She watched the door close behind him before she got to her feet and went to stand before the fireplace. She didn’t really need the heat, she thought ruefully. It was purely emotion that caused her to shake a little. Though the conversation with Novak had gone as she’d thought it would. Nothing could be certain, but she was hopeful.

It was those few short sentences with Korgan afterward that had disturbed her. She’d been so involved with convincing Novak that she hadn’t been ready when Korgan had asked that question. He was usually so cool and totally collected where Masenak was concerned, she’d thought that beneath his almost casual facade he was as focused as she was. Then she’d looked at him and seen that intensity that had nothing cool about it. It was good that he’d walked out the door, because she hadn’t known what to do after she’d instinctively tried to ignore, to pretend, to protect herself. She must have done it well, because he’d left her.

But she wouldn’t be able to keep on doing it. It wasn’t her nature to hide away and be something she was not, even to protect herself.

So she had to sit here and think, to come to terms with who she was, while she waited for Sasha to call.

*  *  *

Sasha phoned an hour later, and Alisa jumped on the call. “Is everything all right? Vogel told Korgan that Reardon was on his way to Jubaldar early this morning. Why?”

“I have no idea. And he’s not on his way, he’s here. He arrived an hour or so ago. Though I haven’t seen him. He’s probably with Masenak.” Her voice was edgy. “All I know is that he’s already causing problems. When I got back to the stable after working out with Chaos today, I found Davidow there with Reardon’s jockey putting Nightshade in one of the stalls in the same stable annex where Chaos is quartered. I should have expected it, I suppose. I was told the annex was always given to Reardon for the horse he brought to the race. The only reason Chaos was put here was that he was such a hell raiser.”

“Are they going to move Chaos back to the primary stable?”

“I think I kept that from happening. I got Chaos to display his less-than-charming side. He did minor damage to his stall and terrified Lee Chan, Nightshade’s jockey, but it reminded Davidow why he’d isolated Chaos. Then I made a show of getting Chaos under control and calmed down and told Davidow that if he wanted me to keep him that way, he couldn’t have Reardon’s people moving around those stalls disturbing him. Any care given to Nightshade had to be done by me.”

“And Davidow agreed?”