Baring It All (Mills & Boon Temptation)

by Sandra Chastain

  “He doesn’t have to. I never said you’d do that. I just hope he’s learned his lesson. If he’s taken seriously, he’ll be able to do some more freelance work. But, Ted, if he does sell my photo, it won’t be the end of the world.”

  “I hope not. In the meantime, how about one last good-news assignment?”

  “I know,” she said, shaking her head. “Cover the opening of the children’s wing in the hospital this afternoon.”

  “Yep, and starting Monday, you get city hall.”

  That brought Sunny out of her chair. “City hall?” She all but jumped across the desk and threw herself into the news director’s arms.

  “You heard me. You’re getting what you wanted, kid, a chance to be an investigative reporter in the big city of Atlanta. You earned it.”

  She had. She’d proved to the world that she could get her story and that she wouldn’t be silenced again—ever. And this time the truth didn’t hurt anyone. “Thanks, Ted,” she said and moved toward the door.

  “Hey, Sunny, there’s still one more thing I want from you.”

  She stopped. “What?”

  “The interview with Ryan Malone you promised me.”

  She nodded. With any luck, she might get that interview this afternoon. At any rate, she’d get a story.

  The wind was brisk but the sun was bright. The afternoon was turning out to be one of those rare days that comes just before winter gives its last gasp. She met up with Walt at the van and they headed toward the hospital. A respectable crowd had gathered in front of a temporary platform outside the shiny new hospital wing. Behind the podium she could see a structure shrouded with a soft blue cover. On the platform several people were already seated. Sunny watched as Anne Kelly approached her.

  “Sunny,” she called out, “I was hoping they’d send you. Would you like to meet Mr. Roberts, the hospital administrator?”

  “Uh, sure, thanks.” Sunny allowed herself to be drawn to the platform, indicating to Walt that he should tape. “Mr. Roberts, Sunny Clary, WTRU. I’ve read your brochure. This is certainly an impressive facility. Can you tell our television audience what it means to the children of Atlanta?”

  “Indeed I can. As of today, no child will be refused emergency treatment because they can’t pay for it. We can’t solve all their problems, at least not yet, but as of today, we have the finest trauma staff in the south. Accident victims, burns, severe injury, disease, if we can’t treat it, at least we can stabilize until the child can be moved.”

  “That’s pretty impressive.”

  “And it’s all thanks to the man headed this way, Ryan Malone,” the administrator said.

  Sunny turned, her microphone still in hand.

  “Hello, Sunny,” Ryan said. “We’re so glad you’re here to cover our dedication of the new wing.” He was being very formal today. That was good. Their relationship had been far too lax in public.

  At that moment Mr. Roberts stepped to the microphone and began. “Good afternoon.” He gave a short history of the new facility and talked about the future plans to expand the wing to include the prenatal care of women, then said, “I’d like to welcome you and ask you to help me welcome a very special guest, Callie Ferguson.”

  The crowd’s attention was directed to a wheelchair being rolled toward the platform. In the chair was a tiny, pale little girl wearing an absurd straw hat with pink roses. At the steps Ryan held out his arms. Weakly, the child raised her arms and gave him a sweet smile. Holding her carefully, he climbed to the podium and moved to the mike.

  “I’m Ryan Malone and this is Callie, the very first patient to be treated in the children’s wing. She is five years old and is recovering from the removal of a brain tumor.” He lowered his voice to a gentle whisper. “Callie is what this is all about, Callie and all the children like her who need someone to care about them. Callie, will you help me show the folks our memorial?”

  Ryan wrapped the cord around her hand and together they tugged. Like a ship on the ocean, the blue fabric caught the wind and billowed away. Beneath its cover was a white winged creature, a marble angel with a peaceful smile.

  “This angel will watch over the children inside. The wing and this sculpture are memorials to my mother, Helen. They will remind us all that someone cares.”

  Someone cares. Sunny felt a lump in her throat. Ryan’s love for children had come through the night of the awards dinner. But it wasn’t just children he cared for. He looked after Isabella and others who needed someone to care. Her heart swelled. This was a good man who did good things in the name of truth and commitment.

  Ryan gave the child a kiss and gently returned her to her chair. After the ceremony, the group moved inside to tour the hospital. Sunny and Walt returned to the station, both filled with emotion from what they’d seen. Viewing the video, Sunny composed her story. When Walt cut to the plate at the base of the statue she stopped the tape, enlarging the inscription.

  In memory of Helen Ivy Malone by her son, Ryan

  Helen Ivy? Ivy? The next frame showed Ryan, recorded his whispered voice and the tender kiss he gave Callie. He was looking straight at the camera, almost as if his eyes were focused on the lens. She’d heard that whisper before. She’d seen those eyes before, eyes that she’d thought were blue. She reeled. Her head spun as understanding washed over her like a cold wind. The blond hair was meant to be a distraction all along. Lord Sin was, and had always been, a black-haired rogue. He had to have been wearing blue contact lenses.

  And he’d whispered. The voice on the tape had said, “We have worlds to travel and wonders to see,” the same words Ryan had used on the phone last night. She even remembered him quoting words she’d spoken to Lord Sin, but she hadn’t clued in at the time. Now it all fit together.

  Ryan Malone was Lord Sin. There couldn’t be another answer. That explained his close association with Lottie, with Isabella. The fact that he suddenly appeared at the same time Lord Sin retired. That’s why she’d been so attracted to them both. Why hadn’t he told her? The only answer was manipulation and seduction; Ryan Malone had lied to her and everyone else from the beginning.

  Obviously he was ashamed of how he’d made his money. Obviously, too, he wanted no connection to his real father’s family. He’d done everything he could to protect his identity, even going so far as creating a retirement for Lord Sin in a place where the local people wouldn’t be likely to challenge his past. At the same time, he’d built a new persona, one of wealth and power. Knowing that, his relationship with a woman determined to be an investigative reporter was taking a real risk. Why?

  Of course. How stupid could she have been? She, the darling of Atlanta’s WTRU, the Good-News Girl, was to be his final protection. Everything he’d done had been to that end. He’d set out to use her from the beginning, use her to tell Lord Sin’s story, the story Ryan Malone had allowed her to find in two weeks. Why else would one of the ex-strippers have a yearbook with Sin’s picture and name? Then the picture of Sin opening his restaurant arrived on schedule to give the final proof. Once Lord Sin was permanently retired, Ryan Malone was free to live the life he’d built for himself—the lie he’d created.

  He’d only made one mistake. He couldn’t resist naming his hospital wing for his mother. To do that he had to use her real name, Helen Ivy Malone. He’d found a way to make her life count for something, and it would have been less than honorable for him to hide that name. The platform had been built to shield the base of the monument. It had just been bad luck that Walt had videotaped the plaque.

  Sunny had refused to allow herself to believe they had something special, but when he kept after her, touching her, making love to her, protecting her, she’d fallen in love. And all along, he’d been doing whatever he needed to do to manipulate her just as her father’s boss had done to him, just as her editor in Martinsville had done to her. And she’d thought she was in charge of her own destiny. Pain cut through her like a shard of ice.

  Well, Ryan Malone was w
rong. He didn’t know Sara Frances Clary. But he was about to. When she was done, the good news would be bad.

  She finished the hospital dedication story and started composing the new one, the unmasking of Lord Sin. WTRU would break the hottest local story since they announced that Atlanta had been awarded the 1996 Summer Olympics.

  Later, when Ted read the story, he swore. “This is hard to believe. Malone is—well—he’s important to Atlanta. And you’re the Good-News Girl. Are you sure about this?”

  “It’s the truth. And we run the truth, don’t we?”

  Ted let out a deep breath and nodded. “I don’t always like it, but WTRU tells the truth. Still, we can’t run it without allowing him to give his side.”

  “I know. You wanted an interview—I guess this is it. It just isn’t what I thought it would be. I’ll go talk to—Lord Sin.”

  RYAN SMILED when he opened the door. “I was headed for your place,” he said, then pulled her inside and kissed her.

  When she didn’t respond, he pulled back and frowned.

  “What’s wrong? Was I too sentimental? Did I sound like a sap when I was talking about the hospital wing and my mother?”

  She shook her head. Even now, he kept up the pretense. “You never sound like anything but what you intend, Malone. Why’d you do it? You could have lied to the world but you didn’t have to lie to me. Lord Sin wasn’t what I expected, but I wouldn’t have cared who you were.”

  She could see the questions dim the welcome in his eyes. “What do you mean, Sunny?”

  “Edward Hinton found the yearbook, just as you planned. Lottie verified that Jack Ivy was Lord Sin. Then, just to make sure I had all the proof I needed, you arranged for a photo showing Jack’s attendance at the opening of his new restaurant on the Riviera. How did you do that, Ryan? Or do I call you Jack? Or Sin?”

  He let his hands drop from her shoulders and turned away. “I’m Ryan Malone. And I’m Lord Sin and I’m Jack. I’m all three.”

  She followed him, her steps as slow as a death march.

  “Jack actually does own Ivy’s. I went there for its opening, or rather Jack did. A nice touch, I thought.”

  “Oh, it was. And I fell for it. Just like I fell for you—even after all that business about trust and commitment. I was perfect, wasn’t I. You knew what happened to me in Martinsville. You knew I was ambitious and would do anything to establish my credibility, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I knew. But not in the beginning.”

  “Why, just tell me why you did it?”

  “Originally I concealed my identity because I was too young to dance in a place that served alcohol. Then later, Lottie helped Jack Ivy become Lord Sin so that I could earn a living. Finally, I reached a point where I needed to separate the man I was going to become from my past.”

  “Jackson Lewis Ivy was never a blue-eyed blond, was he?”

  “No, the picture in the yearbook was doctored. It was a setup, to convince you that Lord Sin was Jack Ivy who was as different from me as night from day. How’d you figure it out?”

  “I might not have, if Walt hadn’t videotaped the plaque on your mother’s monument, Helen Ivy Malone. You thought that I wouldn’t see it.”

  “Yes. I could have left the Ivy off but that really was her name and my father and his family dishonored her enough when she was alive. I couldn’t do that to her in death. I had them build the platform directly in front so that you wouldn’t see the base. I knew you would have no reason to come back again later. The cover was to have been left there until the following day. I guess someone moved it.”

  “But you were Jackson Lewis Ivy. Why not Jackson Lewis Malone?”

  “When my mother was admitted to the hospital she told them her name was Helen Ivy. She was afraid my father’s family might try to take me. She didn’t know what a foolish idea that was. As for my name, I guess she wanted to punish him the only way she could. So I became Jackson for my father and Lewis to connect me forever to the wealth of the Lewis name but I was her son and she was Helen Ivy Malone.”

  “Or,” Sunny said, before she knew she was going to speak, “she named you for Jackson because she still loved him.”

  “Sentiment and a nickel won’t even buy you a cup of coffee, Sunny Clary. You want the truth, haven’t you learned that yet?”

  “I’m learning that truth means different things to different people.”

  “So? What are you going to do with this truth?”

  She handed him a copy of her story. “That’s why I’m here, Ryan. I’m a reporter. I’ve written the story and I came to give you a chance to respond.” She walked back and leaned against the door, willing herself to remain robotlike, lifeless. If he so much as blinked she’d pick up one of his cream-and-navy-blue decorations and hit him where it hurt the most.

  He read, allowing no emotion on his face. Finally, he looked up. “It doesn’t matter, Sunny. Not anymore. I always trained myself to be self-sufficient, not to need anybody. And then I met you and you made me think I might be wrong. I was going to tell you, later. But that doesn’t matter now.” He opened the door and handed the papers back to her. “So you go ahead and run your story. You need credibility. I don’t.”

  SHE HELD the story for three days, telling Ted she was working on Ryan’s response. The truth was, she was waiting for Ryan to call her. When he didn’t, she turned the story in. The exposé headlined the six o’clock news. The station switchboard lit up like Rockefeller Center at Christmas. Half the callers were outraged that they’d been fooled, the other half furious that Sunny had felled a local icon, some even suggesting that she’d used him to get a story. Sunny didn’t answer her phone, not even when an angry Edward Hinton called. He’d been offered a job by one of the rival stations but he didn’t like being made to look like a fool. Why hadn’t she told him what she found out? The unmasking of Lord Sin was his story, too, and she hadn’t bothered to call.

  Sunny didn’t answer her phone at home either. By midnight her answering machine tape was full of calls from Lottie, Isabella and, finally, her father.

  “Sara Frances Clary,” his voice said quietly, “I’m surprised at you, ruining a man’s good name just to make yourself some kind of front-page news. If this is what your investigative reporting does, I liked the Good-News Girl better. Ryan may have made a mistake but you should have given him a chance to explain.”

  “I did,” she whispered to herself. “He didn’t care. He told me to go ahead and run the story. He’s a cold, self-sufficient man who doesn’t need anybody, certainly not me.”

  “That’s all I wanted to say,” her father continued, “except this. I’m going to ask Lottie to marry me. Don’t know whether or not she’ll accept, but I’m hoping that she won’t hold what you did against me.”

  Finally, the phone stopped ringing. And the world went silent.

  THREE DAYS LATER, after being slapped with a wall of ice by the mayor and his council, she knew she’d made a mistake. City hall might be her beat, but her credibility was lower than ever. So be it, she’d picked herself up before, she’d do it again. Except she seemed to have lost her zeal. At the oddest times she remembered Isabella’s birthday and how Ryan danced with the grand old lady, the mayor’s awards dinner and Octavius, the boy who singlehandedly cleared a corner lot for a playground, furnished by Ryan. And there was Callie, the child he’d handled so tenderly at the dedication.

  The Atlanta community seemed to be even more fascinated and in awe of Ryan Malone. Every morning the news staff handed out stories of events in which he was taking part. But Sunny got none of them. Instead, she covered the kind of crime and corruption that existed in every big city and her stories got lost in the dearth of bad news.

  Winter left, pushed aside by a spring as beautiful as winter had been dreary. The azaleas burst into full bloom. Tulips and pansies made masses of color in the flower beds and white dogwood petals fell like errant snowflakes on lawns turning green. Everything was thriving, blossoming, excep
t Sunny. Walt had been reassigned to sports. The good news seemed to be gone and Sunny had never felt so alone.

  Bitterness turned her insides into hollow shells of loneliness. She missed Ryan Malone. He’d chased her with a single-mindedness that still astounded her. And she’d destroyed him. Now, when she wanted so badly to hear his voice, he didn’t call. She missed Lottie and her father. Another week went by before Isabella finally got through Sunny’s wall of silence with her words, “Sunny Clary, you pick up this phone or I’m going to hire all these sunshine boys here at the home to load me up and bring me to your house.”

  There was no doubt in Sunny’s mind that she’d do it. She picked up. “Hello, Isabella. How are you?”

  “Better than you, I hope. Not often I’m so wrong about somebody. I thought you and Ryan were right for each other. Then you stick a knife in both your hearts.”

  “Isabella, my story may be a little ripple in Ryan’s stream but he’s too big and too important for this to hurt him.”

  “Hurt? Listen here, girl, you don’t know what hurt is—yet. You and Ryan have shoved Humpty Dumpty off the wall. Now get yourself over here. Lottie and I have an idea.”

  Before Sunny could respond, a dial tone sounded in her ear. If she hadn’t already felt bad enough, Isabella’s call had pretty much finished any possibility of relieving herself of blame for an unwise decision. And she knew now that she had made a bad choice. No matter what she said or how much she explained, she’d catapulted to success by doing a hatchet job on a man who didn’t deserve it. And it had nothing to do with her job. She’d been a fool, thinking that he cared about her. The story had been her revenge. Except the revenge had hit her just as hard.

  She’d never considered that what might happen would hurt her heart more than her career.

  The final pain was delivered an hour later by special messenger, a manila envelope with a note clipped to several glossy photographs, several negatives and a small box. She was holding the pictures of her and Ryan in the woods. One was a clear shot of his hand in her bra and beneath the curve of her breast. Had she not known about the bee, she would never have believed that he was on a mission of mercy. If these photographs had been merely interesting before, they would be sensational now—in the wake of her story about Lord Sin. But it no longer mattered.