Call It Destiny

I corrected them. Partially because, to a large extent, they were valid. You and I are going to run that hotel together. And I know we can have a good marriage.“
    „What do you know about good marriages?“ she raged, spinning around once more to face him.
    „I know that we’ve got the ingredients. You yourself pointed them out. We’ve got some powerful business interests in common. We’ve got a mutual desire to make a home and a career out of Hacienda Strand. We both want to please your parents and, finally, we both want each other. That’s a better basis than most couples start out with!“
    „Go to hell!“
    „Can you deny any single one of those factors?“ he pushed deliberately.
    „I don’t have to accept or deny anything. And if we’re going to make lists, how about one that includes a marriage based on lies and deceit. What kind of a chance would it have? What woman wants a husband who knowingly misled her?“
    „I did what I had to do to make the whole arrangement work,“ he shot back stonily, getting to his feet.
    Instinctively Heather stopped pacing and took half a step back. „Including using sex!“
    „No, that’s the one tactic I really didn’t try. I always let you stop me. I let you have control of that aspect of the situation. But I’m beginning to think I made a serious tactical error on that point. I should have taken you to bed a couple of weeks ago, Heather Strand. I should have made you realize just how much you and I want each other.“
    „You think sex would have solved everything? Made matters easy for you?“ she scoffed, retreating another pace as he advanced slowly. The situation was out of control and she knew it. It was out of control because she herself had slipped her own leash. The chains of controlled focused behavior she had put on herself so many years ago had started to weaken last night as she sat in the Hacienda Strand’s offices and faced the truth.
    The only explanation for her wild stormy behavior that morning was that those chains had parted altogether. The passionate spirited girl had turned into a woman but the volatile element of her nature had not been destroyed. It had merely been kept buried under guard.
    Heather knew what was happening in herself and it frightened her. It also left her feeling strangely exhilarated as she faced the man responsible for loosing the strong emotions within her. She hadn’t allowed herself to feel such fierce emotion of any kind in so many years that the result was almost dizzying.
    Jake, too, was intuitive enough to realize what had happened, and he knew he was dealing with fire. If he didn’t control it the resulting blaze might consume them both, he told himself.
    „You didn’t handle matters very well this morning, did you, Heather? You’ve been sitting in this hotel room for the past few hours wishing you’d found another way to deal with the sense of betrayal you felt. You’ve been seeing the pain on your mother’s face. The humiliation your sisters went through. The anger and hurt your father experienced. Just like last time – you couldn’t come back and face the havoc you caused eleven years ago. You just kept going. But this time you know you can’t run. This time you have to go back and deal with it like the adult woman you are. There’s only one person you can blame for your present situation besides yourself, and that’s me. I’m the one who convinced your father to keep quiet about the sale of the Hacienda. He didn’t even tell your mother. I told Paul it would be the best way to handle you.“
    „You manipulated me as though I was a rival! A threat to your position.“
    „You were. I couldn’t risk telling you everything until I had you committed to me, as well as to the Hacienda Strand.“
    „Such arrogance.“
    „Was I any more arrogant than you were to think you could descend on the Hacienda after all these years and pick up where you left off? I’m the one who poured money and time and everything else I had to give into that hotel during the past two years. I’m the one Paul Strand came to when the place was in trouble and I’m the one who put it back on its feet. It’s going to be my home and it can be yours, as well. If you come home with me everything can fall back into place.“
    „You’re crazy if you think I’ll come back with you.“
    „It’s the only option you’ve got that you can live with and you know it.“
    „That’s not true.“
    „The only other option