Resistance (Replica) (20 page)

Ordinarily, Nadia would have immediately marched over in defiance of her brother-in-law’s wishes. He was almost a foot shorter than Gerri and liked to puff himself up with pompous attitude to make up for it. Nadia couldn’t imagine how her sister managed to live with him and, even more mysteriously, have children with him. But much as she’d like to inconvenience the man, she couldn’t just walk away and leave Agnes hanging, and Nate was nowhere to be seen. People were taking their seats with increasing speed, and soon Agnes and Nadia were going to be sticking out like sore thumbs.

Beside her, Nadia saw that Agnes’s hands were clasped together tightly, and her face had lost a little color. If she had to walk up to the front row on her own, every eye would be on her, and she would be painfully aware of it. Worse, she obviously had never learned the cherished Executive skill of hiding her feelings, and she was already wearing her misery on her face.

“Let’s go look for Nate, shall we?” Nadia asked, hooking her arm through Agnes’s and urging her away from the tent, into the building.

“B-but the service is about to start.”

Nadia noticed that the glossy silk of Agnes’s black dress did not hide sweat stains. It certainly wasn’t warm enough out for Agnes to be overheated, so the perspiration must have come from nerves. Nadia marched steadily forward, and because her arm was hooked with Agnes’s, Agnes had to follow.

“The service won’t start until Nate is there. So let’s go dig him out of hiding instead of keeping all those people waiting.”

Nadia unhooked her arm from Agnes’s only enough so she could open the door and give the girl a gentle nudge in the back to move her through. Just in time, too, because she saw that almost everyone was already seated, and a couple of people had turned to look in their direction. Nadia thought Agnes might have had a nervous breakdown if more people turned to look.

By the time Nadia closed the door and they were safe within the gloomy interior of the retreat, Agnes looked like she was near tears, and Nadia wanted to find Nate so she could take him by the scruff of the neck and shake him. He was a nice guy, the kind of guy who should feel naturally protective of a fragile soul like Agnes. For him to just leave her hanging like this was appalling.

“It’ll be all right, Agnes,” Nadia said softly. She wanted to give the other girl a hug, but Agnes’s body language did not invite it. “We’ll find Nate, and then we can all go take our seats so the service can begin.”

Agnes blinked away tears, her eyes wild and desperate-looking. “It’s going to get worse when we’re married, isn’t it? People will be watching my every move, and Nathaniel will hate me even more, and—”

To hell with Agnes’s body language,
Nadia thought as she put her arms around the girl and hugged her tightly. Agnes momentarily stiffened in shock, but it seemed she was so desperate for a show of kindness that she couldn’t help giving in to it.

“Nate doesn’t hate you,” Nadia assured her, sidestepping the issue about which she could offer no words of comfort. “He’s furious with his father, and he’s been taking it out on you because he can’t take it out on him.”

Agnes squirmed out of the hug, and Nadia reluctantly released her, wishing she could offer more than words.

“I’ve known him since I was four,” Nadia continued. “He’s being a world-class jerk right now, but that’s not what he’s really like.”

“And what
am
I really like?”

Agnes squealed in alarm, and though Nadia managed to keep quiet, she jumped just as high.

Standing in a doorway behind them, his tie loosened, his collar unbuttoned, and an open bottle of something amber-colored in his hand, was Nate. And the expression on his face was about as bleak and forbidding as anything Nadia had ever seen.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Nate
lifted the bottle of booze to his lips and took a gulp. It was probably something obscenely expensive, meant to be sipped in minute quantities—he hadn’t even bothered to read the label when he’d grabbed it—but all he cared about was that there was alcohol in it. Nadia and Agnes were both looking at him like he’d grown a third arm, which meant he was well on his way to creating the drunken slob look he was aiming for. Though he’d have to work a little harder on the “drunken” part, because he’d only had a couple of swallows so far. He raised the bottle again, and Nadia skewered him with a glare.

“Don’t you dare!” she commanded, striding forward and snatching the bottle out of his hand so quickly he didn’t even think to resist.

Agnes’s eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her head, and Nate would have laughed if Nadia hadn’t gotten up in his face. She held the bottle out to Agnes without taking her eyes off him. It was whiskey, Nate noted absently, though he didn’t recognize the brand name. Agnes bit her lip and approached like she was crossing a minefield, but she took the bottle from Nadia and then hastily backed up a couple of steps.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Nadia asked as she reached for his throat. Actually, she was reaching for the buttons on his collar, but it felt rather like a stranglehold. “Agnes and I have been looking all over for you. The service is about to begin.” She gave the collar a harder tug than necessary for buttoning purposes.

“I’m not going,” he said, twisting away from her hands. “Now give me back the bottle and leave me in peace.”

He was good at hiding his feelings in public, had had to do it for as long as he could remember. But there was no way he could put his public face on right now. Not after the bombshell his father had just dropped on him. Not after looking into Dorothy’s smirking face and seeing his future laid out plain and clear. Whether she was the Chairman’s daughter or not—and Nate refused to admit she was—she would be accepted by the public as such because the Chairman said so. Hell, the people of Paxco would probably throw a big party when his father disinherited him in favor of Dorothy. The original Nate Hayes had been popular, a true media darling. His Replica, not so much.

“What is
wrong
with you?” Nadia asked, reaching for his collar again. “You can’t cause a scene at your own mother’s funeral. I don’t care
what
issues you had with her.”

Nate caught her wrists and held her off. “This has nothing to do with her.”

What had happened to his life? Only a couple precious weeks ago, he’d been engaged to his best friend. He’d had a live-in—albeit secret—boyfriend whom he loved. And he had been one hundred percent secure in the knowledge that he would one day be the Chairman of Paxco.

Yes, he’d been a crappy heir. He’d avoided work like the plague and made it clear to everyone that he had little interest in learning how to play his future role. He’d neglected paperwork, dozed off in meetings, been rude to people he should have been diplomatic with. But he was eighteen years old, for Christ’s sake. He had
decades
before he expected to become Chairman, and he’d known there would be plenty of time to learn everything he needed to know. And even if they’d been a bit vague and amorphous, he’d had
plans
for his state. Plans to make it a better place. Plans to improve the quality of life among Basement-dwellers, like Kurt. Plans to give them more opportunities to join mainstream society, while putting protections in place for those who couldn’t. Plans to winnow out those in the government—and especially in the security department—who abused their power.

He would be a difference-maker. Someday in the future, when he was ready to settle down and put his mind to it.

And now, his father could make it all go away with a snap of his fingers. He’d already destroyed Nate’s dreams of a happy home life, with Nadia as the kind and understanding wife who would look the other way and not complain about his relationship with Kurt. How long before he couldn’t resist ruining the rest of it, too?

“What has your father done now?” Nadia asked him, her brow furrowed with worry.

Leave it to Nadia to home in on the problem without any input from him.

“Let’s go somewhere more private to talk,” he said, losing some of his head of steam. He met Nadia’s eyes and was sure she saw the hint of panic in his. “I can’t go out there,” he said, waving vaguely in the direction of the porch. “I’m losing it, Nadia.”

She slipped her hand into his and gave it a squeeze, her eyes full of kindness and concern. “Okay. Let’s talk.”

He nodded and started to guide her toward another little parlor room he’d noticed. Another room with a door that could be closed. She moved with him, but looked over her shoulder and waved.

“Come on, Agnes,” she said.

Nate swallowed the first couple of responses that came to mind. Nadia was right, and he’d been treating Agnes horribly. He didn’t think anything on earth could persuade him to
like
the girl, but that didn’t mean he had the right to be cruel to her. So he went with his third response, which was far less caustic than his knee-jerk ones.

“I really need to talk to you alone.”

“Tough,” was Nadia’s tart reply. “We’re not sending Agnes out to the service by herself, and we’re not leaving her holding the bag if someone comes looking for us. So she’s coming with us. Now come on, Agnes.”

She waved to Agnes again, and the girl reluctantly came closer. Nate didn’t want this virtual stranger intruding on his time with Nadia, nor did he want her to see him falling apart at the seams as he feared he might. But he didn’t have the energy to fight a battle he knew he wouldn’t win, so he sighed and started off toward the parlor again.

“Make sure you bring the whiskey,” he called to Agnes over his shoulder.

Agnes, of course, didn’t answer, but he heard the soft tap of her shoes on the wooden floor of the hall, so he knew she was following. Once upon a time, he’d been fairly good at getting Nadia to agree with him, even when he knew she didn’t
really
agree. She hadn’t been a pushover, exactly, but he’d always known which buttons to push. Those buttons didn’t work anymore, and if she was dead set on Agnes coming along, then Agnes was coming along.

Outside, the drizzle had picked up and become a steady rain, drumming on the windows. The parlor Nate led the girls into would have been dismal on a bright and cheery day, the furniture dark, fussy, and old-fashioned. On this gray and gloomy day, the place was positively depressing. Or maybe that was just Nate’s mood. They certainly went together nicely. He closed the parlor door. Anyone who came looking for him would have no trouble finding him, but he doubted his father would hesitate to start the service without him there, and once it started, no one was going to come looking.

Nadia and Agnes sat together on a floral-upholstered sofa with spindly legs, but Nate was too agitated to sit. Agnes was still holding the whiskey bottle, probably unsure what to do with it. He wanted to take it from her, more because he wanted something to do with his hands than because he wanted to drink, but Nadia’s forbidding stare made him think twice.

“So, what’s happened now?” Nadia prompted.

He hated that he had to talk about this with Agnes in the room. Even when she’d disapproved of him, Nadia had always been easy to talk to. They’d known each other so long, been each other’s friends for so long … He was trying not to think of Agnes as the enemy anymore, but she certainly wasn’t a friend.

Soon,
everyone,
friend and foe, is going to know about this,
he reasoned with himself. No doubt the Chairman had already been making discreet introductions from the moment he had arrived.

His voice halting as though every word were being dragged out of him by force, he told the girls everything he knew—which, granted, was very little—about his alleged half-sister. Neither Nadia nor Agnes interrupted him, even when his pauses became uncomfortably long. They sat side by side, quietly listening, and Nate was struck for the millionth time by the contrast between them. Nadia, beautiful and tastefully dressed, sat up straight and proud, her eyes soft with sympathy as she looked him straight in the face. Agnes, plain and with no fashion sense whatsoever, sat slumped with her shoulders slightly hunched, her gaze focused either on the floor or at something across the room, never at his face. He doubted she was much more comfortable sitting in on this conversation than he was having it in front of her.

There was a long silence after he’d finished telling them about Dorothy. He’d seen Agnes start when he mentioned his worry that Dorothy would one day be named heir, and he wondered if by some miracle she was now reconsidering the engagement. It wasn’t like he’d made a great impression on her as potential husband material if he didn’t come with guaranteed rank, status, and money. She chewed her lip and frowned, looking lost in thought.

“I don’t know what to say,” Nadia said in a small voice, shaking her head.

Nate shrugged. “There’s nothing
to
say. If my dad wants to pretend this girl is his daughter, who’s going to stop him?”

He gave Nadia his most challenging stare, daring her to argue that Dorothy really was the Chairman’s daughter. But, to his utter shock, it wasn’t Nadia who spoke, it was Agnes.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Agnes said, her voice even softer than Nadia’s had been.

Nadia turned to her, obviously as surprised as Nate that she’d spoken up. Nate couldn’t remember a time when Agnes had spoken without being spoken to first. She surprised him yet again by raising the whiskey bottle she still held to her lips and taking a swift swig.

“What doesn’t make sense?” Nadia asked.

Agnes grimaced at the taste of the whiskey, setting the bottle down on the coffee table. She looked back and forth between Nadia and Nate as if uncertain it was all right for her to speak.

“Go on,” Nate urged, trying to keep his voice gentle.

Agnes swallowed hard and looked at him, though her gaze kept darting sideways, as if she couldn’t quite stand to meet his eyes for more than a second at a time.

“Even though you’re still the legal heir,” she said, “your stock goes down when people discover another potential heir is out there.”