Sweet Talk Boxed Set (Ten NEW Contemporary Romances by Bestselling Authors to Benefit Diabetes Research plus BONUS Novel) (119 page)

“I know it’s so tempting,” her boss told her, “to think it will last. It’s a beautiful dream, isn’t it? But you know,” she sighed, running two fingers lightly over the diamond pendant at her throat, “that’s all it is. A dream. One brief shining moment. And the thing about dreams? You wake up.”

Hope swallowed, but didn’t trust herself to speak.

It’s not a dream,
she wanted to say.
It’s real.
Because Hemi
was
real. He might be handsome, he might be rich, he might be powerful, and Heaven knew he was the most desirable man she’d ever met. But he was so much more than that. He was a living, breathing, caring man whose emotions were as deep and strong as they were hidden. 

It wasn’t the myth she loved. It was the man, in all his shining, glorious light and all his dark, disturbing shadows. The man who thought he had to hide both of those sides from everybody, but who couldn’t hide them from her, because she saw him, and she knew him, and she loved him.

“And then you wake up,” Martine continued, and Hope forced herself to focus. “And you get a lovely present. A nice farewell gift. That’s when you know it’s over, when you get that token that you can keep to remember him by. Or that you can sell, of course, if you need the money more. If you’ve been picked up from the gutter, and you can’t stand to go back there again.”

Hope barely heard her, because Martine’s fingers were still at her throat, stroking the huge diamond solitaire on its chain that she wore every day.

No. Surely not. It couldn’t be true.

“Well.” Martine stood to go. “You’ll want to get to that work. You don’t
want to go back to the gutter, I know you don’t, and for that? Work is the only solution. That’s what’s left after men leave. Because the thing about men?” She put a hand over Hope’s for just a moment, the lightest of caresses. “They always leave.”

***

He didn’t hear the announcement the first time, didn’t realize they were landing until the flight attendant stopped by his seat, whisked his teacup into her rubbish bag, put a light hand on his laptop cover and said, “Time to shut it down.”

He closed the lid hastily before she could see what he had been reading, stowed his computer away in his backpack even as his fingers itched to open it again, to learn what was going to happen next.

Faith hadn’t written porn. She hadn’t even written erotica. She had written a romance. She had written a story.

Then his thoughts took another turn, and that was worse, because he was having to entertain an entirely new idea.

He’s not you,
she had said.
He’s my character.
And all the same…maybe it was more complicated than that.

Could she really have made all that up? Or was it possible, somehow, that some of that was…him? And her? He thought it could be. He thought it might be, and the idea was shaking him to the core. After everything that had happened, after everything he’d said to her, everything he’d thought…

The idea that she knew him. That she saw him, in all his light and all his shadow. And that despite all of that, despite everything she knew…that she loved him all the same.

Forgiveness

Faith was still sitting on the bed, still holding the phone in a nerveless hand, when the knock on the door came.

“Come in,” she called.

Talia opened it, then made as if to shut it again. “Oh! Sorry.”

“What?” Faith looked at her in surprise, then down at herself, realized she was still sitting in her bra and capris. “Oh. That’s OK.” She pulled the T-shirt over her head and tugged it into place.

“Um…” Talia said. “Mum says, can you come to the kitchen. Please,” she added.

“Sure.” Faith followed the girl downstairs, trying to force her mind back from the black hole it kept trying to fall into. From thinking about Will, and how he’d sounded. About how something that had seemed like the best thing that had ever happened in her life, being able to write a book, and having other people want to read it enough to pay money for it, had become—this. Was costing her—well, not Will, because she’d never had Will, and she never would. But was going to cost him so much, and that was just as bad. Or worse, because that was what it was. It was worse.

She tried to put on some kind of face for his mother. This would be about the lift to the airport, maybe. Emere had finally thawed a bit, but soon, it would all be worse than ever. Faith entertained the craven hope that Will’s family wouldn’t find out about the books until after she had left. Facing them would be so hard, if they heard the news while she was still here, if Will called back and told them.

Emere was standing in the middle of the kitchen, though, her body stiff, her face like iron. And it looked like it was all going to be happening now.

“I just got a call from a newspaper reporter,” Emere said without preamble as soon as Faith and Talia walked in. “Telling me that you’re writing books about your sex life with my son. Asking me if I have a comment.”

Talia’s shocked gaze flew to Faith’s. “No,” she said. “Faith wouldn’t.”

“No,” Faith said. All of a sudden, she couldn’t feel her legs, was having to reach out to the counter for support, and was stumbling over the words. “I didn’t. That is, I did, but it wasn’t that.”

Emere crossed her arms. “If you did, you did. I’ve had you in my house. I’ve fed you. And you’ve been doing that. And what I want to know is, did he know? Is this all some…joke, between the two of you? Bringing you here to be with us?”

Talia was backing away, but her mother put out an arm out for her. “No. You stay. You want to be grown up? Be grown up. Stay and face the truth. There’s nothing to be gained by lying to yourself, or by not seeing what’s in front of you.
Exactly
what’s in front of you.” Her hard stare let Faith know exactly what that was.

And then it got worse, because Miriama came into the room.

“What’s going on?” Will’s grandmother asked. “Something’s not good, eh.”

“No,” Emere said. “Something’s not good.”

Faith took a breath. Nothing to do but face this. Nothing left to do but tell the truth. As much of the truth as she could tell without hurting Will more, because she wasn’t doing that. “Emere has found out,” she told Miriama, “that I’ve been writing romance books, and publishing them.”

Miriama cocked her head to one side. “And? Nothing wrong with romance.”

“They’re…steamy,” Faith said. “They have sex in them.”

Will’s grandmother laughed, the sound incongruous in the midst of the tension that held the room in its grip. “And that’s got your knickers in a twist?” she asked her daughter. “Seems to me, when you were Talia’s age, I had all I could do to keep you from taking your knickers
off
for her dad. Have you forgotten that much? You need a man and no mistake. Nothing wrong with romance, and nothing in the world wrong with sex. And sex in a book? What could possibly be wrong with that?”

“It’s not just sex in a book,” Emere said. “It’s sex about Will.”

“No.” Faith found her courage, because this was just wrong. She might as well practice saying it. She was going to be saying it again. “No, it isn’t. It has nothing to do with Will, except that he’s the cover model. The story is about an entirely different person. A fictional character.”

“Except,” Emere said, and there was that damning, inescapable truth, “that Will’s photo is on the cover.”

“Well,” Miriama admitted, “that is a bit worse, maybe.”

“A bit worse?” Emere demanded. “A
bit
worse?”

“Yes,” Faith said. “His picture is on the cover. Of all five books,” she added. That wasn’t going to take them two minutes to find out. “Because Will posed for those pictures, and they’re available on stock photo sites. The photographer’s sold a lot of them, and I suspect that if you look around, you’ll find that they’re on quite a few other book covers, too. They’re good shots, and Will is a very good-looking man.”

“But none of those other books,” his mother said, “was written by his girlfriend.”

“That’s true,” Faith said. “At the time I started writing them, though, we weren’t dating.”

“Which excuses just about nothing,” Emere said. “You could have taken them off the market. You could have changed their covers, I’m guessing. You could have done heaps of things. But I don’t care about that, because I don’t care about you. What I care about is Will. And what I want to know is, did he know?”

“No. He didn’t.” Faith looked around at the three women, Emere’s face accusing, Miriama’s thoughtful, and Talia’s miserable. “He does now, because I just spoke to him. He’s not any happier about it than you are. For the record, I didn’t know it would get out. I have a pen name for exactly that purpose, to keep it private. But apparently it has gotten out, and that’s my fault, too. I only told one person, but that was one too many. Except that I should have told one more. I should have told Will.”

“Yes, you should have,” Miriama said. “If he mattered to you. If you care.” Her gaze was sharp, and all too knowing. “Which I think you do. Now.”

The implication was clear. “You’re right,” Faith said. Time for honesty, as much as she could manage without making things worse for Will. “Things were a little…different at the beginning, between us.” That was all she was going to say about that. “But they changed. I do care now. I care a…a lot. I was wrong, and I’m sorry, and I know that’s not enough. But I’ll do whatever I can to make this easier on him.”

Miriama nodded. “That’s all you can do. It’s a mistake. No,” she corrected herself, “it’s a wrong choice. A weak choice.”

Faith winced, but it was true, and she had to face it.

“But we’ve all made wrong, weak choices,” Miriama continued, and looked at her daughter. “Every single one of us. Especially when it comes to men.”

“Don’t you dare be comparing me to her,” Emere’s voice was rising. “Don’t you
dare.
She did what she did for herself, and herself only. Every mistake I made, I made out of love for my kids, and for Anthony. Everything I’ve done since has come from trying to protect my kids.”

“Maybe so,” Miriama said. “And maybe a few things have come from trying to protect yourself. You’ll know which are which, if you take a good hard look inside, the way Faith’s doing now. But Faith’s just told us she’s going to be trying to protect Will. That she knows she’s hurt him, and that she’s sorry for what she’s done. And I’m guessing that some of her mistakes may have come from her feelings for him as well. Things are never quite that simple, because we’re all human, eh.”

“Human,” Emere scoffed. “You always say that, like it excuses everything. Like everything is forgivable.”

“Nah,” Miriama said. “Some things aren’t. Your man running out on you and your kids? That’s not forgivable. But loving him so much that you kept taking him back when you shouldn’t have? Loving him enough to get those kids? That’s forgivable. Even if the person you have to forgive is yourself.”

Emere was shaking, leaning back against the kitchen counter. “I’m not—I’m not talking about myself.”

“Oh, darling,” her mother said, the sharp planes of her face softening. “We’re all talking about ourselves. Always, because the only way we see the world is through our own eyes. The way you’ve always seen Anthony in Will, and you’re so scared that he’s his dad all over again. That he’s weak at the core after all, and that he’ll disgrace you in the end, and desert you, too. This is all just one more way you’re afraid he’s done it. But he hasn’t, and he won’t, because he’s not his dad. He’s got you in him, too. He’s got the mum who stayed, and stuck. That’s why he’ll never do a runner on the people he loves, no matter how heavy the burden gets. He’ll take care of you until you’re in your grave, and he’ll take care of his brother and sisters as well. Because he’s strong to the core, and solid to the bone. Because he’s a good man.”

Faith was frozen. She saw Talia standing just that still, too, but not Emere. Will’s mother was trembling, the tears coming, and her own mother came to her, wrapped her slim, strong arms around her, and held her close.

“It’s going to be all right in the end,” Miriama told her daughter. “Will’s going to cope. Just like you did. He always has, because he’s got so much of you in him. He’s got his Koro, too. That blood runs strong and deep, no matter how flash he may be on the surface. That’s mana. And it sticks.”

Faith felt the tears spilling over her lids, down her cheeks, brushed them away with a shaking hand, and saw Talia doing the same. She couldn’t move. She was seeing something…something so private. Something so powerful.

Miriama looked at both of them from where she stood, still holding her weeping daughter. “All of us have made mistakes,” she said. “Including me. Will told me—he was careful, but he told me all the same—that we hadn’t paid enough attention to Talia since her Koro died, and he was right. Wrapped up in ourselves, weren’t we. In our own grief, our own ways to cope. All you can do, though, when you make a mistake, when you make a wrong choice, is do your best to put it right. You’ve told Will you were wrong. Now, you’ll make the choices you have to make so you don’t hurt him more. That’s putting it right, and it’s all you can do.”

***

Faith slipped out of the kitchen. No point in staying here, because that was exactly the opposite of what she had to do, the choice she had to make so she wouldn’t hurt Will more.

She had to leave. So she sat on the bed again, called the airline, and arranged for it to happen. The last thing he needed was to have her in his life anymore. So much better if it were over. If it came out, and she was gone, because she had used him, and she had left him. Exactly the way they’d planned in the beginning, and so much more necessary now.

So she made her arrangements, then hung up the phone, went to the closet, and pulled her suitcase down from the high shelf with an effort. She flung it onto the bed, began to pull clothes off hangers and fold them hastily into it, and tried not to think.