The Wedding Secret

by Jeannie Moon

  Everything she mentioned was superficial. No one knew anything about Harper past what appeared on her résumé. Except for a few little things and he didn’t consider that deep information. He’d started to scratch the surface during the night they’d spent together a few weeks before, but the only thing that he’d been able to pull out was that her father was a marine sergeant who was killed in Lebanon. Harper was a toddler when he died.

  He knew she hated her stepfather and stepbrother and that she and her mother were estranged because of them.

  “To be honest, I always thought Harper was Main Line Philadelphia,” Meg said. “I didn’t know she was from around Pittsburgh.”

  “Me, too. That was certainly the impression I got.” It was the impression everyone had. “Her mother doesn’t seem very Main Line. I think Harper and I have to have a conversation. There’s a lot I don’t know and I guess that’s my own fault.”

  “Good luck. Considering the way she kept Anna a secret, I wouldn’t put anything past her, but I can’t help wondering what would make someone so distrustful. There must be some serious baggage in that overhead.”

  “Meg, if Jason kept a lot of secrets from you, could you forgive him?”

  His sister stood and faced him, slipping a hair tie from her wrist and pulling her mass of curls into a messy bun. “He did keep secrets from me. Lots of them. I was one of those secrets back in the day.”

  He remembered. He remembered how he’d wanted to beat the crap out of his friend for the way he’d treated Meg.

  “I guess,” she continued, “it would depend on the reasons. I forgave Jason because, in the end, he proved himself to me. He loves me.”

  Kevin thought Harper loved him. He knew he loved her, but then he wasn’t sure who she was. The fact was he still hadn’t gotten inside her head.

  “Take everyone home and then tonight, talk to her. Really talk to her. You have to ask the hard questions, Kevin.”

  He nodded and knew he had to have the conversation he’d been avoiding. Harper was hiding things about her past, but he hadn’t wanted to confront the issue head-on. It was easy to let it all slide, but now that he was invested in their relationship, it mattered.

  It mattered a lot.

  ***

  Harper pulled the door shut to the room where her mother had finally fallen asleep. She’d gotten a little bit out of her about what had happened with Hill, and it wasn’t pretty. He’d stolen and used her ATM card, used her social security number to open credit card accounts, and when she’d discovered it, he’d threatened her. The guy was dangerous, and Harper was probably going to have to go back home with her mother to help file a report and salvage what she could.

  The worst part was that Mama was scared Hill was going to come after her. She could get him in a lot of trouble, and he wasn’t past trying to hurt her to keep her quiet. Harper didn’t put anything past him.

  The immediate issue of where she could stay was partially solved by Kevin’s mother. Mrs. Rossi and Mama had really hit it off, and she’d offered to let her stay with her at her house until something more permanent could be arranged. The place wasn’t large, but it had more than enough room for the two women, and it would be the last place Hill would look for her mother.

  Jason had assured her it would be safe because he was going to make sure there was security around the clock. Now, though, she had to face her biggest fear. She had to talk to Kevin and tell him everything.

  Her mother raised too many questions and red flags, and the Rossis and Campbells were starting to realize what they’d always thought about Harper wasn’t adding up.

  He was in the bedroom, stretched out on top of the comforter, flicking through screens on his cell phone. His manner was so easy and collected, and for a big man he moved with fluid grace. She wondered if that was part of his appeal. He had the most beautiful face, but there was so much more to Kevin, and that’s what she loved about him.

  She hadn’t told him, and considering what was going to go down in the next few minutes, she was almost glad she’d kept it to herself. There was a chance she might be able to block out how she felt if she never said it out loud.

  Who was she kidding?

  She was going to be a mess.

  Settling in on the bed, Harper felt better when Kevin stuck out his arm and invited her to snuggle in. She felt his strength as he wrapped his arm around her. His breath skimmed over her ear as he left a gentle kiss on her temple. “Tell me everything,” he said.

  “Everything?”

  “Who are you, Harper?” His voice was soft, gentle. She still felt okay.

  She hesitated because she knew she was crossing into dangerous territory right now. Everything she’d done was legal, but she wasn’t honest with her employer, her friends, or her lover. She had a lot of explaining to do.

  “It’s not the name I was born with. My given name is Emmalyn. I was always called Emmy.”

  “Emmy? Where did Harper come from?”

  “I legally changed my name when I was in college. Harper is my mother’s maiden name, and I felt it helped me fit in better at school and in business. I know that sounds dumb, but it helped me feel better.”

  “So you cultivated an image?”

  “Yes, a very precise image. If people were going to judge me, I was controlling the variables.”

  “Tell me how this all happened.”

  “My father was killed when I was very young, and it crushed my mother. I don’t think I realized how hard she took it until recently. She and my father, David, were high school sweethearts. He went into the marines, she went to secretarial school, but she never really worked because she had me so young. Apparently, she did typing at home and made a lot of money. So much money that when Daddy would come home from deployments, he’d find she’d bought a new TV or a better car.”

  “But one day, he didn’t come home. Instead the marines came and broke the news to my mom. She screamed, Kevin, I was so young, but that sound, the pure grief, will never leave me.”

  He held her closer and she actually started to feel better. Maybe it would be okay after all.

  He squeezed her hand and held it while she continued. “My mother was never the same after that. She got involved with a lot of different men and they stole from us. My dad’s insurance was gone in no time flat, and we lost our house because she was too distraught to work the first few years. By the time I was ten, my mom had turned some things around and was working two full-time jobs, and I was alone a lot. So I studied and I read and I studied more.”

  “Oh, honey . . .”

  “It’s okay. I’ve come to grips with my life. That wasn’t such a horrible time. I learned a lot and helped my mother. It was okay. What wasn’t okay was when she met Charlie Snow. He became my stepfather, and he was a bastard of the highest order. You know about Hill. I hate him even more.”

  “So where are you from? Everyone has you pegged as some Main Line Philly heiress.”

  “Hardly. From the time I was eight years old I lived in a double-wide trailer at the Riverwalk Mobile Home Park in southwestern Pennsylvania near the Appalachian Mountains. We were about an hour southwest of Pittsburgh. Very close to the West Virginia border.”

  She hated that she had to tell him this. Hated it because she’d worked so hard to purge this part of herself.

  “I am, literally, from the sticks. Coal mining, natural gas. I worked my ass off to get out of there, and once I did, I never looked back.”

  “You’re really something. I had no idea. No one did.”

  “We were poor, but it didn’t get really bad until Charlie came along and started gambling all the money away. We regularly went to food pantries so we could eat, teachers would take up collections at the holidays to buy me clothes. I swore I would find my way out of that. I did it by being smart. I got scholarships, took out loans, and worked multiple jobs to put myself through school.”

  “Where did your mom fit into all of this?” Kevin kept his arm around he
r, kept her nestled close, and it was only because of that that she could continue.

  “Mama was a lost soul after my father died. I don’t think she knew how to be alone. As a result the men in her life became more important than me.

  “I was valedictorian of my high school class. It was a good school with good teachers who saw that I wanted to do more. I gave a speech at graduation and not one person showed up to support me. Not even my mother. She lied. Said she was sick.”

  “But you took her in. She did all that and you took her in anyway when she needed you.”

  “If it had been two years ago, I probably wouldn’t have done it. But I’d like to think I’ve changed for the better. I’ve always said I didn’t want to be like my mother. Just because she didn’t care about me, doesn’t mean I don’t want to care about her.”

  Kevin shifted his hips and got up from the bed. If Harper had thought this was going well, once she looked at him, she could tell it wasn’t.

  A wave of nausea rolled over her as she watched Kevin pace around the room. He couldn’t even look at her, and Harper’s heart broke into a thousand pieces.

  “But you are like her. You’ve lied to everyone,” he whispered. “Everyone.”

  “I’m telling you everything. How can you say that?”

  “It’s like with Anna. You’re telling me when you have to. I was back in town, so you told me; your mother shows up and all of a sudden your history comes out.”

  “I never lied. People assumed what they wanted about me. I left that life behind. The person you see is the person I am.”

  “As my mother used to say, ‘A lie by omission is still a lie.’ You let us believe things about you, Harper, that weren’t true. Or should I call you Emmy? Was the name change all part of your persona? Was it a way to sound like you had dinner at ‘the club’ and summered on ‘the Vineyard’?”

  “Actually it was. That was exactly why I picked it. I knew Emmalyn wasn’t going anywhere except some entry-level marketing job. Harper could be a CEO.”

  “Wow. So what is real about you?”

  He’d just crushed her heart, and Harper had to find a way to respond without giving that away.

  “I’m very real, Kevin. I’m sorry you can’t see that.” His reaction totally threw her. He was cold and unfeeling and there was no way she was going to tell him any more of her story, even the part that would change his opinion on a dime. No, if he couldn’t believe in her, he had to leave. Harper was going to lose it, and she would be damned if she was going to let him see her break.

  “I don’t know what to say.” He stood on the far side of the room looking at his hands. The lack of eye contact was what was bothering her most. Kevin was all about the eye contact.

  “Maybe you should say good-bye. I can handle things here. Just let the concierge know that he should have the cops on speed dial in case my stepbrother shows up.”

  “You’re telling me to leave?”

  “Yes. I am. We’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t know if I should leave. Anna’s here.” It was the tone in his voice, the implication that somehow she couldn’t take care of her child, that really set her off.

  “You have no choice. I know your protective instincts are kicking in, but you don’t need to doubt me.” She took a step toward the door. “I’m going to take care of her, but now I really think you need to go.”

  Kevin walked out of her bedroom and grabbed his leather jacket as he made his way through the living room to the front door. Harper followed quietly. She couldn’t talk, couldn’t show any emotion because he deserved none of it.

  Kevin was showing lots of emotion, though. He threw open the door to the apartment in a way that told her how mad he was, and frankly, Harper didn’t give a shit. She didn’t. All she wanted was for Kevin to be out of her apartment.

  Once he stepped over the threshold, he turned in some asshat move meant to show her that he was angry. So she closed the door in his face and threw the deadbolt. He swore and then she heard footsteps, and then the noisy elevator doors opened and closed. Once she was sure he was gone, Harper checked on Anna, who was sound asleep, and retreated to her bedroom.

  There was a vacant feeling to the space. It wasn’t as if Kevin had moved in or anything, but knowing he was gone from there for good caused a wash of sadness so great, it overwhelmed her.

  Harper’s chest grew heavy, her eyes burned, and she covered her mouth to stifle the cry that wanted to escape. Going into her bathroom, she turned on the shower. But she didn’t strip and get in. Instead, Harper sank to the cold tile floor and after sucking in a breath, the first sob escaped and she lost it.

  “Oh, my God. Oh, no. Nooooo . . .” There was that sound. The pained wail she remembered from when her mother cried over her father. It wasn’t about death, it was about losing her love, and the pain was so acute she didn’t know how anyone survived it.

  “Oh, God, Kevin.” Saying the words made it all real for Harper. He was everything. He’d given her a baby. He’d given her hope, and now he’d let her down. How could he not understand? How could he not give her a chance to finish? How could he make assumptions? How could he just leave without a fight?

  The sobs wracked her whole body, tensing her muscles and stopping her breath. Her brain felt soft and spongy, and Harper wondered how she let herself get like this. She’d always vowed that she would maintain control over her life. And now all the control was gone. Gone when Kevin had walked out the door thinking she was a liar and a fraud.

  ***

  She didn’t know how long she was on the bathroom floor, but eventually she turned off the water and stood. The image in the bathroom mirror was fuzzy because the mirrors had steamed up. With the palm of her hand, she wiped away some of the fog so she could see.

  What she saw was pathetic. A woman who’d collapsed because of a man. A woman she’d promised herself she’d never be. The soft rapping on the bathroom door startled her.

  “Emmy?” It was her mother.

  “I’ll be out in a minute.” Shit. She didn’t want her mother to see her like this. She wanted to deal with Kevin as she’d always dealt with her problems—alone and on her own terms. The hand towel she rubbed over her face was now covered with makeup, not that it mattered. It was her towel; she could clean it, throw it out, it didn’t matter. It was hers. Everything here was hers, and she’d earned it.

  That should have been some consolation, given her a feeling of victory. She’d earned her way here, but Kevin, and the way he had treated her, left a hole in her heart that she didn’t know if she could ever fill.

  God, she was pissed. And hurt. And upset. The bastard knew just how to strike at her. What had gotten into him? She’d reinvented her life. People did it all the time.

  Finally opening the door, she saw her mother sitting on the edge of the bed. Her hands were clenched tight and Harper could see she’d been crying.

  “Kevin left?”

  “Yeah,” Harper said. “He’s gone.”

  “I’m sorry. I never should have come here.”

  “You had nowhere else to go, Mama. There wasn’t a lot of choice.”

  “But you had to tell him everything because I was here.”

  That was true. She did. And it made a big piece of what Kevin said particularly upsetting. Had she come clean about things because she’d had to? Would she have let the story ride had her mother not shown up that morning? Would she have told Kevin about his daughter if she hadn’t seen him again? He didn’t know if there was anything else she was hiding, and when or if it would come out. It was a sad state of affairs. On one hand she’d accomplished some amazing things. On the other, she hidden a lot of herself from the people she cared most about.

  “Let’s not do this now.”

  “I’m sorry, Emmy. It seems I bring you nothing but trouble, but if Kevin can’t see what you’ve been through and accomplished, then maybe he doesn’t deserve you.”

  “I just worked really hard. He went to a
s prestigious a school as I did, so did everyone at that house today. We all have big, fancy diplomas.”

  Her mother nodded thoughtfully. “That is true, but did they get their college diplomas the way you did?”

  “I’m not following.”

  “The Campbell boys are rich as rich can be. The Rossis may not have been as well off, but they did all right. You, my girl, should not be where you are today. But you didn’t let anything stop you, Emmy. You got the same place they did, but you had to do so much more to get there. You are your daddy’s daughter.”

  “Am I?”

  “You are. You are David to the core, and he would be so proud of you.”

  “I lied. I don’t think he would have been proud of that.”

  “Maybe not. Mostly he would have been disappointed that you weren’t proud enough of what you were able to do to take credit for it. You’re hiding. That’s never okay.”

  “But Kevin . . .”

  “Is a horse’s ass if he can’t see past this. Give him a couple of days, then make him beg.”

  “Beg?” Harper didn’t know if she wanted any man who begged. Okay, that was a lie. Maybe a little begging would be nice, but she couldn’t get past the fact that maybe she was getting exactly what she deserved.

  “Honey, you always want a man to beg. Especially one who looks like him. Kevin Rossi is too pretty for his own good. He needs to do some begging. It’ll humble him some.”

  Harper laughed. “I guess we’ll see.”

  “I’m getting picked up tomorrow and going to stay at Meryl’s; you need some space. Go wash your face and get some sleep. Your eyes are all swollen from crying.”

  “Thanks, Mama.”

  “I am sorry . . .”

  “Don’t be sorry. You had to come here. It’s okay.”