The Tempted

“Wait!”

She hesitated, glancing over her shoulder. Uncertainty flickered in her eyes.

“Are you lost?” When she didn’t answer immediately, he said, “Whose office are you trying to find? Maybe I can help you.”

Resentment flashed in her hazel eyes. “I’m not lost. I came here to see you.”

“Do we have an appointment?”

“No.” Her chin lifted. “I slipped passed the receptionist in the lobby. And your secretary wasn’t at her desk.”

He cocked his head slightly, studying her. “Do I know you?”

“I’m Tess,” she said, and now it was annoyance that settled over her features, precisely the way it had six years ago when he’d failed to recognize her.

Stunned, Jared could only stare at her. Back then her transformation from a gangly teenager to a striking young woman had taken him by surprise, but this new metamorphosis was even more shocking. And disturbing.

He wouldn’t have recognized her. Not in a million years. Her face was pale and drawn, with dark circles underneath her eyes and deep pain within. And she was so thin! Not fashionably slender, but skin and bones, as if she’d been sick recently and hadn’t completely recovered. She wore a slim, dark skirt and white, sleeveless blouse, but the elegant lines of her clothing did little more than hint at the curves she’d once had. The curves he still remembered so well.

She’d pinned up her hair, taming the curls that used to cascade down her back so freely. Gone was the luster, the golden highlights that had glinted like fire in the sunlight. He’d always loved Tess’s hair, Jared thought with a stab of regret he didn’t want to analyze too closely.

It was he who stood speechless now.

She took a tentative step inside his office. “If you have a moment, I’d like to speak with you.”

At least her voice hadn’t changed. It was low and slightly husky, not as overtly sexy as Demi Moore’s or Kathleen Turner’s but close. When she’d used that voice to whisper to him, to tell him how much she loved him, how much she wanted him…

It had been a lie, of course. She’d played him for a fool that summer, and he would be crazy if he gave her anything more than the time of day.

He glanced at his watch and frowned. “I have a meeting in fifteen minutes. I can spare you ten of those.”

Some of the old resentment flashed again in her eyes, but something else, another emotion he couldn’t quite define, subdued it. She nodded and walked into his office.

He motioned for her to take a seat and he moved around his desk, putting the heavy expanse of granite between them. “So what can I do for you?”

“First, let me say, I heard about your father, and I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” Jared said curtly. He wished he could take some satisfaction in the pain he saw in her face, but he couldn’t. Not even after what she’d done.

“So this is all yours now,” she said softly, glancing around the commodious office. Her gaze came back to his. “Just the way it was always meant to be.”

He shrugged. “Somehow I don’t think you came here to congratulate me.”

Regret flickered in her eyes. Regret for what she’d done? For what she’d thrown away?

She placed her purse in her lap, the fingers of her right hand moving back and forth over the clasp, squeezing and releasing, squeezing and releasing. She was obviously nervous. Jared couldn’t imagine what she had to say to him after all these years. And though he had a good deal he’d like to say to her, he held his tongue.

“I realize you’re a busy man, so I’ll get right to the point.” Her chin lifted slightly. “I need money. A lot of it.”

He schooled his outward reaction, but inside, Jared was astounded. Tess Granger was the last person he would have expected to come asking for money. Six years ago, she’d worn her pride like a shield, against him, against his family. Against the whole world, he sometimes thought.

And now here she was, with her hand out.

“That’s a little ironic, don’t you think? That you would come here, of all places.”

Color tinged her pale cheeks. “This isn’t easy for me. Believe me, if there’d been any other way…” She trailed off, closing her eyes for a moment. “But I thought…we were close once—”

He cut her off. “Do yourself a favor, Tess. Don’t go there.”

The flush deepened, but anger glinted in her eyes.

“All right,” she said in a grim, determined voice. “I’ll put it as simply as I can. My daughter is missing, and I need money to get her back.”

“Your daughter?” Jared’s gaze dropped to her left hand. She wore a thin, gold band around her third finger. “You’re married?”

“I was.” Her gaze met his without wavering. “My husband died a few years ago. I have a five-year-old daughter named Emily. Almost three weeks ago, she was kidnapped from a school playground. We don’t know by whom or where she was taken. The police have—”

“Wait a minute.” Jared picked up the newspaper from his desk and opened it to the picture of the missing child. For some reason, he hadn’t been able to toss the paper out. “Is this your daughter?”

Tess’s face grew even paler as she stared at the photograph. “Yes. That’s Emily.”

Jared turned the paper so that he could study the picture. He was struck, as he had been yesterday, by the extraordinary beauty of the child. In spite of her dark hair and eyes, she looked a lot like Tess, although he hadn’t made the connection before, at least not consciously. But now he could even see that same damnable pride in the way the little girl held her chin, that same glow of defiance emanating from her brown eyes. And also like Tess, there was something exquisitely vulnerable about the child, something that brought out a protective instinct in Jared he never even knew he possessed. The thought of someone taking that innocent little girl, harming her—

He glanced up at Tess. “I’m sorry. I’ve only been back in Mississippi a few days. I’ve been living in New Orleans for the past six years.”

“Yes, I know. I…heard,” she stammered, as if not wanting to reveal how she’d come by the information. Had she been asking about him? Keeping tabs on him? Jared was hard-pressed to believe it considering their final conversation.

“I heard about the kidnapping, but I never dreamed the victim was your daughter.” He got up and moved around the desk to stand in front of her. “What happened?”

Tess’s eyes filled with tears, and for a moment she struggled for composure, putting a hand to her mouth as if to suppress her emotions.

No matter how much he’d hardened his heart during the past six years, Jared couldn’t resist that. She was so obviously a woman in agony. A woman who desperately needed help. He sat down beside her, not taking her hand, but finding that he wanted to.

“What happened?” he asked again.

She drew a quivering breath and turned to face him. “I don’t know how much you remember about Eden, but Emily was kidnapped from the playground at Fair-haven Academy, a private school on the north side of town. Do you remember it?”

“A big, ivy-covered building, manicured grounds?”

Tess nodded, and Jared wondered if she had any idea that she’d just presented him another irony. Tess Granger, a fierce and proud member of the proletariat, sent her child to a private school, just as the Spencers had done for generations. Just as she’d once ridiculed them for doing. “Don’t try to change me,” she’d warned him over and over. He’d never tried to change her. All he’d ever wanted to do was love her, but that hadn’t been enough, he thought with an edge of bitterness.

“When I went to pick her up that afternoon, the teachers couldn’t find her. She’d been with a group of her classmates on the playground, but no one saw her wander off. No one saw anything. No cars, no strangers, nothing. It was as if she vanished into thin air.”

“The little girl who disappeared a long time ago,” Jared mused. “She went to Fairhaven, too, didn’t she?”

Tess nodded. “Her name was Sadie Cross. No trace of her was ever found. Emily disappeared on the anniversary of Sadie’s abduction.”

A chill crawled up Jared’s backbone. “What do the police make of that?”