With great, long strides, he went to a cabinet on the opposite wall, opened the doors to reveal a liquor cabinet, then poured a cut-glass tumbler half full of smoky single-malt whiskey and downed it one gulp. When he didn’t flinch, Kady thought he must either be a budding alcoholic or something had greatly upset him. She was well aware that he had offered her nothing.
He turned back to her. “Miss Long, I don’t have time for this. And I can assure you that I am not going to give you any money, no matter how outrageous your story.”
Stunned, Kady just sat there. He was a hateful man, so in love with his money that he thought everyone else was, too, but still, something kept her there with him. He was a stranger, but at the same time it was as though she’d spent most nights of her life with this man.
He was glaring at her, brooding, as he watched her. With a pounding heart, she got up, and with her back to him, she walked to the wall behind her. Just as in the wall case, here, too, was a display of knives, these smaller and very much like those Cole had often produced from inside his clothing. Since she’d spent most of her life with a knife in her hand, it was an easy thing for Kady to surreptitiously pick up one of the knives, whirl about, and throw it.
With a gesture like lightning, he caught the knife by its handle in midair.
And it was at that moment that Kady saw Cole. For just a second the dark, scowling man in front of her disappeared and there stood Cole with his laughing blue eyes, sunlight on his golden hair. As fast as the image came, it faded, and she was left alone in the office with a man she’d seen hundreds of times, always holding out his hand to her, always urging her to ride away with him.
But this man just stared at her, with his hot eyes and his look of disbelief. “If you’re planning to faint, I must tell you that other women have tried that before, and I can assure you that fainting has no effect on me.” He looked at the knife in his hand. “However, no woman before has tried throwing a blade at me.”
“More’s the pity,” Kady said, looking back at him; then she slipped her bag over her shoulder. “I’ve given you my message, so I’ll leave now.”
“Are you sure? As you can see, I have other weapons you can throw at me.”
She whirled to face him. “Mr. Jordan, your ancestors were the nicest, kindest people I’ve ever met. Cole Jordan was a man who knew how to love a woman, to love her so much that he created a whole world for her. And Ruth Jordan did what she did because she had loved too hard and been too hurt when she lost that love.” She glared at him. “It is disgusting that those lovely people could have given birth to someone like you, someone who thinks only of money.”
Pausing for a moment, she looked at him in contempt. “And to think that I spent all those years searching for you,” she said softly before walking to the door.
He stopped her as her hand was on the latch, standing to one side, very close, but not touching her. “Who was Ruth’s lover?” he asked softly.
She was angry, but when she turned and looked at him she was not prepared for the impact his nearness would have. She may have thought she had felt love, desire, lust, other emotions for other men, but nothing had ever prepared her for how it felt to be near this man. Every atom of her body seemed to vibrate as she looked into his dark eyes, and she had the feeling she was falling into a bottomless pool, down, down, down.
As though she were poison, he stepped away from her, and his action made Kady come back to her senses. She knew he was testing her. Ruth’s youngest son was believed to have been fathered by her husband. “He was the father of Cole’s friend, Tarik, an Egyptian man,” she managed to say in a hoarse whisper. “That’s why you have his name. And it’s why you’re dark when the rest of the Jordans were blonds.” With a shaking hand, she managed to open the door and leave the office.
After Kady left the sumptuous offices of C. T. Jordan, she didn’t return to her hotel room right away but wandered around the city streets. Shock threatened to overwhelm her. She had recognized him, but he had felt nothing for her except, maybe, well . . . Perhaps she’d also seen lust in his eyes. But that didn’t matter. What was important was that she’d told him, and that was the end of it. She’d met him and she didn’t like him.
But if she didn’t like him, then why did the idea of never seeing him again hurt more than losing Cole or Gregory had? While she was with Cole, she’d always known it wasn’t real, that what was between them wasn’t going to last. And when she’d been with Gregory, she’d felt more gratitude than love, grateful that such a man would be interested in her.
But with her Arabian man, the man she’d always dreamed of, she had always believed that if she found him, she’d find True Love.
But life does not imitate fairy tales. She’d found him, and he’d felt nothing. There was certainly no love-at-first-sight.
So what now? she wondered. Now that her Legend adventure was officially over, what was she to do with her life? Get a job, try to save money to open her own restaurant or a cooking school or . . . Suddenly, she felt very alone. Her life now was just where it was after she’d graduated from cooking school, but then all the world had been before her. Now, years later, she was lower than the bottom. Now she was no longer the sought-after graduate, the—
No! she thought. She was not going to lose herself in self-pity. She’d done what she could to help Ruth and Cole and Legend, so now it was time to go begging for a job. Correction, it was time to start a new life, with new adventures, with . . .
Turning, she went back to her hotel, trying to lighten her spirits but not doing very well at it. When she opened the door to her room, the first thing she saw was the blinking message light on her telephone, and she wondered who had called her. For a millionth of a second she thought it might be Tarik Jordan, but when she checked, she was told that she had a package and could it be brought up now?
Minutes later Kady was handed a large express package from Virginia, and her heart sank. How in the world had Gregory found where she was staying? Tossing the package on the bed, she took a shower, washed her hair, turned on the TV, and only then did she notice that Jane’s name was on the air bill.
Curious, she opened the package. Inside were two legal-size envelopes, one thick, the other thin, and two letters. The first letter was from one of the young men who had worked for her at Onions, and as Kady began to read, her heart did indeed begin to lighten. He said that since she had left, business had been so bad that all the cooks trained by her were applying for jobs elsewhere. He went on to say how much he had learned from Kady and thanked her for keeping horrid little Mrs. Norman off their backs.
Smiling, Kady called room service, ordered a bowl of onion soup and a fruit salad, then continued to read. The young man went on to say that since all of them would get a better job by putting Kady’s name on their résumés, they all felt they owed her, and they had found a way to repay her in a small way.
At this Kady laughed out loud, for it seemed that snooping, spying, and amateur sleuthing were their ways of saying thanks. First they had haunted Gregory’s office, never allowing anything to be taken out of the office that they didn’t first inspect. “The fat envelope is the result of the first weeks,” he wrote. “We grew bolder after that.”
With eyes wide from curiosity, she opened the thicker envelope and dumped out at least a dozen letters. Most were on the letterhead of a famous restaurant or hotel, and each was begging Kady to come work for them. Some were from people who wanted to open restaurants and were pleading with Kady to run them.
For a moment, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The words “Please,” and “begging you,” and offers of money and ho
using and “will give you a free hand,” were in the letters. Two of the letters had been torn to shreds, but some dear person had painstakingly taped the pieces back together.
When Kady realized what she was seeing, she began to dance about the room; then she called room service and ordered a bottle of their best champagne.
“No job interviews,” she said. “No begging for a job. No . . .” She couldn’t think what else, but when the food and wine arrived, she tipped the man ten dollars, then opened the wine, poured a glass, and toasted herself.