Bombshell For The Black Sheep

He put his hands on her shoulders. “Fiona. Take a breath.”

She shrugged out of his grip and put her hands to her cheeks. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I’m a little nervous about having you here.”

There it was again. That raw honesty. He winced. “I can go. If that’s what you want.”

They stared at each other across the small kitchen. “No,” she said at last. “I don’t want you to go.”

Thank God. He reached for her hand and linked his fingers with hers. “I swear I’ll be on my best behavior.”

At last, she smiled at him. It was wobbly, but it was a smile. “I find that highly unlikely.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here. Really, Hartley. I am.”

His hands trembled with the urge to touch her. Coming here was wrong. He knew it. But he couldn’t walk away from her a third time. Even if all they had was sexual chemistry, he wanted to erase his past transgressions. He needed to prove he could be trusted.

“Well, that makes two of us,” he said heartily. “Now, tell me how I can help with dinner...”

Fiona was embarrassed and relieved at the same time. Hartley had taken her behavior in stride, it seemed. They consumed the simple meal and shared innocuous conversation without incident. Though she felt as if her secret was written on her face, she was clearly overreacting. There was no way for him to know the truth.

She had to get a grip.

“Let’s go to the living room,” she said when they had cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher side by side. “If you’re going to bare your soul, I want a comfy spot.”

Hartley followed her, chuckling. “I never promised that.”

She curled up on a chair that was only big enough for one. No point in tempting fate. “You don’t have to do this,” she said.

Hartley shrugged. “You’re the perfect listener. A disinterested bystander.”

Fiona’s heart sank. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear at all. Hartley hadn’t come to her tonight as a trusted confidante. She was about to be his therapist or his shrink. The distinction was painful.

She swallowed her hurt pride and reminded herself that Hartley wasn’t her Prince Charming. Never would be. “Start at the beginning,” she said.

Now he was the one to look uncomfortable. Maybe he hadn’t rehearsed what he was going to say. “Well...”

“I’ll refresh your memory,” she offered helpfully. “After the wedding, I invited you here to my house. We both knew what was going to happen. It happened three times that night, and when I woke up, you were gone.”

“Geez, Fiona. You make it sound so sleazy.” He paced restlessly.

“How would you describe it?”

“I had airline reservations for the morning after the wedding. I was supposed to be on a flight out of Charleston at 7 a.m. You were a complication I never expected. I didn’t know how to explain.”

“Ah.”

“It’s true,” he said.

She stared at him soberly. “Where were you going?”

“London first. I met with a private investigator who used to work for Interpol.”

Fiona wrinkled her nose. “I think you’ve left out some pertinent details. Why would you need a PI?”

Hartley hunched his shoulders, his expression bleak. “Two days before the wedding, I received a blackmail note.”

“Seriously?” Her skepticism was warranted, surely.

“The letter threatened to go public with a painful Tarleton family secret if I didn’t give the blackmailer a million dollars.”

“Hartley. This sounds like a spy novel.”

“What you don’t know is that my mother has been living in an inpatient mental health facility in Vermont since my siblings and I were preteens. A few people in Charleston know the truth, but not many.”

“So you decided to do what?”

“My father’s health was failing. Jonathan had been working his ass off at Tarleton Shipping, trying to keep the business afloat. My sister spent her adolescence without a mother. Our family has suffered more than our share of hard times. I didn’t want the gossip.”