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if it’s comforting or frightening to consider your life being determined, all before you’ve taken your first breath, by three women.”
    “Not just the length of a life,” Tia put in, and had to bite back the urge to warn him of the perils of refined white sugar when he added a generous teaspoon to his coffee. “The tone of it. The good and the evil in you. The Fates distribute that good and that evil justly. It’s still up to a man what he does with what’s inside him.”
    “Not preordained then?”
    “Every act is an act of will, or lack of it.” She moved her shoulders. “And every act has consequences. Zeus, king of the gods, and quite the ladies’ man, wanted Thetis. The Moerae prophesied that her son would be more famous, perhaps more powerful in some way, than Zeus himself. And Zeus, recalling just how he’d dealt with his own father, feared siring this child. So he gave Thetis up, thinking of his own welfare.”
    “It’s a foolish man who gives up a woman because of what may happen down the road.”
    “It didn’t do him any good anyway, did it, since Thetis went on to mother Achilles. Perhaps if he’d followed his heart instead of his ambition, married her and loved the child, showed pride in his son’s accomplishments, Zeus would have had a different fate.”
    What the hell had happened to Zeus? Malachi wondered, but thought it wiser not to ask. “So, he chose his own destiny by looking into the dark inside himself and projecting that on a child yet unconceived.”
    Her face lit at his response. “You could say that. You could also say the past sends out ripples. If you follow mythology, you know every finger dipped into the pool sends those ripples out, and they touch on those who come after. Generation after generation.”
    She had lovely eyes, he mused, when you got close enough to really look into them. The irises were a clear and perfect blue. “It’s the same with people, isn’t it?”
    “I think so. That’s one of the core themes of the book. We can’t escape fate, but we can do a great deal to carve our own mark in it, to turn it to our advantage, or disadvantage.”
    “It seems mine’s turned to advantage by scheduling this particular trip at this particular time.”
    She knew the heat was rising to her cheeks again, and lifted her cup in hopes of hiding it. “You haven’t said what business you’re in.”
    “Shipping.” It was close to the truth. “It’s a family business, several generations now. A fateful choice.” He said it casually, but watched her like a hawk watches a rabbit. “When you consider my great-great-grandfather was one of the survivors of the Lusitania. ”
    Her eyes widened as she lowered her cup. “Really? That’s so strange. Mine died on the Lusitania. ”
    “Is that the truth?” His astonishment was exactly the right tone. “That’s a strong coincidence. I wonder if they knew each other, Tia.” He touched a hand to hers, and when she didn’t jolt, let it linger. “I’m becoming a champion believer in fate.”
     
     
    AS HE WALKED with her back to the hotel, Malachi debated how much more to say, and how to say it. In the end he decided to temper his impatience with discretion. If he brought up the statues too soon, she might see through the layers of coincidence to cold calculation.
    “Do you have any plans for tomorrow?”
    “Tomorrow?” She could barely get over that she’d ended up having plans tonight. “No, not really.”
    “Why don’t I pick you up about one. We’ll have lunch.” He smiled as he led her into the lobby. “See where it takes us.”
    She’d intended to pack, call home, work a bit on her new book and spend at least an hour doing her relaxation exercises.
    She couldn’t think why.
    “That would be nice.”
    Perfect, he thought. He’d give her a little romance, a little adventure. A drive to the sea. And drop in the first mention of the little silver statues. At the desk he asked for her key and his