Christine Flynn - The Reluctant Heiress

He lasted about six seconds before his eyes drifted downward anyway.

Not caring to imagine what he might be considering about her just then, she tried to ignore the knot his presence put in her stomach and turned to pick up the books she’d dumped on the sofa. She had always liked order. In her surroundings. Especially in her life. She didn’t always get it. There had been times when she hadn’t even came close. But she could at least control the state of her possessions.

Gathering the books in her arms, she set them in two neat stacks on her coffee table.

“Eric would never do such a thing,” she insisted, straightening the already perfectly aligned trio of citrus-green candles. She added the faucet knob to the top of one stack. “He’s not a criminal sort of louse like Tess Kendrick’s ex-husband. He’s just the run-of-the-mill sort. Asking me to marry him had just been a way to keep me around.

“He kept balking at setting a wedding date,” she explained, if for no other reason than to divert him from her so not adventurous sex life. “So I finally asked if he ever intended to marry me. He said he didn’t know. What he did know was that he didn’t want the kids that were so important to me. That’s when I broke up with him. He strung me along, but I can’t see him trying to hurt me in any other way. There’s nothing for him to seek revenge for.”

“You’re certain.”

She reached to straighten one of the half-dozen throw pillows on the sofa. His skepticism stopped her short.

The man didn’t seem to be hearing her at all.

“I’m quite certain.” He wasn’t just not listening to what she said, he wasn’t accepting it. She doubted he had any idea how much he’d just revealed about himself. “But if that’s the sort of faith you have in people, then I really feel sorry for the woman in your life.”

“I’m divorced. That gives me a certain insight into just how little a person can truly know about someone else’s character.”

There was no mistaking the bitterness in his tone. That quiet hostility fairly coated his words, tightening them right along with the lean, chiseled line of his jaw.

It seemed she wasn’t the only one who’d come away scarred from a relationship. But she felt ready to move on, to leave the past and its hurts behind. Ben, apparently, did not. She’d glimpsed more than his bitterness. She’d seen pain. And loss.

Wondering if he simply hadn’t had time to heal, if maybe his hurts had been more recent, she watched him deliberately look away. It seemed he knew what he’d so inadvertently exposed and wasn’t about to reveal anything more.

Yet he already had. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that all the subterfuge and maneuvering he must encounter in his work played pure havoc with his faith in people, too.

“I’m sorry.” The unexpected twinge of pity she felt for him softened her voice. “I guess I operate from a different level of trust than necessity dictates to you.”

He had been thinking the same thing about her, and wondering if she had any idea how dangerous such naïveté could be. She didn’t seem to have a clue what some people would do for a buck, or that infamous fifteen minutes of fame. His ex-wife had gone for both.

“Let’s just say I have a hard time giving people the benefit of the doubt.”

“You have a gift for understatement.”

“Thank you.”

The muscle in his jaw tensed once more. He had forcibly blocked the mental images of her driving some guy wild in bed. He worked now to do the same with the defenses that had slammed into place at the sympathy still in her eyes. That sympathy was misplaced. The wounds meant nothing to him now. The scars had hardened, and so had he.

“So,” he continued, preferring her baggage to his own, “can you think of anyone else who might know anything incriminating about you?” Despite his skepticism, he felt somewhat appeased by what he’d just heard. It didn’t sound as if her ex-fiancé had a specific reason to rush forward with an exposé of her past, their relationship or whatever it was he might care to share in an interview. That didn’t mean there wasn’t someone else out there with some detrimental little detail he should be aware of. “Another lover? The disgruntled parent of a student?”

Disbelief flashed in her eyes. “There’s nothing incriminating for anyone to know! What kind of person do you think I am? Do you think I have some torrid past that will come to light and embarrass your client? Are you afraid the…”

“Jillian, I’m just—”

“…world is going to hold him responsible…”

“It’s not like that.”

“…for something I’ve done that might not reflect well on him?”

“Will you listen?”

“I have been! And so far I haven’t heard—”

“I didn’t mean to insult you!”

The room suddenly went quiet. In that deafening stillness, Ben pushed his fingers through his hair, then jammed his hands on his hips. His negotiating skills were usually far superior to this.

“I didn’t,” he repeated quietly. “And I’m sorry that I obviously have. I’m only asking these questions because it’ll be easier to help you if there are no surprises.” He was growing more certain by the moment that what a person saw with her was exactly what he got. The realization caught him a little off guard. He hadn’t thought that such unprotected openness existed in any human past the age of twelve. “I really am sorry. Okay?”

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.”