The flight into Belmonde, Virginia, was
a blur. Julienne Hunter spent most of the journey in the washroom,
carefully retouching the layers of cosmetics she wore. Without them,
she looked vulnerable, haggard and drawn, and she wasn’t ready for
anyone to see her up close.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be
landing in five minutes. Please make sure your seats and tray tables
are in the upright and locked position and your seatbelts are
fastened.” The voice on the intercom was cold and lifeless, an
impassionate end to an uneventful trip.
Arranging her belongings, Julienne
returned to her seat. Despite her success at disguising her flaws,
she was still a bundle of raw nerves. Strands of her copper hair
clung to her perspiring face and neck. She simply couldn’t relax.
How could she? In a matter of minutes, she was due to meet the family
her mother had left behind over twenty years ago.
“I have to believe it will be all
right,” she murmured. It had to be. She had no other place to go.
When it was time to deplane, she took a
deep breath. She wanted to be calm. Disciplined. She drew her purse
onto her shoulder. The butterflies in her stomach wouldn’t cease
fluttering as she walked down the canopied ramp.
Entering the terminal, she surveyed the
unfamiliar area. Other travelers milled past her, forcing her to
follow their migration. Friends and families around her met and
greeted, chattering in animated conversation.
Doubling her pace, she passed
passengers hurrying to board outgoing flights. Weaving her way around
jostling bodies, she realized she didn’t know who was supposed to
meet her. She thought about buying a ticket back to California. What
would it hurt? If she wanted to leave, her exit would be assured.
She dug her billfold out of her purse.
Opening it, she was dismayed to discover thirty-two dollars and
fifty-eight cents.
“Shit.” Her hands quivered a
little, and it took a moment for her to fight off the crushing sense
of helplessness. She had credit cards, but they were over limit. Her
cell phone, unpaid for months, was useless. She was dead broke, part
of the reason she’d agreed to return to Virginia.
That, and the fact that her soon-to-be
ex-husband had tried to kill her.
Julienne winced, remembering the
assault. Two days after she’d asked for a divorce, James Hunter had
accosted her outside a popular Miami hot spot. Using a box cutter,
he’d carved deep gashes into her face before horrified onlookers
could stop him.
Though the disjointed memories were
blurred, she’d never forget the searing pain of the razor. When
she’d separated from James, she hadn’t thought he’d follow
through with his threats to get even with her.
Looking back, she knew their marriage
had been a damned union from the beginning. They met when she was
seventeen and waiting tables in LA. She was looking for her big break
in Hollywood. A minor agent, representing D-list clients, he’d
promised to make her a star.
James had also introduced her to crack
cocaine in a Singapore nightclub. He was already an addict; her
modeling jobs supported his habit. She’d tried it to please him,
believing she wouldn’t get hooked if she used it sparingly. She was
wrong. The drug turned her into a junkie, too. The night James
slashed her face had been her second trip to the hospital in less
than two months. Both times she’d nearly died, and both times she’d
been fueled on the drug.
Bitter recriminations ricocheted
through her mind. She always made bad decisions. James. The drugs.
After years of struggling, her brief brush with fame was over.
As though reaching for a talisman, she
slipped her hand back into her purse, brushing the tips of her
fingers across a sheaf of letters she’d carried for months. The
cloying scent of vanilla still clung to the pages.
Grandmother Anlese. Thank God for her
letters. If nothing else, they proved someone in her family cared
whether she lived or died.
The Blackthorne family had stepped back
into her life after the attack. They had money, and the way they
operated was like a well-oiled machine. Overnight, a cadre of
attorneys appeared, sucking her back into the world of wealth and
privilege her mother had fought so hard to escape.
A stint in rehab had followed her
hospitalization.
Since admitting her own addiction, her
life hadn’t been pleasant or easy. Withdrawal meant rules. Rules
meant structure. Structure meant recovery. Recovery meant
continuation. Not an easy battle when she was utterly bankrupted by
scandal and a pending divorce. Surviving hadn’t ended the conflict
over her weakened spirit. It would take time to regain a healthy
balance.
But she wasn’t scot-free. Her
family’s generosity had come with a price. Julienne had to pay them
back by coming home.
She supposed she owed them. Not only
had they covered all her medical expenses, her grandmother had also
paid a hefty sum to purchase the sex tapes James was desperate to
release. Currently behind bars for the attack, he needed cash for his
own defense.
Her skin, so warm only moments ago,
grew chilled. Those DVDs we made would’ve gotten a tidy sum from
any porno producer. It embarrassed her she was a willing
participant in their creation. But jobs in front of the camera were
drying up as their drug use spiraled out of control. No one wanted to
hire a crackhead for an expensive shoot. And no reputable actor
wanted one as an agent. There was easy money to be made, peddling sex
on the Internet.
Sadness washed over her like the
consuming waves of an angry ocean. Oftentimes, it felt as if she
didn’t belong in this world. Through her twenty-four years, she’d
always felt different, isolated and alone. Was it because something
had always been missing in her life? A sane mother? A stable home?
She’d had neither. Her mother had been mentally ill. What had
frightened Cassandra Blckthorne away from her family might have been
nothing more than her own schizophrenic mania in action.
Julienne reached for the cross hanging
at her throat. She wasn’t particularly religious, but the crucifix
offered a bit of solace. She wished things could be different, but
she couldn’t dwell on that now. In Virginia was a new life, a fresh
start. Whether she’d be able to reclaim her place in the
Blackthorne clan was yet to be determined. Her mother was years into
her grave. Surely, the bitter past had died with her.
“I belong here,” she murmured to no
one.
Lost in a sea of travelers, she noticed
a small group of people coming together, pointing her way. She tensed
when an elderly woman broke away and approached her. The smile on her
face was warm and welcoming.
Grandmother?
“Hello, dear. My name is Edith
Danridge, and you look lost.” She was beautifully dressed; her soft
Southern accent one of education and refinement.
“I am.” Hiding the disappointment
in her eyes, Julienne returned a grateful smile. The woman was trying
to be kind. The least she could do as a stranger was to greet the
locals. She was grateful no one had recognized her. She was just
another anonymous nobody in the crowd.
“Then perhaps you need the comfort of
our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Julienne glanced down at the
literature. Hope sank like a stone in water. The Path to
Salvation, it read. Disappointed, she shook her head in a polite
decline of the material. “Thanks, nice of you to offer.”
“Is someone coming to meet you?”
Edith asked, trying to engage her in conversation. “You seem so
alone.”
“My grandmother, I think. Perhaps you
know her. Anlese Blackthorne.”
Edith Danridge drew back a bit upon
hearing her answer, her lips forming an O of silent surprise. A
shadow of uncertainty flashed across her features. “Yes, I know
your family.” Her body language became defensive, as if she was
afraid of being attacked. Her voice was strained.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve
seen her.” Julienne was puzzled by the abrupt change in attitude.
It was as if a chill wind had blown without warning through the
terminal. “My mother’s name was Cassandra. Did you know her?”
“I remember Cassandra. She didn’t
have a chance”—Edith Danridge unexpectedly glanced over her
shoulder toward her group, who were also handing out church
literature, as if afraid they would hear her—“belonging to them.
You don’t, not yet.” She raised a hand and curled her fingers
around the gold cross hanging from Julienne’s neck. “Keep faith,
and don’t let them destroy you the way they did her.”
Julienne drew back, sucking in a
startled breath. The nearness of this strange woman made her
extremely uncomfortable. The thin chain around her neck snapped, the
ends dangling from the stranger’s hand. “I—I don’t
understand.”
Edith Danridge ignored her. As if in a
daze, she stared at the broken necklace. “Too late.” The chain
slid from her fingers, falling to the floor at her feet. “You
belong to the devil.” Giving Julienne a frightened glance, she
turned and scurried away, murmuring, “God help us all.”
Julienne stood motionless until jostled
into action by passersby. She’s nuts, she told
herself. She tried not to let the woman’s words affect her.
Nevertheless, such strange pronouncements were unnerving. A
fanatic. She knelt to retrieve her jewelry. Spends too much
time in that church of hers.
“There’s Miss Julienne.” A man’s
voice wafted through the airport and caught her ear.
Julienne turned, looking for the person
who’d spoken her name. Her gaze located a young black man standing
on the periphery of the departing passengers, at an angle where he
could survey the entire room in a single glance. He wore crisp new
jeans and a matching shirt, and held a well-worn felt hat in his
hands.
She watched him lean slightly to his
left and speak to a figure concealed behind an outspread newspaper.
The paper came down immediately. Folding it with four crisp movements
of precise economy, the second man dropped it into the nearby
wastebasket.
Julienne felt the fine hairs on the
back of her neck rise. Surely it wasn’t . . . No. Not
Morgan Saint-Evanston. God, why him?
As the two men approached, Julienne
felt as if someone had led her to the top of a cliff and then,
without warning, pushed her off. Somehow, she’d managed to catch
the edge, but she was still left to dangle helplessly high above the
ground.
She couldn’t help but notice people
were falling back to make room for him. A current of apprehension
rippled through the masses as he advanced, as if some silent command
demanded none should cross his path. Even his companion followed a
courteous distance behind.
He stopped within a few feet of her.
“Morgan?” she asked, hoping she was
mistaken about his identity.
He nodded in acknowledgment. “Ce’as
mile fa’ilte, leanabh.”
Julienne blinked, uncomprehending,
puzzled. The odd words jarred, seeming to carry the whisper of
familiarity, much like the strains of a long-forgotten tune. One
could hum a few notes but never entirely capture the haunting melody.
“What did you say?”
“A hundred thousand welcomes,” he
repeated, this time in English.
Her face flushed with
self-consciousness. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t understand.” Her brow
wrinkled in question. “You expected me to?”
“When you were small, I used to speak
Gaelic, the Irish language, to you.” His earnest gaze raked over
her, measuring every inch. “But you are not so little now.”
She looked back, evaluating him as
closely as he assessed her. His complexion was cream-colored, his
eyes almost black. His black, collar-length hair was layered and
unruly, threaded with silver at his temples and bangs. At a glance,
he appeared to be about thirty. But a closer look revealed
crow’s-feet etched at the outer corners of his eyes. Around his
mouth were a few deeper character lines and small scars. He was
admirably muscled, his posture regal, as if he was always in command
despite what fate might otherwise dictate.
He cut an impressive figure, elegantly
dressed in a charcoal-gray suit, coat tailored, trousers sharply
creased, silk vest worn over a crisp white shirt open at the neck, no
tie. A gold watch chain bridged the pockets of his vest. With the
heel of a boot under him he almost made it to six feet. All in all,
his finery was immaculately tailored and smartly worn.
She’d expected him to look a lot
older, and meaner.
But, no. He was absolutely striking. In
every way.
Frustrated, and a little confused, she
replied, “N—no, sorry. I don’t remember much about my
childhood.” She immediately noticed that he didn’t offer his hand
or any other physical contact. Despite his salutation, his behavior
was guarded, his penetrating stare intense and aggressive, displaying
no emotion.
“Why not?” he asked. “Were we so
forgettable?” His words were tinged with an Irish brogue, precisely
spoken as if to avoid mangling the English language. His voice had a
pleasing timbre, even in cadence and tone, in intimacy and
confidence. She surmised he could manipulate it with ease to make
anyone believe he was sincere, even when he was not.
Julienne swallowed the lump rising in
the back of her throat. “It’s been a long time since I was a
toddler.”
Now that she’d come face-to-face with
him, Julienne wasn’t sure what to make of the man. Morgan was the
reason her mother had left town. Cassandra was terrified of him, and
she’d run away from him until the effort had killed her.
She’d always suspected Saint-Evanston
might be her father. Cassandra never would tell her the truth.
She looked at him again, searching for
a connection—an acknowledgment of kinship—in his gaze. There was
none. She wasn’t even sure how he fit into the family bloodline.
All she knew for sure was he controlled the Blackthorne legacy, and
the money that went with it.
And he ruled with an iron fist.
