CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER
NASH APPEARED IN THE PENTHOUSE foyer five minutes early. He was dressed in a dark suit and white shirt with no tie. He had showered, shaved his scalp, and trimmed his beard and goatee, and he felt terribly self-conscious and uneasy about all of it.
Earlier, Thura had given him some good-natured ribbing. “Dating the boss, man, you better be careful.” But then he’d lost his jocularity and said, “All kidding aside, Dillon. Be careful. She is the dragon lady for sure.”
As he stood waiting for her, Steers’s protection detail emerged from various nooks and crannies.
They stood arrayed around him, and the grim expressions on their faces told Nash all he needed to know.
The only thing keeping him upright and alive was the fact that these men feared Steers.
As Nash thought about it, such power was tenuous and might be undermined by certain things.
And those things might already be in play.
When Steers appeared, right on the dot of nine, Nash felt his mouth ease open in surprise.
He had grudgingly conceded that Steers was quite an attractive woman.
And yet there had always been a hardened edge to the beauty that had managed to diminish it to a state where he saw only the hard—and not the lovely—woman behind it.
Now the hair had been swept back into a ponytail, giving off a casual vibe that Nash found difficult to associate with the woman.
Her makeup was muted, but the red on her lips was bold against the pale skin.
Her clothing choice was perhaps the most astonishing.
It was the first time that Nash had ever seen the woman wearing a dress, and in a color other than black. It was a striking shade of orange, and it contrasted pleasingly with her dark hair and red lips.
She swiped self-consciously at her hair, and with that motion Nash realized that she was probably as nervous as he was.
“Are you ready, Mr. Hope?” she said, not looking at him.
“Yes, Ms. Steers.”
They rode down in the elevator alone, the protection detail having gone on ahead.
As the floors swiftly passed by he said, “You look very nice, Ms. Steers.”
She shot him a quick, sideways glance. “You as well, Mr. Hope.”
For an anguished moment Nash felt like he was back in high school on his first date. The only thing is this date killed my daughter.
The car was waiting in the garage and they climbed in. When Nash tried to hold the door for Steers, one of her men beat him to it, giving him a surly look as he did so.
They sat in the back of the Maybach and didn’t speak for the whole ride. A car rode in front of them and one in the rear with her men housed inside both.
Twenty minutes later they walked into a small restaurant in a suburb of Hong Kong. It was expensively and tastefully decorated, and it was also empty.
The hostess escorted them to a table and quickly left.
Some of Steers’s men were clustered near the entrance and another two guarded the rear.
“Nice place,” said Nash. “I’m surprised there aren’t other customers.”
“I made arrangements. I do not like. . .people all that much. They tend to. . .stare.”
“I understand,” he said, though in truth he was surprised.
“I am certain you are wondering why I invited you to dinner.”
“Yes, it did cross my mind,” replied Nash.
She looked over his shoulder and nodded.
A few moments later the hostess came forward with two small glasses and a bottle.
“Baijiu,” said Steers. “The light variety, for you. It is a very high alcohol content.”
The woman poured out small quantities and left them.
Steers raised her glass. “It is commonly used to toast, Mr. Hope.”
He raised his glass. “What are we toasting?”
“Perhaps a new understanding between you and me?”
“How so?” he said warily.
“I will be frank. I have no friends, Mr. Hope. I have people who work for me. And people who work against me. I have people I pay, and pay off. I have people who hate me, despise me, want to kill me. I only have one who loves me, truly, and seeks nothing from me in return.”
Nash knew she was not referring to her mother. “Hiroko is a good soul,” he said.
She smiled—a bit sadly, Nash thought.
“Your intelligence shines through once more. And Hiroko-san is also a wise soul.”
“What do you want from me, Ms. Steers?”
“I will call you Dillon-san if you would honor my request to refer to me as Victoria-san.”
This stunned him, but then the dinner invitation and her words were clearly leading up to something changing between them. Apparently, whether he wanted it to or not.
Which I don’t.
He said, “I’m not sure how your protection detail will take that. They hate me enough already.”
“This does not concern them at all. Now, my mother does not call me Victoria-san even though it is expected between a mother and her daughter. Hiroko calls me that because I want her to. As I want you to, Dillon-san.”
He said, “All right. . .Victoria-san.”
“You, I am sure, have thought of the reasons why I had you remain here. Why I pay you so much money. Why I have you guard my mother.”
“You want someone you can thoroughly rely on. Not just because of the money. Not just because they fear you.” He glanced over his shoulder at her protection detail. “You want someone around who has your best interests and who can’t be bought off.”
“Then we understand each other, yes. Loyalty is a fragile thing if its foundation is precarious.”
She looked down at the liquid in her glass. She tipped the glass to the left and right and watched as the baijiu swirled and pitched in the small vessel.
“When one’s existence is stable, it is flat, like when I set this glass down and the liquid settles.” She tipped it again. “But when one’s existence is uncertain, then nothing is settled. Everything is moving, and no one knows whether it will ever settle right again.”
“I guess that’s why life has to be lived. To find that answer.”
“But life can be very short, Dillon-san.”
“You are a young, healthy woman.”
“Looks can be very deceiving.”
Nash was taken aback by this surprising comment. “You’re not ill, are you?” he said.
“My illness does not come from within me. It comes from without.” She lifted her glass higher. “So if you would honor me by becoming someone who has my best interests at heart, who is loyal for the right reasons, who is my. . .friend, I would be in your eternal debt.”
But even as she said the words, Nash couldn’t help but think of the box in the basement with his daughter’s belongings.
He didn’t want to be loyal or have Steers’s best interests at heart.
Or be her friend. He wanted to make her feel the same pain that his daughter had.
The pain that he was still suffering. But Steers was, like Rhett Temple before her, giving him the perfect opportunity to place himself exactly where he wanted to be: in her inner circle.
I could kill her and let the rest of her empire go on hurting countless people. Or I can bring it and her down at the same time, if I just let this go on a little longer.
He raised his glass. “To a new understanding of loyalty.”
And they drank together.