Beyond Eden by Catherine Coulter Page A

thing for her father; all she’d ever wanted was for him just to recognize that she was there and that she was his daughter. Was that abnormal? Probably no more abnormal than her choosing psychology for a major because she’d hoped, deep down, that she would gain some insights, some self-awareness, to help her stop trembling with terror whenever a man came close to her. Some courses, some professors, had been helpful. Outwardly, no one would ever be able to guess what had happened to her—she’d filled herself with insights from every psychological theory; she’d grown up; she understood that the prince was mentally ill and she had been just a helpless girl drawn in by him; she accepted her fear of men as not being normal, but quite natural, of course, because of what the prince had done to her. She accepted all of it, took it in mental stride, smiled occasionally with cool objectivity at the idea of anyone being actually afraid of the opposite sex, but in the stillness of the night, when she was alone, the pain of those memories could still overwhelm her, the pain and the humiliation, her own stupidity. But she handled it now. At the very least, psychology had taught her how to handle it. Except handling Gruska, the jerk.
    She was stuffing papers back into her purse when she saw the letter from her grandmother that had arrived yesterday afternoon. She’d forgotten to read it. She pulled it out and put it to her nose, still smelling the faint odor of musk roses, her grandmother’s favorite scent, made especially forher in Grasse, France, by one man named d’Alembert, after the eighteenth-century French philosopher. Gates Foxe was eighty-two and d’Alembert had made her perfume for nearly forty years now. Lindsay had flown to San Francisco at Christmas at her grandmother’s request. Lindsay hadn’t seen her in several years. She’d slowed down, but her mind was still sharp and she still loved life and still tried to control those around her. Only there wasn’t anyone around her anymore. Royce had remarried the year before. His new wife had been there for Christmas and it hadn’t been very much fun. The new wife, formerly Holly Jablow, widow of the former Washington state senator, Martin Jablow, was thirty-five. She was vain and greedy and when she wasn’t focused on her new husband, she was focused exclusively on herself. She loved mirrors. She quickly saw her husband’s dislike for his daughter and adapted in the next moment. She was grating and sweetly patronizing, giving Lindsay advice on her clothes, on her hair, on her fingernails. Lindsay had suffered her in silence. As for Jennifer, Lindsay had seen her mother only once. She was too thin, too nervous, smoked incessantly, and was sleeping with a man who was twenty-six years old. Jennifer had been forced to introduce Lindsay to the man when she’d come to her apartment one afternoon unannounced. She treated her daughter like a rival. Lindsay had left quickly, feeling cold and very sad and very alone. She’d felt all ties to San Francisco falling away from her.
    Lindsay pulled the two pages from the envelope, a smile on her face, expecting to hear chatty news about friends and vagaries about the rich and richer in San Francisco. Her grandmother had a light touch with her at least. The letter began as she’d expected.
    Just news at first, chatter about Moffitt Hospital and how the board of directors was loath to spend enough money to modernize the new radiology rooms. She mourned the horrible proportion of Democrats to Republicans in northern California. Then Lindsay stopped smiling.
    â€œI don’t think anyone bothered to tell you because you really don’t exist to your father, as you well know—his fault, not yours. Sydney is pregnant. I have no idea if the prince is the father, nor does your father know, by the way. I suppose the family will pass the child off as a di Contini