Tessa treated him to a big smile when she saw him. She got up and met him in the doorway. “Where have you been?”
The words stuck in his throat. He was about to wipe all of that light out of her eyes. The kicking in his gut told him not to do it, but he had no choice. People were watching them. The news would be out soon. She deserved to hear it from him.
“Cliff.” That’s all he got out.
She ran a hand up and down his arm as if she knew he needed some encouragement to get the next part out. “What did he say?”
He leaned in. Tried to whisper the horrible news. “He’s dead.”
“What?” Paul whipped around in his chair. Forget being eighty. The man moved and heard just fine. “Who is?”
Tessa’s fingers dug in to Hansen’s arm as the color left her face. “How?”
“Stabbed.”
“Someone killed poor Cliff?” Paul yelled the news now.
All talk in the dining room stopped. A glass shattered as it fell to the hardwood floor. Everyone turned, as if waiting for an explanation. Even Sylvia froze in the middle of pouring coffee at one of the tables.
Hansen glanced at Paul. “Your voice carries.”
The talking ramped up again. People started moving. Chairs scraped against the floor. Some took out their cells and started making calls. Sylvia’s voice carried above it all. “Did you say—?”
“Everyone calm down.” Hansen knew it was a stupid comment. He felt anything but calm. If the pounding in his head got any louder, he’d need to sit down. “Ben is there now. So is Lela. They are securing the scene and trying to figure out what happened.”
Ruthie slowly rose. “How is that supposed to be a comfort?”
At the sound of her voice, the talking died down again. Her voice shook with anger. This time Hansen couldn’t blame her.
“You hate Lela, too?” Tessa asked.
“I believe Lela and Ben and everyone handling this case are ill-equipped for this sort of violent emergency.” Ruthie looked around at the board members in the room, which was all of them. “It’s time for professionals to step in and we need to make that happen.”
Tessa seemed to shake out of her shock. She aimed all of her focus at Ruthie. “You could be supportive.”
“I need to keep this community safe.”
Ruthie wasn’t wrong. But she wasn’t the only one watching out for Whitaker, and Hansen wanted to make that clear before she started an incident. “Ben already called for reinforcements.”
“A plane landed,” someone called out from the back of the dining room. “They must be here already.”
Hansen couldn’t identify the voice through all the people and movement, but that didn’t matter. “No, that one is private.”
“Anyone know who’s visiting?” Paul asked.
Someone else jumped in to explain as the conversation pinged around the room. “A few wealthy families with summer rentals fly in.”
Sylvia frowned. “That’s rare. Most people come by boat.”
“It’s happened.”
Sylvia cleared her throat, which seemed to quiet things down again. She looked at Hansen. “Is what happened to Cliff related to Judson’s murder?”
All the attention switched right back to Hansen. He could feel the weight of their judgment pressing on him. “We don’t know.”
Tessa stood next to him the entire time. Halfway through the bouncing topics, she slipped her hand into his. Now she gave his fingers a reassuring squeeze.
He was about to talk when Arianna spoke up. “How was Cliff killed? He’s an older man. Maybe he had a heart attack—”
“No. This was intentional.” Hansen did not need her spreading false information. She and Ellis had done enough of that in the days after Judson was found. All that talk of blood and fighting. “And, please. Let’s be respectful.”
“This is a nightmare.” Tessa whispered the comment under her breath.
“You visited him yesterday. Right, Hansen?” Ruthie threw down that comment. If her intention was to drive the focus back to him, it worked. Everyone watched him now.
Interesting how she forgot to mention he was just one of the people at the house. Hansen figured if she knew about his visit, she knew about the others. “How did you—?”
“Excuse me.” A deep male voice filled the room.
Hansen glanced over his shoulder and saw a pilot. He wore a uniform, which was a bit unusual for the private planes that flew out this way. He also held his body stiff as he entered the room.
Sylvia fumbled the coffeepot in her hands before setting it down on a nearby table. “May we help you?”
“You there.” Paul looked past the pilot, into the hallway. “You look familiar.”
A man in a navy suit stepped forward. Tall and distinguished. Hair graying at the temples and trim. Only a bit of a double chin hinted that he might not be as fit as he once was.
Tessa groaned. Her fingers clenched around Hansen’s in a death grip. Nothing about her expression looked welcoming or happy.
Hansen cut through the bullshit. “Senator.”
“Wait . . .” Ruthie’s eyes bulged. “Senator?”
“I’m here for . . .” The man took one more step as he glanced around the room. He didn’t even smile when his gaze fell on Tessa. “There you are.”
“What are you doing here?” Tessa blinked as if she could blink him away.
His expression said he wanted to scold her. “I think you know.”
Sylvia’s eyes narrowed. “How do you two know each other?”
“I’m her—”
“Okay.” He looked like he was actually going to say it. To pin down Tessa without her consent, so Hansen stopped the talk cold. “That’s not important.”
“I think it is,” the senator said.
Tessa rolled her eyes. “Of course you do.”
Chapter 23
Sylvia showed the small group to her office and shut the door, closing them inside. Tessa flattened her back against the door and stared at the man who ignored her until it was convenient for him to stage a meeting without his handlers present. She wanted to yell the walls down.
Of course he sat in the big, comfortable desk chair.
Of course he looked at her like she was the problem.
The only thing that calmed the restlessness churning inside her was Hansen. He stood on the side of Sylvia’s big desk, between Tessa and her father. He hadn’t said anything but the twitch in his cheek suggested he had a few things he wouldn’t mind unloading on her father.
Fury seethed inside her. Today, of all days, when poor Cliff was killed, he showed up wanting to play Daddy.
She forced her voice to remain even. She refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing his presence mattered to her in any way. “Why did you think you could just drop in like that and tell everyone we’re related?”
“It’s true. I’m your father.”
The words pummeled her, but she managed to stay on her feet. For so many years she’d ached to hear him say that. Her mother told her the truth when she turned eight. Before that, she’d lie in bed with the lights off and spin wild tales of why her father didn’t live with them but would one day. Despite the pile of disappointments and no-shows, she’d wait at every birthday and holiday, even though her mother insisted he’d never be back.
All those years she’d wanted him to pop back into her life, take her to a park, say he loved her—anything that acknowledged she mattered to him. And nothing. He only traveled to find her now to save himself from additional embarrassment, not caring if he upended her life in the process. “Interesting that you remember our family relationship now.”
Her father flicked a gaze in Hansen’s direction. “This talk is private.”
As if he got to pick who stayed in the room for this unwanted talk. “And this is Hansen.”
Her father let out a dramatic sigh. “Now isn’t the time—”
“My boyfriend.” Now that she’d gotten use
d to the word, she really liked it. Especially in cases like these when she could use the backup.
Her father looked Hansen up and down. His eyes narrowed but he didn’t roll them. Instead he nodded. “Charles Michaelson.”
Hansen shifted, inching his feet apart and linking his hands together behind his back. “Hansen Rye.”
Her father continued to stare. “The name is familiar.”
She could almost see the wheels turning in his head. Running through his donor list, trying to figure out if Hansen owed him or he owed Hansen.
This topic made her uneasy, so she rushed to quash it. “Back to your visit. How did you know to find me here?”
“I pay people to tell me the things I need to know.”
“Give her a real answer.” The edge to Hansen’s voice suggested her father get to it.
Something about the man-to-man thing or the lack of wiggle room in Hansen’s tone worked because her father nodded. “I’ve been looking for you, as you know. Someone here on Whitaker reached out to my people. Suggested the woman in the middle of this ridiculous scandal was here. Tracking you down from there proved easy. Although why you would come to somewhere so remote is unclear.”
“Who? And why would someone contact you?” Because that meant someone knew who she really was and worked to undermine her. Tessa didn’t know how to process that information.
“When did this happen?” Hansen asked, not even attempting to soften his tone.
“I don’t appreciate the interrogation.” Her father brushed a nonexistent piece of lint off his dress pants.
“Two people have been murdered.” She pointed that out since, in her mind, the deaths took precedence over one senator’s quest to clear the name he deserved to have muddied.
“What?” He sat forward in the chair. “On the island?”
That answered the question of whether the news of Judson’s death had gotten out despite the weather—no. “Yes. Over the last week.”
He made an annoying tsk-tsk sound as he got up from the chair and pushed it in. He put his hands on the back of it and stood there. “That’s unacceptable.”
“Thanks for clearing that up. We’ll let them know.” Hansen leaned against the wall, seemingly unimpressed with her father’s outburst.
Her father inhaled as if he were about to deliver an important lecture. “I mean I can’t have us implicated in another scandal.”
And there it was. Being here could further tarnish his name. Drag him into another mess that people could use against him. It was the playbook he used, so he expected others to follow it as well.
“Aren’t you responsible for the first scandal?” Hansen asked.
“I’m going to have to ask for privacy.”
Too late. As far as she was concerned, this was the one reason to come out as his daughter. To let people know what a hypocrite he was. “Hansen knows about you pretending I didn’t exist. About you tracking me and Mom. About the threats and people following me.”
Her father held out his hands and pressed them down, likely a way to tell her to calm down. “Let’s not get dramatic. I asked you for a simple favor.”
“You blackmailed me by using my mother.”
“You left me with no other choice.” He sighed at her. “I need you to step up and tell the truth.”
“You’re talking to me about the truth?” He either had zero self-awareness or his narcissism had exploded. Maybe both.
He dropped his hands again. “There’s an easy way to do this. We control the damage and the story. Your mother will be fine. So will you.” He shook his head. “But if you force my hand, then I’ll need to tell my PR team to switch to protection mode.”
Hansen stiffened. “You’re threatening her.”
“I’m reasoning with her.”
The longer she stood there, facing the man she thought of as the senator and not her father, something she’d waffled between wanting and dreading for years, the more a sense of peace washed over her. She was not the same shy, hidden little girl he’d left.
She’d told Hansen about her past and he put the blame fully on her father. None of this was her fault. In a tiny darkened part of her soul, a piece of her had always believed she caused the rift. Her mother was beautiful and determined. Nothing about her could have driven him away. No, Tessa had convinced herself the fault rested with her. If she had been more lovable, more talented, smarter, cuter, quieter, louder. Someone other than who she was.
But the picture had cleared. This was on him. Her mother had made mistakes and she never should have let him plow her under or change who she was, but Tessa understood how easy it was to get overpowered by a man like him. She would not let that happen no matter what leverage he dangled.
“Oh, you’ve been clear.” His people had contacted her mother and threatened to expose her, completely upend her life and threaten her job and privacy, if she couldn’t get Tessa to play along. She’d gotten the visit when she stopped in her work office for a weekly in-person meeting. Then there was that guy in the car parked across the street from her window. Her father had tracked her down and used intimidation to scare her into agreeing. “My job is to come out as your daughter and pretend we’ve always been a big happy family despite how my terrible mother ruined your life.”
“I have a job. An important one. Constituents depend on me. The people who work for me. The committee. Frankly, the American people.” His voice grew deeper, more solemn as he talked, which suggested he might buy the garbage he spewed. “This is bigger than our petty differences.”
Hansen let his head fall back against the wall with a thud. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Her father ignored the comment. “Coming here borders on a waste of my time. I did it for you. You want my attention, you have it. There is no need to prolong this. It’s a distraction.”
She was pretty sure she was the it in her father’s sentence. “You can leave.”
Hansen lifted his head again. “Please do that.”
“I am your father.”
He said the words as if they meant something. They didn’t. Not to her. “You donated sperm.”
“Theresa, that’s enough.” For the first time her father’s voice rose.
If he wanted to snap, she would snap right back. “I haven’t gone by that name since I was eight. I dumped it when I dumped all hope of a relationship with you.”
Getting the words out hurt. Pain sliced through her and she had to fight to keep the tears from forming in her eyes. She would never cry another tear for him. She made that vow then and planned to honor it now.
Hansen snapped his fingers, drawing her father’s attention. “Who was it?”
“Excuse me?”
“Who contacted your office?”
Her father snorted in derision. “I don’t see how that’s your business.”
But Hansen didn’t back down. “You know the name. You probably have a file on this person.”
“I would think you’d want to know who wasted your time because I am not leaving with you or being a part in your lie.” Every time she said the words they reinforced the wall of defiance inside her, strengthened her resistance. “I told you this already.”
The senator managed to cool down. When he spoke again, his voice had returned to his usual lilting tone. “There is a lot at stake here.”
“For you.” The list of all the ways this impacted him ticked off in her head. “Your reputation.”
“Your career,” Hansen added.
“Your family, which has never included me.”
Her father shook his head. “You have your mother’s temper.”
“Thank you.”
His hold tightened on the back of the chair until his knuckles turned white. “And her refusal to see reason.”
“Stop blaming everyone else for your mess,” Hansen said. “Tessa’s mom didn’t get pregnant on her own, Mr. Married Man.”
That’s when it happened. In the short time she’d known him, she’d
morphed from crush to interested to girlfriend, and now, to love. Right there in Sylvia’s light blue office. The possibility had been looming out there, maybe since the day they’d met. The thick layer of grumpiness Hansen used to hide his charm won her over. He’d grouse and whine, but he never said no to her and he said no to everyone else.
That should have been a sign.
Hansen, the man whose real life made her want to run screaming in panic, a guy who in so many ways stood for all the things she’d fought against her entire life, now filled up that empty space in her heart. She didn’t believe a woman needed a formal partner to feel whole. She’d seen her mother thrive and love without ever walking down the aisle. But the idea of sharing the burden, having someone to help her fight in situations like this . . . The way he kissed her, touched her. The smile he saved only for her. Yeah, love.
Talk about terrible timing. Their lives didn’t make any sense right now. His was on hold and hers . . . Well, she didn’t know what she wanted or if she’d ever leave Whitaker. But love. It knocked her down and wrestled her into admitting that it pulsed awake and alive inside of her. Silently, and only to herself, but happiness flooded her.
At some point they’d talk and she hoped she wouldn’t leave brokenhearted, but for now the knowledge soothed her. Made her feel invincible. And when he winked at her across the room, her insides melted.
“I would like to talk with Theresa alone.”
“It’s Tessa.” Hansen didn’t even look at him. “And no.”
“I’m not leaving until I do.”
Hansen finally turned his head. Hit her father with that step-the-hell-down expression he did so well. “The police are going to come. The press. Murder means publicity. You really think they won’t notice a senator walking around on a small island?”
Bull’s-eye. Such an impressive hit. “I’d say you have a day before Whitaker becomes a lot more popular.”
A sly smile formed on her father’s mouth as he spoke. “Then that gives me twenty-four hours to convince you.”
Crap. She looked at Hansen. “We tried.”
He winced. “Didn’t think he’d do the ticking-clock thing.”
“I’ll stay with you.” Her father came around the chair to stand in front of the desk, in front of her, after he dropped that command.
Her Other Secret Page 22