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CHAPTER ONE

“THEY CALL HIM the Count,” the gruff man told her as he led her deeper and deeper into the wild, wearing more flannel and plaid than Susannah Betancur had ever seen on a single person “Never a naod”

“An actual god or a pretend god?” Susannah asked, as if that would ht, it certainly wouldn’t

Her guide shot her a look “Not sure it really matters this far up the side of a hill, ma’am”

The hill they were trudging up was , but then, everything in the Arand scale Her impression of the Wild, Wild West was that it was an endless sprawl of jaw-dropping reens and quaint place na splendor in every direction could be contained by calling the highest peak around so like Little Summit

“How droll,” Susannahin and tried her best not to topple down the way she’d coh elevation, ht-headed

That she was also breathless ithout saying

Her friend in flannel had driven as far as he could on what passed for a road out in the remote Idaho wilderness It was more properly a rutted, muddy dirt track that had wound deeper and deeper into the thick woods even as the sharp incline clearly indicated that they were going higher and higher at the saned herself to that lurching and bouncing lasting forever, or at least until it jostled her into a thousand tiny little jet-lagged pieces Her driver had then indicated they needed to walk the rest of the way to what he called the co of the kind after flying all the way here from the far more settled and civilized hills of her home on the other side of the world in Ro

Because Susannah ht not be a particularly avid hiker But she was the Widow Betancur, whether she liked it or not She had no choice but to see this through

She concentrated on putting one booted foot in front of the other noell aware that her clothes were not exactly suited to an adventure in the great outdoors It hadn’t occurred to her that she’d actually be in the wilderness instead of merely adjacent to it Unlike every person she’d seen since the Betancur private jet had landed on an airfield in the middle of nowhere, Susannah wore head-to-toe black to announce her state of perlance It was her custom Today it was a sleek cashmere coat over a winter dress in h boots, because she’d expected the cold, just not the forcedwith it

“Are you sure you don’t want to change?” her guide had asked her They’d stared each other down in his ra at lopsided attention in an overgrown field streith various auto parts It had made her security detail twitchy It had been his office, presu less…?”

“Less?” Susannah had echoed as if she failed to catch hisa brow in an approximation of the ruthless husband she’d lost

“There’s no real road in,” her guide had replied, eyeing her as if he expected her to wilt before him at that news As if a mountain ing, could coues of her own complicated life and the multinational Betancur Corporation that had been in her control, at least nominally, these last few years, because she’d refused to let the rest of them win—her family and her late husband’s family and the entire board that had been so sure they could stearid in the sense it’s, you know Rough You ht want to dress for the elements”

Susannah had politely demurred She wore only black in public and had done so ever since the funeral, because she held the dubious distinction of being the very youngof one of the richest men in the world She found that relentless black broadcast the rightindefinitely, noparents and in-laws, or anyone else, had on her at any given time

She intended to re while No new husbands to take the reins and take control, no matter how hard she was pushed from all sides to remarry

If it was up to her she’d wear black forever, because her hood kept her free

Unless, that was, Leonidas Cristiano Betancur hadn’t actually died four years ago in that plane crash, which was exactly what Susannah had hauled herself across the planet to find out