Thirty Nights

“I had business in New England.” Shoulders clad in a subdued gray pinstripe shrugged. “You weren’t that far out of my way.”

It was a lie and both men knew it. Hunter waited him out.

“So, are the rumors true?” Van Horn eventually asked.

“Which rumors are you referring to?”

“The ones circulating around Washington that you’re on the verge of finalizing the project.”

The project in question was an offshoot of the gene studies Hunter had been doing when George Cassidy had gotten him kicked off the MIT project. Simply put, he’d created a program in which he detailed the political and economic history of a region, plugged in sociological factors past and present, along with a genetic profile of the inhabitants obtained from DNA studies, then ran them through the computer. With the collected data, the program, in theory, was then able to predict how any given population would respond under various circumstances.

There was another, darker side to his research that Hunter fully intended to keep under wraps. If the detailed DNA model he’d created fell into the wrong hands, it could theoretically be used to clone a genetically perfected warrior lacking in any social or moral conscience. An assassin class.

While he disliked working with bureaucrats, Hunter wasn’t in any position to turn down much-needed funds. He’d always eschewed the money-raising circuit, but after that incident in Bosnia that had cost him half his face and a hand, he figured hostesses wouldn’t exactly consider him a plus at their fund-raising dinners or cocktail parties.

His current work was being funded by both the State and Defense Departments, Defense wanting the data in order to predict wars and to discover how to map winning battle strategies, while State was seeking to defuse international skirmishes before they blew up into full-scale wars.

“I still have some work to do,” he said obliquely. “The Middle East, for example, is still problematic.”

They also didn’t like him in that part of the world. He’d been shot at more times than he cared to think about during his stay in the region. And although he liked most of the population personally, he’d been warned on more than one occasion that he was considered a traitor for including various warring factions into his model. The trouble with that was that in too many parts of the world, people viewed as traitors tended to disappear. Or get blown up.

Hunter hoped like hell that he wouldn’t have to return to Lebanon anytime soon. Beirut might have once been the Paris of the region, but there were still neighborhoods that could only be described as shooting galleries.

Then there was Kosovo. Hunter sighed. Good luck keeping any negotiated peace in that place. And Bosnia. And Afghanistan. The list went on and on, and while he had uncharacteristically high hopes for the project, Hunter was also pragmatic enough to know that trying to halt any outbreaks of violence around the world was akin to attempting to plug a hole in Hoover Dam with a finger.

“The powers that be are getting impatient,” Van Horn warned.

“Tough. The work will be done when it’s done. And not a minute before.”

“They have to justify the expenditures to the budget committee. I doubt you’d enjoy being the target of a congressional investigation.”

Hunter lifted a brow. “Is that a threat?”

“Merely an observation.”

“My budget is chicken feed compared to the bucks you guys spend. Hell, the price of your expense account lunches at all those high-priced trendy Washington restaurants alone could fund me for another six months.

“And if there do happen to be any mumblings about expenditures up on the Hill, then it’s your job to quiet them. You guys aren’t the only game in town, you know.”

A scowl darkened Van Horn’s classically handsome WASP face. “Then the other rumor about you meeting with the Russians is also true?”

“I haven’t met with them.” And wouldn’t. But Hunter had perversely enjoyed the momentary panic he’d viewed in Van Horn’s eyes. “But I have received some inquiries regarding certain aspects of the project.”

“You realize that sharing information with them—especially information that’s been classified—could get you arrested for treason.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Van Horn gave him another hard look, as if trying to determine whether or not Hunter was jerking his chain. Which, of course, he was. It was one of the few side benefits of working with bureaucrats. They were so marvelously predictable. And competitive.

“There’s something else.” Van Horn had begun working that crease again, Hunter noted.

“I rather suspected there might be.” After all, a blizzard had been predicted and Hunter didn’t figure the guy had come all the way to Castle Mountain to sip hot toddies beside a roaring fire at the Gray Gull inn and watch the winter wonderland occurring outside the lace-curtained windows.

“I heard from one of my sources at the CIA that you’re on a terrorist hit list.”

“Why don’t you tell me something I don’t know?”

“I just wanted to pass the warning along.”

“Consider it passed.” Hunter stood up, effectively ending what had turned out to be little more than a fishing expedition. “And now that I’ve been properly warned about Congress and terrorists, I’m sure you won’t mind if I return to work. After all,” he said as he plucked the soft cashmere coat from the rack and held it out to James Van Horn, “as you’ve pointed out on so many other visits, time is money.”

With that he ushered the dapper diplomat out the door. Then, giving up on getting any work done when he couldn’t keep his mind off the damn clock, he locked the door to his inner office, set the secret code on the security system, then headed home to wait for Gillian’s arrival.

FIVE DAYS AFTER her father’s incredible revelation, Gillian was sitting in the back of a car crawling its way up the cliff leading out of the quaint village that could be used as a movie set of a late-nineteenth century New England fishing village. The narrow gravel road, which was currently packed with crunchy snow, would soon become impassable for days during winter storms. Which was, Gillian thought, probably just the way Hunter liked it.

All the articles she’d read about him, including the recent one in Newsweek, invariably mentioned his obsessively reclusive lifestyle these past years. Which wasn’t that surprising. She remembered how reluctantly he’d always seemed to attend the parties at her parents’ home. Even back then no one could have called Hunter a social animal.

Of course, that hadn’t stopped her mother from inviting him. And on those rare occasions when Hunter would accept one of her invitations, Irene Cassidy would pull out all the stops. She’d fluff her frosted hair, and her skirts would be shorter, her necklines lower.

Her eyes would become visibly brighter, glittering with a dangerous light, her silvery laugh would edge a few notes higher and several decimals louder, and the way her hips swayed as she walked in those high, spindly heels and tight skirts was guaranteed to draw the eye of every male in the room.

At the time Gillian had resented her mother’s blatant sexuality. How in the world was Hunter ever going to notice her, a skinny adolescent with a mouthful of braces, when her mother was always flitting around him, like some exotic, gilded butterfly?

Unfortunately, the sad, miserable truth was that even without the competition from her mother, she could have been invisible where Hunter was concerned.

But apparently that had recently changed. According to her father, after viewing her recent video, Hunter had decided that he wanted to go to bed with her. Even knowing that as a modern, liberated woman of the twenty-first century, she should be appalled and infuriated by such a hideously outdated, chauvinistic attitude, there was just enough of that lovesick twelve-year-old still living inside Gillian to have her experience a warm flush of feminine satisfaction.

Not that she intended to actually sleep with Hunter, of course. The idea was as impossible as it was outrageous.

They came to a pair of tall wrought-iron gates topped with what appeared to be deadly iron spears. The driver paused beside a stone pillar. A moment later his window rolled down and he was touching a keypad. A camera hidden inside the gate whirred and there was a series of clicks. The gate slid smoothly open, allowing them access.

When they repeated that process three more times, Gillian decided that reclusive wasn’t a strong-enough word to describe Hunter St. John. Paranoid might be a better fit, she thought as she realized that the camera was actually measuring and reading the driver’s eye. She’d heard of such technology, but had never seen it firsthand.

The numerous security checks they passed through had Gillian expecting Hunter to live in a huge, hulking stone stronghold reminiscent of a medieval fortress. When they turned a final corner and the house came into view, she drew in a sharp, appreciative breath.

Constructed of cedar logs that had been aged to a pale, grayish blue, the house was perched like a seabird on the very edge of a cliff, offering spectacular views in every direction.

“Oh, it’s absolutely stunning,” she murmured to the driver, who, in the taciturn way of New Englanders, hadn’t uttered more than five words during their choppy ride from the mainland.

“Ayuh,” the man who’d introduced himself as Ben Adams agreed. “That’s what most people say, first time they see it.”

“I can imagine.”

Actually, stunning didn’t even begin to describe this architectural wonder. The focal point of the home was a two story glass wall that boldly thrust out from beneath the wooden-shake roof like the prow of a ship. Gillian imagined that standing next to that window must give the viewer a bird’s-eye view of the stormy Atlantic. Two single-story wings jutted out from each side. Behind the house, pine trees rose like shaggy arrows shawled in white velvet.

“’Course, one of these days this cliff’s gonna erode,” the driver pointed out with Yankee practicality. “Then all St. John’s gonna have left will be a pile of logs on the beach.”

“In the meantime, he has a magnificent view,” she said.

He shrugged. “Can’t argue with that.”

He pulled up into the curving driveway, stopping just in front of the double doors. “My missus works here during the week,” he revealed, stringing together more words than he’d managed thus far. “She’ll be inside, getting things ready for you. Dr. St. John said to expect you earlier,” he volunteered. “By yesterday, at the latest.”

“I was held up.”

“That’s what my missus told him probably happened.” He parked the car. By the time he came around to open her door, she was already standing on the flagstone drive. “But Dr. St. John t’weren’t too happy when last night came and you t’weren’t here.”

“I take it Dr. St. John is accustomed to having things his way?”

“Ayuh. That he is,” Ben agreed. “But he’s still a fair man to work for. When my Mildred came down with flu last winter, he paid her for days she couldn’t even work.”

Gillian was unimpressed by that little newsflash. “Gracious,” she drawled, her voice thick with uncharacteristic sarcasm. “I’m surprised he wasn’t voted the humanitarian of the year award for such an outstanding act of generosity.”

He squinted down at her, obviously curious as to her reason for being here on the island in early December. From the icy wind blowing off the water, Gillian suspected this wasn’t exactly tourist season on Castle Mountain.

“He’s a fair man,” he repeated. “You’ll find that out when you’re working with him.”

Gillian wondered what the elderly man would say if she told him the truth: that she wasn’t here to work with Hunter, but had instead been ordered to Maine as part of his blackmail threat against her father.

He wouldn’t believe her. Gillian didn’t believe it herself. If she had, she never would have agreed to such a bizarre situation. Deep down inside, she continued to believe that Hunter’s sole motivation was to shake her father’s comfortable world to its foundations. Which he’d clearly done.

Now, having succeeded in watching his former mentor squirm, Gillian expected Hunter to laugh at her foolish naiveté and send her home. And that would be that.

The man she remembered might be unorthodox. But he wasn’t cruel or dangerous. Surely human nature couldn’t change that much?

Ben Adams’s wife was tall and thin, with salt-and-pepper hair pulled back into a utilitarian knot at the nape of her long neck.

“Dr. St. John expected you earlier,” she said as her husband carried Gillian’s bags into the house.

“As a scientist, Dr. St. John should be accustomed to practicing patience.”

Mildred Adams gave Gillian a long, hard look. “You’re different from the other.”

“The other?”

The husband and wife exchanged a brief glance. From the silent conversation that passed between them, Gillian guessed that Ben was cautioning discretion, while Mildred was determinedly outspoken.

Mildred’s pale blue eyes took a long, judicious study, but she didn’t directly answer Gillian’s question. “Hope you’re tougher than you look.”

Gillian met the probing look with a level gaze of her own. “I’ve had to be.”

That earned another hard look. “So has Dr. St. John. This could be interesting.”

“Sorta like nitroglycerin and a flamethrower are interesting,” her husband muttered. “Where do you want me to put these bags?”

“Dr. St. John said to put Ms. Cassidy in his room.” She turned to Gillian, seemingly oblivious to the burn of embarrassment Gillian felt rise in her cheeks at the idea of this elderly couple believing she’d be sharing a bed with their employer. “I’ll show you where it is. Then you can wash up for supper. I always serve at six o’clock, on the dot. Right before I leave for the day.

“Dr. St. John always eats in his laboratory. But he’s instructed me to set a place for you in the dining room.”

“He won’t be eating with me?” Gillian asked as she followed the woman down the hallway.

“Oh, no. Dr. St. John is working at home this afternoon, but I doubt if you’ll be seein’ him until along about midnight, at the very earliest. When he gets busy with his experiments, it’s like pulling teeth to drag him out of his lab.” She handed Gillian an envelope. “I was instructed to give you this soon as you arrived. I expect it’ll explain everything.”

That said, the housekeeper opened one of two doors leading into what was obviously the master bedroom suite. The walls were constructed of the same logs as the rest of the house, but in here they’d been stained a lustrous golden brown. They were also, Gillian noted, the only warm thing about the room.

Decorated in shades of black and gray, with lots of jet lacquer and glass, the bedroom had an edgy, avant-garde look. More suitable for a modern art museum or a Fifth Avenue penthouse, it was decidedly too cold and remote for this gloriously wild place.

A huge bed, covered in a slick ebony spread, took up the center of the room. Gillian glanced up, cringing as she viewed the mirror over the bed.

Both Ben and Mildred studiously ignored both the mirror and Gillian’s involuntary reaction to it.

“The bath’s in there,” Mildred said, pointing toward an arched doorway where an oversize Jacuzzi tub sat invitingly on a black-lacquered pedestal in front of a window. The wide expanse of triple-paned glass looked out over the darkening waters of the sea. “Dr. St. John had me clean out that bureau for your clothes.” She waved her hand in the direction of a tall chest of drawers that matched the pedestal.

“I’ve got to serve and get on my way,” Mildred continued briskly. “So, if you’ll just get your washing-up done, I’ll show you the way to the dining room.”

“If I’m going to be eating alone, the kitchen will be fine,” Gillian assured her.

“Dr. St. John said the dining room.”

“And Dr. St. John always gets what Dr. St. John wants,” Gillian muttered, beginning to get a handle on how things worked around here.

“Best you remember that,” Mildred said with a brief, decisive nod. “The man’s a good employer. He’s demanding. But fair,” she said, echoing what her husband had told Gillian earlier. “Even so, I wouldn’t want to cross him.”

And that, Gillian told herself ten minutes later, was why she was sitting all alone at a table designed to comfortably seat twelve. On some distant level she realized that the hearty corn chowder, green salad and brown bread was delicious, but although she hadn’t eaten since boarding the plane in San Francisco, she couldn’t work up any appetite for Mildred Adams’s dinner. Not after reading Hunter’s letter.

No, she considered, taking another sip of the red wine she’d found waiting at her place, it wasn’t really a letter. It was more an instruction manual.

Written in a bold scrawl, it had begun without preamble.

Gillian,

Welcome to Castle Mountain. I trust you will enjoy your time here on the island and that when you leave you will take fond memories with you.

Her mistake had been, of course, allowing those words to soften her, to make her able to believe that this trip to Maine was nothing more than a well-deserved vacation after her grueling tour.

The next paragraph proved otherwise, bringing home with a vengeance the true reason for her being here on this remote island. In this even more remote house.

You’ll find a gown on the bed. After you bathe, put it on. Wear your hair down, and if you’re wearing makeup, take it off. The image I want you to project is the one from your concert at Stonehenge—pure and innocent, yet with that aura of untapped sensuality surrounding you.

I’ll be working late, but I expect you to remain awake until I join you in the bedroom. I trust the next month will be enjoyable for both of us.

However, if you find my demands not quite to your taste, just remember, if you leave before the thirty days are up, I will, without a moment’s hesitation, ruin your father.

The choice is yours, lovely Gillian. I trust your arrival here, albeit a day late, reveals your willingness to accede to my wishes. Whatever they may be.

It was signed merely with a dark H.

“Damn.”

Gillian cursed yet again as she stared out into the well of darkness. It was a new moon; the sky and water were both pitch black, extending for what seemed forever.

For the first time since her arrival on the remote island, her isolation, along with what she’d foolishly agreed to, came crashing down on her.

Hunter had promised he would not hurt her. But what if he was lying? What if he was as cold and unfeeling as his hateful letter?

After all, she reminded herself, what kind of man could even think up such a scenario in the first place? What if he planned to literally hold her captive, using her in ways too horrific even to imagine?

The scenario—the virgin sent to some remote lair to pay off her father’s debt—could have come straight from the pages of some lurid melodrama.

“Damn you, Father.”

Her flare of anger was immediately followed by a heavy sense of despair. And impending doom.

“Oh, God,” she murmured. “What have I done?”

SO, HUNTER THOUGHT as he watched her on the monitor in his book-lined office. It’s finally sunk in. Good.

He’d watched her enter the house as if she were merely arriving at some ritzy seaside spa where she expected to be pampered and perfumed, wrapped in mud and dine on pretty little salads made from flowers. He hadn’t missed the derision on her fragile, porcelain-pale face as she’d looked up at his mirror.

The brief flashes of self-assurance she’d displayed to Mildred and Ben Adams suggested that Cassidy had been telling the truth about one thing. The woman did have a mind of her own. Which, he considered, made her even more of a challenge.

He’d promised Cassidy that he wouldn’t harm her. Which was true. But Hunter did have every intention of spending the next thirty nights bending Gillian to his will, teaching her things about herself, revealing the dark, forbidden secret corners of her sexual psyche he suspected she’d never known existed.

Her display of self-pity turned out to be short-lived. Hunter watched as she cursed—a rich, earthy word that drew a faint smile from him. She threw her napkin onto the table, stood up and left the room.

The hall camera caught her flashing eyes and firmly set lips as she strode purposefully back toward the master suite.

Oh, yes, Hunter told himself, his body humming with savage anticipation, the ethereal-appearing pianist’s surprisingly independent spirit would only make their little game more intriguing.

And it would definitely make his victory all the sweeter once George Cassidy’s daughter had been properly, thoroughly tamed.

THE STAGE IN THE MASTER suite had been set for seduction. The flames coming from the fire in the black-tiled fireplace warming the bedroom were in stark contrast to the icy sleet the ocean wind was driving against the windowpanes.

The flickering orange light danced on the ceiling like a shimmering display of aurora borealis. On the table beside the bed, a fat ivory beeswax candle sat on a hammered-tin holder.

The nightgown—a pale sea-foam green rather than the blatant black she’d been expecting—was draped across the bed, just as Hunter’s insulting letter had promised. Since it hadn’t been there earlier, and Mr. and Mrs. Adams had left right after Mildred had served dinner, Hunter had obviously left his precious laboratory long enough to lay it out for her.

The idea of his prowling unseen through the sprawling house, entering her room, perhaps even going through her personal belongings, gave Gillian goose bumps.

It also made her madder than hell.

The gown was empire style, the top created from hand-tatted lace so gossamer it could have been spun by fairies from cobwebs. In spite of her pique and determination not to fall into the sensual trap he’d set, Gillian was unwillingly drawn to the delicate fabric.

She lifted it off the bed and ran her fingertips over the lacy rosettes designed to cover her breasts. The center of the flowers had been left open, obviously designed to bare a woman’s nipples.

“Yet more proof that subtlety isn’t the man’s strong suit,” she muttered. The material might be exquisite, but the style was Frederick’s of Hollywood. There was no way she was going to wear this, Gillian decided firmly. She glared up at the mirror over her head.

“Not until we set a few ground rules, first.”

HUNTER LAUGHED at her declaration. A rough, humorous bark that echoed in the cavernous confines of his laboratory. The room was dark, illuminated only by the faint icy sparkle of stars outside the wall of glass and the glow coming from the computer monitor and bank of television screens.

“Brave talk, little one,” he murmured, lifting the balloon glass of cognac in a silent salute. “But words won’t help you. Not now.”

He watched her scowl soften as her fingertips absently traced the lacy flowers. Women were so marvelously predictable, he thought with masculine satisfaction. He’d often wondered why men claimed to be mystified by the female mind.

All you had to do was to experience enough of them to create a workable model, program in the data, and they’d behave exactly as expected, at least ninety-two percent of the time. The eight percent of their behavior that could admittedly prove unpredictable had never disturbed him. It was, Hunter had determined long ago, what kept them from becoming boring.

“You’re tempted, Gillian,” he said to the screen. “Try the gown on. You know you want to.”

He watched as she closed her eyes and smoothed her hand over the sensuous silk.

“That’s it. Feel how smooth it is. Imagine it against your bare skin, sliding down your body like a cool waterfall.”

As if in response to his crooned command, Gillian opened her eyes and slipped her hand between the layers of silk. Then, in a seemingly hypnotic gesture, she lifted the gown against her body and slowly turned toward the full-length mirror standing in the corner of the room.