Cooper exchanged a look with her father. She knew that he was making his decision, deciding how much of the truth to tell her. Did he realize that their entire future together hinged on what he said next? Probably not. He was a Guild boss. It wouldn't occur to him that this situation had escaped his control.

Cooper unfolded his hands. He took off his glasses with a deliberate air and set them down on the desk.

Slowly he walked across the room to stand at one of the tall windows. For a moment or two he studied the view of the ruins of the ancient alien town site that had been deserted thousands of years before humans had arrived on the planet.

"Frazier is a very ambitious man, Elly," he said quietly. "He was attempting to use you."

"We dated for a while," she said icily. "We had some fun together. He did not use me."

"He intended to marry you. He was going on the assumption that once you were his wife, he would be able to forge a natural alliance with your father. That would have given him a critical edge on the Council."

She felt the floor start to dissolve under her feet. So much for the one frail thread of hope that she had been clinging to so tightly for the past few hours.

"I see," she managed in a voice that was no more than a whisper. "This was all about the Guild."

John inclined his head in a sage manner. "It's true, Elly. Frazier was determined to marry you. I warned him off privately, but he ignored me. If he had succeeded in convincing you to contract a formal Covenant Marriage with him, I would have been placed in an untenable situation, forced to choose between supporting my son-in-law for the sake of my daughter and her future offspring, or voting against him and risking an irreparable rift in our clan. It is very likely that, in the end, I would have had to step down from the Council to avoid being caught in the middle."