Redemption's Kiss

“What, pray tell, is your heart into these days?”

“My heart,” he said in the velvety tone that tightened her nipples and resonated deep in her belly every time she heard it, “has only ever been in one place—”

His disquieting gaze swept over her, making her shiver involuntarily.

“—but we’ll get to that another time. If you’re asking what I’m doing with myself these days, you can be one of the first to know. I’ve endowed a new charitable foundation, Phoenix Legacies. I’m running it.”

Jillian couldn’t tamp down her surprise or her growing sense of dread. If Beau was doing good works, she didn’t need to know. Any information that interfered with her unmitigated hatred of him was a bad thing.

“Phoenix Legacies?”

“We give micro loans to worthy applicants who’ve taken a wrong turn with their lives and need a little help getting back on their feet.”

This was too stunning for words. Beau? The former governor of Virginia and current king of Miami’s fast-living, hard-partying lifestyle? A philanthropist now? Beau?

And she didn’t want to ask—was afraid to ask—but she had to know.

“Phoenix? Why would you do that?”

He stared her in the face, deadly serious. “I like the idea of rising from the ashes. If I can help people put their life on the right track, then maybe my life will mean something.” He paused, his jaw flexing with the effort to hold back his words, but the words won. “For a change.”

So that’s what this was about. Redemption for Beau. Fine. He could do all the saintly works he wanted, as long as it had nothing to do with her. Big deal; God knew he had a lot to make up for and he certainly had money to spare. She would not be impressed or interested. It would not matter to her—

“And how much of your fortune did you use to bankroll this little venture?” she demanded because her curiosity had her in a stranglehold. A million or two was nothing to him—

“Ninety-eight percent,” he said, unsmiling.

Jillian’s jaw dropped. He’d given it all away—everything his family had ever worked for or stood for. Gone. He still had enough to live well on, but—

Heavy male footsteps and voices distracted them just then. They looked around to see several uniformed movers descending the steps.

“Still working on the bedroom,” one of them told Beau as they trooped out the front door toward the van.

“Great,” he said.

“What’s gotten into you?” Jillian asked the second they were alone again.

Though he stilled and didn’t move by so much as a blink or a breath, Jillian felt the change come over him, the intensification of his focus on her. As though he’d wanted her to ask this exact question and they were now circling toward the heart of something important and terrifying.

“I almost died,” he said simply.

This reminder did nothing for her nerves, which were already stretching and unraveling. Did he think she’d forgotten the middle-of-the-night phone call that had told her the father of her child and the only man she’d ever loved was near death in a Miami hospital?

Though she hadn’t seen him in years at that point—didn’t want to see him—she’d never forget the blinding horror she felt, especially when she’d heard that his companion du jour, Sabrina something, and the driver had been killed when the driver of that semi fell asleep at the wheel.

In that moment, all her rage fell away and the only thing that mattered was Beau and her need to see him again, not to let him go. So she left Allegra with Blanche and hopped on the next plane and prayed for him not to die or, if he had to die, for him not to die until she got there.

And then she’d arrived at the hospital and survived the shock of seeing the biggest, strongest, most vital man she’d ever known swollen and broken, bruised and slashed, more dead than alive, with internal injuries and a badly broken leg that was begging for amputation.

He’d coded once, the nurse told her. Probably would again, and the next time—if there was a next time—they most likely wouldn’t be able to bring him back.

All through that terrible day and night, Jillian had sat with him, talked to him, prayed for him. Then the second day began and the doctor told her that Beau would live and keep his leg, and that was all she needed to hear. She left before noon, on the next plane back to Atlanta, because she’d made sure her child’s father was okay, but that didn’t mean she forgave him or ever wanted to see him again.

Now here he was and, God, she just couldn’t breathe or think.

“I know you almost died.” She spoke slowly because it was so hard to force the words past the overwhelming knot of dread in her chest and throat. “What’s that got to do with you setting up a foundation, moving down the street from me and getting a dog?”

Again that relentless focus held her in its thrall, hypnotizing her with the splintered shards of bright black, green and gold visible in his eyes, even across the room.

“When I woke up in the hospital, I was sorry I wasn’t dead.”

This merciless honesty unnerved her. Beau dead? Even now she couldn’t bear to think it. “Don’t say that.”

“I was.” He was so matter-of-fact they might have been discussing his need for a house painter. “But then I decided that just because I’d screwed up the first half of my life didn’t mean I needed to screw up the last half.”

“And that means…what?”

But her body already knew the answer even if her brain refused to accept it. It was in her lungs, which couldn’t breathe, in her heart, which skittered on every other beat, and in her belly, which dropped sickeningly.

As the silence stretched, she prayed.

Please don’t let him say it. Please, God, don’t let anything else in this safe, new world here outside Atlanta change on her. Please…please.

Pushing away from the console, Beau made his painful way across the room to where she stood with her clenched fist still clutching that stupid basket of muffins. He stared down at her, doling his words out in measured amounts.

“It means that, while I was recovering in the hospital and working on strengthening my body, I also started working on strengthening my spirit and figuring out why I did the things I did.” He paused, color rising high over his cheeks. “I stopped drinking. And I started counseling.”

This was unbelievable. Too flustered to be coherent, she stammered the first response that came to mind.

“Y-You’re not an alcoholic.”

“No, but I didn’t need to be drinking.”

Wow. That was quite a step because Beau loved his scotch.

“I’m…proud of you.”

This wasn’t a pro forma attaboy; she really meant it. Knowing Beau as well as she had for all these years, she knew what a huge step this was. The change in him was profound—she felt it the way she felt the relentless beat of her pulse in her throat—and it wasn’t just the physical. Whether it was from the accident or the counseling, she couldn’t tell, but it petrified her.

A smile warmed his eyes and it was so achingly familiar she wanted to drown in it. “I’m trying to be a better man, Jillian.”

The way he said her name hadn’t changed after all these years. It was still a loving touch, a melting caress that reached places deep in her soul only he’d ever been able to access. Hearing those three syllables roll off his tongue again renewed her panic and intensified it.

Where was this going? When was he going to drop that final shoe on her? Why couldn’t she breathe?

Because she couldn’t look him in the face and let him see how he was ripping her to shreds all over again, she looked away. To the crown molding, to the empty hallway, to the dog, who was now drowsing on a sunny patch of the floor with his paws sticking up. If Medusa had been in the room, Jillian would have gladly looked at her swirling head of snakes and been turned to stone.

Anything to avoid Beau’s gaze.