Rivals by Janet Dailey Page A

that I located you. And Kell Morgan”—again those bright eyes took note of the glinting red lights in Flame’s hair—“was my grandfather. His brother was Christopher Morgan.”
    The latter was said with a sense of import, yet it meant nothing to Flame. “Should I know that name?”
    â€œHe was your great-grandfather.” She sipped at her tea, eyeing Flame over the cup’s golden rim. “You aren’t familiar with your father’s family history, are you?”
    â€œNot very,” she admitted, her frown thoughtful and wary. “All my father ever told me about his grandfather that I can remember was the story of how he’d come to San Francisco shortly before the turn of the century and fallen hopelessly in love with Helen Fleming, the daughter of one of the city’s founding families. Within three months, they were married. Other than that…” Flame shrugged, indicating her lack of knowledge, and settled back against the sofa’s plump white cushions and curled a leg underneath her. For all her relaxed poise, inside she was tense. “I know several of my friends have become deeply involved in tracing their family tree and finding out all they can about their ancestors. It’s as if they must in order to have any sense of who or what they themselves are. I’ve never agreed with that. In my opinion, everyone has his own separate identity. Who my ancestors were or what they did has nothing to do with who I am today.” But even as she made her slightly impassioned disavowal, she was aware that her own actions frequently contradicted that. Because of who her family was, she had a certain prestige. She hadn’t earned it; her ancestors had. And even while a part of her resented it, she used it to open doors, to mix with the right people, and to further her own career. She stared at the coffee cooling in her cup, conscious of the silence and not feeling particularly proud of her accomplishments. “If I offended you, Hattie, I’m sorry. Obviously you share their interest in family trees or you wouldn’t be here.”
    â€œTheir interest, perhaps, but not for the same reason. And I’m certain we differed in our approach. You see, it was a living descendant of Christopher that I was anxious to find.” But she didn’t elaborate. “Believe me, that wasn’t easy. Soon after Christopher Morgan left Morgan’s Walk and went west all those years ago, the family lost touch with him. We couldn’t even be sure he had kept the Morgan name.”
    â€œWhy would he change it?” She frowned.
    â€œWho knows?” Those sharply bright eyes never once left Flame’s face, their burning intensity somehow mesmerizing. “It was hardly uncommon for a man who went West to change his name and take on a whole new identity. Frequently it was to conceal a criminal past, but sometimes it became a symbolic way to start a new life.”
    She understood such reasoning. After her divorce, she had elected to keep her married name, as if by doing so she was no longer a Morgan. But everyone knew she was.
    â€œTell me about yourself,” Hattie urged. “I understand you work.”
    â€œYes, I’m a vice-president and account executive for a national advertising company here in the city.”
    â€œA vice-president. You must be very intelligent.”
    Was she? Or had she finally gotten smart and stopped fighting the family name and started using it instead to get what she wanted? As a vice-president, she received an excellent salary, but even on that she wouldn’t have been able to afford half of what she owned. Practically all the expensive furnishings in her flat and nearly her entire wardrobe of designer clothes she’d purchased from agency clients, but never at retail. No, she used her position, both with the company and in society, to obtain special discounts. That was the way the game was played,