Three Fates

matter.”
    “Matter still, darling. I know my brother, so I know that. But not knowing you so well, I have to ask. Does he matter to you?”
    She tried to tug her foot out of his hand, but he held it firmly, kept on rubbing. “I wasn’t trying to screw him out of the money.”
    “That wasn’t my question. Does he matter to you?”
    “Yeah, I guess he does.”
    “Then I’ll give you a piece of advice. Fight back. Use shouts and oaths until you’ve burned him out, temper-wise. Or use tears and drown it. Either works with him.”
    She shoved a second pillow under her head. “That’s going back to devious, isn’t it?”
    “Well.” He patted her foot. “Do you want to win or lose?”
    The crying jag had backed off, enough for her to sit up, sniffle once and study him. “I wasn’t sure I’d like you. It’s handy, all things considered, that I do.”
    “That’s mutual. So tell me, as it’s a subject that’s been preying on my mind. Do most of the women who work as strippers have the body God gave them, or what medical science can provide?”
     
     
    TIA WASN’T HAVING as much luck with Gideon. For a time, she just sat quietly in one of the little iron chairs in the roof garden. She rarely came up here, as she didn’t trust the air or the height. Which was a pity, she thought, as she so loved the view of the river.
    As she was a woman accustomed to being ignored, she sat while Gideon stood at the stone rail, smoking and brooding in silence.
    “We spent days and nights together, running all over goddamn Europe, and she had it in that fucking purse of hers all along.”
    Okay, Tia mused, he speaks. That was a start. “It belongs to her, Gideon.”
    “That’s not the point.” He spun around, ridiculously handsome, Tia thought, wrapped in his fury. “Did she think I’d cosh her on the head and steal it from her? Sneak out with it in the night after making love with her and leave her in some ugly room alone?”
    “I can’t answer that. I wouldn’t have had the nerve to go with you in the first place, or the presence of mind to protect myself—which is what she did. I . . . this is going to sound sexist, but it’s different for a man to go running around Europe with a woman than it is for that woman to go running around with a man. It’s riskier and it’s scarier. It just is.”
    “I won’t argue that, but we weren’t together a week when . . . things changed between us.”
    “Sex is, in some ways, another scary risk.” She felt heat sting her cheeks as he frowned at her now. “If it had been a matter of using you—which is what you’re thinking—she’d have been the one to sneak out with Lachesis in the night. Instead she brought you here.”
    “Then went behind my back and—”
    “Made a mistake,” Tia finished. “One that cost her more than it cost you. You and I know what shape she was in when you brought her here. We’re the only ones who know that. And maybe I’m the only one who could see how you were with her. How gentle and kind. How loving.”
    He made a short, rude sound and crushed the cigarette under his heel. “She was drunk and sick because I made her that way. What was I supposed to do? Shove her about?”
    “You took care of her. And when I heard her wake up crying in the middle of the night, you took care of her again. She was probably too tangled up in her own grief to know that. I’ve never been in love,” she said, taking a few cautious steps toward him, and the wall. And the drop. “So I could be wrong thinking that you’re in love with her. But I know what it is to have feelings for someone stirred up, then be hurt by them.”
    “Mal’s sick over that, Tia.” He took her hand, not realizing her instinctive resistance was for the height and not for the gesture. “I promise you.”
    “This isn’t about that. I’m just saying that when you’re not so mad, or so hurt, you should try to look at it from her side. Or if you can’t, at least resolve yourself enough so we can work together.”
    “We’ll work together,” he promised. “I’ll deal with the rest of it.”
    “Good. Good.” Why was it people nervous about heights couldn’t resist looking down from tall buildings? she wondered. Compelled, she stared down at the street until her head spun. She managed a shaky step back, then another. “Whew. Vertigo.”
    “Steady now.” He took her arm when she swayed. “You’re fine.”
    “I guess I will be. More or