Corinne shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. Dylan reached out, wrapping his warm, secure arms around her and pulling her against his chest.
“He can’t hurt you, Cori. That was a long time ago.”
“He showed up a few times when I was on location for a photo shoot.”
Dylan jerked back, looking down at her. “What?”
“I think he wanted money. I never saw him. I simply told my agent and security that I had a stalker and under no circumstances should he be allowed near me, no matter who he claimed to be.”
Dylan’s whole body tensed against hers. “You mean you’ve been fighting this all by yourself?”
“I had security, Dylan. He never got to me.”
Dylan stepped back, raking a hand through his cropped hair and cursing. “Damn it, Cori, he could’ve. He killed your mother, for crying out loud. You think he’d be kind and gentle if he got to you?”
Corinne knew his anger stemmed from fear—she knew this because she’d felt the same rage and terror all at once at the hand of this monster whose blood ran through her.
“I wasn’t scared,” she lied. “I knew I had more ammunition to fight him with than he could throw back at me. He was a desperate man, and according to my security detail, he was never sober.”
And that hurt more than she liked to admit. He was never a father type seeking out his long-lost daughter. He was a waste and only wanted money.
Corinne swallowed the hurt, the years of pain. “I mean, the man killed his wife, my mother, and didn’t learn anything while he sat in prison for fifteen years? He gets out and falls back into the bottle? If he had shown a sign of being a better man, I would’ve met with him. I couldn’t forgive a man who kills a mother I never got the chance to know and I certainly wasn’t going to let him get near me.”
Dylan glanced down to the floor, then back up at her. “What about now? You’re back in town. Has he tried to contact you and you’ve kept it from me?”
“No,” she assured him. “He’s not a worry anymore.”
“Why is that?”
Corinne leveled her gaze. “He died a year ago.”
Dylan’s brows grew together. “How do you know?”
“I had someone keeping tabs on him. That was for my peace of mind. He had a heart attack. After all of that—the drinking, the fighting—he died all alone in his house of a heart attack.”
“The bastard deserved something more heinous.”
Corinne smiled. “On that we can definitely agree.”
A moment of silence settled between them. Dylan’s jaw clenched, and he propped his hands on his denim-clad hips. Corinne really didn’t know what to say now or how to handle his confusion, his inevitable questions or the love he so freely had given. Her heart swelled, held out hope.
She ran a shaky hand down her hair and slid it over her shoulder. “I never wanted you to know about that ugly side of me,” she told him. “I wanted to pretend Carl and Inez were my real parents. I mean, they are in every way that counts, but I just wanted you to think I came from good, honest people. In truth, I came from a woman who never got the chance to be a real mother and a father who was a monster.”
Tears pricked her eyes. She’d purposely tried not to think of her biological mother too much over the years. She didn’t want to know what she was missing and Inez had been very careful about not pushing the topic, even though she had been her sister.
“What else aren’t you telling me?” Dylan asked.
Corinne blinked the moisture away. “What?”
“You’re hiding something else. You wouldn’t be so afraid to tell me about your father unless there was something else.”
No. Absolutely not. She wasn’t going into that other layer of hell and she wasn’t going to pull him into it either.
“Let it go, Dylan.”
“Let it go?” he repeated, stepping closer, so close she had to tilt her head to look up at him. “Let go of the fact that you’re still afraid to trust me with the truth. Care to tell me why?”
She tried to turn, but his hand gripped her bicep and held her still.
“No. You’re not running. That’s all you do. You ran when there was trouble years ago, you ran out of my bed the first morning, you run to relieve stress. It’s been you’re life, Cori, and I’m damn tired of it.”
She jerked from his grasp. “You’re tired of it? Try living it, Dylan. Try being afraid to stay, to fight for what you want, because if you take that risk, more people you love could be hurt. It’s easier to run, to stay ahead of the trouble.”
The last word came out with a hiccup as tears were streaming down her cheeks. God, he had no clue as to the fear she lived in. The fear of her father actually getting to her, the fear of her father getting to Carl and Inez. The fear that Dylan and Evie would find out the truth.
How could she do anything but run?
“Maybe you forgot what I said earlier, Cori. I love you. That means unconditionally. There’s nothing you can tell me to make that disappear. I’ve loved you in one form or another nearly my entire life. And now that you’re back I want to make this work, but the trust can’t be one-sided.”
“I do trust you, Dylan.” This evening was not going how she wanted—how she’d expected, yes—but not how she wanted. “I trust you and I love you. God help me, I’ve tried to fight it, but I can’t.”
“But you don’t trust me enough.” His gaze leveled on hers. “Which means you don’t love me enough.”
And the last bit of hope died.
“Actually, it’s because I love you so much that I can’t reveal anything more.”
In an instant, Dylan’s eyes misted up. He drew in a ragged breath and nodded. “Then I think that pretty much brings us to a close. I can’t move forward with someone I love more than my next breath, all the while knowing she holds this heavy burden in her heart. And it’s not the fact you won’t tell me what is so damning, it’s the fact that you insist on keeping everything to yourself, always trying to be the hero. Let someone else be your hero, Cori.”
He turned, marched out the back door and headed toward the beach. The screen door slammed, causing her to jump.
If only he could see that he was her hero, her everything.
But now he was gone.
Dylan walked as far as his shaky legs could take him and plopped down right in the middle of the warm sand. The night was just starting to settle in and this was always the time of night he found most comforting, most soothing.
Unfortunately this night was anything but comforting or soothing.
After Cori’s bombshell about her biological father and mother, and because of the secret she still kept hidden, he was beginning to wonder if he knew this woman at all. Oh, he knew superficial stuff like her favorite food, how amazing she was in the kitchen, the way she felt beneath his body.
But after all this time, he’d never been able to uncover those many layers that made up his Cori.
He swiped at the moisture in his eyes and cursed those damn emotions that came along with loving someone. Why did such a supposed-happy feeling suddenly make him feel powerless and vulnerable?
The waves slid onto the shore, easing along the sand, bubbling and flowing back out. The cycle normally set his mind at ease, almost as if to hypnotize him. But right now, his thoughts were consumed with the woman he’d left back in his house, the woman he loved, the woman who didn’t trust him or herself enough to reveal the rest of her damning secret.
What the hell could it be? And why did she insist on driving him out of his ever-lovin’ mind by keeping it to herself?
He may love her more than his next breath, but he couldn’t live with someone who felt keeping secrets, no matter how damaging they were, to herself. What on earth did she think she was protecting him from? What could she possibly know that could keep him safe by keeping it to herself?
Dylan raked his hands through his hair and lay back on the cool sand as he stared up at the sky as if to fi
nd some type of divine intervention to handle this mess he’d walked right into.
He should’ve totally ignored that sultry, black BMW and its intriguing owner when they rolled into town. He shouldn’t have allowed himself to sleep with her that first time on his patio, let alone the countless times after. He may be a man, but when it came to Cori, he was smart enough to know that he’d never truly gotten over her, and that having sex was a sure-fire way to make sure that he never would. But he’d not been able to turn her away, nor was he able to shut off those feelings that had bubbled to the surface an instant after seeing her on his porch that first day.
He didn’t know her upcoming plans—whether she was staying or going—but he knew he was staying. He knew he had several jobs to do and he knew the main job was that recently purchased building.
Whether Cori wanted it or not in the end was up to her, but he’d have it ready.
Dylan called himself a damn fool as a cloud slid over the full moon. He knew he was holding out hope for something that more than likely would never happen. But if he knew Cori, this secret she kept locked inside would eat at her, chipping away at the little bit of happiness she held on to, until she would be left with nothing but the sad fact that she was alone.
He only prayed she came back to him before it was too late.
Chapter Seventeen
Two days. Two damn days and he hadn’t seen the first sign of Cori. Even when he’d stopped in to see Carl and Inez he hadn’t seen her and they hadn’t mentioned her.
Had she left town already? Surely he would know…wouldn’t he? Not that he was keeping tabs on her, but he was just curious. That’s all.
Carl did act as if Cori had mentioned staying and helping to care for Inez since a private therapist coming in would be too expensive. If she planned on staying, that was news to him. And a whole other level of torture he’d have to endure.
To be honest, Dylan didn’t know what was worse—Cori staying or Cori leaving.
On the upside, in these two days, he’d managed to clean up the entire inside of the new building and hang new overhead lighting. His go-to stress-reliever was diving into work, which meant he should have this place ready to go by lunchtime tomorrow.
He grabbed the bandana from his back pocket and swiped the cloth across his damp forehead. Even with the doors propped open to let some fresh air in, this place was turning into a furnace. Speaking of furnace, he’d have to have that replaced as well.
His cell vibrated in his pocket and Dylan shoved the bandana back into his pocket and pulled his cell out. Idiot that he was, he glanced at the screen hoping for Cori—a pathetic fact he would only admit to himself.
Unfortunately, the name on the ID only made him groan and curse the fact he’d even thought of answering it, but he wasn’t going to be rude.
“Hello.”
“Dylan,” Mary’s voice purred through the phone. “I need to speak to you right away. Is there a good time for you today?”
He glanced around the clean, yet rough interior of his new project. “I’m actually working today, Mary. Can we discuss this over the phone?”
“Where are you? I can come there. It’s very important, Dylan.”
He sighed, figuring he might as well get this over with. “I just bought the vacant old building on Sunray Avenue. I’ll be here all day if you want to swing by when you have a chance.”
“I’ll be there shortly.”
As she hung up, Dylan didn’t know if that was a threat or a promise. He slid his phone back into his pocket and took his boot and shoved the empty light fixture box out of his way. With the clean windows and new lighting, the place was already shaping up. He needed to patch a few places in the walls before he could paint, but he’d do the ceiling first.
Painting wasn’t his favorite thing to do, it was too easy, too monotonous. He’d much rather tear into something, rearrange it and make it fresh. A five-year-old could paint. He preferred much more challenging tasks.
And speaking of challenging, Cori was proving to be the biggest challenge of his life. He wanted to fight for her, and he would if he saw any sign that she was willing to fight for herself or for them. She’d given up too easily before and now here she was again, doing the same thing.
Dylan shook his head, rambling thoughts bumping into each other in his mind. And after about twenty minutes of scolding himself and spackling the small nail holes in the walls, Mary came through the front door and soured his mood even more.
“Wow,” she said, glancing around the open floor space. “What are you turning this into?”
He shrugged. “Not sure yet. Right now I’m doing some updating and simple painting. What can I do for you?”
She smiled and Dylan realized his mistake in asking that loaded question. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for her to get to the point of this little impromptu visit.
“I came across some news a week or so ago and I’ve been sitting on it.” She shifted her purse up higher on her shoulder and moved toward him. “It’s about Corinne and her parents.”
Dylan waited, steeled himself actually, because who knew what the hell this woman was going to say. It was no secret she was jealous of Cori, but what level was she stooping to?
“I’m not sure what all you know about the night she left, but Carl and Inez are her aunt and uncle.”
Dylan nodded. “Yes, I know.”
Of course, he didn’t say he’d only found out two days ago. That was really none of her concern. But he was curious as to how she’d found out.
“I overheard Carl and Corinne talking in the hospital when Inez was there and I heard them again as they were moving Inez out.” Mary met his gaze. “Corinne’s biological father was the one driving the car the night your parents were killed.”
Dylan laughed. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Mary’s eyes softened. “You didn’t know. I didn’t think you did.”
“Again, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Corinne’s biological father was the man driving the car that hit your parents. They never found out who caused the hit-and-run, did they?”
Dylan shook his head, suddenly overcome with anger, confusion, fear.
“I heard them discussing this and I could tell from the way they were talking that you didn’t know. I thought this would help you put some closure to the past.”
Dylan’s whole body shook. The anger that roiled through him was indescribable. Cori’s real father had killed his parents? And Cori had known all this time?
“You didn’t want to put my past to rest,” he said through gritted teeth. “You wanted to drive a wedge between me and Cori. You did what you set out to do, now get the hell out of here.”
Mary opened her mouth to speak and Dylan held up a hand. “Get out. Now.”
For a second, he didn’t think she’d listen, but finally she turned and walked out, leaving him with the harsh truth, the cold reality.
And it wasn’t the fact that Cori’s biological father was the cause of the hit-and-run…if what Mary said was indeed true. No, the knife that stabbed through his chest and had him bleeding out was the fact that Cori knew. This was the damning secret she’d been keeping. She’d known all along who’d killed his parents and she hadn’t told him.
How could he ever forgive her for keeping such a life-altering secret?
Corinne returned home more confused than ever. Even the long drive hadn’t helped. The new agent was confident that she could get Corinne’s career to take off again and was eager to sign her. But Corinne hadn’t been able to go through with it. She’d said she’d think on it and call her by midweek.
Weeks ago this was all she’d wanted—to get her career back on track and start making money again. But as she pulled into her drive, she glanced across the way to Dylan’s house.
Something, or someone, was pulling her even harder than her proposed new career. Her heart was literally being tugged in two different directions. Dylan
loved this town and had zero desire to leave. Corinne needed to be in Miami to work with this new agent, if she so chose, and be ready to travel at all times.
Leaving her purse and her bags in the car, she got out and walked across the lawn. It was getting late, but there was a light on in his window. She needed to talk to him. They hadn’t left things on a high note and the ache she felt without him had only grown.
She tapped on his screen door and waited. No answer. She tapped again and still no answer. The knob was locked so she walked around back.
There he was on the beach, staring out at the waves, hands on his hips. The man she wanted more than her next breath was right before her, but in reality he might as well have been millions of miles away.
Her heart filled at just the sight of him. How could she love him so much and still be so torn?
Because that damn truth was still haunting her. The truth he deserved to know. There was no way they could build a relationship on a crumbling foundation and Corinne knew she was the only one capable of making their lives stronger…that is, if he would have her after he knew what she’d been hiding for years.
She slid off her sandals and let the warm sand slide between her toes as she crossed the space to Dylan. Courage would be nice right now, but she had so little. All that was getting her through this was hope. She had to hang on to the fact that they’d found their way back to each other. Fate surely didn’t lead them this far simply to leave them heartbroken and shattered again.
And Corinne knew if she had to choose right now, she’d choose Dylan over her career. She wanted him, wanted a life she was positive they could have once the truth came out.
The fact she was ready to throw her work away for this man said a lot about how far and fast she’d fallen for him again.
“Hey,” she said when she was only a few feet away.
He turned, cold eyes met hers before he focused his attention back on the subtle waves.
Okay, not the warmest welcome, but he was pretty upset when she’d left a few days ago. Obviously he was still upset.
Secrets from Her Past: Scandalous, Book 2 Page 14