Passion and Scandal (12 page)

The teasing vamp of last night was gone. She looked cool and fresh this morning, ready for business in a loose, figure-concealing jacket and a long floaty dress with a row of tiny buttons down the front that made his fingers itch to undo them.

If she was still angry about last night it didn't show. She looked nervous, instead, standing in front of the bank of elevators with her bottom lip between her teeth and a tiny frown marring her smooth brow as she searched for him among the potted palms and statuary that decorated the busy hotel lobby. He wondered if her nervousness had to do with embarrassment over what had happened between them last night, or if it sprang from the knowledge that the man they were meeting that morning might turn out to be her father. Either possibility seemed as likely as the other but it would be easier to soothe and reassure her if he knew which it was. He shifted his position slightly, deliberately drawing her attention as her gaze started to wander past him for a third time, hoping he would get a clue from the expression on her face when she saw him.

Her face lit up in that first split second of recognition, like a child's at Christmas, and Steve felt something inside him twist with savage intensity. The feeling was centered higher than his gut, higher than that part of his anatomy that hadn't given him any peace since yesterday morning in his office. It felt a whole lot like a vicious sucker punch to the middle of his chest, the kind that had him fighting to stay on his feet.

And then she blushed and looked down, and he had a few seconds to get his balance back before he had to push away from the support of the marble pillar and stand up under his own power.

They split the distance between them and met halfway, stopping two feet apart in the middle of the opulent lobby, as hesitant and unsure as two teenagers at a freshman mixer. It was a unique and unsettling experience for both of them. Willow, who had made it a point to know just how to conduct herself with grace and poise in any situation. Steve, who was never at a loss for words, even if they were often blunt.

"About last night—" they both said at the same time, and then stopped and smiled awkwardly, each of them motioning for the other to speak.

"Ladies first," Steve insisted, falling back on cowardice and tradition, abruptly deciding he could explain the reasoning behind his rule of noninvolvement at some other time.

Willow swallowed and focused on a point past his left shoulder. "I just wanted to apologize for the, um... for the way I behaved last night," she said, telling herself it was the right thing to do. Just because he'd behaved like an arrogant jerk was no reason for her to have done so. "I behaved abominably and embarrassed both of us in the process. I'm sorry."

"I'm not," Steve murmured, wondering if the feeling in his chest would get better or worse if he leaned down and kissed her.

Willow shifted her gaze to his face. "Not what?"

"Sorry," he said, realizing that the ache in his chest was beginning to feel better the longer he looked at her. "I liked the way you behaved." He grinned, feeling ridiculously happy all of a sudden, although he had no idea why. Lust had never made him giddy before. At least, not since he was about sixteen and had just discovered all the wonderful ways in which girls were different from boys. "I'm looking forward to more of the same kind of behavior in the very near future," he said softly, reaching out to smooth her hair behind her ear. "A lot more."

Willow just stared at him with her mouth open.

"Come on," he said, and took her elbow to hustle her out of the hotel. "Roberts is expecting us for breakfast."

Chapter 7

Ethan Roberts' home was located in the quietly affluent Pacific Palisades area north of Wilshire Boulevard in the section known as the Westside of Los Angeles. Unlike the more opulent neighborhoods in Beverly Hills where affluence was proudly flaunted, the residents of Pacific Palisades chose to hide their wealth behind concealing stands of trees and ivy-covered walls. The Roberts' estate was more sheltered than most, with a camera-monitored security gate and a long, curving, uphill driveway that effectively shielded the residence from the view of casual passersby.

The house itself was large but surprisingly modest, a low rambling structure of weathered gray wood and pale brick that looked as if it had been standing for decades. The landscaping consisted of mature trees and lush, well-groomed flower beds that hinted at regular care from a professional gardener. A brick patio extended out from one side of the house, furnished with terra-cotta tubs of bright geraniums and redwood furniture with sturdy canvas cushions. Beyond that was a half-size blacktop basketball court. Directly in the front of the house a regulation flagpole rose from the center of the small, round, grass-covered plot in the middle of the circular driveway, the American flag at the top fluttering in the light breeze blowing in off the ocean.

There was a steel gray Lincoln Continental in an open bay of the three-car garage, a blue Ford minivan parked, nose out, in the sweeping circular driveway and a shiny red two-wheeled girl's bicycle lying on its side on the grass beneath the flagpole. A large black-and-white cat lay sunning itself on the brick path leading up to the front door.

Steve pulled his Mustang up behind the minivan and killed the engine. There was no sound except the soft flapping of the flag, rippling in the lazy breeze, and the quiet tap of the corded halyard against the flagpole.

"God bless America," Steve said dryly, slanting a wry glance at Willow.

She slanted a glance right back at him as he got out of the car and came around to open her door. "You don't approve of patriotism?" she asked, taking the hand he held out to her.

"Not as long as it's honest." He shut the car door and took her elbow, turning her toward the brick path that led up to the house. "This doesn't feel honest to me."

Looking around her, Willow had to agree. Everything about the scene was just a bit too perfect, a bit too "Mom and country and apple pie," a bit too "we're really just an average American family despite the exclusive address" to ring quite true. It felt as if they'd stepped into a campaign ad specifically designed to play up Ethan Roberts' virtues as a patriotic, clean-living, family-values kind of candidate.

It would have been a lot more convincing if there'd been some signs that lives were actually being lived in the serenely pristine surroundings. A little girl riding the shiny red bike, a couple of kids playing basketball on the empty court, someone lounging with a book out on the cozy brick patio, a cat that actually moved, Willow thought, as she stepped over the sleeping animal.

"Maybe Mom and the kids are out," she suggested. "Saturday errands. Football practice. Shopping for shoes. Stuff like that."

"Then what's the minivan doing parked in the driveway?" Steve countered. "That's the kind of vehicle a rich suburban housewife runs errands in."

The front door swung open as he spoke and a little girl in a bright yellow denim jumper and pink tennis shoes came barreling out the door and down the wide brick steps, plowing into them before she could check her forward progress. Steve reached out and put his hands on her shoulders to keep her from toppling over.

"'Scuse me," she said, ducking out from beneath his hands to chase after the small golden cocker spaniel puppy that had dashed out the door ahead of her, barking wildly as it headed straight for the cat sleeping on the brick path.

Both Steve and Willow turned to watch, knowing she'd be too late to save the pup from its fate. There was a loud hiss as the cat warned him off, then a surprised yelp and a whimper when he charged in anyway and got his tender nose scratched. The little girl bent over, scooping him up in her arms when he turned tail and came running back for protection.

"Mary Catherine, put that dog down before he gets dirty paw prints all over your clothes," a woman ordered as she came out the open front door. She was wearing a crisp white tennis dress with a pleated skirt, a mint green sweater tied by the sleeves around her shoulders and white leather tennis shoes. The little pink pom-poms on her tennis socks bounced above the cuffs of her shoes. Her smooth skin was lightly tanned and her pale champagne blond hair was pulled back into a low, sleek ponytail tied with a pink-and-green grosgrain bow. She carried a leather gym bag and a tennis racket in one hand, and a set of keys in the other. "I haven't got time to have Alma change you again before we leave."

The child turned around, her arms full of squirming puppy, ready to argue her case. Dusty paw prints already marred the front of her jumper and the striped T-shirt under it. "But, Mama, Butterscotch needs—"

"Butterscotch needs to learn to fend for himself," said another voice. A tall, handsome man dressed in a burgundy knit polo shirt and pressed tan chinos appeared on the threshold behind the child's mother.

Willow tried not to stare too obviously. The drooping mustache and the long sideburns were gone, of course, discarded relics of his youth. He was cleanshaven now and his conservatively cut, medium brown hair showed a distinguished touch of gray at the temples. There were fine lines of age and experience around his eyes and mouth that hadn't been there in 1970 and he had a certain understated elegance about him, even in the casual clothes, that hadn't been apparent in the photographs Willow carried in her purse. But he was so indisputably the same man pictured with his arm slung around her mother's shoulders that Willow wondered why she hadn't recognized him before Steve pointed it out to her. She realized it was because she had unconsciously been looking for the boy her father had been, not the man he had become.

It was Ethan Roberts, in the flesh. The man who might—or might not, she reminded herself—be her father.

"Put the dog down, please," he said to the little girl. "And come here and apologize to our guests for nearly knocking them over."

Mary Catherine obeyed immediately. "Yes, Daddy." She put the puppy down, leaving him to his fate, and retraced her steps up the brick path, ineffectively brushing at the dusty paw prints on her clothes as she did so.

"What do you say?" her father asked when she reached the front steps where Willow and Steve were standing.

"I 'pologize for almost knocking you down," the child said earnestly. "I shouldn't have been running. But Butterscotch isn't s'posed to be loose in the front yard."

She watched her father out of the comer of her eye as she spoke, as if to make sure of his approval. When he nodded, the tension in the child's face faded into relief. She turned and bolted for the minivan.

"Walk," he hollered after her, then shrugged and shook his head at his guests. "My daughter, Mary Catherine," he said, by way of introduction. "And my wife—" he put his arm around the woman's shoulders as she came down the steps and gave her a quick squeeze "—Joanna."

"Lovely to meet you," Joanna Roberts said pleasantly, nodding at each of them in lieu of shaking hands. "I really hate to greet and run but I'm already late. I have to drop Mary Catherine off at her play group before I go to the club," she explained. "We'll be back by three," she said to her husband, tilting her cheek for a kiss that just managed to miss connecting. "Make sure Alma puts the dog back in his run, won't you?"

As she headed down the brick path to the van, Steve wondered if anyone else realized that Ethan Roberts hadn't actually introduced them to his wife by name. Was that a deliberate omission, he wondered, or just an oversight? And was the fact that Roberts' wife and child were leaving just as Steve and Willow arrived mere coincidence or the result of a watchful eye on the camera that monitored the front gate?

A man who was prepared to answer a few casual questions about a woman he had dated twenty-five years ago would have nothing to hide from his family; a man who thought he was about to be confronted by the daughter he had abandoned before her birth probably wouldn't want his wife to witness the confrontation.

"I'm assuming you are Ms. Ryan," Ethan said pleasantly, turning to look at Willow as his wife and daughter drove away.

"Yes." She nodded. "I'm Willow Ryan. And this is my—" how did one introduce a private investigator? "—associate, Steve Hart," she said.

The two men shook hands. Rather warily, Willow thought, as if they were using the brief clasp of hands to test each other's mettle.

"Let's go inside, then, shall we?" Ethan stepped back, motioning them up the wide brick steps and through the door ahead of him with a gracious sweep of his arm.

The inside of the house was like the outside, quietly luxurious and meticulously maintained with a folksy, all-American charm that felt too studied to be quite real, like some novice set designer's idea of what a politician's home should look like. The color scheme consisted of a subdued mix of navy-and-cream prints and plaids, with the judicious use of red as an accent. The furniture was mostly Early American with a few English antiques thrown in. The tall mirror in the foyer had an eagle carved into its gilded frame. A large family portrait, painted in oils, hung over the fireplace in the spacious living room.