Sweet Talk Boxed Set (Ten NEW Contemporary Romances by Bestselling Authors to Benefit Diabetes Research plus BONUS Novel) (118 page)

“Oh, yes. And what I want to know is,” he said, his voice finally rising, “was all this just part of a…part of a plan? Were you planning to leak it once you’d got safely back home? Was Gretchen going to do it all along, just maybe sprung it a bit early, or was it going to be you? Was that the real reason for the new hair, the new clothes, the…the new body, so you could go on some chat show and talk about it? And being with me. Was that all just a way to sell more books, too?”

“No!” She pressed her knees together to keep them from shaking. Oh, no. “No. Will, no. You have to believe me. I don’t know why I even told her. I didn’t tell anybody else. I never dreamed—I never imagined it would get out. It was just—” She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead with a couple of fingers, trying to think. “It was when I first…when the stories were first going up on the site, after the first couple weeks. When I was getting votes, and I logged on and saw I was number one, and I kept looking, all day. I was so excited that somebody was reading what I wrote, that they
liked
me. And I was having lunch with Gretchen, catching up, and…and I told her. It just…slipped out. She was the one person I could tell, because I was still a little…a little embarrassed, but I knew she wouldn’t judge. And I had to tell
somebody.
I just…I had to.”

“And you didn’t think,” he said, “that the person you should tell was me?”

“Well, no.” Suddenly, she didn’t feel quite so horrible. Not about this part. “How would I even have done that? You were gone. It’s not like you’d kept in touch. It’s not like we had some kind of relationship. You were just some guy I’d known for a little while, once upon a time. I started the story before I’d said more than twenty words to you, when all I knew about you was that you had muscles and a tattoo. We both did this, and we both made some money at it. And then you called me, out of the blue, and offered to pay me to come over here and pretend to be your girlfriend, and you said that was all it would be. Pretending.”

“Except it wasn’t, was it?” he asked, taking the wind right back out of her sails again. “Or was it? Was it all just pretending after all?”

“No! No. Of course it wasn’t. How could you think that? And I should have told you, but then I thought, no, don’t, because it’s only for a few days.” She was pleading now, she could hear it, but she couldn’t help it. “I thought you might feel this way, that you wouldn’t understand, and I didn’t want to wreck it. It was so good, and I didn’t want to ruin the little bit of time we had together, don’t you see?”

“Except that something can’t really be good if it’s not real. If one person’s still pretending after all.”

She sat there, the guilt a leaden lump in her stomach, because she didn’t have an answer for that.

“You should have told me, Faith,” he went on after a minute, sounding so…sad. So final. “You should have given me the choice. I gave you the choice to get involved. You should have given it to me.”

Her chest was aching, the tears trying to come. Because he was right. And it hurt so much.

“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling all the inadequacy of the word. She wanted to crawl into a corner and hide. She’d done so much damage. She hadn’t meant to, but that didn’t matter. “I’m sorry if it’s going to hurt your image. If it helps, I’ll…” She fought to keep her voice under control while she cast around for something. Anything. “I’ll…tell people I wasn’t writing about you. I’ll tell them you didn’t know. That will help, won’t it? Maybe?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I need to go. I need to get on the bus. When you come, we’ll plan a story, I guess. Figure out how to pretend some more. One last time.”

“All right.” Her voice was so small, because that was how she felt. Small. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

“Yeh,” he said. “I’m sorry, too.”

They Always Leave

He had gone through the motions of getting on the bus, riding to the airport, going through check-in, just following the back of the fella in front of him. Not that anybody else was too chatty either. It was always quiet the day after a match.

He needed to think, but he couldn’t think. Too much anger. Too much disbelief, still. And too much…too much something else, that he didn’t want to examine too closely, because it might look like pain.

When he was in the Koru Lounge waiting for the flight to be called, the men around him thumbing over their phones, reading, or listening to music, he started to think that he should know. If he were going to talk to Ian about it, if he had to decide what to do, he needed to see for himself what was in those books, and exactly how bad it was. Because if she had written anything too far out there, if she had Hemi hurting Hope…that could be very bad indeed. Ian could call it fiction all he wanted, and still, people would wonder how much of it was true. If she could really have made all that up.

Anyway, he had a choice. He could sit here packing a sad, or he could do something about it. At least he could read what she’d written. At least he could face the truth.

So he pulled out his laptop, went online, and bought all five stories, hating that he was giving Faith yet more money, paying her once again for the privilege of ruining his reputation, and began to read.

At first, he rolled his eyes in disbelief.  Of course Hemi was a CEO. The only acceptable profession, apparently. And a multimillionaire. Not a billionaire? Wasn’t Faith selling him a little short?

An underwear tycoon, too—that was nothing but ridiculous. At least she could have let the bloke do software, or own a construction firm. Something remotely manly. He didn’t see how this underwear magnate could maintain the physique she was describing, either. Building a body like that took time, and Hemi seemed to spend all of his sitting at the head of conference tables, jetting around the world in his company plane, and scheming to seduce his staff. But at least it wasn’t too horrible. It was just…ridiculous. And it wasn’t him. It so very clearly wasn’t him.

By the time they got to Paris, though, he was…all right, he was interested. In fact, he had almost forgotten that Faith had written it, and why he was reading it. And when Hemi pulled out his red ribbon…

Unfortunately, that was when they got the call to board. He wished he’d thought to download the story onto his phone, but too late now. He waited impatiently as the aircraft climbed, leaving Dunedin behind and heading over the Pacific.

The announcement came at last, and he was opening his laptop again. And an hour and a half later, he wasn’t rolling his eyes anymore.

For the first few episodes, the story had been steamy enough that his eyes couldn’t have rolled, because they’d been glued to the screen. This was
Faith?
They said men never read the instruction manual, but they were wrong, because he was pretty sure he was reading it. He was still furious with her, of course he was, but he was turned on as hell, too, and he couldn’t help being impressed.

After that, though, he may have had to dab at his eyes a time or two. When Hope had been sitting at Karen’s bedside as she regained consciousness, trying to be strong for her sister, and then when she’d found out that Karen would recover—well, you could hardly blame him, because he had a few sisters of his own, didn’t he?

Now, his cup of tea was sitting cold and forgotten on the tray table, and he was still reading.

Hope broke off in mid-sentence at the knock, then set the book on the bed beside Karen.

“Be right back,” she promised her sister.

Karen opened her eyes and smiled. “It’s OK,” she said. “I’m good.”

And she was, Hope thought. Thank God.

She closed the bedroom door softly behind her and hurried across the sumptuous living room of the suite she hadn’t known about until Hemi’s driver had appeared at the hospital. He had clearly been alerted by somebody there of Karen’s impending release, because there he had been, ready to take them to the hotel over Hope’s protests.

“I just do my job,” he had said, his eyes meeting hers in the rear-view mirror when he had pulled into the Plaza’s drive and stopped beneath the fluttering flags, a uniformed bellman immediately springing forward to open the luxurious sedan’s rear door. “Mr. Te Mana said to bring you here and make sure I got you settled in the suite. He said if I didn’t, it’d be my job. I don’t think he’d really do it,” he hurried to add at her startled exclamation, “but hey. Just in case—I need my job. So, please.”

After that, she hadn’t had much choice, had she? And it had been such a relief not to have to shop, or run errands, or do anything but look after Karen, and try to recover from the sleepless nights, the fear and worry that had run her ragged. To have the butler arranging for their meals to be delivered, to be able to order anything that might tempt Karen’s fickle appetite and have it arrive just like that. To get the call from the nurse whom Hemi had hired to come stay with Karen every day so Hope could take a break. To know that he had done all that for her, and had done it in a way she’d have to accept.

It was a different kind of relief, though, to know that she’d be able to start contributing again, at least to do her job. She couldn’t afford to get out of the habit of working, or into the habit of relying on somebody else, and she knew it.

She opened the door on the thought to find Martine herself on the other side.

“Nice place,” the Publicity Director said. “Lucky you.” She looked as polished as always, in a knit suit that emphasized her willowy proportions. “Your sister’s doing better, I take it?”

“Yes,” Hope said. “Thank you,” she hastened to add. She’d had no choice but to tell Martine of the reason for her two-week absence. It wasn’t like she had vacation time, not after six months. The Director of Human Resources had called her first, when she had still been wondering and worrying about how to handle it. He’d informed her that he’d heard of her circumstances, that an unpaid leave of absence would be granted, and that she should take the time she needed. Hope had listened for an indication in his matter-of-fact tone that he’d heard it from a source that would have aroused his suspicions, but to her relief, it hadn’t been there.

Martine, though, had been another matter.

“I’d have hoped,” she’d said when Hope had once again been sitting in the conference room with her, having yet another uncomfortable conversation, “that you would have come to me first. That I wouldn’t have had to hear about this from other sources. I must say, I’m disappointed that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me. But it is what it is, I suppose, so let’s figure it out. This is an awkward time for you to be gone, as you know, just when we’ll be working so hard to capitalize on the momentum from the Milan Show. But then, we all have to do what we’re told, don’t we? We all serve at the pleasure of those higher up than us, after all.”

Which all meant that Hope had been hoping that Martine would have sent Nathan with her work assignments. For Nathan, she could have invented a generous relative, maybe. A
very
generous relative. That wasn’t going to work with Martine, though, not anymore.

They didn’t discuss it, to her relief, while they sat at the round table in the suite’s dining area and went through what looked like far more than a week’s worth of work, but that Hope was somehow going to have to accomplish anyway.

“And that’s it,” Martine said crisply, shoving her laptop back into its Kate Spade bag. “Shouldn’t be a problem, not with all your other needs taken care of so…thoroughly.”

Her gaze traveled around the room, from the huge arrangement of flowers on the marble coffee table to the windows overlooking the expanse of Central Park and the city beyond, not to mention the two closed doors leading to the luxuriously appointed bedrooms.

Her eyes met Hope’s again, and Hope realized she hadn’t answered. “No,” Hope hurried to say. “Of course it won’t be a problem.”

Martine hesitated, tapping an elegant fingernail against the clasp of her bag. “Can I make one more suggestion?” she asked. “A little word in your ear?”

“Of course.” Hope managed to get the words out, hoping that her galloping pulse wasn’t obvious. Her emotions were so volatile these days, rocketing from the giddiest heights to the darkest depths. From the paralyzing fear for Karen to the relief at the pathology results that had seen her huddled in the shower, the water beating down on her head, her arms wrapped around herself, finally allowing the racking sobs to overtake her once there was nobody to see, nobody to judge. Finally letting herself acknowledge the extent of her terror, now that it was over.

The lesser but still powerful anxiety about her job, her apartment, Karen’s school, both of their futures, though, still loomed. And always, underlying everything, the overwhelming need for Hemi, undeniable and irresistible as the tides, and just as dangerous.

There was desire there, of course there was, but that was the easy part. It was the tenderness that was so devastating. The sweet rightness when she was in his arms after they had made love, when his hand was stroking down her back to soothe her. The leaping pleasure she felt at every text, every phone call. The thrill she got every time she opened her apartment door, saw him standing outside, and knew that he was there for her.

She had lost the battle not to count on him, and she had long ago been forced to admit, to herself if nobody else, that she loved him with an intensity, an understanding, and a connection that was all the more powerful for being unspoken. She loved him for his strength, yes, but she loved him more for his weaknesses. For how hard he worked to be the best, and how deeply he feared that he wasn’t enough. And she missed him. She missed him so much.

Now, Martine smiled at her, and Hope had the uncomfortable feeling that all those thoughts were there to read in her transparent face.