"What exactly did the Council have to say to you that they neglected to say on Friday night?" he asked, holding up a hand to delay Robert from closing the car door and driving away.

Stefan snorted impatiently. "Just as before, they said very little. They asked intrusive questions about our people, questioned our motives for moving to the city, and generally made themselves look ridiculous. It was a waste of time, and mine is still of some value."

"That sounds just like the other night. They didn't mention anything new? Any new theories about who might be behind the attack?"

"Nicolas, who they think is behind the attack was never in doubt. They are convinced it was one of us, either you, or me, or Gregor. I can't imagine there's anything that could change their minds outside of the real culprit stepping forward and confessing. On the other hand, they have no proof to back up their suppositions, obviously. We all know we're innocent. Eventually, the Council will realize that there's no proof to be had, they'll throw up their ineffectual hands, and they'll move on. You should put them out of your mind and concentrate on your new mate."

"You might be able to ignore it when someone accuses you of an attack on a head of state, Father, but I'm not quite so laissez-faire about the matter." He leaned down into the car, his face set in grim lines. "I resent the h.e.l.l out of the fact that the Council is trying to blame me for a crime I didn't commit. I intend to prove that I wasn't behind it, and then I intend to tell them exactly how little I care about the political power they think they wield. When I'm done, there will be no doubt in the mind of anyone on the Council that I wouldn't take one of their jobs if they paid me for it."

"Oh, relax, Nicolas. You sound ridiculous," Stefan dismissed him. "You invest too much importance in the whole matter. As I said, the whole thing will blow over soon enough, and if it doesn't ... well, since none of us are guilty, the only alternative left to the Council will be to turn on themselves and tear each other to pieces. It would be no great loss, as far as I can tell. I've seen better organization at some of the properties we've pulled out of bankruptcy."

Nicolas stepped back and shook his head. Clearly, his father really didn't care about the accusations, beyond the annoyance he felt at having his schedule disrupted. Maybe that was what came of sixty years of playing the arrogant despot. Was that what Nic had to look forward to in another thirty? He grimaced.

"Now, go home, and put this entire matter out of your mind." When Robert shut the car door and walked around to climb back behind the wheel, Stefan lowered the window halfway and leaned forward to get in one last jab. "I expect to hear I'm to be a grandfather within the next two weeks, Nicolas. Get to work."

Nic watched the sedan disappear down the street and shoved his hands into his pockets. He'd love nothing better than to work on making those grandbabies his father seemed to want so badly, but in order to do that Nic would have to get close enough to touch his mate. Without her cutting off any important parts of his anatomy. Judging by the mood she'd been in when he'd left her, he thought his chances of that happening were what might politely be called slim-to-none.

He turned away from the Vircolac club and continued his way down the block, walking in the same direction he'd taken before he'd spotted his father. Until Nic figured out the way to make amends with his furious mate, he thought it might just be safer to keep walking. With any luck, he'd formulate a strategy before he reached Delaware.

"Oh, no, he didn't."

"He did. I can't believe I'm saying this, but he so did."

Saskia and her guest sat curled up on opposite ends of the sofa in the cozy den of her new apartment, sipping cups of coffee and marveling over the idiocy and unmitigated gall of her darling mate. It had taken her a good thirty minutes and half a plate of the cookies she'd dug out of the cavernous pantry to bring Corinne up to date on the saga of her war with Nicolas, but she'd finally gotten through the fight they'd had in the spare room. Now Corinne stared at her with eyes so wide she looked like a cartoon character.

"Oh. My. Lord." The reporter shook her head slowly. "I mean, I got he was dumb from when we talked yesterday, but I had no idea he was this dumb. How did you keep from just killing him?"

"I think it had a lot to do with the fact that I was unarmed at the time. And since there's no fireplace in that guest room, there weren't any useful weapons near to hand."

"No weapons? Excuse me, but aren't I talking to the girl who can turn into a five-hundred-pound Siberian tiger anytime she darn well feels like it? Sweetie, you are a weapon."

Saskia made a face. "Maybe, but you're forgetting that if I do that, Nicolas can turn himself into a seven-hundred-pound Siberian tiger. It's not like I have some sort of unfair advantage. If anything, it's the other way around."

"Oh, right. There go my fantasies about what it would be like to have the upper hand over a man once in a while."

"If you're looking for stories on that subject, don't come crying to me."

Corinne reached forward to pat her hand. "Don't look so gloomy, sweetie. You're not alone in the man trouble arena, you know. Far from it. Every woman I know, including the stupid-happy ones-h.e.l.l, especially the stupid-happy ones-had to whack some sense into her man before he was any use at all."

"Think they could give me some pointers? Because I just told you about the last time I tried that. We gave each other a set of ridiculous ultimatums, remember?"

"Yeah, that strategy probably wasn't destined for success, but that doesn't mean you can give up. I mean, not unless you've decided he's not worth it...." Corinne trailed off and looked at Saskia curiously.

"I don't know," Saskia said, feeling hope and doubt and anger and confusion all bounding around inside her like puppies on speed. "I thought he was worth it. I mean, I've always thought he'd be worth it, but-"

"Uhhhh-ohhhhh."

"Uh-oh?" Saskia repeated. "What-oh?"

"You've been holding out on me," the reporter accused, her lips curving into a teasing smile. "Nicolas Preda isn't just your fiance; he's your girl crush!"

Saskia felt her cheeks burst into flame, which made her immediate denial lack a certain something.

Like credibility.

"Girl crush?" She tried to make the words sound as implausible and distasteful as fat-free chocolate. "I don't even know what that is."

"Sure you do. Everyone's got a girl crush, the boy you just fell madly and pa.s.sionately in love with somewhere before the age of twelve. Mine was Jimmy Devellano. He lived next door to my aunt Renata. I was ten; he was fourteen. In his mind, I didn't exist, but in mine, we were going to get married, move to Long Island, and have, like, five kids. And die of old age before thirty-five, of course. Most girl crushes never go beyond writing your first name with his last name over and over and over in your notebook while you're supposed to be working on math problems, but some of us get luckier than that."

Saskia shoved aside a mental flash of her childhood diary, the pink leather and little gold lock concealing line after line of "Saskia Preda" written in a loopy childish hand. "That's just ridiculous. I never had a girl crush on Nicolas."

Which was the truth ... sort of. Saskia had never had a crush on her fiance. She'd just had the infinite bad luck to fall in love with him at the age of eight and had never managed to find her way back out again.

"Don't lie to a new friend, Saskia. It will set our relationship off on the wrong foot."

Saskia gave an inarticulate cry and dropped her head to the sofa cushions.

"What is wrong with me?" she groaned, banging her head a few times for good measure. Too bad the cushion wasn't a brick wall. Maybe that would knock some sense into her.

"A man," Corinne shot back. "I thought we'd already established that."

"That, and the fact that I must be an idiot to still be here angsting about it. The way he behaved was inexcusable. I should just cut my losses and leave, right?" She raised her head and looked to her friend for agreement. "Right?"

"If it was that easy, why did you call me and ask me to come over here to talk you out of it?"

"That's not why I-" Saskia gave up and set aside her empty cup to rub her hands over her eyes. She laughed helplessly, mostly at herself. "I had to ask you to come here because he told me I wasn't allowed to leave the apartment without his permission."

Corinne sucked in a deep breath, held it for a moment, then exhaled, her lips pursed in consideration. "Okay, setting aside for the moment the complete a.s.sholery of that whole 'without his permission' bulls.h.i.t, I'd say it just proves the point that after he left the apartment you called me to come keep you company instead of grabbing whatever wasn't nailed down and running as fast as you could go in the opposite direction of wherever he went. Am I right?"

"You're right."

"So, what does that tell you?"

Saskia made a disgusted sound, this time directed entirely at herself. "That I'm a spineless idiot with pathetic taste in men?"

"Stop that." Corinne frowned at her. "No one is allowed to call you spineless, Saskia Arcos, least of all yourself. A spineless woman would never have stood up to her big, bad fiance in the first place, let alone handled him as neatly as you did this morning in his office. You're a long way from spineless. What you are is, well, kind of submissive."

"Submissive?" Saskia couldn't have felt more shock if the other woman had reached out and punched her. "I'm submissive? Since when?"

Corinne shrugged. "Can't say. I haven't known you that long. But judging by your personality and what you've told me about your family, I'm going to guess since you were a twinkle in your daddy's eye. There's nothing wrong with it. Some people are just born that way."

"I am not submissive. Whips and chains? So not my thing!"

"Good; that will leave more for Reggie." Corinne chuckled. "I'm pretty sure she and Misha wear out the ones they've got pretty regularly. Oh, stop blushing. Reggie isn't ashamed of who she is, and you shouldn't be, either. Not that I'm saying you're exactly the same. There's more than one kind of submissive in the world, and I'm pretty sure you and Reggie are completely different kinds. Reggie's a s.e.xual submissive. She likes her man to dominate her in the bedroom; it turns her on. You're more of a ... well, I don't know what the technical term is, but you've just got a submissive personality."

"You're contradicting yourself," Saskia grumped. "You're the one who just told me I wasn't spineless."

"That's because you're not. Look, stop getting hung up on the terminology and just follow along with me, okay? When I say you're submissive, I'm not saying you'll just let anyone who wants to walk all over you. That's not submission, it's pathologically low self-esteem, and it's the sort of thing that requires years of intensive therapy. You just have the sort of personality that means you're perfectly happy not to run the show, you know what I mean?"

Saskia just stared at her.

Corinne sighed. Setting her mug on the coffee table, she leaned forward as she tried a different explanation. "So far, we've only known each other a couple of days, right? But let me tell you all the different ways you've demonstrated to me, in that short period of time, that you prefer not to take the dominant role. Ready?'

No, she wasn't, but she nodded anyway, because that's what Corinne seemed to expect.

"Okay, first, when we met at the party, you were perfectly sweet and polite. In fact, you're like a small-talk guru, but that was as far as you took it. I was the one who put us on a first-name basis, not you. If it were up to you, we would have exchanged a couple of words of chitchat and gone our separate ways. You might have thought later that I was nice and wondered if we would have had anything in common, but you would have left it where it was. Am I right?"

Saskia frowned. "It was my engagement party. I had responsibilities. I couldn't just think about who I felt like talking to most."

"Mm-hm. Who threw that party, by the way?"

"What do you mean, who threw it? My parents did. It's tradition. The bride's parents always throw the couple's engagement party."

"Right. But who did the planning? Drew up the guest list? Chose the location? Picked the food?"

"My parents. They wanted to be certain we included everyone who might expect an invitation, and it only made sense to have it at the Predas' new hotel. But I certainly did my share," she hurried to add, starting to feel uncomfortable. "I consulted over all the major decisions."

"Of course you did. It was a lovely party. And I meant it about those mushroom things." The woman smiled, but her gaze remained serious and focused. "Second, after we talked a little bit and developed a rapport, I was the one who gave you my card. I pa.s.sed you my digits, thereby offering the possibility of us making contact in the future and potentially exploring the possibilities in friendship. If we'd been in a bar and at all inclined toward lesbianism, the correct terminology would be that I picked you up."

That startled a laugh from Saskia, and Corinne grinned back.

"Not that you're not gorgeous," the reporter continued, "but I'm unfortunately straight and madly in love and l.u.s.t with my s.e.xy fiance. But this brings us to point number three-even after I gave you my card with all of my contact information on it, I am still the one who made the next move by calling you the next day and suggesting that we get together and you let me introduce you to my friends."

Saskia did not like the direction where this was heading and she struggled to find some way to refute Corinne's points. Which, unfortunately, were all true.

It took Saskia a second, but she did manage one point in her favor. "You did call me, but I was the one who suggested coffee!"

See! See! she wanted to shout. I'm not just a pa.s.sive follower! I can do stuff, too!

"You did," Corinne acknowledged with a nod, "and I was very proud of you. But I will just point out that there are points deducted for only doing it after I already had you on the phone and for letting me suggest the coffee shop."

"Hey! I told you I hadn't been in the city for very long. I couldn't think of anyplace."

Corinne hummed noncommittally. "Then there's the matter of our conversation over coffee. I'm the one who got it rolling and set it on a personal level, allowing you to treat me like a friend and confide in me the way you were dying to do. And I'm the one who came right out and declared us to be friends. I'm afraid the evidence is stacked against you."

"Sheesh. What are you, a lawyer?" Saskia grumbled.

"Nope, but my good friend Danice is. She's a total shark. If you ever need representation, give her a call. But in this case, even she would tell you the jury's a lock. You, my friend, are the opposite of a dominant personality. Which, according to the rules of antonyms in the English language-and I can say this because I'm a writer, so I use words-makes you submissive."

Defensiveness made Saskia hunch her shoulders in a resentful shrug. "So what does that mean? That secretly I want Nicolas to treat me like an inanimate possession, so I should just stop complaining about it?"

"Lord, no!" Corinne scooted closer and gave her friend a one-armed hug. "That's not what I intended to say at all. Not even close. As far as I'm concerned, that man deserves a b.l.o.o.d.y lip at the very least, but that's my personality talking, not yours. And that's my point. You're the only one who can decide how you're going to deal with your fiance, but I think you need to understand yourself and what you really want before you do or say anything irrevocable.

"You're not a dominant person, so you're never going to want Nicolas to defer to you all the time any more than you want him to let you make all the decisions. There's nothing wrong with that. The important point in all my psychobabble was that you have to realize that not everything is going to be worth fighting over, not to you. You're the type of person who can be happy living within a certain power structure and a certain framework of rules, so recognize that and then decide which ones you really can't live with and make those the ones you fight over. If you try to battle over every single thing, all you'll do is exhaust yourself and make both of you even angrier."

It made total sense.

Saskia quirked the corner of her mouth and looked at her friend. "So, basically, this was all your long-winded way of saying I should pick my battles?"

"Hey, even d.i.c.kens got paid by the word."

Impulsively she reached out and hugged Corinne. "Thank you. I appreciate you coming over and talking through this with me. Between this and trying to find the real attacker, I feel like it's been seven years since the party sometimes."

"Don't worry," Corinne rea.s.sured her. "I know Mac. He's Danice the lawyer's husband, actually, and he's good. If anyone can find the real culprit, Mac will."

"That's good to hear. I think Nicolas is fairly convinced that the only way to clear his name is to find the real attacker and bring him to justice."

She hesitated, something Corinne picked up on.

"You don't agree?"

"No, I think it makes sense," Saskia allowed. "I'm just not sure there's not something everybody is missing..."

"Like what?"

"Well, the timing really bothers me. I mean, maybe I'm just being paranoid, but it seems strange to me that the attack would happen on the night of our engagement party, after it had broken up and everyone went their separate ways, but while the Tiguri were still on everyone's mind. But I don't know." She shrugged. "Maybe I'm just still sensitive about Rafael De Santos and Nicolas having their little squabble in front of everyone. Like I said, the timing just makes me uncomfortable."

Corinne looked thoughtful. "I did see Rafe and Nicolas have a discussion before Rafe left. I think that was right before I talked to you, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, they didn't exactly look like the best of friends, did they? In fact, your fiance actually looked a little bit mean."

"You're not the only one who noticed. I just worry that someone might have remembered that and taken it the wrong way."

"And done what? Used it to try to frame Nicolas?" The reporter shook her head. "That seems like a bit of a stretch."

"I know it does, and I'm not even really suggesting that. I just think it might be worth looking into who already had a grudge against De Santos who might want to use the general sentiment against the Tiguri as a kind of smoke screen for an action they already planned to take."

Corinne whistled between her teeth. "Sweetheart, I hate to break it to you, but Rafe is a public figure. He's rich, he's gorgeous, and he's the head of a powerful organization. The list of people who haven't wanted to kill him at one point or another is probably smaller than the one of people who have."

"I don't suppose it really matters, anyway." Saskia forced a smile. "My major in art history didn't exactly give me a lot of training in digging up dirt on nasty grudges. Unless they involve painters and notorious ballet dancers."

"Maybe not, but I happen to be an expert on digging up dirt. If it will make you feel better, I'll do a little poking around. I can't promise I'll find anything, but I've always believed it never hurts to take a look."

"You would do that?" Saskia felt truly touched. "I think that's the sweetest thing you could possibly do for me."

"No," Corinne corrected. "The sweetest thing I could do for you would be to kidnap your husband and have him taken in for a lobotomy and forced a.s.shole deprogramming. This is the most practical thing I could do for you."

Saskia laughed. "Well, it works for me. Thank you."

"No problem. What are friends for?"

Corinne left a few minutes later, leaving Saskia sitting in the den and trying to figure out the best way to follow her friend's advice. Saskia knew she had made a mistake earlier by issuing Nicolas an ultimatum to change his behavior or consider their engagement over. As he had pointed out, a Tiguri engagement wasn't that easy to break. In fact, the agreement could only be dissolved if the mated couple failed to conceive after a minimum of one full year of living together. Unless Saskia wanted to condemn them both to another eleven months, three weeks, and four days of living h.e.l.l, they would have to come to some sort of compromise.