One-Click Buy: September Harlequin Blaze

by Jo Leigh

  “Whiskey,” he ordered, hoping the alcohol would take his mind off his mistakes.

  He remembered the last time he’d drank whiskey. It had been at Finn Delancy’s dinner party. He recalled what had happened later in the park, after he’d confessed his secret to Katie. She’d never judged, just offered her body up to him as solace.

  His heart ached and his body tightened with need. Yet he’d never make love to Katie again. Random images of her flashed in his mind-strutting her stuff in that provocative French-maid costume, kicking his butt in bowling, holding his hand as they walked along the beach.

  Each freeze-frame tugged at his desire, mocked his stupidity. It was as if his whole life were looped on instant replay, a poignant déjà vu of how he’d flubbed up.

  To distract himself from the pain, he tugged the in-flight magazine from the pocket on the back of the seat in front of him and listlessly leafed through the pages, but it didn’t hold his attention.

  Liam noticed a man get up and walk down the aisle to the lavatory. A few minutes later, a sexy, long-legged blonde woman followed, squeezing into the same lavatory the man had entered ahead of her.

  Clearly, they were angling to become members of the mile-high club. He grinned. It looked like they were in for a fun ride to the States.

  Great. He sounded just like Katie. Everything’s a lark, even when it’s inappropriate or probably illegal.

  That’s right. Hold on to the negative aspects of her personality. That way you don’t have to remember what her lips feel like on yours, or the adorable sounds she makes during sex, or how good it felt to hold her in your arms.

  Determined to lose himself in the printed word, Liam purposely forced his attention onto the in-flight magazine. He turned the page.

  The headline of the article grabbed hold of his stomach with a vicious twist. TEN BEST U.S. CITY MAYORS. Quickly, his gaze ran down the list. Boston, he perused. Mayor Finn Delancy.

  Bitter disgust rose up his throat. Gritting his teeth, he read the article. It was a glowing review of what Delancy had done for the city. But what really chafed Liam was the section on what a fine father Delancy was. There was a picture showing Finn tossing around a football with his teenage sons on the lawn of his Beacon Hill home.

  Liam’s half brothers.

  Emotions he’d been suppressing for three decades fell in on him. He felt cheated, wronged, jealous and unloved. But most of all he felt betrayed. He crumpled the magazine in his fist and closed his eyes. Luckily the seat next to him was empty so he didn’t have to defend himself against a prying seatmate.

  He reached down deep inside himself, fighting for self-control, trying to tamp down the emotions that until now, he managed to hide under the umbrella of vengeance. He’d wanted to get even with Delancy for betraying him and for hurting his mother.

  And then the realization struck him.

  He knew why he’d overreacted to Katie’s confession that she’d seduced him on a dare. Why he’d felt so deceived. Why he’d always had a difficult time tolerating deception of any kind.

  It was because he’d been hiding from the truth. He’d been deceiving himself. He’d projected his fears and shortcomings onto Katie.

  All these years he’d kept his identity a secret, telling no one who his father was until the night he’d confessed to Katie. Even to himself, he’d denied he was part blue blood, had eschewed that gene of his DNA.

  There’s only one way around this. Only one way he would find his way back to Katie.

  He was going to have to face the man he had become, and to do that he had to confront Delancy.

  THE RIBBON-CUTTING ceremony for the Habitat for Humanity project was about to commence as Liam walked up to the site of the new-home construction. A grandstand had been built in front of the buildings, and the media gathered, setting up to film Delancy getting an award.

  The irony didn’t escape Liam. Thirty-one years ago, his mother had been pregnant, jobless and homeless because Delancy had discarded her like an old shoe after he’d had his way with her. Now here was Delancy, lauded as a champion of the poor and downtrodden because he’d hammered a few nails in a wall.

  “Liam.” Flanked by his bodyguards, Delancy stepped forward, hand outstretched to greet him. “Glad you could make it.”

  Liam hesitated before taking Delancy’s hand. He didn’t want to touch the man, but he knew that he must. In order to move on, in order to heal his troubled soul, he had to forgive this man.

  Soldiering past the resentment in his heart, Liam reached out and took Delancy’s hand. “Mayor.”

  “Please, call me Finn. Anyone who donates a hundred thousand dollars to this project deserves to call me by my first name.”

  “What about your son?” Liam asked. “What does he deserve to call you?”

  “Excuse me?” Delancy looked confused.

  “My mother is Jeanine James.”

  Delancy’s blank face told Liam he didn’t even remember his mother.

  Liam tensed against the rage running through him. He would not lose control. He would not give this man the satisfaction of knowing how much he affected him. “Thirty-one years ago you knew her very well.”

  “Thirty-one years is a long time.” Delancy made a noise that sounded like a half laugh, half snort of derision. “I’ve met a lot of people since then.”

  “You never told her you were married. You wined her, dined her. She was a poor, seventeen-year-old Irish immigrant, and she felt as if she’d won the lottery when you took an interest in her.”

  “This is a fabrication.” Delancy bristled.

  “You got her pregnant, then told her to have an abortion.”

  “I never got any woman pregnant other than my wife, Sutton,” Delancy denied.

  “When she refused,” Liam went on, making sure to keep his tone low and measured, “you ignored her. She had no money, no place to live and she was pregnant with your bastard son.”

  Delancy’s throat worked silently and his face beat bright red. “Nonsense. Utter nonsense.”

  “I’m your son and I’ve spent my entire life hating you. I hated you so much I was determined to make something of myself. Determined to convince myself I was better than you. I put myself through Harvard and became a successful businessman. I’m worth almost a billion dollars and I did it because of you.”

  “Your mother is mistaken. I’m not your father, James,” Delancy said coldly.

  “Your name is right here on my birth certificate.” Liam pulled the birth certificate from his pocket, slapped it in Delancy’s hand.

  Delancy’s bodyguards shifted, moving in closer, getting ready to hustle him off. He shoved the certificate back at Liam. “I don’t care what name your mother put on that birth certificate. I’m not your father.”

  “Prove it.” Liam lifted his chin, stared Delancy down. Liam’s palms were sweating and his heart was thumping but he’d never felt more like his true self. “Take a DNA test.”

  “I don’t have to prove anything.” Delancy turned away from him, turned toward the crowd collecting around the grandstand.

  Liam’s old need for revenge reared its ugly head.

  The temptation was there-a microphone, an audience, the media. All he had to do was walk over to the mike and make the announcement that could shatter Delancy’s career. He could spill Finn Delancy’s secret all over Boston and finally have his revenge.

  But he didn’t reach for the microphone. Didn’t make the public announcement he’d spent years fantasizing about. He couldn’t bring himself to hurt the innocent people involved-Sutton Delancy, his half brothers. But most of all, he couldn’t put the scrutiny of the spotlight on his mother. She’d suffered enough because of this thoughtless, vain, self-centered man.

  He’d done what he’d come here to do. Delancy knew who he was. That’s all that mattered.

  As Liam turned and walked down the steps of th
e grandstand, an immediate lightness filled him. A smile tilted his lips and his heart was flooded with the knowledge that he’d just let himself out of a prison of his own making. Delancy no longer had any hold over him. He was free.

  Free to love Katie, wholly, completely without any reservation.

  Until now, his identity had been caught up in doing and achieving, trying to prove himself worthy of a man who did not deserve his love. But by facing his demons and confronting Delancy, he was finally able to see the truth of it.

  Blue blood or commoner. Rich or poor. Bastard son, recognized or not. He was ten times the man Delancy would ever be.

  And he owed it all to Katie for helping him to see who he really was deep down inside. Knowing her, being with her, had changed him forever. Changed him in profound and positive ways.

  She’d shown him how to embrace his inner child, to have fun and live in the moment. Strange that he’d accused her of deception because until Katie, there had been no hope of true honesty and genuineness in his life.

  Before Katie, he’d been quick and competent and capable. He still was, of course, but making a buck was no longer so important. He no longer had anything to prove. What was important now was being true to what had real value to him.

  Katie.

  He craved her with a longing beyond reason. He had to have her and he was going to do everything in his power to win her back.

  THE MORNING AFTER she returned from Fiji, Katie trudged into Sharper Designs. The final art design for Liam’s campaign was due. It had taken every ounce of courage she possessed to show up at the office today. All she’d wanted to do was call in to work, hide under the covers and huddle there for the rest of her life.

  She had the misfortune of falling in love with Liam James. She loved so many things about him-his sense of honor, his work ethic, the way he could see past the boisterous front she put up to hide her fears.

  But his emotional stumbling blocks kept tripping them up. He was a loyal and complicated man. His feelings ran deep, but he had buried them under his stiff upper lip so that she didn’t believe he was capable of expressing those feelings. And dammit, Katie deserved a man who could tell her what was in his heart.

  A few minutes after Katie had slumped in her chair with a mocha latte, Tanisha came bounding through the door, her face all aglow.

  “Good morning!” She greeted Katie with a gigantic smile.

  “Well-” Katie blinked, feeling a tad bit disappointed by Tanisha’s enthusiasm. She had visions of them washing away their man woes together over shots of peppermint schnapps during happy hour at the closest bar. “You look as if you’ve rebounded nicely from your breakup with Dwayne. Did you have an exciting hookup this weekend?”

  “I did.” Tanisha grinned slyly, her hands clasped behind her back. “With Dwayne.”

  “You guys made up? That’s so wonderful,” she said struggling to control her heartache.

  “We didn’t just make up.” Tanisha’s eyes danced.

  “No?”

  “We’re getting married!” Tanisha let out a squeal and thrust her left hand under Katie’s nose so she could see the big two-carat marquis diamond engagement ring on her finger.

  “That’s wonderful!” Katie jumped up to give her friend a hug. Truly, she was happy for Tanisha, but there was a pity party going on inside Katie’s stomach. She felt so left out.

  “He took me to a Red Sox game and there it was up on the scoreboard during the seventh-inning stretch for the whole world to see. Tanisha, will you marry me?”

  “Ah,” Katie said, “the grand gesture.”

  “Girlfriend, let me tell you, it was a dream come true.”

  “I thought you told me once that you weren’t the marrying kind.”

  Tanisha waved it off. “That was before I met Dwayne. The right man can change your mind about anything.”

  “Tell me,” Katie muttered. She thought she’d found the right man and she’d changed, but then he’d turned out to be the wrong man and she felt like a total fool for following her heart.

  “We’re getting married next June,” Tanisha chattered. “And, of course, I want you to be my maid of honor.”

  “Sure, sure.” The smile froze to her face.

  “I tell you, Katie-” Tanisha grasped both her hands in hers “-I’ve never been so happy.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  Tanisha canted her head. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine.” Katie forced herself to look perky.

  “How was your weekend in Fiji with Liam?”

  Katie shook her head. “Don’t ask.”

  “Not good?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. This is your day. Tell me all about Dwayne.”

  Tanisha shook a finger at her. “Nuh-uh. You’re not getting off that easy. Something is bothering you. You’re not your usual self. Sure, I’m happy, but I want you to know I’m here for you, no matter what. So spill it. What happened in Fiji?”

  Katie shrugged, trying to act nonchalant in the hopes that it wouldn’t hurt so much. Quickly, she told her about the Martini dares and how she’d used Liam to complete them. And how upset he’d been when she confessed what she’d been up to. “Was I so wrong?” she finished, lacing her fingers together nervously.

  “Not to my way of thinking, but some guys have issues about being completely honest.”

  “Liam is definitely in that camp,” Katie said gloomily.

  Tanisha shook her head. “I’ve never seen you this torn up over a man.”

  “I’ve never felt like this over a man before.”

  “Seriously, Katie, you’re not going to let this misunderstanding come between you two.”

  If anyone but Tanisha had told her this, Katie would have been inclined to make light of her feelings for Liam. But this was Tanisha, who’d started at Sharper Designs on the same day she had. Who’d let her sleep on her couch when Katie’s condo was being fumigated. Who brought over Chinese food when she was down in the dumps and doled out sharp-witted advice.

  She owed Tanisha the truth. Had to open herself up to someone. Tanisha had proven she was her friend.

  “It’s too late. I mean, even if he did forgive me for deceiving him, I don’t know if I can forgive him for walking out on me. The least he could have done was stay and fight.”

  “Don’t judge him too quickly. Some people withdraw when they’re upset. That’s what happened with Dwayne and me.”

  “The one time I finally break down and have sex in a bed, I go and fall in love,” her voice cracked.

  “What?” Tanisha’s eyes rounded. “Did you say the L word?”

  Miserably, Katie nodded.

  “Oh, sweetie,” Tanisha said with such a look of pity on her face that Katie wanted to crawl into a hole and pull dirt over her.

  All the years she’d spent playing the field and having fun, keeping her heart safely out of the fray, had come to a crashing end. She was no longer immune to the slings and arrows of love.

  And it hurt so bad.

  “I’m okay. I’ll be all right. I don’t want to rain on your parade. How about we go out tonight and celebrate your pending marriage.”

  “Ooh, I’m sorry.” Tanisha made a face. “We’re going over to my folks to tell them in person. Tomorrow night, maybe?”

  “Sure.” Katie bobbed her head. Thankfully, her cell phone rang at that moment. She pulled it from her pocket as Tanisha went off to flash her engagement ring to the rest of their coworkers. “Hello?”

  “Katie?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Lindsay Beckham,” came the cool polished voice of the Martinis and Bikinis president.

  Great. It was the person responsible for her downfall. “What is it?” she asked, only barely managing to control her snippy tone.

  “I’m afraid there’s been something of a mix-up.”

 
“A mix-up?”

  Lindsay paused. “It’s totally my fault. I take full responsibility.”

  “For what?”

  “The last dare I sent you?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It was meant for one of the other women.”

  Katie let out a bark of laughter. “That’s hilarious.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Because of that last dare, my life is ruined.”

  “Ruined?” Lindsay repeated. “Are you sure you’re not overstating the issue?”

  “You told me to confess!”

  “No, I told Sherry to confess.”

  “But you sent Sherry’s dare to me, so it had the same consequences as if you’d sent it to me.” Katie’s hand was shaking. From anger, from sorrow, from the whole sheer craziness of it. “You know what? I wish I’d never set foot in your bar. I wish I’d never met you and your Martini group.”

  “This is worse than I thought,” Lindsay said. “I’m sorry, I never meant for this to happen. If you’d let me make amends-”

  “Nice of you to offer, but unless you know how to superglue a broken heart, there’s not much you can do. I’ve got to get back to work now.”

  “I hope you won’t give up on Martinis and Bikinis just because of this little snafu-”

  “Bye,” Katie said, and hung up, never feeling more wretched.

  IN A VAIN ATTEMPT to boost her spirits, Katie made a beeline for the pet shop after her awful day at work. She couldn’t wait for the salve of seeing Duke’s sweet face and happily wagging tail.

  “Hey, pup,” Katie cooed as she walked up to the window. Only to find it empty.

  Duke wasn’t there.

  You waited too long. Someone else bought him.

  The disappointment that came over her was perplexing. Why did she care so much about that dog?

  Maybe they hadn’t sold Duke. Maybe the store owner had taken him out for a walk. Katie pushed inside the pet store, hoping that was, indeed, the case.

  “Hello,” greeted the friendly faced woman behind the counter.

  “Hi.”

  “You’re the one who’s always coming in here to play with the cocker spaniel, aren’t you?”