Tempted by the Billionaire: A Hometown Hero Series Novel

by Connelly, Clare

  He didn’t dare look at her. He couldn’t. He knew that if she saw his own indecision, it would make her want to argue to decision. As though he had a choice. “Indefinitely.”

  “Indefinitely?” She was trapped in his car, with country California speeding past her window. “What? What are you talking about? Why?”

  He closed his eyes briefly, then looked back at the road. A farm, dotted with cows, was to their left. “I’m taking up the chairperson position at McCain Industries.”

  Just like that. He was taking up a chairperson position. He wasn’t talking to her about it. Asking her what she thought. He was letting her know that he’d made this decision. She swallowed, but her throat felt lined with razor blades. “You are?”

  “Yeah.”

  Willow opened her mouth and then closed it again. He had no obligation to her. He’d never made her any kind of promise. But… she shook her head from side to side. “This seems kind of sudden.”

  Matt swallowed. “I should have told you sooner. I just didn’t want to ruin the time we had.”

  “You didn’t want to…” She closed her eyes and pressed back in the seat. A wave of heat and then ice cold doused her. “You didn’t want to ruin the time we had.”

  “I didn’t want to hurt you.” Matt groaned inwardly. He knew how trite he sounded.

  She glared at him angrily. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt me,” she retorted fiercely. “And I believed you.”

  Guilt lanced through him. “I’m sorry, Willow. I had no idea this would get serious. I thought we’d have some fun and then…”

  Willow felt nausea bubbling inside her. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

  “I don’t mean that this was just fun for me. I care about you…”

  It was going from bad to worse, for both of them. Matt was struck with the insufficiency of what he was saying, just as Willow was left to feel completely demoralised by his characterisation of what they’d shared.

  She spun in her seat, so that she could face him properly. “I can’t believe you’re just telling me this now.”

  He gripped the steering wheel tighter. “I know. I tried to tell you sooner. I wanted to. But we were having so much fun, and I knew you’d…”

  “You knew right. Of course it would have changed everything. As it should have,” she interrupted. “I just can’t believe you’re dumping me.”

  Matt felt as though he’d been shot. No, he felt worse. For he’d been shot, and he’d been able to handle that. This was worse. A hole seemed to gape in his gut, but he was powerless to close it. His future was in New York. He owed it to his dad to reach out for that future with both hands.

  “I’m not dumping you. I’m leaving Haymarket Bay. This isn’t about us. If you would consider moving to Manhattan, then I would very much like to keep seeing you.”

  “Oh my God.” She squeezed a fist around the door handle. “You have to be kidding me.” The pain and disbelief in her voice was a tipping point for him.

  “Willow,” his voice was raw with emotion. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I met you now, and not years ago. I’m sorry that I have a commitment in New York I simply can’t ignore. I’m sorry that I spent the last two weeks knowing I would have to leave you, but not telling you that because I just wanted to keep feeling your happiness.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “You’re just like Ashton. A liar. An arrogant pig convinced you know what’s better for me than I do.”

  The insult cut him to the quick. “I have been trying to spare you from this. I didn’t want you to feel what I’ve been feeling, damn it.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “And just how have you been feeling?”

  “Impotent.”

  “Impotent,” she repeated angrily. It was a ridiculous word to describe this man, who was strong and powerful and able to have and do anything he wanted.

  “Yes.” He reached out and looped his fingers over hers. “Do you remember that night we went to the beach and saw the mermaids swimming in the moonlight?”

  She closed her eyes. It had been one of the best moments in her life.

  “I was watching those dolphins, thinking how stunning they were, but I was also partly miserable, because I knew that I had exactly eight nights left with you. Every minute we spent together was one minute less we had. I had to suffer through two perfect weeks knowing they wouldn’t last.” He squeezed her hands tighter. “I didn’t want you to feel that too. I tried to tell you that night, but then I just felt… like it would cause you unnecessary pain. And ruin everything.”

  His logic was only partially sound. Willow’s mouth was dry. “But if I’d known I wouldn’t have…” She closed her eyes. She wouldn’t have fallen in love with him? Could she have controlled that?

  “You wouldn’t have what?”

  Nausea again tided through her body. “Pull over,” she shouted angrily, one hand on the door handle.

  He swerved the car off the road, and Willow leaped out, bending at the waist and heaving, until her lunch had left her body, and the nausea had dissipated. She was left feeling clammy and hot, and she sagged her weight against the car. Matt, who had jumped out almost as swiftly as Willow, stood beside her, rigid and apparently emotionless.

  He wanted to touch her, but he knew, instinctively, that it would make everything so much worse. “Willow, my dad was my hero. You know that. You know how much he meant to me. I would do anything to make him proud. He would want me to take up his role in the family business. He did want it. I can’t ignore that. Not for anyone. No matter how I feel. Do you see that? This is my obligation, and I’m happy to do it for my dad. I have to do it.”

  She closed her eyes, because she understood. It was a duty that went beyond anything he could feel to her.

  “Okay.” She shrugged. Her heart was breaking, but she managed to appear outwardly calm. “I get it.”

  His lips were a grim slash in his handsome face. “I meant what I said. I would love you to come to New York. I don’t want this to be over.”

  Willow wanted to tell him that she would. But she’d learned her lesson the hard way. Relationships that were all on one person’s terms were not relationships; they were dictatorships. And she wouldn’t be a party to one. What they’d shared had been real. She was better remembering it as two incredible weeks, rather than letting it become something she would eventually regret.

  “New York’s not for me,” she responded quietly. “Let’s call this what it is.” Oh, the feeling of her heart being splintered into thousands of tiny pieces. How it ached.

  “And what’s that?”

  “Over.” The word sounded bleak against the warm, sun-dipped afternoon.

  “Over?” Anger, hot and undeniable, speared his soul. He glared at her, not sure if he wanted to kiss her or shout at her. He did neither. An expert in handling his emotions, he reached for the door and opened the car. Willow slid into her seat without meeting his eyes. That hurt almost more than anything else.

  He sat beside her, and continued the drive back to Haymarket Bay surrounded by a stony, understandable silence.

  A few miles before the turn off to the coastal road, Willow gripped the door handle once more. “Stop the car.”

  He swerved off the road, cutting the engine as Willow again leaped from the Dodge.

  Only this time, she wasn’t sick. He watched as her slender frame walked along the edge of the road, to a clearing in the waist high maize crop.

  With a guttural sound of impatience, he jumped down and strode after her. “What is it?”

  “Look!” She pointed through the clearing, her face pale, her dark eyes shining.

  Like the night she’d spotted dolphins in the ocean, she was looking far away from him. He followed her finger. Corn spread for hectares, with an army of five scarecrows marking the fields. Dressed in a motley assortment of clothes, some with hats, others with shirts, they stood like beacons, to ward off unwanted pests. In the far distances, there was a derelict looking farmhouse. H
e would have thought it deserted, were it not for the glow of light coming from an upstairs bedroom.

  “What is it?” He repeated quietly, unable to resist stealing a lingering look at this woman. Her hair was out; he’d been running his fingers through it during their picnic, and it was dishevelled about her shoulders. Her dress, cream and loose, showed off her bronze tan perfectly. Her feet were still bare, from when she’d slipped her ballet slippers off to walk over the shallow rocks of a running stream.

  “Look!” She pointed impatiently at the nearest scarecrow.

  He compressed his lips as he exhaled, trying to fathom what she found so interesting about the poorly assembled warden. This one had a black bowtie and pale green covering on its strawy head.

  “That’s a green beanie, right?”

  He looked at her with a complete lack of comprehension. “I guess so?”

  “And that one?” She waved her hand towards the final scarecrow. “That looks a pink pyjama top?”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged. “Willow, what’s going on?”

  “Matt, I’m telling you, these are her clothes.”

  “Whose clothes?” He asked with a shake of his head.

  “Annabeth Stott’s. That’s what she was wearing the night she disappeared! Bright pink pyjamas and a green beanie her grandmother had knitted.”

  Matt looked at Willow as though she were flirting with insanity, then turned his attention back towards the house. “It’s highly unlikely. For a start, we’re only an hour out of Haymarket Bay. Why would someone take her, but not take her far?”

  “I’m telling you, Matt, this is big.”

  He put an arm around her waist, beseeching her to be reasonable. “And even if this person did take her, why would they advertise it, by putting her clothes up for all the world to see?”

  “All the world?” She responded impatiently, stepping out of his arms, and brushing her hands over her body as if to erase the contact. “This is a track road. Probably used a few times a week. And I only know about the clothes because of Isaac.” Her cheeks pinkened as excitement tingled through her. “Call him, Matt. I’m going to the house.”

  He swore softly. “Like hell you are, Willow St Clare.”

  “You gonna stop me?” She challenged, setting her jaw to a mutinous angle.

  God, he felt… he felt so much for her. He shook his head with frustration. “We’ll go together. Get in the car.”

  She eyed him dubiously. “You’re not going to drive off?”

  “No, Willow. I’m going to show you how wrong you are, and then apologise to this poor, innocent corn farmer. Get in.”

  She wanted to shove him, for his arrogant confidence, but she didn’t. She was too alive with adrenalin. Her whole body seemed to buzz with the certainty that she was about to find the missing girl. She swung up in to the car and stared straight ahead.

  Matt flared the engine to life, then nudged the car further along the road. A quarter mile up the road was a turn off to the farm. He took it, not hesitating to think about the right or wrongness of what he was doing. Perhaps it was Willow’s enthusiasm that had rubbed off on him. Somehow, he just knew he had to pursue the path she’d laid out.

  As they approached the house, which was fenced by wire, Willow’s sense of certainty increased.

  “Let me handle this,” he said firmly, as he parked the car under a tree and looked at the house thoughtfully. It certainly had a sinister, disused air to it. Faded paint, dead flowers and a broken window; it was hard to believe anyone actually lived there.

  He stepped out of the car, and shot Willow a warning look when he realised she was following right behind him. “I mean it. Let me speak.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, sir,” she answered with mock meekness.

  As they approached the house, a blind flicked, showing that someone was inside; and that same someone had registered their arrival.

  “What are you going to say?” Willow asked, linking her hand with his, despite the argument they’d just had.

  He arched a brow at her. “Most likely, I’m going to apologise for unnecessarily disturbing this person’s afternoon.”

  She ground her teeth together but didn’t let go of his hand.

  He knocked on the door three times, and took a step backwards, waiting for someone to answer.

  “Yes?” A woman, in her forties or early fifties, peered through a small crack of the door.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, my wife and I are a little lost. Would you mind giving us some directions?”

  And though she knew he was saying what was necessary to prove Willow’s suspicions wrong, her heart turned over when he referred to her as his wife.

  “Where you trying to get to?” She asked after the briefest pause.

  “The Haymarket Bed and Breakfast,” Matt responded without missing a beat.

  “The Haymarket B and B?” The woman frowned.

  “Yeah, we’re on our honeymoon,” Matt said with a smile. Something about the woman’s closed door in his face was raising his own instinctive suspicion. “In fact, my wife’s pregnant. And she’s not feeling so great. I don’t suppose we could trouble you for a cup of tea while I check my maps?”

  The woman was quiet for longer than was normal, but then, finally, she opened the door.

  It was the furtive look over her shoulder that did it.

  Something in that look communicated to Willow and Matt that this woman was keeping a secret. He tried not to jump to conclusions. It could be something reasonably innocuous. Not paying her taxes. Cheating on her husband.

  Matt’s smile was all easy charm. “Thanks so much. Do you have kids?”

  The woman blanched as though she’d been hit. “A daughter,” she said, the defensive note impossible to miss.

  “So you know what pregnancy’s like,” Matt continued, though he squeezed Willow’s hand in a silent communication.

  “Oh, honey,” he turned to look at Willow, his blue eyes wary. “Would you mind getting my phone out of my car? I’ve got the address in there. I must have left it after I called Isaac.”

  She nodded. His meaning was clear. Whether it turned out to be a false alarm or not, something was going on here. Giving Isaac a heads up wouldn’t hurt.

  She sent a smile at the older woman, surprising Matt with how calm she seemed in the tense situation. She moved to the car quickly and pulled his cell from the centre console. She knew Ike’s number by heart and she dialled it with fingers that weren’t quite steady.

  It took her only a minute to give him their location and relay what had sparked her interest. Isaac implored her to leave the house, but Willow wasn’t going anywhere without Matt. And Matt… well, she wasn’t sure. She disconnected the call and slipped the phone into her pocket.

  She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to see when she entered the farmhouse. A small part of her had actually been afraid for Matt’s life. She certainly hadn’t banked on him being comfortably ensconced in the kitchen, one ankle crossed over his knee, as he chatted to the woman about corn crops. Spread on the table before him was a creased, old map of the area.

  “So you’ve been here a while then?”

  “All my life,” she answered, her tone gruff.

  A sound from outside the house called their attention.

  “My daughter,” the woman responded, but her air of panic was unmistakable.

  “How old is she?” Willow asked, surprised that she sounded so calm when her heart was running like a jackhammer.

  “Five in September.” Again, the note of defiance was apparent.

  Willow didn’t dare look at Matt, but the surety that her instinct was right got greater and greater. Isaac was on his way. All they had to do was keep the woman talking.

  Only the woman had other ideas. “I’ve got some place to be,” she snarled out of nowhere, a fine bead of perspiration on her forehead. “You got what you needed?”

  Matt stood up, for all the world looking relaxed and at ease. “Yeah. Than
ks for your time, ma’am.” He put a hand under Willow’s elbow and squeezed it. “You feeling better, darling?”

  She looked up at him, wanting to fight. Wanting to stay. But his look silenced her. She threw a tight smile at their reluctant host, and stepped towards the door. “A few moment’s rest has been perfect. Thanks for letting us intrude.”

  She was silent until they were in the car. The curtain twitched, and Matt sent her a look. “I think you’re on to something here, Miss St Clare.”

  “Damned right I am.” She looked at the house again, and thought of Annabeth Stott’s young face. “Matt, I’m going back.”

  “No, you’re not. Listen, Willow. I’m not going anywhere. Just pretend you’re looking for a radio station. Ike will be here soon.”

  “Damn it, she could kill her! Think about what you’d do if it was your child. Or someone you loved.” She pushed the door open and stepped back onto the gravelled path. “The noise came from the back of the house. I need to just check.”

  He swore, but opened his own door. “You’re trouble, Willow, d’you know that?”

  “So we get a trespassing conviction. It’s worth it.” She jogged around the house, neatly skirting the wire fence. A dog barked ferociously, but Willow didn’t stop. No guard dog was scarier than the crime-laden streets of Chicago.

  Behind the farmhouse was a small, ugly looking swimming pool. The water was so dirty it was a pale brown, with a film on top of it. But that didn’t seem to be bothering the child splashing in the middle.

  Her hair was fair, like Annabeth’s, but far shorter. Hers was, in fact, cut into a boy style. Willow looked at her, and a frisson of understanding ran the length of her spine. Matt caught up with her, and followed her gaze.

  “Annabeth!” He called, and the girl looked sharply towards them.

  They both knew.

  The back door of the farmhouse flew open and the woman they’d met inside began to hastily run towards the pool.

  “Come here, honey, we’re going to take you to your mommy,” Willow said. She looked at Matt, her face terrified, as the older woman’s demeanour became increasingly frantic.