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

For a long time, Belle sat on her bed, buffing her nails, and waiting for the sound of her brother’s truck pulling up in front of their house. But when he didn’t come home, she found herself doing something very un-Belle-like. She threw on a pink sweater, jeans, and her pink pumps, got into her car, which was her mother’s old car, and sped away to the manor house.


She didn’t quite know what she would do when she got there. She remembered thinking that she wasn’t thinking clearly, as if she were drunk or moving under water or trapped in a dream. So she told herself that when she got to the manor house, she would know immediately what to do. She would run up the porch steps purposefully and ring the bell. And Paris would come to the door, Paris, who would say, “Why, Belle, is that you? Well, for heaven’s sake, what is it, child?”


Chapter 46