, Marna doesn't trust him.”

“Ah, the final condemnation.” He held up his hand as she opened her lips to protest. “I'm not mocking you or Marna, Kira. I believe in instincts. I've relied on my instincts all of my life. Is Karpathan the principal reason for this sudden urgency?”

She nodded. “I was nearly frantic. He frightens me. I didn't know what to do. Then Marna sent for me and told me about you.”

His stillness took on charged tension. “Really? What did she tell you?”

“Not nearly enough,” she said crossly. “Only
that when you were a boy in your teens you traveled with her tribe one summer. She said she'd met you when she'd left the palace and gone back to the caravan to nurse her mother for a few months. I understand she's kept track of you through the years, she feels strongly that if anyone can get her out of Tamrovia, it will be you. She said you and a man named Nick O'Brien went into Said Ababa right after the revolution and freed some of your employees who were being held hostage. Is that right?”

He nodded. “But a war-torn country is a good deal easier to manipulate than a stable government like Tamrovia.”

Her eyes were suddenly wide with fear. “Does that mean you won't—” She stopped. “She sent you a message. I have no idea what it means, but she said you would. She said to tell you it was the time of the
mondava
.”

His heart skipped a beat and then started to pound so hard he felt a little dizzy. He had to struggle to keep his face expressionless.
“Mondava
is a Tamrovian word. I learned only a little Tamrovian
that summer. You should know better than I what it means.”

“It means ‘the bonding.’ ”

He shook his head. “Not quite. In Marna's dialect it means the ‘forever bonding’ or the ‘everlasting bonding.’”

Her eyes lit with sudden interest. “You do know what she was trying to tell you.”

“Yes, I know.”

She waited eagerly. Then, when he failed to elaborate, she grimaced. “But you're not going to tell me either, are you?”

“Perhaps if you wait a little longer, I won't have to tell you.”

“Damn, now you're being as cryptic as Marna. I
hate
to wait.” She jumped to her feet, walked across the room, and stood restlessly beside the fireplace. “I can't bear double-talk. It drives me out of my mind. Are you going to help Marna or not?”

“Just what are you asking of me? Do you want money?”

“I don't know. I suppose it will take money. You should know better than I, considering your
experience in Said Ababa.” Her hand closed tightly on the oak edge of the mantel. “I want her out of Tamrovia and safe, and I don't want this to happen ever again.”

“How much do you really care?”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I care more about her than about anything in the world. I love her so very much.”

He was silent a moment, his gaze fixed on her face. “What did Marna say to you when she sent you to me?”

“She said you were a
disek
, one of the exceptional ones.” She hesitated and then added slowly, “She said I should put myself in your hands, do whatever was necessary to bring you to Tamrovia.”

“And just what do you intend to do?”

“Exactly what she told me to do,” she said simply.

His lips twisted. “You're very meek and obedient all of a sudden. And you're making a total commitment.”

“Don't you think I know that? I'm scared to
death you're going to ask me to hijack a plane or something. You're a complete stranger to me.”

“Yet you're willing to obey blindly a woman who hasn't set eyes on me for over fifteen years.”

“I've trusted Marna all my life. She wouldn't do anything to hurt me. I've got to hang on to that certainty.”

His gaze forthrightly met hers. “What you're asking will be very difficult. It will take money and time. I have quantities of the former and absolutely none of the latter. I'm in the middle of a merger. It just may go down the drain if I neglect it during this crucial period.”

Her lips drooped with disappointment. “You're not going to help me.”

“A faulty conclusion, Kira. I'm merely stressing the point that if I make certain sacrifices, I'll expect compensation.”

She shook her head. “I told you I don't have any money.”

“But you do have something else I want.”

“The title? You want to marry me and have a princess to add to your status?” She felt a sudden jolt of disappointment. Somehow she hadn't
expected such a superficial response from Damon. “All right, but I—”

“Not the damn title,” he said harshly. “Why the hell do you think that's all there is to you? I don't need to marry a princess to show the world I've made it. I know I've made it, and that's all that counts.”

She should have realized. She would have realized it if she'd thought for a moment instead of reacting immediately. “I'm sorry.” She smiled shakily. “I seem to be apologizing a good deal tonight. I didn't mean to make you angry.”

“You didn't make me angry. I guess it was natural for you to think that of me.” His eyes narrowed on her face. “I suppose your brother Stefan would consider me beyond the pale as far as bloodlines go. I know nothing about my father, except that he was a white man. It was the only thing my mother would tell my grandfather about him.”

“You're probably right about Stefan,” she said frankly. “I told you he was a
chitka
. But your money would endow you with a very tolerable patina in his eyes. What difference does it make?
You said you didn't want to marry a princess anyway.”

“Yes, I did, didn't I?” He rose to his feet. “But I said nothing about not wanting to take Kira Rubinoff to bed. Do you think Stefan would object if you took me as a lover?”

She gazed at him blankly. “Sex?” She didn't know how she got the word out. Her throat had closed and she couldn't seem to catch her breath. “You want to have sex with me?”

He slowly shook his head. “I want to be your lover. I want to sleep in the same bed you do; I want you to let me make love to you whenever and however I wish, for as long as it pleases me.” His voice lowered to a velvet softness. “I believe I can guarantee it will please you as much as it will please me.”

She didn't doubt it for a minute. Sexual magnetism radiated from Zack Damon in an almost visible aura. She felt a languid heat begin to flow through her at just the thought of his intimate touch. “Why?”

He smiled. “I don't believe a woman has ever asked me that question when I asked her to go to
bed with me. The answer seems self-evident. However, I can make it much clearer, if you like.”

She moistened her lower lip with her tongue. “We've just met. I'm not unattractive, but I don't exactly exude feminine allure, either. You're willing to jeopardize a merger to go to bed with me?” She shook her head in bewilderment. “I don't understand this.”

His rare smile widened to warm his dark face. “Perhaps I have peculiar tastes. You happen to appeal to me very much, and I can afford to let the merger slide. You had no problem at all believing I would want to marry you for status, and you agreed to that without a second thought. Why are you having a problem with the idea of being my mistress? The position would be much more advantageous for you. You'd have your freedom and still get what you want from me.”

“I don't know.” She gazed at him, frowning. “I think it's because I thought I had something to offer you in the title. This is entirely different.” Her hand left the mantel and her fingers raked distractedly through her hair. “Look, I don't know anything about being a mistress. It isn't very sophisticated
of me to admit it, but I'm a virgin. I don't know how to please you, dammit. One time and you'd probably drop me like a hot potato.”