The Golden Chance by Jayne Ann Krentz Page B

to get his hands on my shares, just like everyone else.” And if she were smart, Phila thought, she would not forget that simple fact for one minute.
    Another brilliant display crackled overhead, and in the faint glow of the explosion Victoria eyed Phila with cool interest. “I saw that little scene down by the gate this afternoon. We all did. Quite an entrance.”
    Phila winced. “It certainly wasn't my idea of a grand entrance.”
    “I'd have said it wasn't Nick's idea, either. At least, not the Nick I knew three years ago. I'd have bet my last dollar Nicodemus Lightfoot was not the kind of man who would ever throw a woman over his shoulder and carry her through a crowd of people.”
    “Maybe he's been living in California too long.”
    “Whatever the reason, it certainly revealed a new side of him. And it's a side Hilary never saw, that's for sure. I can't imagine Nick throwing her over his shoulder. Never in a million years.”
    “Hilary?” Phila went still. “Why would he want to toss her over his shoulder?”
    Victoria studied her for a moment in the flare of another explosion. “Don't you know?”
    “Know what?”
    “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. I just assumed Nick would have told you by now.”
    “Told me what, for heaven's sake?”
    “Hilary is Nick's ex-wife. They were divorced three years ago. She married Reed the day after the divorce was final.”

CHAPTER FIVE

    The silence in the library was oppressive. Nick lounged in one of the mahogany cabriole chairs, his legs stretched out in front of him, and watched his father pour brandy at the early-nineteenth-century butler's tray. Old crystal clinked melodically. Nick wondered what Phila was doing at that moment.
    He decided she was probably sound asleep. He had walked her back to the Gilmarten place half an hour before. She had been suspiciously silent. He had thought about attempting a kiss and decided not to risk it. Her mood had been a dangerous cross between thoughtful and volatile.
    As Reed fixed the brandies Nick shifted his gaze to the familiar book-lined walls of the high-ceilinged room. He knew the library was a fine example of the Federal period. Eleanor Castleton had designed it and overseen the selection of furnishings here as in every other room in the beach cottages and the main homes on Bainbridge Island. He had it on the best authority that if Eleanor said this room was decorated in the Federal style, then it undoubtedly was.
    I'm sure it's perfect, Nick , his mother had once said with a wry smile. Eleanor knows how to do everything perfectly. She was raised to be a lady .
    The books lining the shelves ranged from Moby Dick to a recent exposé of the inner workings of a beleagured CIA. They resided in glass-paned Duncan Phyfe—style bookcases made of mahogany and poplar and pine. In one obscure corner of a particular bookcase, stuffed behind a three-part series on nineteenth-century American history, was an aging copy of Playboy magazine. Nick assumed it was still there. He had shoved it there himself, a long time ago when he thought he'd heard his mother's step in the hall. He'd never gotten around to retrieving it.
    To the best of his recollection the women featured in it were top-heavy in the extreme. Not at all like Phila, who had delicate, pert little breasts and a neat, lush rear he was pretty sure he could cup in both palms.
    His gaze moved on around the room to the girandole mirror with its American eagle decoration. The antique crewelwork fire screen was still in front of the fireplace. The circular library table covered in green baize was positioned as usual near his chair.
    There were echoes of Nick's childhood as well as his more recent past in every corner of this room. He had not been here in a long time. He did not feel comfortable now.
    “Goddamn fireworks get trickier every year, don't they?” Reed remarked in a determinedly conversational tone as he handed Nick a glass. He sat down in a blue wing-backed