Replica

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Nadia didn’t know what to make of Mrs. Reeves’s revelation. Maybe Hampton was making the whole encounter with Dante up, just to have someone else to point the finger at. Or maybe everything had happened exactly the way Hampton said, but it hadn’t been Dante she’d seen. Even if it was Dante, that could easily be coincidence. After all, there were plenty of legitimate reasons he might be in the hallway of their apartment. And of course, he could have been sneaking around on some errand of Mosely’s.

Logistically, it was fairly easy to imagine Dante having had access to her tray, without anything in his actions seeming particularly daring or out of place. What didn’t make sense was for him to be conveying messages to her from Bishop, of all people. If he were truly working for Dirk Mosely, then he was the enemy—no matter how friendly he seemed—and there was no way he had any contact with Bishop. Of course, it was possible, maybe even likely, that Bishop had used an intermediary of some kind. Maybe Dante had no idea he was delivering a message from the man who’d supposedly murdered the Chairman Heir.

The only way she’d find out would be to question Dante, but the idea frightened her. If she let on that she’d had contact with Bishop, and if Dante relayed that message to Mosely …

The old, painfully cautious Nadia would have measured the risks against the potential rewards and decided not to pursue this. But Nate had put his life on the line trying to find Bishop, and, thanks to the note, Nadia might now be able to help him, or at least point him in the right direction.

At two o’clock, she headed down to the schoolroom for her classes, praying that Jewel and Blair would be absent. Surely they wouldn’t show up three days in a row. She let out a breath of relief when there was no sign of either one of them. Chloe was still keeping her distance as well, and Nadia suspected her former friend would soon formally withdraw from the class. Nadia wasn’t sure if it was because of the lingering taint on her reputation, or because Chloe knew their friendship could never recover from the awkwardness.

Whatever the reason, Nadia was Mr. Guthrie’s sole pupil—unless you counted Dante, who was openly listening now that Jewel wasn’t around to harass him about it.

No matter how much Nadia usually enjoyed Mr. Guthrie’s lectures, this time she could barely focus enough to keep up with him. She found herself constantly watching Dante out of the corner of her eye, searching for any clue to who he really was, what he really wanted. Trying to discern whether he was a danger to her, a possible ally, or just a coincidental bystander. Once or twice, Dante caught her looking, and Nadia hastily glanced away.

When the class was over, Nadia doubted she could have repeated back a single thing from the lesson. She chatted amiably with Mr. Guthrie as the teacher packed up his things. If she was going to confront Dante about the note, now was by far the best time to do it, so, as Mr. Guthrie made his way out, Nadia drifted over to the refreshments table, where Dante was clearing away the untouched plates of sandwiches and pastries. She fixed herself a nerve-soothing cup of tea as he carried the plates away. Then, when he returned, she pointedly made eye contact.

The wariness that crept into Dante’s expression the moment she met his eyes put her on alert. True, she didn’t make a habit of initiating conversation, but something about the way he was looking at her made her think he knew exactly why she had stayed behind.

Dante averted his eyes and reached for the coffee urn.

“I want to talk to you,” Nadia said, though she was sure he’d already guessed that much.

Dante hesitated a moment as if in surprise, then shrugged and picked up the urn. “So talk,” he said, turning his back on her and carrying the urn toward the dumbwaiter at the far end of the room.

Nadia shook her head at him as she followed on his heels. “You’re the world’s worst imitation servant,” she told his back, and was rewarded by a faltering of his footsteps.

He recovered quickly, resuming his march toward the dumbwaiter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He wasn’t the world’s greatest spy, either, Nadia decided. Shouldn’t a professional spy be able to lie more convincingly than that? Then again, he didn’t look to be any older than Nate, and he couldn’t have had a lot of on-the-job experience. Perhaps Mosely had set him on her as some sort of a training mission. If so, he’d need a lot more training before he’d be ready for the real thing.

“Why don’t you make things easier for both of us by dropping the charade?” she suggested. He kept his face averted as he thumped the coffee urn onto the dumbwaiter, but she could see the flush of red creeping up his neck. Whether the flush was embarrassment or anger, she couldn’t tell.

“Drop what charade?” he asked, turning his back on her again and striding toward the refreshments table.

He moved fast enough that if she’d tried to turn and follow at the same speed, she’d have spilled her tea. “You know, a real servant wouldn’t turn his back on his employer and walk away when she’s trying to talk to him.”

He stopped in his tracks, his broad shoulders tight with tension. He risked a look at her, and there was an expression she couldn’t quite interpret in his eyes. Anger, maybe, though she thought it was more complicated than that.

“You’re not my employer,” he said. “Your father is. And I have a lot of work to do.”

Nadia had known who Dante’s true employer was since before she’d ever laid eyes on him, and it wasn’t her father. Perhaps she would get him in trouble by revealing she knew the truth about him, but there was too much at stake for her to continue being so cautious. She put the cup of tea down, no longer interested in it.

“You work for Dirk Mosely,” she countered, unable to keep the distaste out of her voice. He seemed remarkably likable for someone who worked for Mosely, but then maybe he was better at acting than she gave him credit for. “You’re here to spy on me, and I’m tired of pretending I don’t know it.” Not that her pretense had been any more convincing than his had been.

Nadia could practically see the denial on the tip of Dante’s tongue as he once again met her eyes, this time with a definite hint of belligerence in his expression. But both the belligerence and the denial faded away as his shoulders slumped. Maybe he realized that nothing he said would convince her, or maybe he was as tired of pretending as she was.

“If you’re so sure you’re right, then what is it you want to talk about?” He sounded weary, almost defeated, and she wondered what Mosely would do if he found out Dante’s cover was blown. A reasonable man would understand that Dante’s cover had been ridiculously thin to start with and wouldn’t blame him for being discovered, but Mosely was not a reasonable man.

“I’m not going to tell on you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she reassured him.

He gave her a wry little smile. “You mean you’re not going to call your good friend Dirk and demand I be removed from your home immediately?”

Okay, maybe that hadn’t been what he’d been worried about. She matched his smile and his dry tone. “Much as I love chatting with him, no, I’m not.”

Some of the tension eased out of his shoulders, and he came closer to her, no longer looking like he was on the verge of fleeing. The look in his green-flecked eyes softened in sympathy.

“He hurt you yesterday, didn’t he?” Dante asked.

Nadia reflexively put her hand to her middle, where Mosely had hit her. The pain had been sudden and shocking, and the ugly threats that had come with it had haunted Nadia’s sleep. “I thought I hid it better than that,” she said, her knees suddenly feeling weak. She headed toward the conference table, grabbing a chair and turning it around to face Dante as she sat down.

Dispensing with the servant act completely, Dante pulled out another chair for himself and sat. “You’re much better at acting than I am,” he assured her. “It’s just that I know how he operates.”

“You were very nice to me afterward,” she said. She remembered the kindness in his eyes when he’d found her, still reeling from Mosely’s visit, and she remembered how he’d made her a cup of tea without being asked. “Was that all part of the act? Mosely being the bad cop and you being the good one?”

Dante raised an eyebrow. “Did I ask you any questions?”

No, he hadn’t. Hadn’t shown any sign that he was trying to take advantage of the weakened state Mosely had left her in. “Guess you’re as bad at being a spy as you are at being a servant.”

She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth, but Dante didn’t take offense. Instead, he smiled, the first full, genuine smile she’d ever seen on him. The smile brought out dimples, which in combination with the freckles over the bridge of his nose might have made him look cute if he weren’t so physically imposing.

He really was nice to look at. Not as polished and traditionally handsome as Nate, of course, but he was more rough-hewn and rugged. Certainly not the kind of boy an Executive girl should be attracted to, but maybe that in and of itself was part of his appeal.

“I’m still a beginner,” he said, his eyes dancing with amusement. “Give me a couple years, and I’ll have earned my cloak and dagger.”

She shook her head at him, realizing that he’d been putting on more of an act than she’d originally thought. Now that he’d decided to stop pretending to be a servant, his whole demeanor had changed. Even his body language was different, loose and completely relaxed. She’d seen hints of this side of him before—most noticeably when she was verbally sparring with Jewel and he was trying not to laugh—but even if he hadn’t quite mastered the demeanor of a servant, he had certainly managed to make himself considerably more stiff and formal.

She couldn’t ever remember anyone but Nate being this relaxed around her. Certainly not any of the Executive boys she knew, who were all too afraid of offending Nate to let down their guard with her.

She felt a pang of loss as she remembered that Nate would never again be this easy with her, either. She’d have rather lost the engagement to him than to have lost his friendship, and the pain was stunning.

“What’s wrong?” Dante asked, his brow furrowed in concern as he leaned forward in his chair. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she assured him, stiffening her spine and telling herself to get over it.

“Spoken like a true Executive,” he muttered under his breath, though she was sure she was supposed to hear it. “Never admit weakness around the help.”

She’d have been annoyed at the jab, if she didn’t sense it was just a ploy to get her to admit what was bothering her. She didn’t think he was probing on Mosely’s behalf, but she couldn’t be sure. Still reeling from the fresh loss, she could easily find herself dropping her guard and revealing too much to someone who offered her so much as a modicum of kindness. She forced a brittle smile.

“Never admit anything in the presence of one of Dirk Mosely’s spies, you mean,” she corrected him, and was rewarded with a minute flinch.

“Good point,” he said, clasping his hands between his knees and looking away.

His obvious guilt made her like him better—again. “How did someone like you end up working for someone like Mosely?” she found herself asking, unable to reconcile the glimpses she’d gotten of the real him with the kind of sleazy individual who would voluntarily work for Mosely.

The open friendliness in Dante’s face suddenly shut down. “I’m afraid that’s a state secret,” he said. His smile said he was trying to make a joke of it, but it clearly wasn’t a joke. She might have pressed him on it, except he beat her to the punch. “You said you wanted to talk to me about something. I’m pretty sure my employment history isn’t it, so what is it?”

Nadia would have loved to delve more deeply into Dante’s secrets, intrigued by his contradictions, but she had far more important things to talk about, and her curiosity would have to take a backseat. As long as Dante was Mosely’s spy, he was the enemy, and she had to be careful not to reveal anything she shouldn’t.

“You slipped an envelope into the napkin on my breakfast tray this morning,” she said, watching his face closely for a reaction.

His brows drew together in a puzzled frown. “Excuse me?”

He almost managed to pull off the act. The facial expression was just right, as was the baffled-sounding tone of his voice. If she hadn’t been watching him so closely, she’d have missed the way his eyes widened for a split second before he regained control of his expression.

“Do we have to go through this denial thing again?” she asked as her mind worried at the convoluted puzzle. Of all the people who worked in the Lake family household, Dante seemed like the least likely person for Bishop to approach for messenger duty. True, he might not know that Dante worked for Mosely, but still … If Nadia were trying to slip an illicit message to an Executive girl, she’d have tried to enlist someone who had easy access to that girl’s room, like a maid. She would not have chosen the girl’s father’s male personal assistant.

“Yeah, we do,” Dante said with a stubborn set to his chin. “I didn’t put anything on your tray.” He glanced over her shoulder at the refreshments table behind her. “I still have a lot of clean-up to do,” he said, starting to stand up, “so if you’ll excuse me—”

“Sit down!” she snapped, her tone so sharp it startled him into submission. She glared at him. “I don’t have the patience to play this game anymore. I know you put that message on my tray. You were seen, okay? So denying it just makes you look like a dumbass.”

His surprise at her unladylike language would have been comical if circumstances hadn’t banished Nadia’s sense of humor into a cold and lonely exile.

“I didn’t think Executive girls knew words like dumbass existed, much less let them drop from their pure and virginal mouths.” He said it like it was a joke, but there was an edge in his voice that belied any humor.

“Is it just Executive girls you hold in such contempt, or is it all Executives? Or all girls?” She knew jealousy made a lot of people in the lower classes look down their noses at Executives, but she’d never been so blatantly slapped in the face with it before. It was worse than silly, but Nadia actually felt stung by it. It shouldn’t matter to her what Mosely’s spy thought of her, but she’d had more than her fill of contempt in the last few days.

Dante sighed and settled back down in his chair. “Sorry,” he said, looking like he meant it. “I have a problem with girls like your lovely classmates, but you’re not like them.”

Since Nadia felt much the same way about Jewel and Blair, she let the subject drop. “So are you ready to admit you put the envelope on my tray so we can move on?”

“Move on to what?”

Good question. She wanted to know how a message from Bishop had found its way into Dante’s hands, but there was a chance Dante didn’t know who it was from, and if he didn’t know, Nadia wanted to keep it that way. He didn’t exactly seem fond of his boss, but she doubted his low opinion of Mosely would keep him from revealing any important information he learned.

“Who gave you the envelope?” she asked, deciding that was the safest tack to take.

“I don’t know what envelope you’re talking about.” He looked her straight in the eye when he said it, but the lack of conviction in his voice told her it was a pro forma protest. He knew she wasn’t going to buy it, and yet he wasn’t willing to admit the truth.

For about a quarter of a second, Nadia considered the possibility of letting it drop, but the very fact that Dante was being so cagey about it meant there was more to learn and that it was important. The question was, how could she break down his reserve and get him to talk? If she were Mosely, she’d resort to threats, but she wasn’t …

She let the thought trail off in her mind. There was no way she could cajole Dante into talking. She could try bribery, but her every instinct screamed at her that the attempt would be not only futile, but counterproductive. She didn’t want to stoop to the level of those who’d used threats and blackmail to bend her to their will, but there was too much at stake for her to indulge her moral ideals.

“I know you’re not really a servant,” she said, “and I know that in theory you shouldn’t be overly concerned about protecting your position, but somehow I suspect your real boss would be unhappy with you if you got fired.”

Dante’s eyes narrowed, and there was a flash of anger in his eyes. But behind that anger was fear, and Nadia’s conscience cringed. She managed to keep her expression cold and regal, keeping her disgust at her own words hidden behind her Executive mask.

“You wouldn’t,” Dante growled.

No, she wouldn’t. But Dante didn’t have to know that. “We’ve been down here alone in the schoolroom together for a good long time,” she said. “I know Mosely ordered my father to hire you, but if I make certain accusations…”

Dante’s hands clenched in his lap, and the way he was looking at her made her feel like the lowest scum on the face of the earth. Maybe she should just let him keep his secrets, whatever they were.

“And here I thought you were different from the rest of the Executive girls,” he sneered. “You may be nicer than they are when things are going your way, but as soon as someone doesn’t do what you want…” He shoved his chair back and leapt to his feet, then gave the chair an extra shove for good measure.

Nadia rose more slowly. She couldn’t blame Dante for being angry. She was acting exactly like a spoiled Executive girl who couldn’t accept the reality that not everything was going her way. She was threatening to ruin his career, maybe even his life, by fabricating a story about sexual misconduct. The fact that she knew she wouldn’t do it didn’t make her behavior any more palatable.

“This isn’t how I act when things don’t go my way,” Nadia said, her voice shaking ever so slightly. “This is how I act when I’m cornered and desperate and everything that’s good in my life is crumbling around me. This is how I act when your boss has got his hooks into me so deep I’m surprised I’m not bleeding.”

She managed to keep herself from crying, but it was a near thing. If she could somehow follow the trail of breadcrumbs from the message all the way back to Bishop, if she could be the one to bring him and Nate back together, then maybe someday Nate would find it in his heart to forgive her. And maybe she’d even find it in her heart to forgive herself.

She didn’t expect Dante to relent. After all, he already knew about the hell she was living through, had infiltrated her household to make sure she was as trapped as Mosely wanted her to be. He was part of the problem, certainly not part of the solution, even if he did have secrets she couldn’t yet fathom.

Dante apparently considered it his life’s mission to surprise her. Instead of telling her how little he thought of her excuses, he took a step toward her, reaching out to touch her shoulder in an awkward gesture of comfort. The expression in his eyes softened from anger to sympathy, perhaps tinged with a touch of guilt.

“I’m sorry, Nadia,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “I know you’re in a terrible position, and I know it’s really, really hard on you.”

Nadia’s breath caught in her throat as she met his gaze, trying to figure out what to make of his sudden change of heart. His hand remained on her shoulder, feeling inordinately warm through the fabric of her blouse. He was standing too close to her, gazing at her with too much intensity. He opened his mouth a couple of times as if to say more, each time thinking better of it.

She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but whatever it was had brought a lost, unhappy look to his face. He broke eye contact and let his hand drop from her shoulder. She immediately missed the warmth of his touch. In those few seconds when he’d stood too close, when his hand had been on her shoulder, she’d caught a glimpse of a tortured soul buried deep inside, and for the first time, she wondered if he did Mosely’s dirty work any more willingly than she did.

Nadia took a step backward, putting a more comfortable distance between them. She couldn’t afford to be intrigued by Dante, nor could she afford to see him as anything but the enemy. She had to remain firm, use every method at her disposal to get him to spill whatever secret he was hiding from her, even if her methods left her feeling dirty and low.

“Even though you’re not really a servant,” she said, drawing herself up stiffly as if offended, “you should never address me by first name even in private.”

She expected the coldness in her tone to bring back the anger and the contempt she’d seen in him before. She didn’t like having those feelings directed at her, but at least they helped her keep her emotional distance, helped remind her who and what he was. Instead, he ran a frustrated hand through his hair and suddenly plopped back down in the chair he’d recently vacated.

“I am going to get in so much trouble for this,” he muttered under his breath. Then he squared his shoulders and looked up at her.

“For your information,” he said, his eyes a little wide as if what he was about to say frightened him, “you’ve been calling me by first name all along. My name isn’t Robert Dante, it’s Dante Sandoval. And the person who gave me that message to deliver to you was Bishop.”