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extraordinarily close to tears. Exhaustion, of course. “You don’t have to do that, Drake.”
    â€œI know,” he said, “but since I’ve known you all your life, I don’t feel right leaving you when you’re so obviously jet-lagged. My driver is waiting outside.”
    She hesitated, hoping against hope the usual antagonism wouldn’t flare up. “If that’s what you want.”
    â€œIt is.”
    â€œRight, well…I have to say yes and thank you. But I’m taking you out of your way, aren’t I?”
    â€œIt would hardly be the first time,” he said tersely. “I suppose I could change my plans to accommodate yours. It won’t matter much. We could fly back tomorrow. The alternative for you would be many more hours spent arranging connecting flights.”
    â€œI can’t ask you to do that.” She spoke quietly, feeling all the distrust and conflicts just below the surface.
    â€œWhy not? It’s not as though you don’t have enough on your plate. I heard your father is back on Eden.”
    She shrugged. “Heath Cavanagh?”
    â€œThere’s no remote possibility your father is anyone else.” The last time they’d met, they’d managed to fight bitterly about her paternity. Accusations full of impotence, despair and fury. The acridity still hung in the air between them.
    â€œDon’t let’s go over that again.” Her breathing was ragged.
    â€œIt’d please me greatly never to hear you insinuate it again.”
    â€œWhat do you know, anyway, Drake?” She stared directly into his dark eyes.
    â€œI know you’re your own worst enemy.” As had happened so many times in the past, their conversation jumped to the deeply personal. No in-betweens. “You’re incredibly bitter about your father.”
    â€œAnd you aren’t?” Her eyes blazed.
    Briefly he touched her arm, a calming gesture that nevertheless had steel in it.
    â€œNo one could call us friends anymore, could they, Drake.” She made an effort to pull herself together, conscious that people were looking their way.
    Drake moved to the relative privacy of a broad column. “Fate took care of that,” he said dryly, “but we’re still neighbors.”
    â€œSo we are. We get invited to the same places.”
    â€œHow else would I have seen you in the last five years?” he went on, looking into her face. “Christmas parties, a wedding or two, polo matches…the last time, a picnic race meeting. One has to be grateful for small mercies. Things could change if you really wanted them to, Nicole. You have one solution at hand for this ongoing cause of conflict.”
    Hope spurted, died. “You’re talking my father, DNA?” She tipped her head. Tall herself, she still had to look up at him.
    â€œIt would settle the paternity issue once and for all.” There was challenge in his voice.
    â€œI couldn’t bring myself to ask him.”
    â€œYou don’t have to ask him.”
    â€œI need permission. That’s how it works.”
    He kept his eyes on her. “You have a question. I have the answer. The decision is up to you. So far you’ve just made things hard for yourself. And me, too.”
    She shrugged, conscious of the truth of his claim. “Have you seen him?”
    â€œI don’t normally pop over to Eden to say hello.”
    â€œOnce you did.”
    â€œYes.” Images of her as a bright and beautiful young girl flashed into his mind. She’d been quite the tomboy, determined, adventurous, brave in her way. Never the sort of kid that tagged along like her cousin, Joel. She had a wonderful natural way with horses, too, which had created an additional bond between them, plus a great love of their awe-inspiring desert homeland.
    â€œHeath is supposed to be dying,” she found herself confiding. “At least that’s what Siggy