Passion and Scandal (5 page)

"The other five snapshots are from when she lived in Los Angeles before I was born," Willow said as Steve laid the pictures of mother and child on top of the letters.

For a second, Steve thought he was looking at a completely different woman. The Donna Ryan in these pictures was as different from the Donna Ryan in the previous ones as a rosebud was from a dried flower. Even the outlandish fashions of the early seventies couldn't obscure her fresh, innocent beauty. She was an enchanting young temptress with huge, luminous eyes set at a slant above high, chiseled cheekbones. A waterfall of straight, gleaming mahogany red hair flowed down her back, hanging nearly to the hem of her psychedelic tie-dyed minidress. She stood alone in front of a wrought-iron gate, her delicately voluptuous body in profile to the camera, her head turned to face the photographer. She was smiling—a happy, seductive smile meant for whoever was taking the picture.

Steve glanced up at Willow, studying her for a moment over the top of the desk. "You have her eyes," he said, and he set the picture aside.

Willow said nothing, watching him while he studied the other photographs. They were all group shots, various combinations of Willow's mother with another young woman and four equally young men. They appeared to have been taken at the same location as the first one, at the same time, as if the camera had been passed around among the group so they could take pictures of each other.

"I suppose you're thinking that one of these guys might be your father," Steve said.

It wasn't a question but Willow answered it anyway. "I think it's possible. Maybe. She must have kept the pictures for a reason. They were the only things, besides the card and a few clothes, that she brought with her when she came to Blackberry Meadows."

Steve nodded vaguely and went back to studying the photographs. Something about the building in the background seemed familiar. Maybe it was the predominantly Spanish architecture that made him think he'd seen it before, but he didn't think so. Faded pink stucco walls and fanciful wrought-iron balconies were common in many of the old neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles but the vaguely Moorish tower jutting up on one side of the building was unique. He opened a desk drawer, rooting around until he found a magnifying glass. Fanning the photographs out, he studied each one more closely, scrutinizing every detail.

He knew the building, all right.

He also recognized two of the faces.

"What?" Willow demanded, unable to bear the suspense a moment longer. "What is it?"

Steve took one more long look, just to be sure. "This building—" he tapped one of the photographs with the edge of the magnifying glass "—is the Wilshire Arms Apartments. It's only a few miles from here."

"And?" She knew there was an
and;
she could see it in his face.

"And one of the guys in these pictures is Zeke Blackstone."

Willow's mouth dropped open in astonishment. "Zeke Blackstone?" she echoed. "The
actor?
Are you sure?"

"Take a good look at the guy on the far left." He extended both picture and magnifying glass across the desk. "If it isn't Blackstone, it's his twin brother."

"My God. I think you're right," she said, looking past the tousled hair and the tight bell-bottom jeans with the peace sign sewn on the knee. "I think it
is
Zeke Blackstone."

"Now take a look at the guy standing next to him, the one with his arm around your mother."

Willow looked as ordered, her forehead crinkling up as she peered through the magnifying glass. He had long sideburns and a thick, drooping mustache. "Is he an actor, too?"

"He used to be, years ago. Don't you recognize him?"

Willow shook her head. "Who is he?"

"That's Ethan Roberts. If the Republicans have their way in the next election, he'll be Senator Roberts."

Willow's golden brown eyes widened until they threatened to fill up her whole face. "Oh, my God," she murmured. Ethan Roberts. The single initial E on the card to her mother. And there he was in the picture, with his arm slung casually around Donna's shoulders. After all these years of wondering, was it really going to be that easy? She stared across the desk at Steve. "Do you really think it might be him?" she whispered.

"It might," he said, emphasizing the second word.
"Might,"
he repeated when she continued to sit there with the picture and magnifying glass clasped in her hands, staring at him with a look of shimmering hope in her eyes. "Or it might not." He brushed aside a pile of papers and reached for the telephone. "There's only one way to find out."

"You're going to call him? Right now? Right this very minute?" The last few words rose to a high-pitched squeak as her voice tightened with panic and excitement. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm herself. "Do you think that's the best way to handle it?"

"You want to know, don't you?"

"Well, yes, but... I mean—" She lifted her hands, realized she still held the photograph and magnifying glass, and put them down on the desk, all without shifting her gaze from his. "You can't just call and ask him if... if..." She floundered, unable to think of a way to phrase the question. "How
do
you ask a man if there's any chance he could be your father?" she wondered out loud.

"You just ask," Steve said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. "But don't worry, I'm not going to do it over the phone." He punched in a three-digit number. "Right now, all I'm going to do is call and set up an appointment to see him. Yes," he said into the receiver. "Do you have a residential listing for Ethan Roberts?" There was a moment of silence while the operator checked. "How about a number for his campaign headquarters? That must be listed." He listened for a moment, then pressed the disconnect button and redialed.

Willow sat in tense silence, her nerves stretched tight, her hands clutched together in her lap, listening as Steve was transferred up the chain of command at Ethan Roberts' campaign headquarters until, finally, he reached someone with the authority to take a message.

"No, I'm sorry, I can't discuss the matter with anyone but Mr. Roberts," he said to the person on the other end of the phone. "Yes, I realize you're his campaign manager but, as I said to the two people I talked to before you, it's a private matter. Highly sensitive and confidential. If you'll just tell him it concerns a young woman named Donna Ryan—" He spelled out the last name. "Yes, that's right. Donna Ryan. Her daughter has some questions she hopes Mr. Roberts can answer. He can reach me at the number I gave you anytime, day or night."

"Now what?" Willow asked when he put the receiver down.

"Now, we wait."

"How long?"

"Hard to tell. Maybe a few minutes. A few hours. Maybe a few days. It depends on how quickly his campaign manager gets the message to him. And how urgent he thinks it is."

"A few
days?"
she wailed. "I don't think I can stand the suspense for that long."

"You've stood it for twenty-four years. Another few days shouldn't make any difference."

"I know, but to be this close and—"

The phone rang, making them both jump.

"Do you think it's him?" Willow whispered. "Already?"

Steve smiled, looking like a shark who'd just scented blood in the water. "Only one way to find out." He picked up the receiver. "Steve Hart," he said.

"This is the Ethan Roberts for U.S. Senate campaign office," chirped a disembodied female voice. "I'm calling in regard to a message you left for Mr. Roberts concerning a Ms. Donna Ryan."

"Yes." Steve punched the speaker button so Willow could listen in. "Go ahead."

"Mr. Roberts has asked me to inform you that he will be in San Francisco until very late this evening attending a fund-raising benefit at the Mark Hopkins Hotel. He regrets that he cannot address the matter of Ms. Ryan immediately but asks if it would be convenient for you to meet with him at his home tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m., at which time he'll be glad to offer whatever help or information he can."

"Tomorrow morning would be fine."

"Very good," the woman said, and rattled off the address. "Mr. Roberts will be expecting you for breakfast."

The line went dead, filling the room with the buzz of a disconnected telephone. Steve pushed the speaker button and the buzzing stopped.

"Oh, my God,"
Willow said softly and reached out, grabbing the edge of the wooden desk for support. Her face was dead white.

"Jesus, you're not going to faint, are you?"

"I don't know," she whispered, and swayed forward in her chair.

Steve jumped up and came swiftly around the desk. "Put your head down between your knees," he ordered, cupping the back of her head to make her do it.

"I'm all right. Really. I never faint." She resisted the downward pressure of his hand, turning her head to look up at him instead. "It's just so..." She took a deep trembling breath, as if to steady herself, and then sank forward, like a slowly deflating balloon, and pressed her forehead against his stomach. "I didn't think it would hit me this hard," she confessed, whispering the words into the soft fabric of his yellow T-shirt.

Steve went stock-still, his whole body tightening under a sudden barrage of conflicting emotions. The weight of her head pressed against the taut muscles just north of his waistband, the silkiness of her heavy hair sliding through his fingers, the smell of her perfume at such close range, aroused every aggressive masculine instinct he possessed. The soft shaking of her shoulders, the trembling sound of her breathing as she tried to control herself, had him struggling for tenderness.

It wasn't as if he'd never had a woman turn to him for comfort before. In his line of work, knowing how to comfort a distraught woman—or a man or child, for that matter—was as important as knowing what questions to ask and where to look for the answers. But if anyone had told him, even ten minutes ago, that he'd be standing in his office with a beautiful woman's face practically pressed into his groin, trying to think of ways to comfort her instead of get her on her back on his broken down sofa, he would have laughed and said they were crazy.

And yet, here he was, stroking her hair and hoping like hell she didn't notice the part of him that had suddenly sprung to rigid attention beneath his jeans.

"It's okay now, honey," he murmured soothingly. "Just take a couple of deep breaths and you'll be all right. No sense getting upset until we know if he's the right one, now, is there?"

Willow sniffled and shook her head. "No, you're right." She put her hand on his waist, pushing a little away from him, and tilted her head back. "I'm sorry," she said, gazing up at him with eyes that glimmered with unshed tears. She tried to smile, her lips quirking up at the corners in a self-deprecating, embarrassed little grimace devoid of any real humor. "I'm acting like a crazy person."

"I guess you're probably entitled to act a little crazy," he murmured gruffly, gazing down at her as he mindlessly smoothed his palm over the back of her head. "It's not every day you find out you might be related to the next senator from California." He grinned, revealing the dimple in his lean cheek. "The fact that he's a Republican was bound to make the shock worse."

She smiled for real, as he had meant her to, honest amusement replacing some of the dazed confusion in her slanted golden brown eyes. Steve lifted his free hand, intending to brush back the lock of hair that had fallen over her face. Somehow, he found his hand cupping her cheek, instead, and he extended his thumb, slowly brushing it across her lower lip.

She gasped once, a tiny breath of sound, and went very still in his hands, like a small, fragile animal instinctively freezing to avoid detection by something bigger and infinitely more dangerous than she was.

He stroked her lip again, and the curve of her cheek, and the line of her delicately chiseled jaw, fascinated by the shape and texture beneath his caressing thumb. She was soft everywhere. Soft lips. Soft skin. Soft hair, as dark and thick as his mother's mink coat, as shiny as the satin ribbons his younger sister used to wear in her hair when she was a little girl.

He had a sudden, searing vision of laying Willow Ryan down, naked, on that mink coat, her soft pale skin gleaming like a pearl against the lush fur. He imagined tying her up with the satin ribbons, winding the long shiny strands around her ankles and thighs and wrists, around her arms and waist and breasts, tying it all up with a pretty bow beneath her chin. And then slowly untying it all again, revealing her softness inch by delicious inch, like a present meant just for him.

And he could do it, he thought. He could have her right here, right now. She was vulnerable and off-balance, looking to him to solve her problems for her. It would be so easy. With just a little persuasion, he could have her lying naked beneath him on the old leather couch against the wall. One kiss, two, and she would be his. He tightened his hand on the back of her head, drawing her up out of the chair. Willow rose to his touch like a marionette in the hands of the puppet master.

He touched his lips to hers once... twice... three times... soft, sweet, coaxing little baby kisses that had her parting her lips in anticipation of more. He gave it to her, caressing her lips with his in a moist open-mouthed kiss. She made a small yearning sound, deep in her throat, a tiny whimper of uncertain resistance and arousal, barely loud enough to be heard.

It was enough to jolt Steve out of the sensual fog that enveloped him. Good God! What was he thinking? What was he
doing?
He didn't get sexually involved with clients. It was his one unshakable, irrevocable rule.

She'd come to him needing help. Trusting. Vulnerable. And, then, when her defenses were at their lowest, when she'd turned to him in a moment of need, seeking the simple comfort of a human touch, he'd gotten a hard-on and started daydreaming about ravishing her on the office furniture. There were names for men who preyed on the vulnerabilities of women but they were ones that had never been—and never would be—applied to him.