Suspicions: A Twist Of Fate / Tears Of Pride

“What do you mean?”

He took a long, experimental sip of his coffee and studied her intently. “I mean, has this house become a financial burden to you?”

Erin swallowed before answering. Just how much did she want him to know about her, and how much did he already guess? “It hasn’t been easy,” she admitted reluctantly.

“Tenant problems?”

She shook her head negatively. “Not really. Most of the people who rent here have been with me for years, and they are very nice people who take pride in their homes. Once in a while I have a vacancy problem, but the primary difficulty with this place is the repairs. You see, I’m not exactly handy with a hammer or a saw.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” he teased and lightly touched her shoulder. “You have talents in other fields.” His whispered words were tender and comforting, and she felt that she had known him all her life. His fingers touched her hair. He felt himself drawn to the ebony sheen of her curls. They were as black and inviting as the night itself. He caught himself and struggled to maintain his objectivity where Erin was concerned, but found it difficult to put his feelings for her in their proper perspective. She had lied to him and he knew it. Whether she admitted it or not, Lee Sinclair was back in Seattle. Kane felt that he had to press Erin tonight, before he became all the more entangled in her mysterious womanly charms. He couldn’t let himself forget that it was imperative that he understand what devious thoughts were being spun in that regal head of hers.

“What about your ex-husband?” Kane prodded.

“Lee?” she asked, perplexed. “What does Lee have to do with anything?” Nervously she pushed an errant strand of hair back in place. Why did Kane continue to bring up the subject of a man whom Erin would rather forget?

“What did he have to say about this place and your purchasing it?”

“He couldn’t say much. We were divorced at the time,” she responded with a finality that she hoped would effectively close the subject. But still he persisted.

“Tell me about the divorce,” he coaxed.

“Why?”

A smile toyed with the corners of his mouth. “Because I want to know all about you….” he suggested silkily.

“I don’t like to talk about Lee.”

“Why?”

“Are you interrogating me again?” she asked, promptly regretting the acidity in her words. She got up from the couch and shrugged her shoulders. “It bothers me…to talk about Lee.”

“Did he hurt you so badly?” he asked, his voice gentle.

Her eyes glazed over with the shame that she had borne. How could she explain the embarrassment of Lee’s affair and the messy divorce? “Yes,” she whispered, “I suppose that he did hurt me, but only because I let him.”

“By loving him too much?” he asked severely.

“No, by being so young and naive. At the time I thought that all marriages were made in heaven, and I didn’t think that I would fail, or that he would use me….” She found that she was trembling. The cup of coffee shook in her fingers, and she was forced to set it on the bookcase in order to hide her reaction from Kane.

“There was another woman?” he guessed, and Erin, with her back to him, let her shoulders droop as she nodded.

“My pride was wounded very deeply.” She pulled her lips into a thin line of self-deprecation and squared her sagging shoulders. “I just never thought that I would end up as a divorce court statistic!”

“You didn’t want the marriage to end?”

She turned and faced him. “You don’t understand. I didn’t want to fail, but I had to get out of the marriage to Lee. I couldn’t bear the hypocrisy!”

Quickly Kane moved off the couch and reached for her. He pressed her quietly against the strength of his chest. Although she was still shaking, she could hear the steady beat of his heart, and his silent support helped calm her.

“Erin,” Kane breathed, sharing in the agony that had embittered her.

“It’s all right,” she murmured against him. “I don’t know why it still bothers me…at times. The pain has been gone for a long while.”

She felt his arm tighten around her, and his voice was barely a whisper when he asked the question. “Do you ever see him?” Kane asked with an urgency she couldn’t understand.

“I haven’t seen him for over a year, since he moved to Spokane.” The pressure of his hands against her back increased and she felt compelled to continue. “But he has moved back to Seattle, and he has called me.”

His grip slackened, but the deep lines of concern that etched his forehead remained. “He wants to see you again?” Kane asked, and his eyes narrowed a fraction.

“I don’t want to see him,” she sighed. “So I haven’t.”

“Is he being overly persistent?” There was a thread of steel in Kane’s voice.

“Yes…no…no, not really…” She rubbed her temple in confusion. “Couldn’t we talk about something else? I really don’t like to be reminded of that period in my life. What about you?” she asked, her lilac eyes searching his. “What was your marriage like?”

Kane released her and scowled. His lips formed a thin line that was neither a smile or frown. “I suppose that’s a fair question, since you bared your soul to me.”

He strode purposely back to the couch and raked his fingers through the thick waves of his hair, before picking up his lukewarm coffee and staring into the black liquid.

“My marriage to Jana was a mistake from the beginning,” he admitted with a frown. “I guess I probably knew it at the time, but I was much younger then, and it took me quite a few years to finally admit to myself that we had made an error that was destroying us.”

He looked vacantly out the window into the fog before continuing. His dark brows pulled together in concentration and carefully Erin came closer to him and perched on the arm of the sofa as he began to speak.

“In the beginning I was attracted to her because she was an incredibly beautiful and famous woman. You know, the glamorous model. I was just getting started in my business at the time, and I was flattered that she would even give me the time of day. I convinced myself that I loved her, when actually there was never any love between us. I was young enough to think that beneath all the glitter was a beautiful person hidden in that gorgeous body. A typical male mistake. And of course I was wrong.

“We had a whirlwind romance, I guess you might say. Lusty affair would be more exact. In any event just as I was beginning to suspect that we were too different ever to get along, it was too late—she was pregnant. I talked her out of the abortion and into marriage.”

His lips thinned and he shook his head derisively. “I guess that I was a damned fool to think that a baby would change things between us, that our differences would work themselves out. And as it turned out, Jana and I had very different impressions about family life. She resented having to give up her figure and her career for the sake of her pregnancy, and she resented being a mother and a housewife. After five years of battling with her I agreed to the divorce that she wanted so desperately. As I said before, the marriage was a mistake from the beginning, and I knew it. But no matter what, it was worth every minute of the arguments—because of Krista.”

He cleared his throat as he thought about his daughter and a sadness stole across his features. Erin felt an urge to brush away the signs of strain that seemed to age his face. The line of his jaw tensed as he spoke. “The biggest error in judgment I made was that at the time I didn’t fight for custody. I subscribed to the same myth as the rest of the world: A young girl needs to be with her mother, regardless of the weaknesses or the frame of mind of the woman.” A tortured look came into his steely eyes. “And then, to compound the mistake, I threw myself into my work, trying to erase the memories that had become painful. My attitude—it wasn’t fair to Krista. To put it bluntly, I neglected my child. Not because I wanted to, but because I wanted to hide from the memories.” He closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed the back of his neck to ease the tension that had knotted at the base of his head as he thought about the divorce and his child. He seemed tired and weary; Erin felt the burn of tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

His voice was a muted whisper when he continued. “I saw Krista occasionally of course, but not nearly as much as I wanted to or should have…it was just too difficult, too much of a struggle.” A black eyebrow cocked sardonically. “A selfish attitude, wouldn’t you say?” he asked her rhetorically. His next sentence was one of self-condemnation. “I was a bastard of a father!”

He hesitated only slightly, and that was to wave his arm emphatically, stilling the protest that was forming in Erin’s throat.

“Within a year Jana was trying to rebuild her career. It was difficult for her because she was six years older and slightly out of shape. Modeling, for the most part, is for the very young woman with an almost boyishly slim figure. No one in the New York or Los Angeles agencies was interested in Jana. As far as they were concerned, Jana was yesterday’s news.

“Then this Hollywood actress obsession took hold of her, and unfortunately she failed, dismally trying to remember her lines as the cameras rolled.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “It was at about that point that she began making the self-help and group therapy rounds. She went through periods of fad diets, deep depression, sensitivity groups—you name it and she was into it. I suggested that she go to a respected local psychiatrist, but she ignored my advice as usual and preferred to stick with the most faddish encounter group of the day.

“That’s when I decided to do something about Krista. As poor a father as I had been, even I knew that all Jana’s neuroses couldn’t be good for an impressionable nine-year-old girl. Damn!” He swore at himself and bit his lower lip in annoyed remembrance. “I should have seen it earlier. Maybe I could have prevented all of Krista’s problems. Perhaps if I had been paying a little more attention to my kid rather than my business interests, Jana would be alive today and Krista would be walking like a normal and healthy eleven-year-old!”

“You can’t blame yourself,” Erin objected. “You tried to help.”

Steely gray eyes flashed fire at her. “‘Too little, too late,’ as the saying goes.”

Erin had trouble keeping her silence. She saw the emotions that were ripping him apart as he thought about his past. His fist clenched tightly before he thrust it into the pocket of his pants.