The Reluctant Heiress

If the wary way she watched him was any indication, she wasn’t overly anxious to accept his regret. She really wasn’t, however, like any of the women he knew. Rather than make him stand there and squirm, repeat himself or otherwise grovel, she gave a small, cautious nod.

“Okay,” she conceded, sounding as guarded as he felt. “I’ll accept your apology…but only if you stop worrying about what some reporter might dig up, and tell me how I’m going to get to school tomorrow without being followed.”

“That’s not going to happen. You will be followed. But we’ll get to that in a minute.” Having almost blown his welcome, what he needed to focus on was her resolve to not budge from her house. That refusal was keeping him from taking her to meet with William. It was also threatening to cut into the time he’d promised his grandfather he’d spend with him.

“You said you hadn’t listened to any of your messages.” Wanting her to appreciate how much worse things would be before they got better, he motioned to the blinking answering machine by the oddly silent phone. He would have bet his box seats at the symphony that the thing would have been ringing right off its base. Or so he was thinking before he noticed that the phone was unplugged. “I think we should listen to them now.”

Chapter Three

Checking the messages on her answering machine just then seemed pointless to Jillian. She knew from what she’d seen on her caller ID and from what she’d heard before she’d turned down the speaker volume so she couldn’t hear what was being recorded, that at least some of the calls had been from the local newspaper. Since Ben seemed to think listening to them was important, though, and since he was arguably more experienced than she with the logistics of such situations, she punched the play-messages bar on the phone base and crossed her arms over the knot in her stomach.

An electronic voice told her she had fourteen messages. As she moved from the phone, Ben pulled a small notebook and pen from his inside jacket pocket, sat down in one of the barrel chairs and propped one ankle on his opposite knee.

The first three calls were hang-ups. The next began with a female voice efficient in tone and broad on vowels.

“Ms. Hadley, this is Karen Mabry, Nina Tyler’s assistant with Good Morning, USA.” The woman named the major television network in New York that produced the nationwide newscast-cum-talk show. “We’d like to interview you tomorrow on our program and will make whatever accommodations you need to get here. If tomorrow is a problem for you, we’ll work with you to get a more compatible date. Please call me at 1-800-555-6000 when you receive this message. I look forward to hearing from you.”

Jillian looked toward Ben. She listened to GM, USA, as it was known to its viewers, nearly every morning while she got ready for the day. Nina Tyler and her cohost were as familiar to most of the general public as sports figures and rock stars. Yet Ben didn’t appear at all impressed or disturbed by the show’s interest in her. His features revealed nothing as he wrote down the woman’s name and number and listened to the beep that preceded the next message.

The next call was from the assistant of a nationally known afternoon-talk-show host who wanted the same thing: an on-air interview.

The call after that was from a major television journalist wanting her for a special.

A publisher wanted to talk to her about a possible book deal before she talked to anyone else.

Vanity Fair wanted an exclusive.

In between there were more hang-ups and the calls from the newspapers she heard when she’d first come in. Nina Tyler’s assistant from GM, USA left another message.

Jillian had sunk to the sofa between messages from the journalist and the publisher.

She now blinked at the primary colors spelling out FunWith Math on the textbook atop the stack on her coffee table. Her life, it seemed, had just officially turned surreal.

Afraid to wonder how much more bizarre things could get, she watched Ben go back through his notes and add a mark by Nina’s name. He still didn’t look especially concerned about what he’d heard. If anything, she had the feeling that the messages were pretty much what he’d expected them to be.

Looking as if he’d written nothing more interesting than a grocery list, he tucked his gold pen back inside his jacket.

Beyond the walls of the duplex more vehicles arrived. She could hear the muffled sounds of their engines, of their doors being slammed. Voices raised and lowered outside her door. Unnerved by the continuing onslaught of press, she watched Ben turn his dark head toward her.

She was again looking to him for help.

Ben realized that the moment his eyes met the subdued panic in hers. He would have regarded that as a point in his favor, too, had the vulnerability he could also see not totally knocked the wind from the thought.

He was accustomed to dealing with people far more experienced with the cutthroat aspects of life in the corporate, political or media world. In her sphere, she was undoubtedly perfectly capable of holding her own. More than capable, he imagined, considering what she did for a living. Dealing with a brood of other people’s children while trying to funnel knowledge and discipline into their active little minds wasn’t a job for the weak or fainthearted. In his world, though, she was the proverbial lamb among wolves.

The odd and unfamiliar sympathy he’d felt for her yesterday was back. Still, he told himself it was only practicality pushing him when he decided not to ask what she wanted to do about the calls. He already suspected that the only way she knew to cope in such unfamiliar territory was to dig in her heels the way she had when she’d refused to leave. If she got to feeling too overwhelmed, she might dig in so deep that he’d never get her out of there.

Tugging at the knees of his slacks, notebook in hand, he crouched in front of her.

“You don’t need to worry about these messages right now. You have enough to deal with today.” Paper crackled as he ripped off the pages he’d written on. “Do you want these, or should I keep them?”

“I don’t want them.”

He gave her a nod. Folding the pages in half, more aware than he wanted to be of the effect of her soft scent on certain of his nerves, he tucked them and the notebook back into his jacket pocket.

“You do need to do something about the reporters outside, though,” he reminded her. “If you don’t want to tell them yourself that you’ll give them a statement tomorrow, I can take care of that for you.”

Would you? she thought. “I’d appreciate that,” she said.

With a faint smile for the relief she’d done her best to play down, he planted his hands on his knees. “Be glad to.”

“What are you going to say?” she asked as he rose.

“They’re going to want to know who I am. I’ll identify myself and tell them I’m with a media relations firm. They’ll want to know the name of the firm and who hired me. You or William. I’ll tell them that no questions will be answered today, but that you’ll have a statement for them by this time tomorrow.” He arched one dark eyebrow. “Is that okay with you?”

He clearly had all the bases covered. Terribly grateful for that, she gave him a nod and watched him head for the door.

Voices rose the moment he opened it.

Part of her wanted nothing at all to do with the circus out front. Another part needed to see for herself what the man who’d just closed the door behind him would do. Hurrying to the window, she edged the drape open a scant inch. She couldn’t see Ben, but she knew he’d stayed on the porch. Every set of eyes, all the cameras and a forest of microphones were aimed in that direction.

The police had arrived. Two officers in the city’s blue uniforms wove their way toward her door, waving reporters off the lawn and back onto the cracked sidewalk. They, too, seemed to be listening to the man who’d just taken command of the situation.

She couldn’t hear Ben, but she had to assume that he echoed what he’d told her he would say. Even if it hadn’t been evident from the way half the microphones withdrew that he’d just said no questions would be answered that evening, it was in his client’s best interests not to put words in her mouth about the situation. It would be too easy for her to publicly call him on them.

A frown pulled at her forehead. It wasn’t like her to think a person would deliberately betray her. It wasn’t like her not to give someone the benefit of the doubt. She had been deceived, let down and disappointed. Few women who had been around for over thirty years hadn’t. Yet, despite the scars and the hurts, despite the setbacks and disappointments in her own life, she wanted to believe that people were basically decent and true to their word. It would be too hard to go through life cynical and distrusting of everyone as Ben seemed to be.

At the moment, though, she had to admit that she couldn’t bring herself to trust the man who’d just entered her field of vision. Not where his motives were concerned, anyway. She knew where his loyalty rested, and despite his claim that he’d been sent to help, that loyalty wasn’t to her.

Mrs. White had come out. Feeling like a voyeur, she watched the seventy-something widow in the flower print muumuu work her way to the police officers as Ben and two men, each the size of Humvee’s, approached them himself. Cameras flashing, her short, rather round little landlady tipped back her curly white head and, talking a mile a minute, wagged her finger in the general direction of the mums lining the walkway.

The men with Ben had spread their massive arms to help the officers edge back the crowd when someone spotted her in the slit of the drape. With everyone turning toward her front window, she all but jumped back and sank to the sofa to wait.

“Your bodyguards are both staying tonight,” Ben told her. “They’ll keep an eye on your place, front and back, and chase off anyone who gets too close. These are their cell phone numbers in case you hear something you want them to check out.”

The men he’d introduced to her as Steve Schroeder and Moses Jackson had just checked her doors and windows and let themselves out. Both worked for Bennington’s, the exclusive personal security company the Kendricks had relied on for years for their own security needs. Both men were dressed in T-shirts and jeans to blend into the working-class neighborhood. And both assured her that they would see she was not disturbed that evening.

Ben placed a sheet of paper from his notepad next to the phone base on her end table. From beyond the windows came the sharp reports of car doors closing, the muffled hums of engines starting up.

“The police said this address will be on the patrol list tonight,” he continued, reiterating what the officers had told her themselves. “They’ll give a description of Jackson and Schroeder to the next shift, so whoever is patrolling will know they belong out there. I’ll have Schroeder take you to school in morning. What time do you need to leave here?”

It seemed to Jillian that she should feel relieved as the sounds of cars and vans begin to fade. The reporters were leaving. The bulk of them, anyway. She had two very large men watching out for her. She had the expertise of a ruthlessly efficient, undoubtedly very expensive publicist who seemed to think of everything, including arranging transportation for her so she could get to school. Yet, relief simply wasn’t there. She was no longer being hounded, harassed or pursued. She was now, however, a prisoner in her own home.

“I need to be there by eight.” Shoving her fingers through her hair, she swallowed the pride she feared would only come back to bite her, anyway. “Ten to will be fine.”

This time yesterday she would have flatly refused the offer of a driver. The bodyguards, too, for that matter. She wanted nothing from William. The past few hours, though, had taught her that her pride provided lousy protection from reporters, and even worse security. She might not want William to do her any favors, but she wouldn’t be in this position if it weren’t for him. Accepting a ride to and from school tomorrow and some muscle to keep the press at bay seemed only practical.

Then there was Ben. She didn’t want anything from him, either. She didn’t want to want anything, anyway. But at that moment, she honestly didn’t know what she would have done without him.