Sweet Revenge

the hotel business, think again. This place would take close to a million just to shovel out the dirt and kill the vermin.”
    “I estimate one and a half million to renovate, another million to adequately stock and staff. I want the best.”
    “The best is several miles away at the Waldorf.” Something began to gnaw cozily behind the wall. “I hate mice.”
    “Probably rats, anyway.”
    “That’s all right, then. Addy, I love you.” He dragged more cobwebs out of his hair. “And if you’ve got some notion about retiring and giving the St. Johns a run for their money in the hotel trade, fine. But I think we can do a bit better than this.”
    “It’s not going to be a hotel. It’s going to be a clinic, The Phoebe Spring Abuse Clinic, staffed with the best therapists I can draw in. When it’s finished, it will be able to house thirty women and children who have no place else to go.”
    “Addy—”
    She shook her head to hold him off. Her eyes were lit now with a new kind of passion. “Can you understand what it’s like to have no place to go? To stay with someone because you don’t know what else to do, because over the years you’ve grown almost used to the beatings, the humiliation? So used to it that you’ve started to feel as if you deserve it?”
    He had no glib remark for her now, no soothing comment. “No, I can’t.”
    “I’ve seen women like that, and children. Battered, more than bruises, Philip, scars on the mind, on the heart. They’re not always poor, not always uneducated, but they have something in common. The hopelessness, the helplessness.” She turned away for a moment. Her emotions always took over here, but she wanted him to see the practical side. “We should be able to handle at least thirty more on ah outpatient basis. Double that if and when we expand. The staff will be made up of both professionals and volunteers. Fees will be on a sliding scale, based on ability to pay. No one will be turned away.”
    Wind whistled through cracks in the windows and crept through the floorboards. It was a miserable place in a miserable neighborhood. He wished he could leave it at that, but like Adrianne, he had vision. “How long have you been planning this?”
    “I bought the building about six months ago, but I’ve had the idea for quite a bit longer.” Her footsteps echoed again as she crossed the floor. Above her head the ceiling was sagging and waterstained. “Taking the necklace is something I have to do, for myself. The motive is completely selfish.”
    “Is it?”
    “Oh, yes.” She turned back. “Don’t attach any nobility to it, Philip, or to me. It’s revenge, pure and simple. But after it’s done, it’s done. I don’t want it, I have no need for it. Abdu can have it back—for a price.” In the dull light, her eyes were very dark. Swathed in dark mink, she looked every bit the princess. “Five million American dollars. It’s only a fraction of what the necklace is worth, both monetarily and emotionally, but it’s enough. Enough to set this place up, to give my mother back her dignity, and to allow me to retire a very wealthy woman. I need to do all three of those things.I’ve spent the last ten years of my life preparing for it. There’s nothing you can say, nothing you can do to stop me.”
    He dug his hands into his pockets. “What makes you think he’ll pay? Even if you get it, and manage to get out of Jaquir alive, he has only to notify the authorities.”
    “And admit publicly that he broke the law by keeping it from my mother?” Her lips curved. “Admit publicly that he was bested by a woman and bring shame on the House of Jaquir? He’ll want me shamed, he may even want me dead, but he’ll want his pride, and The Sun and the Moon even more.”
    “There’s a chance he’ll find a way to have all three.”
    Under the fur she shivered. “It’s cold. Let’s go back.”
    He said nothing as they drove. He could still see the way she looked surrounded by those filthy walls. It was easy enough to understand why she’d taken him there, why she’d told him of her plans. She’d made it clear in the way words never could that she was committed. He couldn’t stop her. But there was something else he could do. Every decision he’d made in the past had been with an eye toward his own gain. He didn’t regret it, and never would. He could only hope that this decision, one made selflessly, wouldn’t bring regret.
    The moment he closed the door of