Stone, Katherine (9 page)

"Juliana?"

"I'm sure she hasn't forgotten anything."

"But she's older now, more mature."

"Maylene has always been mature," Juliana said,
remembering the little girl who, to protect
her,
had concealed her own
torment. "I need to let her come to me, Eve. She's returned to Hong Kong
because of the Jade Palace, to create something beautiful in this place where
she was so unhappy. I don't want to interfere."

Eve drew a breath, then waited, forced to as pain swept through
her. When she spoke, her voice gave no hint of the battle she waged. "I'm
going to meet her, Juliana."

"You are? When?"

"A week from Saturday. Geoffrey wants to have a dinner party
to celebrate the groundbreaking of the Jade Palace."

"And Maylene's going to be there?"

"James said she would be."

"You didn't tell James she's my daughter!"

"I promised you I'd never tell anyone, Juliana, and you know
I wouldn't break that promise."

"I know." Juliana's voice filled with fondness for the
woman who had such a gift for seeing into the hearts of others—yet was quite
blind to her own generous gifts. "I'm glad you'll be meeting her, Eve."

"Would you like to be here that night, Juliana? I could ask
Geoffrey—"

"No. Thank you for offering. But Maylene needs to come to me.
If she wants to. After all this time, we can't see each other by chance... or
by surprise."

H
e was running and the waves crashed. Still, he heard the distant
sound.

He didn't know what caused the faint thunder on the clear March
night, or that it would be a death knell for his happiness. But as he ran
toward the house—and the sound—the sky glowed orange.

He ran harder, his heart bursting, as sirens shrieked. It didn't
matter if the house was on fire, he told himself. She was in London, sleeping
peacefully, dreaming of their love.

The reassurance felt false—because, he realized, there had been a
message in her voice when she'd called to wish him good-night. She was going to
join him tonight in Wales, after all. She wasn't
that
tired. And she and
his unborn son missed him too much to stay away.

Her car was there, illuminated by the inferno that had been their
seaside home. The firefighters tried to prevent his running into the flames.
But his love for her was stronger than any force on earth.

His lungs inhaled fire as, summoned by her frantic voice, he ran
further into the blaze. "Help me, James! Please help me!" He saw her
silhouette, a shadow on fire, and saw, too, his son within her womb. His baby
boy cried to him, for him, counting on him to rescue them...

James awakened gasping, as breathless as he'd been on that
long-ago night. He
had
run into his burning home. That part of the
nightmare was real. But neither Gweneth nor his baby had screamed for him.
They'd died instantly, never waking, mercifully oblivious to the deaths from
which no one could have saved them.

James, too, had almost died. Had it not been for the revelation
that came in the aftermath of the fire, he might have permitted his injuries to
kill him.

"It wasn't an accident, James. There was no leaking gas.
Someone planted a bomb. Gweneth was murdered." The pronouncement came from
a Cambridge classmate now with Scotland Yard. He'd gone to the ICU to
personally give James the news.

The ashes of the country home in Wales yielded few clues. The
murderer was a "professional," the explosive state-of-the-art. The
sabotage itself had been so discreet that a less sophisticated investigation
might not have uncovered the truth. Indeed, because the saboteur had been so
assiduous in his efforts to hide his treachery, Scotland Yard decided to let
him assume he'd succeeded and made public the ruling that Gweneth's death was accidental.

James searched his mind for possible suspects.
He'd
been
the intended victim, of course. His wife had no enemies. Neither, would he have
said, did he. Yes, there were business rivals, fierce competitors for the most
valuable properties on earth. But the possibility that the quest for land could
become deadly seemed beyond imagination—until it happened.

Since James was expanding his real estate empire to the Pacific
Rim, especially Hong Kong, it seemed most likely that his enemy was a land
developer there, a man willing to commit murder to protect the domain James
intended to invade.

The doctors believed James wouldn't survive. He had neither the
will to compel his seared lungs to heal, nor the physical reserves to fight the
pain of his badly burned flesh. Following the visit from Scotland Yard, his
recovery was nothing short of miraculous.

James moved to Hong Kong and embarked on a construction program
far more ambitious than anything he would have pursued had Gweneth lived. Then,
much of his time would've been devoted to his wife and son. Now every second
was devoted to finding—and killing—the man who'd stolen his life. He'd lure the
monster from the shadows, he decided, by conquering the killer's domain.

He became Hong Kong's premier developer. He flaunted his
dominance, capturing the best land, the most lucrative contracts, and building
structures the world flocked to see. The competition was fierce, and sometimes
ruthless, but in the four years he'd been in Hong Kong, there hadn't been a
whisper of danger.

His enemy was in hiding.

James waited, his hunger mounting with each passing day. Four
years—and nothing except immense success, meaningless without Gweneth, and rage
that burned more intensely the longer it was held within.

Now, after four years, he was building the Jade Palace— for
Gweneth. She'd insisted the idea for the hotel was
theirs,
conceived at
the same instant, but in James's memory, it was hers. And Gweneth had
definitely chosen the name.

Husband and wife had been in complete accord about the purpose of
the Jade Palace. It was to be a celebration of the place James had loved since
boyhood, the place that had, he believed, saved his very soul.

Because of Hong Kong, he'd become a far better man than he was
ever meant to be.

Had he been raised in England, an only child on his family's vast
estate, he would very likely have become as cold and remote as his parents.
Theirs was a marriage of pedigree. Both parents felt a sense of
satisfaction—and perhaps relief—that their loveless union had swiftly produced
the requisite male heir. His mother viewed her maternal responsibilities as
finished with his birth. His father's only lingering role was one of
discipline.

The Drake mansion on Old Peak Road was filled with wealth, but
barren of love. But James was lucky. Beyond the mansion walls lay a world of
treasures.

James learned to speak Cantonese, and played in the balmy air with
gods and ghosts and spirits and dragons, and embraced the people of Hong Kong
as his true family.

The man destined from birth to be as cold as stone filled with
warmth instead. Still, James didn't think he'd ever fall in love. The chilling
influences of his parents couldn't be so wholly denied.

But he did fall in love, and anticipated with great joy sharing
the splendor of Hong Kong with his wife and son—and building the Jade Palace in
tribute to the people to whom he owed his happiness.

Had Gweneth been alive, the Jade Palace would have been his first
project. Indeed, letters soliciting sketches from world-renowned architectural
firms were to be mailed as soon as he and Gweneth were settled in their new
home. The letters weren't mailed, of course, and in the Hong Kong shadowed by
Gweneth's murderer, the hotel had been indefinitely postponed.

But James didn't forget Gweneth's words: "You must build the
Jade Palace, darling. And long before 1997. The more the world understands the
treasure Hong Kong is, the more secure its future will be." James didn't
forget, either, his commitment to his boyhood home. But, as he'd mailed the letter
drafted by Gweneth four years ago, he sent silent apologies to her. I can't do
it, my love. Not without you. We agreed it had to be perfect, remember? I don't
have the heart to make that happen. You were my heart... and you are gone.

The proposal submitted by Maylene had stunned him. It wasn't the
harmonious celebration he and Gweneth had envisioned. There
was
harmony,
but conflict as well. It was an authentic vision. Hong Kong's origins were
rooted in conflict. And emotionally, Maylene's design reflected his own
feelings about Hong Kong since losing Gweneth—torment, and reverence... wonder
at its majesty despite the anguish he felt.

And if the resulting structure seemed more harsh than harmonious?
The effect would be softened by images of Hong Kong seen through the
rose-colored lenses of Allison Whitaker.

In fifteen hours, the photographer whose rosy optimism colored
every photograph she took would be arriving in Hong Kong. Indeed, as James was
leaving his bed to spend what remained of the night perfecting the swift,
lethal moves of a martial artist, Allison was in San Francisco, boarding
United's overwater DC-10.

***

Garrett kept his promise to Juliana. Never, in twenty-eight years,
did he attempt to find out about the woman he'd always love and the daughter
he'd never see.

But moments after Allison called from San Francisco to say her
flight was boarding, Garrett reached for the phone.

He wasn't really breaking the vow. Even if the Hong Kong operator
provided him with numbers for Juliana and Maylene, he wasn't going to call. He
just needed to know they were there.

Garrett wanted to know
much
more than that: that their
lives were happy—and that they knew he loved them.

As he dialed the overseas number, his mind traveled through time
to his final conversation with Juliana. He allowed the memory to surface,
believing he'd have many minutes to cherish it. But things had changed in the
decades since he'd last phoned Hong Kong. Calls to the other side of the world
were routine. Voices no longer lingered in space. Except for her British
accent, the directory-assistance operator in modern-day Hong Kong could have
been in Dallas.

"I have many residential listings for
J
. Kwan, but
none for Juliana. There's a business listing, though. Is the Juliana Kwan
you're trying to reach the fashion designer for Pearl Moon?"

"Yes," Garrett whispered. "Yes she is."

"Shall I give you that listing?"

"Please."

The operator's voice was replaced by a recording of the number,
and that was just as well, because the emotion accompanying his thoughts would
have rendered further speech impossible.

Juliana's alive.

And she's living her dream.

It was a very long time before Garrett trusted his voice enough to
think about making the second call to directory assistance in Hong Kong. Would
he find a home phone number for his daughter? Or a business listing, perhaps?
Was she a Pearl Moon designer, too?

Garrett never placed the second call.

He'd spent the past twenty-eight years loving the daughter he
would never see. She lived in his heart as the Daughter of Greatest Love—and
though he knew the other name Juliana had given her, he didn't know how she
spelled Maylene.