right?”
Derek nodded. “She was a good woman, a good friend and a good mother. She deserved better than what I was able to give her because I wasn’t in love with her.”
“And yet?” Hank asked, obviously pushing him to say the words.
“And yet I lost my fortune, my marriage and I nearly lost my daughter,” Derek muttered, hating like hell having to discuss the curse out loud.
Hank wrapped a fatherly arm around his shoulder. “I know it hurts, but ignoring the truth will end up hurting even more.”
Derek breathed in deep. “I won’t fall in love with Gabrielle,” he said to his father, wondering how he’d keep his promise when he feared he’d already broken it.
SHARON PACED THE SMALL bedroom of the house she and Richard had bought together. After Gabrielle had dropped her off, she’d called her fiance and asked him to meet her after work. They needed to talk.
She’d decided to level with him about what was going on. She only hoped he could handle it.
Expecting him around five-thirty, which was when he usually left work at his law firm, Sharon was surprised to hear his key in the lock late that afternoon.
She met him at the front door.
He stepped inside, and though she started forward to embrace him, he walked past her and placed his briefcase down on the floor.
Uh-oh.
She swallowed hard. “You’re home early.”
He inclined his head. “You said you needed me.”
Yet he remained at a distance, emotionally and physically. And she hadn’t even confided in him yet.
“So how was your conference?” he asked.
She rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms, but the chill remained. “There wasn’t one.”
He turned toward her, his handsome face more a mask of disappointment than confusion. She shivered even more.
“Would you care to explain?” he asked.
“Come. Sit down.” She led the way into the small study they would one day share. They planned on building bookshelves to line the walls, her own little library, his desk and home office.
He sat on the couch while she chose a chair across from him. Elbows resting on his knees, he stared at her, his gaze intense. He didn’t say a word.
She studied him, too. His dark hair, neatly combed, gave him that air of propriety she both loved and feared would be the end of them.
She drew a deep, fortifying breath. “A few days ago, I received an anonymous letter in the mail.” She glanced down at her hands, not surprised to see they were shaking. “And though I’m not sure who sent it, it was clear what was in it.”
He met her gaze. “What was it?” he asked, his voice steady.
He was everything she loved and wanted in her life. But there was obviously more separating them than the story she had to tell. Not knowing what it was scared her beyond belief.
“A picture,” she whispered. “An old photograph. One of
“Oh, I get it, all right,” he said, clenching his jaw.
“There was also a note demanding five thousand dollars.”
“That bastard.” He rose from his seat in a burst of sudden, angry energy. “I’m going to kill him.”
She came up behind him and placed her hand on his shoulder. “No, you’re not. Because then I’d lose you to prison instead of just…losing you.” She stepped back, easing away from him.
This time
“Why would you say that?” he asked.
She faced him again. “Because I didn’t get the letter today. I got it a few days ago.”
“And you didn’t tell me.” His disappointment spoke louder than his words.
Nausea rolled through her and she wished she’d listened to Gabrielle’s advice about telling Richard sooner.
She shook her head. “You had so much on your plate between work and the campaign. I thought, I hoped, I could make it go away.”
“How?”
“The note had instructions. A drop point for the money. So I withdrew the cash from the bank and Gabrielle and I went to the Wave.”
He stared at her in disbelief. “You two went to meet with your blackmailing ex-con boyfriend alone?”
She winced at the fury in his voice. “Not exactly.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Then what, exactly, Sharon? Spell it out and be clear.”
She knew what she’d say next would only make her keeping him in the dark even worse, but she had no choice. “Gabrielle was thinking more clearly. She knew better than to go there alone, so she told Derek. He showed up before the set meeting time.”
He stared at her in silence. She could almost hear his thoughts.
“I trust you,” she assured him. “I just didn’t want to burden you with my problems when you have so many of your own.” God, her words sounded lame.
Why hadn’t she shared this with him earlier? She knew why. She hadn’t wanted to see the disgust in his eyes. Every time she thought about those photographs, about that time, she felt it. She was sure he did, too.
“Burden. Right.” He muttered something else under his breath. “Go on. What else don’t I know?”
“At some point during the night, someone slipped a note in my bag telling me where to leave the money, but I didn’t find it until the next morning. I panicked. I thought for sure they would expose the photo and it would kill your campaign. Gabrielle said Derek called his cousin, who is a police detective in Boston. He told Derek where Tony was living since his release and they spoke to him. He claimed to know nothing about the sudden resurrection of the pictures, but they weren’t sure if they should believe him. I needed to know.”
“What. Did. You. Do?” he asked.
She ran her hands over her eyes, trying to hold it together and not cry. “I stalked him. Sort of. I mean, I stood behind trees and buildings and I watched. He has a wife now. Can a man who has a wife and a child be a blackmailer? I was going to confront him in front of his family, but my car died. I had to call Gabrielle to come get me. We stopped by her place and someone had broken in there, too-” Sharon knew she was rambling, but the stony look on Richard’s face had her in a panic.
She didn’t know what else to do except to keep talking. If she explained, maybe he wouldn’t be angry. Maybe he’d understand and forgive.
She forced herself to look into his eyes and that’s when she realized. “You already know something. That’s why you’ve been acting so strange. What is it you know?”
He gestured to his briefcase in the hall. “I also received a photo and a note.”
The blood in her veins ran cold. Her legs grew weak and she stepped back to the nearest chair, collapsing into it. “Go on.”
“The note said you didn’t pay up the first time so now the burden was on me. But the blackmailer didn’t want money. No, the terms were that I had to drop out of the race or the photo would be made public. Guess what
“What?” she whispered.
“To find you. To confide in you. To see if you were okay and to fix this together. That’s when
Sharon pushed herself to her feet. “Don’t you think if I thought I could confide in you, I would have?”
He stared at her in disbelief. “What is that supposed to mean?”
She straightened her shoulders and forced herself to face him head-on. “Just that every time I brought up my
