Jade Cabral strides into the 21st century as a golden guy. Brilliant and beautiful, with a California cool and a Harvard education, he is poised for wealth and success in New York’s Financial District.<br><br>But Jade harbors a secret flaw, a thirst for revenge against Se?or Rodriguez, the California landowner who deprived his father – Se?or’s out-of-wedlock son, John Virgil -- of his family’s rightful inheritance and place in the world. Jade thinks if he succeeds in New York, he can make up for every loss and humiliation his family has endured at the hands of Se?or. That searing quest leads him into the arms of Nan Spencer, a lovely, fragile socialite, and to the top of the financial world, the Twin Towers, on September 11, 2001.

Seamless Sky

They surrendered to a passion that was complete but discreet, meeting at odd hours in one of those roadside motels up the coast—a holdover from the sixties—that was always described as ramshackle. It was long and white with Pepto Dismal pink walls, as Jade referred to them, and white wicker furnishings that looked as if someone had punched a few holes into them. But the rooms were surprisingly clean; the view of the ocean, lucent; and the manager, appropriately amnesiac.


“Welcome to Barbie’s Malibu beach house,” Alicia would say, opening the door to their room. “Pretend you’re my forbidden lover come to carry on a torrid, clandestine affair.”


“But I am your forbidden lover come to carry on a torrid, clandestine affair.”


“Oh, that’s right,” she cried, leaping into his arms and wrapping her thick, smooth legs around his back.


Chapter 42