Maureen Child - Saving His Blackmailed Lover

Cecelia awoke with a start. She sat up in bed, her heart racing in her chest, as she looked around the unfamiliar room. For a moment, she couldn’t figure out where she was, but the morning light streaming across the furniture and the shape of the man in bed beside her pieced it together.

Suddenly everything came back to her at once. She’d slept with Deacon. No, she’d thrown herself at Deacon and he’d had the courtesy not to turn her down and make her look like a fool. What was she thinking, running to him like that? Of all the people in Royal?

Then again, who else did she have to turn to? She couldn’t blame last night on alcohol, but apparently the emotional trauma of her breakup with Chip was enough to dull her inhibitions. With the arrival of dawn, her good sense returned to her, and she realized that last night, however amazing, had been a terrible mistake.

She pulled back the blankets and slipped silently from the bed. She crept through the room, collecting her clothing, and carried it with her to the hallway, where she pulled the bedroom door closed behind her and got dressed.

She looked back at the door and pictured the man asleep beyond it only once before she disappeared down the hallway and out the front door. She practically held her breath until she had started her car and made it down the driveway without Deacon showing up at his front door to see her leave. It was better this way. Neither of them had to face the reality of last night and what it meant, which was a big nothing.

They were both under stress, and the sex had done its job and gotten it out of their systems. Hopefully, she would be able to finish her work at The Bellamy without this becoming a problem for her. She had enough to deal with, with the fallout of her broken engagement and the threat of Maverick looming overhead. She didn’t need any weird sexual tension buzzing between them while she was trying to pull off the design coup of the century.

Two hundred and fifty guest suites in less than a month was no laughing matter. It would take all of Cecelia’s focus and drive to make it happen. She didn’t have time for any distractions in her life, but she most certainly didn’t need Deacon, who would be at the hotel every day, reminding her of what they’d just done while she tried to work.

And yet, by the time she reached Pine Valley Estates, she was feeling guilty about running out. That was no way to treat Deacon, especially after how welcoming he’d been last night. He’d had every right to slam the door in her face when she showed up at his doorstep without warning. She was the one who had broken up with him because he wasn’t good enough for her. How dare she just show up and throw herself into his arms and expect him to welcome her? And yet he had.

Now she felt worse than ever.

She pulled her car into the garage at her château just around the time her alarm normally would wake her. There was no time for her to dwell on her mistakes. She needed to shower, change, grab a double-shot latte and get to work on her first day of The Bellamy project.

Cecelia made a stop at her office to collect the things she would need while she was working at the resort. With her laptop bag slung over her shoulder and a small file box of necessary paperwork and designs in hand, she headed back out to the receptionist’s desk.

Her secretary, Nancy, was sitting there when she arrived. “Good morning, Miss Morgan,” she said.

“Good morning, Nancy. Mr. Delgado and Mr. Chase graciously offered me an office at the hotel so I can oversee our work there over the next few weeks. Tell anyone who needs to get a hold of me that I have my cell phone and my computer.”

Nancy jotted the note on the paper pad beside her. She waved as Cecelia turned and went out the front door with her things.

By the time Cecelia arrived at The Bellamy, work was in full swing for the day. She spied her painting team’s truck, which meant that they were already laying a coat of steely-gray paint on the walls of every suite. By the time they were done, the wallpaper should have arrived and be ready to go on the accent walls and in the bathrooms.

She gathered up her things and started up the walkway into the back of the hotel, passing landscapers as they planted trees and bushes nearby. Inside she found an organized-looking woman in a headset and asked for directions. She pointed her down a hallway to the business suite of the hotel. There, she found one office designated for each of the owners, one for the hotel manager, one for the reservations manager, one for the catering manager and one empty office that had yet to be assigned. She assumed that would be hers for now.

She opened the door and turned on the light, finding a nicely appointed office space. She hadn’t been contracted to decorate the interior management rooms, but it wouldn’t be necessary. There was a desk, a rolling chair and a bookshelf. That was more than she would need while she was here. She busied herself unpacking her things and getting ready to dig into her work.

Once she was up and running, she started her day by making important calls. All of her suppliers needed to know that she had won the project bid and the pending orders needed to go forward as planned. Fabric, furniture and wallpaper were just the beginning. She had orders for paintings to go up in every single room, 250 matching small lamps to go on each nightstand, along with another 250 torch lamps for the corner behind the reading chair. Thousands of feet of carpeting needed to be ordered, in addition to ceramic tiles for the bathroom floors.

And all that needed to get here as soon as possible. As in yesterday.

Cecelia was lost in the minutiae of managing her inventory and orders when her cell phone rang. She looked down and noticed it was Naomi calling from California. She picked up the phone and answered it. “Hey, girl, how’s California?”

“It’s beautiful here,” she said. “The weather is unreal. It makes me never want to come back to Texas, but of course I will, because you and Simone would kill me if I didn’t.”

“Is everything set up for the fashion show?”

Naomi just groaned. “I really don’t want to talk about it. There’s always last-minute chaos at these things. I didn’t call to talk about all that anyway. I called because I got a text about you and Chip breaking up yesterday. Is that true?”

Cecelia had been hoping it would take longer for the news to get out, but apparently it was already making Royal’s gossip rounds. “Yes, we’ve broken up, but really it’s for the best. I think we just had different ideas of what our future was going to be.”

“Hmm. So it didn’t have anything to do with a certain someone coming back to town?”

Cecelia rolled her eyes. Simone must’ve told her about her run-in with Deacon. “No, it had nothing to do with him. I honestly doubt Chip even knows he’s here yet. I didn’t mention it.”

“So what set all this off?”

She hesitated. She knew that she would eventually tell Naomi and Simone about her little blackmail problem, but now wasn’t the time. “It was bound to happen eventually. Things just boiled over at dinner last night, so we called off the engagement. I’ll tell you and Simone more about it when you get home. I wish you two were here.”

“I’m so sorry that all this happened while we were gone, Cece. You’ve broken off your engagement and your two best friends aren’t there to commiserate with you. That really sucks. I promise that when we get back, we will get together for some wine, a couple cartons of Ben & Jerry’s and some good girl time. You’ll put this whole thing behind you before you know it.”

That sounded great. Cecelia really needed her friends to talk to. Had they been in town last night, perhaps she wouldn’t have found herself in Deacon’s bed.