by Lily Everett
“Whatever you need the money for, I can cover it,” Cooper said.
Vivian went still. She didn’t want to offend Cooper, and she could tell it meant something to him that he’d pulled himself up by his bootstraps into the financial stratosphere, and that he could afford to buy her anything she wanted. But at the same time, she didn’t want to set a precedent she wouldn’t be able to live with.
“That’s sweet of you,” she told him sincerely. “I truly appreciate the thought. But it’s important to me to be independent.”
Cooper frowned. “You always shared whatever you had with all your friends at school—buying rounds of drinks, picking up the tab for lunch. What’s the big deal about me helping you out now?”
“I don’t want to owe you anything.” Vivian’s fingers cramped, and she realized she was clutching the metal-handled scraper too tightly. Uncurling her fist, she set it gently down on the railing.
“I’m not going to collect on you,” Cooper protested, starting to get frustrated. Worse than the irritation, though, was the hurt Vivian could see lurking in his hazel eyes. “What do you think, I’m going to take it out of your hide? If you insist on it being a loan, that’s fine—I know you’re good for it, since I already cut you a check.”
“That’s different! I’m earning that money by renovating and selling you the cabin, which you will then own free and clear. It’s straightforward, simple, clean. I can live with that.”
Something flashed across Cooper’s face too quickly for her to read it, and when he opened his mouth, she held up a hand. She was determined to get this out on the table between them. Any future they might have depended on being up front about this.
“What I can’t live with,” Vivian said, “is another man thinking he owns me because I don’t have the means to make my own way in the world.”
Cooper’s mouth shut with a snap, the muscle behind his jaw ticking for a second before he rounded the sawhorses and stalked across the yard toward her. When he was close enough to touch her, he leaned his arms on the railing she’d been scraping and stared up at her. His voice was low and serious when he told her, “I would never think that.”
Softening a little, Vivian leaned over the railing to hug his shoulders. Cooper rested his forehead between her breasts, his breath hot through the waffle print of her thermal shirt. “I know, Cooper. I promise, I’m not confusing you with my ex-husband. But money … it changes people. It changes relationships. And if we want this one to work, we have to be honest about how we’re feeling about all the issues that crop up. Money is only one of them, but it’s a big one for me.”
Vivian held her breath a little, the way she had every time she’d mentioned the possibility of a future together over the past two weeks, and once again, Cooper didn’t disappoint her. He tilted his head up and reached over the railing to wrap his thick, muscular arms around her hips. “You’re right. We should talk. There’s something I have to tell you.”
From the guilty glint in his hazel eyes, Vivian had a sinking feeling that she wasn’t going to like it. The buzz of the phone in her pocket felt like a reprieve.
“Hold that thought.” She straightened up and fished out the phone. “It’s the title office! I have to take this.”
Cooper’s eyes went wide and he shook his head, making a grab for the phone, but the woman on the other end of the line was already speaking. Viv swatted at him and turned away, tuning out Cooper’s antics and trying to focus on what Janine was saying.
“I was surprised to get your email.” Janine’s nasal voice filtered through the phone speaker. “Seeing as how the paperwork was signed on Monday. A representative for Mr. Cooper Hayes took care of it.”
“Oh. He didn’t tell me.” Vivian glanced over her shoulder at Cooper, who grimaced and palmed the back of his neck.
“Well, it hasn’t been processed yet, but everything is in order,” Janine said briskly. “A copy of the deed was overnighted to you, I’m surprised it hasn’t arrived yet.”
“Island mail service can be a little unreliable,” Vivian said absently, her brain working overtime. “What do you mean, the deed was overnighted to me? Shouldn’t you have sent it to Mr. Hayes’s attention?”
“What?” Janine sounded confused. She wasn’t the only one. “We’re talking about the property at forty-two hundred Lantern Lane, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Whew! For a second, I was worried I’d sent your deed to the wrong address. What a mess that would have been.”
“You mean Mr. Hayes’s deed,” Vivian corrected her, heart fluttering in her ribcage like a wild bird trying to get free.
“Hmmm. Nope, no, I’ve got a copy of the paperwork right here. The property at Lantern Lake is in your name, Ms. Banks. Mr. Hayes signed a quit claim and transferred the property to you on the same day that he became the owner.”
* * *
The instant Vivian dropped the phone from her ear and clicked it off, Cooper was vaulting up the porch steps and rushing to her. “I can explain.”
“You put the house in my name,” Vivian said blankly. “You paid me five times what it’s worth, and you didn’t even want it for yourself?”
“I got what I wanted.” Cooper reached out, and felt his entire body unclench when Vivian didn’t pull away. “More time with you. A second chance. That was worth a hundred times the amount I paid for the house. A thousand.”
But Vivian was shaking her head. “Cooper, you can’t—you can’t just give me this house. It’s not what we agreed. I mean, thank you. I know you meant well, but…”
“You love this house!” Cooper knuckled under her chin, lifting it to get a look at her eyes. They were damp and wide, conflict darkening the irises to deep violet. “I knew from the first night, when we drove over the hill and you looked down at the property. This is your dream house. Or it will be, with a little more hard work and a lot of love. Don’t be mad at me.”
Her mouth twisted. “Of course I’m not mad. You’re right, I love this house. It’s beautiful, the lake renews my soul every time I look at it, I have friends on the island, and this house is where you and I reconnected—but I can’t let you give it to me.”
Cooper’s heart froze, ice prickling at the inside of his chest. For a horrible moment, it felt like she wasn’t rejecting the house. She was rejecting him, and everything he could offer her. “Vivian. I want you to have it.”
Something like sympathy lightened her gaze for a moment before she firmed her mouth and shook her head regretfully. “I know. But I can’t accept it. And I’ll tell you why, but you’re going to wish I hadn’t. It’s not a pretty story.”
Cooper framed her face between his hands, a frown tugging at his brows. “You know you don’t always have to be pretty and sweet and perfect for me, right? I don’t have some standard in my mind that I’m always holding you up to. I want you exactly as you are. The real Vivian.”
Pain tightened the corners of her eyes. “Not everyone in my life has been so accepting, or so forgiving.”
Cooper swallowed down the simmering anger in his gut and led her down to sit on the porch steps. He pulled her in close to his side, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, and waited.
It took her a moment to speak, as if she were gathering her courage, and when the words finally came, they were halting and slow. “My parents sent me off to Gerald with nothing. No college degree, no money, and no way to earn any. I was supposed to be his entrée into high society, the visible and tangible proof of my parents’ support so the three of them could fleece the wealthiest people in their circle. But I didn’t know that at the time.”
She paused, ducking her head to her raised knees, and Cooper wound his fingers into her tousled black hair, aching for her. “You don’t have to tell me this. I’ll take the house back. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Thanks.” Vivian shuddered once, then raised her face to his. Her eyes were red, but dry. “But I think I do have to tell you. What happened back then�
�if I let it be a secret, then it will become a wall between us. And I don’t want anything to separate us, not ever again.”
The passion in her voice reached deep into Cooper’s chest and stirred an answering hunger. Not just for her body, but for her spirit and her heart, and for every moment of their lives that they would still get to spend together. He could only be grateful that she was strong enough to remove this last obstacle.
“Back then,” she continued, steadier now. “I was a mess. I’d left the love of my life behind without a word, and now I was supposed to be someone else’s wife. Gerald was—well, he was a businessman, first and foremost. He was very clear about his expectations for me. I was to be beautiful, to maintain my weight and fitness level, to wear the clothes he bought for me, and to smile at every dinner party, every charity benefit, every afternoon tea at the club. And I was to keep my mouth shut, or there would be consequences.”
“What consequences?” Cooper heard the growl in his own voice, but he couldn’t tamp it down.
Vivian closed her eyes briefly. “You have to understand, Gerald didn’t love me, and he knew I didn’t love him. He didn’t care—I was an asset, a prop in his con—but he knew he could use it. He knew I’d been told to do whatever he said, and I think it was clear to him that I was completely powerless. And he also knew that if I stepped a foot out of line, all he had to do to punish me was to demand his rights as a husband.”
Cooper felt himself turn to stone. His muscles locked down and his lungs seized up. He barely had the breath to wheeze, “What?”
“Gerald told me up front that he wouldn’t touch me,” Vivian said bluntly. “Unless I broke the rules. Believe me, I learned the rules by heart, and I followed them to the letter.”
“So he never…” Hope punched Cooper’s heart like a heavyweight champ going for the KO. It wasn’t as if he’d imagined that Vivian had never had sex with her husband. He’d assumed they did—but to find out that sex had been used against her like a weapon … it made Cooper’s skin crawl.
Vivian looked away, toward the lake. “Only a few times. It wasn’t—he wasn’t violent, or anything. It could have been much, much worse.”
Sickness rose like acid in the back of Cooper’s throat. “Oh, Viv. Don’t. What happened to you was bad enough. Don’t downplay it by playing what if.”
She shook herself as if she’d walked through a cobweb, short and frantic, then went on. “And when I was good, he bought me things. Lavish gifts, fur coats, a sailboat … why didn’t I get on that boat and sail away from him?”
Cooper, who’d been screaming that same question inside the locked box of his head, gritted out, “He kept you dependent on him. It sounds like he practically brainwashed you, Viv. Like some damned cult leader or something. He had you in his clutches, and he wasn’t about to let you go.”
She nodded. “That’s exactly how it was. I felt trapped. I was trapped, by my own inability to pick myself up and escape. There were no guards, no chains, nothing keeping me there. Why didn’t I leave?”
Finally, for the first time since they’d started this awful, heartrending conversation, Vivian broke. A sob clawed its way out of her throat and her shoulders hunched. Cooper’s heart tore right down the middle, jagged and nasty. He got both his arms around her and lifted her into his lap so they could press as tightly together as possible.
“You survived,” he told her fiercely, his mouth against the side of her head and her tears soaking his shirt. “That’s all that matters. You made it.”
“And I found my way back to you,” she choked out, her fingers clutching at his collar. “And miracle of miracles, you forgave me. Even though, by rights, you should hate me.”
The words struck him like a frying pan to the head. He had hated her, almost as much as he’d loved her. The things he’d planned to do, to hurt her the way she’d hurt him … “You told me once that you married Gerald because after you left me, you thought it didn’t matter what happened to you. But Vivian, it did matter. And no matter how angry I was when you left, or even how mad I still was ten years later—I would never, ever have wanted you to go through that.”
Vivian gave him a watery smile, swiping at her nose with her sleeve. “Well, I got through it, and now we’re together. All I want to do is forget about it and move on with my life. But you can see why a big, lavish gift from the man I’m involved with is a little bit of a trigger for me.”
“Yes, absolutely. I’ll take care of it.” Cooper made the promise without having to think about it. Now that he knew the whole story, most of his attention was on making the connections as the final pieces of the puzzle slotted into place. “You paid back Gerald’s investors…”
“By selling off the boat, the furs, the jewels—all the gifts he’d given me. The government repossessed the house and property, everything that was in his name, when Gerald fled the country. But the gifts were mine, so I used them to pay back Gerald’s other victims.” She grimaced in disgust. “I wouldn’t have wanted to keep that crap anyway. Too many reminders.”
“So you ended up with nothing,” Cooper said slowly, a flame of rage kindling in his belly. “While Gerald basically got away scot free. And now he’s living the high life … where?”
“The Maldives, last I heard.” Vivian shrugged, and Cooper frowned. He couldn’t believe how casual she was about this. “No extradition to the United States, and a dollar goes a long way there. He can basically live like a king without lifting a finger for the rest of his miserable life.”
The injustice of it burned through Cooper’s insides. “We can’t let him get away with this. He’s a criminal, he should be brought to justice.”
After I have a short, sharp chat with him about the way a man should treat a woman like Vivian Banks.
But she was shaking her head decisively. “No, it’s over. Let Gerald spend his dirty money. It won’t make him happy. He’s a very unhappy, twisted person at heart and nothing can change that.”
“Maybe not, but I’d lay big odds on being able to make him even more unhappy.” Cooper bared his teeth, already making plans. “I can ask to borrow Miles’s helicopter—they get back from their honeymoon today, right?—and we’ll fly from here to the closest airport where we can charter a plane. Quick hop to the Maldives, I’ll grab Gerald, and we’ll have the whole flight back to the loving embrace of the criminal justice system to get a few things straight.”
Vivian stood up so quickly, she almost overbalanced. But when Cooper reached a hand to steady her, she stepped away from him, eyes wild. “No! Cooper, what are you saying? You can’t be serious.”
“Deadly serious.” Cooper stood too, the buildup of energy and emotion shoving him to his feet. “I’m not talking about assassinating him, much as I might like that. No, I’m just going to drag Gerald Findlay back to face trial for his crimes. It’s better than he deserves, but at least it’s something.”
“And what if I ask you not to go?” Vivian hugged her arms around her ribcage, her cheeks pale. “Please, Cooper. If you ever loved me, if you’ve truly forgiven me, put this idea out of your head.”
Cooper stopped and stared at her. This woman, who’d been wronged in so many ways, was still going to stand there and defend her villain of an ex-husband? She really was too good, too sweet—she needed to be protected. That feeling crashed into the guilt Cooper still carried for his own intent to punish her, and the fact that he hadn’t rescued her. The compulsion to move, to go, to get out of here and do something, overpowered him.
He shook his head, fists clenched and muscles jumping with tension. “No. I can’t let this go.”
Chapter Nine
Vivian felt cold all the way to her bones. Was it going to snow? Or maybe it was only that she stared at Cooper, standing on the Lantern Lake cabin’s porch steps mere inches away, and she’d never felt further from him.
“Please, Cooper. Don’t do this. I’m begging you.”
His lip curled. “You’re begging for the freedom o
f the man who essentially held you prisoner for years? He doesn’t deserve your loyalty, Vivian.”
A shockwave exploded through her. “I’m not loyal to him! I don’t care if he lives or dies. I’m begging for my freedom—from the past, from my memories and mistakes. What’s done is behind us. Can’t we leave it there and move forward?”
Cooper stepped off the stairs and began to pace along the front of the porch. “How can you move forward, knowing your parents and Gerald are out there, living the high life and not paying for what they did to you?”
“Because getting revenge is the last thing on my mind!” Vivian threw up her hands in frustration. “Honestly, I don’t have the energy to spare for it. I’ve got this house to renovate, my finances to straighten out, and the chance at real happiness with the long lost love of my life. Why would I want to spend a single second on the past, when the future looks so bright?”
Cooper scrubbed both hands over his short, buzzed hair. “I can’t get the image of him lying on some beach somewhere out of my head. It’s making me crazy.”
Frustration and disappointment made Vivian’s voice sharp. “Well, you’re certainly acting crazy! Charter a plane and fly to the Maldives. And for what! We’re here, we’re alive, we’re free, we’re together. If that’s not enough for you…”
The echo of her own words stopped her. Maybe it wasn’t enough for Cooper. Maybe she wasn’t enough.
“We’d be together either way,” Cooper argued. “Come with me, we’ll see this thing through together.”
Feeling as if she’d swallowed an ice cube, too big and too cold and hurting all the way down to her gut, Vivian shook her head. “If you’re determined to go galloping off on some revenge fantasy, leave me out of it. I spent too many years punishing myself for my mistakes instead of realizing that I still had a future. I can’t live like that anymore. I don’t want to, and I don’t have to. Not even if it’s the price for being with you.”