by Leslie Kelly
“I’m not totally sure,” he mumbled. “I don’t know what Uncle Jacob intended to do with this.”
“Well, what other option is there?”
“I guess…maybe…if you were publicly humiliated, you might just sort of slink away on your own, out of Sam’s life. Or maybe he thought Sam didn’t know and he’d be upset finding out about your past.”
“That son of a bitch.”
And she’d thought her father had been ruthless and controlling. Sam’s took things up to a whole new level of manipulation.
“I think it’s more an act of desperation kind of thing,” Robbie admitted. “I doubt he’d ever follow through on the threat.” His voice wasn’t convincing. “I mean, I’m not sure you really have anything to worry about. I can’t imagine he’d actually let that go to print.”
Maybe not. But was that a risk she could take? “That’s about as comforting as saying getting into a car with bald tires shouldn’t worry me because chances are I won’t crash and burn. Unless I crash and burn.”
“I’m very sorry, Eve,” he said, sounding miserable and guilt-stricken.
“How do you figure into all this?” she asked, somehow keeping her voice calm and collected even though inside she was a seething mass of emotion. “Do you always do your uncle’s dirty work?”
“Oh, no!” He sounded aghast. “I found the file and immediately knew it was very wrong, so I took a copy. He has no idea.”
A copy. Not the original. Of course, in this electronic day and age, there was really no such thing. Stupid. It was so stupid to pose for those pictures!
“Plus I care about Sam, and about my Uncle Jacob.” Sighing deeply, Robbie rubbed delicately at his eyes. Was the man on the verge of tears? “I want the two of them to get along. If Uncle Jacob does this, that’ll be the end of it, the whole thing will blow up in his face and Sam will never forgive him. He’d choose you, as he should.”
She didn’t know how true that was…he hadn’t even known her a few weeks ago. But thinking about it, she began to suspect Robbie could be right. Sam cared about her. He hadn’t said the words, but she knew he was falling in love with her, as she was with him. Considering how tenuous the father-son relationship had been lately, she wasn’t entirely sure it could survive a major blow.
“You really believe that?”
“I do. The last time they had a falling out, Sam walked out without saying a word. He just completely cut off communication.”
“How screwed up is this man that he’d risk that happening again, not to mention risk destroying my life, just to get his adult son to do what he wants?”
“He’s not all that bad…”
“Save it,” she snapped.
Robbie hurried on. “I meant, he does only want what’s best for his son, and he loves him. But Sam isn’t going to forgive this one.”
Not if he found out about it, he wouldn’t.
“I just thought if you knew about it, you could, I don’t know, agree to let the pictures and the story be published, then Uncle Jacob wouldn’t have anything to hold over you. And maybe we could keep this whole blackmail thing a secret between us, so Sam never has to even know his father was behind it.”
“No way,” she insisted, feeling queasy at the very idea. “Letting them be published is not an option.”
Neither was lying to Sam.
She stared at the headline again, shaking her head in confusion, trying to make sense of this plot. It just seemed beneath the Jacob Kenneman she’d met—desperate, cruel and vindictive, not to mention stupid. Didn’t he know his son well enough to know it could backfire? Okay, so he didn’t know her, he didn’t know how she would react and might think she really would slink away with her tail between her legs. But hadn’t he at least considered the possibility that she’d tell Sam? Or that Sam would figure out where the awful story had come from? Those were far more likely scenarios.
And another thing, had he even given a moment’s thought to what would happen to his own son if this muck was published? If the paparazzi got involved, and started hunting for her, they’d link her to Sam, who was a celebrity in his own right. The prodigal Kenneman son would be linked with the scandalous daughter of a convicted con artist. Could Jacob want his own way badly enough to risk that? It defied logic.
Robbie shook his head, looking mournful, then finally said, “Well, at least you know now and you can do what you have to in order to protect yourself. For what it’s worth, I do understand why you’d want to tell Sam about this. If Sam chooses to walk away from his father for good, then so be it.”
That was a pretty quick segue from saying she should agree to let the pictures go public, but she let it pass, focused only on what to do.
Part of her thought Jacob Kenneman deserved what he got. Another part—the part that longed for Sam to have the loving relationship with his father that he had obviously been missing—couldn’t help wishing she’d never answered the door. She knew what it felt like to cut someone out of your life completely: Not good. Sam had come close in recent years. This might be the straw that broke his back. She hated like hell that she might be the catalyst that could force the issue once and for all.
“I should go,” Robbie said, rising to his feet, still clutching the manila envelope.
“May I have that?”
“I really should put it back where I found it,” he insisted, holding the envelope to his chest. Then, reluctantly, he pushed it toward her. “But all right. Please, whatever you do, don’t tell Sam where you got it. Say it was delivered anonymously or something. Uncle Jacob would fire me if he knew I’d brought this to you and when Sam confronts him, he’s bound to let it slip.”
She gritted her teeth, disliking Sam’s father more and more.
“Besides, I hate to get dragged into the middle of it between those two. Been there, done that enough for one lifetime.”
She imagined he had, being the “good” one who, because he was a nephew, not a son, was never quite “good enough.” What a sad situation to be in.
She escorted him to the door.
“Eve, I am sorry this had to happen. And even though Sam will cut himself off from his father after you tell him about this, he and I have always been close and I hope you know you can consider me a friend.”
Taking his hand, she shook it and said, “I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do, Robbie, but I appreciate the warning.”
He tilted his head in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I don’t know that I’m going to even tell Sam.”
“Not tell him?” he asked, sounding—and looking—shocked.
If she could find a way to deal with this without Sam losing his relationship with his father, she’d much rather do that. She wouldn’t lie to him if he asked, obviously. Still, maybe she could talk to his father, reason with him, make him see that Sam would never bow to blatant manipulation. She could point out the potential damage to his own family name and ask him to shred the documents and forget the whole thing.
It might be worth a try, anyway.
“You…you mean, you’re going to let Uncle Jacob get away with blackmailing you?” Robbie sputtered.
“I didn’t say that. But I can’t be the cause of the complete destruction of Sam’s relationship with his father. I don’t want that for Sam, and I don’t want the weight of it on my shoulders.”
Jacob might have had bad intentions and the article in that envelope may have been intended to mess with her life, but so far, Sam’s father hadn’t done anything with it. If Robbie hadn’t found it and brought it to her, Mr. Kenneman might have had a change of heart and torn it up. So could she really blow Sam’s family out of the sky based on something that might never have happened?
Robbie’s mouth opened, then closed and he stared at her, visibly shaken. Had he really expected her to just react with indignation and run screaming to Sam without thinking about how it might affect him and his family? She couldn’t say she much cared about
what happened to Jacob Kenneman right now, but she did care about Sam. She didn’t want to see the hurt in his eyes when he found out the truth about his father. Or to hear the grief and anger in his voice as he reacted to the fallout that would come afterward. Sam’s sister was heavily pregnant, and if Sam and his father dove straight into World War III, the rest of the family would get pulled into it. No pregnant woman—or new mother—needed to deal with something like that.
She needed to think about this. A lot. And she needed to be alone to do it.
“Thanks again Robbie, I really have to be going,” she said as she began to gently close the door.
He lifted a hand, as if to stop her, then, with a resigned shake of his head, turned and walked away.
Once he was gone, Eve sat down, glancing again through the photos and the article. Her shock and fury had given way to concern and hurt. Right now, she was torn between wanting to burst into tears or smack Jacob Kenneman right across the face. While he hadn’t done anything—yet—he deserved it for ever having pulled together this smear piece.
“But you don’t deserve it, Sam,” she mumbled.
He didn’t deserve to be blindsided, not until she’d had a chance to think about it…and to determine if there was anything she could do to fix this. Maybe if Sam’s father really accepted that his son was happy with his life he would back off. At the very least, if Eve went home—alone—maybe the older man would wonder what she was up to and not do anything else right now, giving her time to deal with the situation.
She and Sam had started something so quickly, they’d both been taken by surprise. She didn’t regret it, but she couldn’t deny the timing wasn’t fabulous for Sam. He and his father had seemed to be on the path to reconciliation…and now this.
The whole thing was beyond confusing, but the longer she sat in the quiet living room, the more she realized she needed to get away and think things over before she even saw Sam again. If he walked through the door and laid eyes on her, he’d know right away that something was wrong. As much as it pained her to give up their plans for this weekend, she knew she had to get out of here before he got back. She could drive home to her own place, telling him she needed a few days to get settled back into her normal life, then figure out this whole mess.
It wasn’t that she needed to decide whether Sam was worth the potential media exposure and implosion of her nice life. He was.
She just needed to think about whether she was worth the fallout to him.
Her decision made, she glanced at the clock and realized he’d be home in another hour. Moving quickly through the apartment, she jotted a note, which she left on the coffee table. In it, she wrote that she had to go back sooner than she’d expected and would be busy until the following weekend, but hoped he’d give her a call in a couple of days. She stuck the article and the photos back into the envelope and put it into her purse, reluctant to even consider all the trouble it could bring into her life.
Gathering her things, she shoved them into her suitcase, and dragged it to the door. Quigley had been stalking her around the apartment, watching from the windowsill while she mused, and from under the bed while she packed. Now, as she neared the door, he drew close—closer than he ever had voluntarily. Before she could decide whether he was going to come at her with claws out, he was rubbing against her ankles, twining between her feet.
“Are you trying to trip me or saying you don’t want me to go?” she asked, shocked.
He meowed, then actually purred.
Smiling, Eve squatted down and scratched the persnickety beast between his ears, petting him for a few moments. “I’ll miss you, too,” she told him, meaning it. “You look after Sam, okay?”
As if he’d reached his quota of niceness, the animal flounced away and scooched under the couch, his tail flicking in her direction as if reminding her she’d been dismissed. Still, Eve couldn’t prevent a triumphant smile from tugging at her lips. Okay, there were still obstacles to overcome. Sam’s father was on the verge of doing something horrible and Eve had to figure out how to save her reputation, her job…and her wonderful new romance. But having won-over that hell-beast seemed like one of the biggest obstacles she’d ever surmounted.
Everything else would work out. She just knew it.
Stopping at the store on the way home from work, Sam grabbed a bottle of champagne and a dozen roses. No, they wouldn’t be able to break open the bubbly until after they drove out to Eve’s home. And no, he wasn’t exactly celebrating the fact that she was moving out of his place when he had decided he really liked having her there. But he wanted her to know he still wanted her, wanted them, whether she lived in his apartment or seventy miles away.
When he got home and walked inside, he called, “Eve, I’m home.”
He got nothing but a plaintive meow in return.
Quigley walked over, his head down, and rubbed himself against Sam’s leg. He’d swear if a cat could sigh, this one just had.
“What’s wrong, big guy?” he asked, bending down for a scratch. “You in trouble?”
Rising again, he shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it on the chair, wondering why Eve hadn’t come out to say hello.
Then he noticed something. Her purse wasn’t on the table where she usually left it.
Something else was.
“What the hell?” he muttered, spying a layer of pages spread over the flat surface.
Stepping closer, and seeing pictures he recognized—along with a salacious headline about Eve—he muttered an obscenity.
It didn’t take long to read over the smear piece and by the time he was finished, the article mock-up was crumpled in his fisted hand. He wanted to hit someone, to punish whoever had done this. He had no doubt Eve had seen this, had been hurt by it. Had, he suspected, fled because of it.
A quick walk around the apartment confirmed that suspicion. She was gone. Her things no longer hung beside his in the closet, her suitcase was missing, his toothbrush stood alone on the bathroom counter.
He went back to the living room, looking for a note. Nothing. Checking his phones for a message produced the same result. So obviously she was so wounded by this personal attack, she had run out of here, thinking only to get away and lick her wounds.
There was only one person he could think of who could be responsible for this.
His father.
He had the access to the files at His World, and certainly had detectives and researchers who could have dug up the dirt. Why on earth his father would do it, though, was completely beyond him…unless it was just mere impulse, a mini fit to get Sam’s attention, like when he’d bought His World.
“Or blackmail?” he whispered out loud. His father had never interfered in Sam’s love life before, but had he decided he needed to step in and “protect” Sam from a woman with Eve’s shady past? Did the Kenneman name mean so much to him that he’d drive away someone Sam was crazy about?
It was a definite possibility. But there was another possibility as well. That it might all be directed at Sam. His father hadn’t gotten what he wanted by cajoling or verbal threats, so he’d targeted the woman Sam had fallen in love with, hoping to get her to change Sam’s mind about taking over the magazine.
One thing was sure, whatever the reason, all that really mattered was the act. And that act had hurt the woman he loved. Badly.
“Oh, God, Eve, I’m so sorry,” he mumbled, sinking onto the couch to think.
He wished she’d stuck around to talk to him, but obviously she couldn’t even stand to look at him right now. Hell, he didn’t blame her. She had to be wondering if she’d escaped one damaging, patriarchal relationship only to land in another one.
“Jesus, what a screwed up family we are.”
He hoped she just needed a time-out and that she hadn’t decided he wasn’t worth the hassle.
What if she was gone for good? What if she’d decided she didn’t want to be involved with someone who came from such a dysfunctional family? Of
course, she was, too, so maybe that’s why this had hit her harder. She may have decided she just couldn’t handle any extra baggage.
Whatever the case, he knew he had to give her time to think, time to figure out what she wanted. She would be in touch sooner or later.
Maybe that would give him time to figure out what to do, too. Time to decide which was worse: loving her and bringing her back around his manipulative, crazy father who’d blackmailed and hurt her?
Or letting her go.
Chapter 13
“If you get into a big fight, for heaven’s sake, don’t go after her! Let her come to you and apologize.” – from 101 Ways To Avoid Commitment
The next few days were among the worst in Eve’s adult life. She couldn’t remember being this miserable since her father had first been arrested and she’d realized just what kind of man had raised her.
Could she even consider putting Sam through that same kind of agony? It was already bad enough that he knew his father had played around as a young married man. But this…well, Jacob Kenneman had stepped into Sam’s personal life in a big way and Sam wasn’t going to get over that very easily if he found out.
Whether he’d found out, she didn’t know. Because he hadn’t called her.
She had reached for the phone to call him a dozen times since leaving Friday. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to keep the pain out of her voice if she spoke to him, however, she’d resisted the impulse. In her note, she’d asked him to contact her in a few days, and she felt sure he would.
“But it’s been a few days,” she reminded herself out loud Monday evening as she made herself a salad for dinner.
Three days had gone by and there had been no call, no messages from Sam. She’d even checked her caller ID on her cell and home phones, wondering if he’d tried to reach her but hadn’t left a voice mail. Nope.
The pessimist inside her, who was used to being disappointed, tried to whisper that he wasn’t going to call, that it had been a fling and he was happy she was gone. That the blackmail scheme hadn’t mattered, in the end, because Sam simply hadn’t cared about her the way she had him.