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A Woman Worth Loving
Jackie Braun
Audra Conlan has always been flirtatious, flamboyant and wild, until fate gives her a second chance she vows not to waste. This time she'll repent her mistakes, face her estranged family–and evade men like photographer Seth Ridley, whose sexy smile and welcoming ways tempt her to fall for him, hard and fast.But when her past threatens her new life, will Audra dare to forgive the woman she once was–and embrace the woman she was meant to be…a woman worth loving?
Harlequin Romance® presents…
Jackie Braun
Her believable characters and fresh voice will pull you into the drama…and have you turning the pages all night long!
THEIR UNFINISHED BUSINESS #3901
SAYING YES TO THE BOSS #3905
Books by Jackie Braun
HARLEQUIN ROMANCEВ®
3804—HER STAND-IN GROOM* (#litres_trial_promo)
3825—THE GAME SHOW BRIDE** (#litres_trial_promo)
3840—IN THE SHELTER OF HIS ARMS†(#litres_trial_promo)
3860—THE BILLIONAIRE’S BRIDE
Dear Reader,
When I first began toying with the idea that became A Woman Worth Loving, I knew that I wanted to explore love against the backdrop of redemption and amid the often sticky dynamics of family.
I came up with a hero and heroine who certainly have their share of faults and issues. More than being flawed, though, I saw Audra and Seth as lost, and forgiveness as the beacon that would help guide them not only home, but to each other.
The other Conlan siblings—Audra’s twin sister, Ali, and her big brother, Dane—will have their own stories, coming soon in Harlequin Romance® books.
Best wishes,
Jackie Braun
A Woman Worth Loving
Jackie Braun
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Jackie Braun earned a degree in journalism from Central Michigan University in 1987 and spent more than sixteen years working full-time at newspapers, including eleven years as an award-winning editorial writer, before quitting her day job to freelance and write fiction. She is a past RITAВ® Award finalist and a member of the Romance Writers of America. She lives in mid-Michigan with her husband and their young son. She can be reached through her Web site at www.jackiebraun.com (http://www.jackiebraun.com)
“Unlike Audra Conlan, I don’t have a twin, but I do have three older sisters (and ten sisters-in-law).
My sisters are my dearest friends, my biggest supporters and the people I can count on to let me know when my hair color is less than flattering. God bless them.”
—Jackie Braun on A Woman Worth Loving
My thanks to Steve Jessmore, chief photographer at The Flint Journal, for his insight.
I promised to point out that Steve is as un-paparazzi as they come.
My thanks also to my editor, Stacy Boyd, for letting me “push the envelope” with this one.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE (#u2f1581a8-5f4c-59ea-a33a-b30b1b9b1d77)
CHAPTER TWO (#u9ec39582-cda3-577b-9fb7-45135d83314a)
CHAPTER THREE (#u51765789-f709-5c1d-8a62-a347cf9db232)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS easy to have regrets about the way she’d lived her life when a man’s hands were wrapped around her throat, thumbs pressing insistently on her windpipe to cut off her oxygen supply. In truth, though, the excuses Audra had made for her bad behavior hadn’t seemed valid for a while now.
It’s not fair.
That thought registered even as her vision began to dim.
After all, she had been changing her ways—discreetly, which perhaps explained why the tabloids’ most recent headlines had still labeled her a gold digger.
Audra didn’t like the moniker, although she supposed she had been called far worse. Still, she had married for love and, after that, for emotional security. Wealth hadn’t been the quality that had attracted her to any of her husbands, including the late Henry Dayton Winfield the Third. He’d been kind, undemanding. He’d been…safe. And she had been determined that this marriage would work despite the gap in their ages. She had been determined that this time she would not fail. Marriage number three would not end in divorce like the previous two, leaving her disillusioned and her heart a gouged-out husk.
“Lying, manipulative witch,” spat the man squeezing her throat.
Audra was incapable of disputing his words. How ironic that when she had been capable of speaking out in her own defense, she hadn’t bothered.
In general, she hadn’t cared what other people thought about her or what adjectives they used to describe her, as long as they’d spelled her name right. She’d known her soul wasn’t completely black even if the rag-reading public thought differently. Since her most recent marriage in particular, she’d taken steps to restructure her lifestyle and realign the egocentric pattern into which she had fallen since coming to Hollywood. She was no Mother Teresa, but she had found great satisfaction and personal fulfillment by becoming involved with children’s charities in recent years, working quietly behind the scenes lest someone accuse her of exploiting the already-exploited in an attempt to salvage her flagging acting career.
While the tabloids might call her a gold digger—and the man trying to kill her clearly saw her that way—she had in fact made an appointment with her lawyer that very afternoon to rework her late husband’s will so that his rightful heirs would inherit the vast estate.
She didn’t need the money, nor did she feel entitled to it. She had amassed a fair bit of wealth on her own, thanks to a few smart investments. Still, she could understand why some people who didn’t know her, and who only read tabloid stories about her, would see her as a candidate for stoning.
As she floated near the edge of consciousness, the past thirty years played through her mind like some poorly acted, made-for-television movie. That was galling, but apropos. She’d never made much of a name for herself in Hollywood, at least not the kind that could be repeated in polite company.
She’d caused her share of trouble and heartache, bitterness and outright rage, which, she thought with the brutal honesty of the dying, was exactly how she found herself in her current predicament. She’d pushed the envelope too far, thumbed her nose at convention one time too many.
At one point she’d felt she’d had good reasons for being a wild child, a rebellious teenager and then an adult who’d lived scandalously enough to become weekly tabloid fodder. Those reasons had ceased to matter, perhaps because Audra had finally realized they didn’t absolve her from responsibility or translate into happy endings.
You reap what you sow. How often had she heard that advice while growing up? Yet it had taken her all this time to understand and accept the truth of those simple words.
And now it was too late to complete her metamorphosis.
As the saying went, the chickens had come home to roost, and the head cock now had his big hands encircling her neck. With each passing second his grip grew tighter.
And tighter.
And tighter.
I’m not ready to die.
Even as that panicky thought registered anew she prepared for the inevitable, praying for forgiveness from the God she’d only recently become reacquainted with, and wishing she could seek the same from the many people she had wronged over the years. Her sister topped the list.
I’m so sorry.
The words whispered through her mind, unable to make it past her gasping lips. Surrendering to the blackness rimming her vision, Audra accepted that her apology was too little, and, like her bid for self-respect, had come too late.
Through the telephoto lens of his digital camera, Seth Ridley watched the blonde open the door to her stepson. Now, there was a kicker. The blonde and the stepson were about the same age. But then, Audra Conlan Howard Stover Winfield was not known for being conventional.
Or conservative.
Not many women could pull off four-inch red stiletto heels, but she did—he swallowed hard—a little too well. The skimpy excuse for a skirt covered just enough of her bottom to keep a man’s imagination engaged and his libido working overtime. Her blouse was white, although nothing about it could be called virginal. The neckline scooped low, offering a tantalizing view of cleavage.
Sexy, he thought, unable to stop a low whistle as he clicked off a few shots. Some women would look cheap in that outfit, but he knew from the past couple of years of photographing Audra that the woman the tabloids had dubbed “Naughty Audie” was neither cheap nor easy. She was calculating, shrewd and clever, as her third marriage to the now deceased Henry Dayton Winfield the Third implied, even though the sixty-year-old business tycoon’s death had been sudden and by all accounts, unexpected.
And she was beautiful—sinfully so.
Seth shook off his preoccupation with her looks, annoyed by the unacceptable jolt of attraction he always felt when he saw her. He had a score to settle and a job to do, which was why he was crouched down low outside her home, camera in hand, waiting.
Pictures tell the story.
Seth had always believed that. Pictures of Audra told of life lived in excess, although lately she’d seemed more subdued and almost introspective. Still, as a celebrity—he wouldn’t call her an actress—she’d learned how to work the paparazzi. The camaraderie between Audra and the photographers involved give-and-take and perfect timing. Although Seth always stayed to the back of the pack with a ball cap snugged low over his brow, he had to admit Audra knew where to look, how to pose. His goal, of course, was to get her when she wasn’t smiling or posing, or looking and acting her oddly likable, if outrageous, best.
Times such as now.
As he snapped a few shots of her clandestine meeting with Henry the Fourth, he felt a bit like a voyeur. As a member of the paparazzi, of course, Seth had been called far worse. At one time the disgust and self-loathing over his career switch from serious photojournalist to tabloid photographer had made him almost physically sick. Now he comforted himself with the knowledge that he wasn’t really paparazzi.
Seth had far better reasons for doing what he did than pulling in a handsome paycheck. Personal reasons that surely elevated his new occupation into something almost noble. An editor at one of the rags where Seth regularly sold his work called Seth’s dogged pursuit of Audra a crusade. Seth liked that designation, even if he would give anything—everything—to rewind the past two years of heartache and erase the shattering reason he was on it.
Grief was a powerful motivator. He refused to believe that what drove him might actually be guilt.
He got lucky and Audra left open the curtains in the living room. With the lamps glowing and a fire flickering cheerfully in the hearth as evening settled in outside, the scene looked cozy and intimate and would be easy to photograph thanks to the 1000-millimeter lens on his Nikon D2H.
The grieving widow of six months was meeting with her stepson, no doubt to offer comfort and sympathy, and the word from Seth’s sources was that the conversation between the pair would be limited to moans and grunts. As distasteful as Seth found that prospect, he nonetheless planned to document it.
He’d made a deal with Lucifer, although in this case the devil’s name was actually Deke Welling, a tabloid reporter known for his liberal use of unidentified sources and paid informants in the poisonous articles he penned. Celebrities grumbled about libel, but since they had a hard time proving either that what Deke wrote about them was untrue or published with malice, they rarely followed through on their threats to sue.
Welling was a bottom-feeder, no question about it, but he was a highly effective one. At the moment he also was working on a Hollywood tell-all book in which Audra Winfield would be a featured attraction. Seth had promised to get revealing photos to go with Welling’s revealing text. And he’d promised to pass on any juicy tidbits he uncovered about Audra along the way. The book would be the ultimate in exposure, Seth knew. A hardbound reminder of Audra’s reckless living that would enjoy a much longer shelf life than any tabloid cover.
It was to be Seth’s coup de grâce, and he told himself that afterward he wouldn’t feel this aching anger that had all but consumed him for the past two years. Then he could hang up his paparazzi credentials and Scott Smithfield alias, and finally—finally—be free of the past.
As he watched through the viewfinder, Audra gestured dramatically and then backed away from her guest.
Click-click-click.
Playing coy? Audra? Something about the situation didn’t seem quite right. Henry the Fourth, a heavyset man of thirty-three, wasn’t put off, though. He moved forward.
Click-click-click.
Seth checked the aperture again and then waited for the shot that he wanted. The one that would expose Audra’s duplicitous nature most clearly.
The stepson raised his hand.
Click-click-click.
He appeared to caress Audra’s neck above the diamond choker she wore, and Seth’s stomach lurched.
Don’t let him touch you. The thought came from nowhere. As he watched, the man yanked off the choker and tossed it across the room. A gift from the old man, Seth decided.
“Yeah, pal, I wouldn’t want a reminder of my dead father at a time like this, either,” he murmured, pushing aside the weird press of emotions that had him wanting Audra to turn the stepson out of her home before things could progress.
But then Seth wouldn’t get what he was after, he reminded himself. And so, holding the camera steady, he depressed his index finger.
Click-click-click.
The stepson advanced farther still, and Audra retreated…back…back.
Seth swore under his breath and, craning to one side, inwardly pleaded, “Don’t move out of range. Don’t move out of range.”
He was both relieved and disturbed when he realized Audra was backed up against a wall.
“Nowhere left to run,” he whispered. He sometimes felt that way himself.
Through the camera’s magnified eye, Seth watched her face. She appeared pale and something suspiciously akin to fear shadowed her expression. Transferring his gaze to her ungainly suitor, Seth told himself that what Audra more likely felt was revulsion. Like his old man, the son’s most attractive quality was his bank account.
Click-click-click.
Intuitively Seth knew that the next shot would be the one to tell the whole story. Worth a thousand words, as the saying went.
He was right—dead right—but he didn’t take it.
Maybe later he would think about that. But when he realized the widow Winfield was being choked to death by her stepson, he merely reacted, going on gut instinct and some primitive need that ordered him to protect her.
He flung aside his Nikon, unmindful of what it would cost to replace either the camera or its pricey telephoto lens, and took off like a bullet from his hiding spot in the bushes just outside the fancy entrance to the Winfields’ Brentwood estate. Thank God the wrought-iron gates hadn’t closed after the arrival of Audra’s visitor. The length of manicured lawn seemed to stretch endlessly as he literally raced against time to reach her, to save the very woman he had vowed to destroy.
He hit the unlocked door at a full-out run, splintering the wood around the jamb in his haste, not to mention bruising his shoulder. He didn’t feel it. He didn’t even flinch. Inside the foyer he turned to the left, his hand raised and already curled in a fist when he entered the living room.
“What the…”
Those were the only words Henry the Fourth managed to utter before Seth’s right hand connected with the other man’s jaw. The guy dropped to the floor, where his head bounced twice on the gleaming hardwood with sickening thuds. Then he was sprawled out, unmoving, right next to the woman he had been trying to strangle to death.
The sight of Audra had Seth’s blood running cold. She looked so still, so lifeless. And while he had no qualms about invading her privacy and trying to expose every last unflattering detail of her personal life to public scrutiny and scorn, that wasn’t the same as wanting her dead.
He couldn’t exact revenge on a dead woman.
Oddly enough, though, revenge wasn’t what he was thinking about as he crouched beside her prone form and placed the tips of his index and middle fingers against the underside of her jaw. Just below them, red and purple bruises were already forming a macabre necklace.
When he felt her weak pulse, he swore in relief and shifted forward until he was on his knees. He didn’t miss the irony that it was the pose fit for prayer. He recalled exactly how long it been since he’d called on a higher power. The results had been less than satisfactory.
“Looks like you’ll make it,” Seth murmured.
He’d seen her up close through his camera lens on hundreds of occasions, but this was the first time he’d ever touched her. He smoothed the long, white-blond hair back from her face, trying not to notice that it was silky and incredibly soft. Then he reached for the cell phone clipped to the waistband of his jeans and tapped in 9-1-1. After what seemed like an ungodly amount of time, the disembodied voice of the dispatcher came on the line.
“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”
“A woman has been choked, nearly to death. She needs an ambulance.”
“Is she conscious?”
Audra’s eyelids had flickered a couple of times, opening enough at one point that Seth could see her dilated pupils, but he doubted that counted.
“No, but she’s breathing on her own. Her attacker may need medical attention, too,” he added as an afterthought, sparing a glance in the prone man’s direction. Henry the Fourth was still out cold. “He, uh, hit his head when I pulled him off her.”
“Can you stay with her until help arrives?”
Seth didn’t answer immediately. He didn’t want to get involved, especially with this woman, which seemed absurd. In a way, his and Audra’s lives had been intertwined since the fateful afternoon two years earlier when a middle-class family had been wiped out in an automobile accident near Big Sur. The family had been Seth’s. His younger sister and stepfather had died at the scene. His mother had remained alive in only the most basic sense of the word for a couple of months before finally succumbing to her closed-head injuries. Now it was the woman Seth blamed for the accident who was fighting for her life.
Still, when the dispatcher posed the question a second time, he replied, “Yeah, I’ll stay with her.”
He answered a couple more questions and gave their location, and he agreed to remain on the line after the dispatcher told him police and emergency medical personnel were on their way. Then he set the phone aside and sat cross-legged on the floor—waiting, watching her. It was something he did well when it came to this woman.
Audra moved and made a little gasping sound. Her eyelids opened wide, the residue of fear clouding the startling blue of her irises. He’d always wondered if her eye color was the result of contact lenses, but up close he didn’t think so. Now, her glazed gaze swerved to Seth and she struggled to move back and away when he leaned closer.
“No!” she tried to yell, but it came out a stingy whisper.
In her panic, she raised one hand as if to strike him. He easily subdued the feeble attempt, pulling her half onto his lap in the process.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” The words mocked him, so he tried again. “You’re safe for now.”
Whether his message registered or she was too exhausted to continue struggling, he wasn’t sure, but she slumped into the crook of his arm, apparently unconscious again.
Seth examined the hand he still held. The five-carat diamond on her third finger reflected the cheery flames that danced in the hearth. But the skin was cold and slightly blue, and as he absently weaved his fingers through hers, he realized that although Audra Conlan Howard Stover Winfield had always seemed larger than life, she was actually delicate.
Up close he discovered secrets that his camera lens had never betrayed, like a dainty crescent-shaped scar on her left temple and a small brown beauty mark on the underside of her chin. Tiny imperfections that made her seem more vulnerable, more human.
His great nemesis unmasked as mere flesh and blood.
He could hear sirens in the distance, growing louder as the people who got paid to respond to emergencies raced toward the Winfields’ estate. Was it a trick of the light or had her eyelids flickered again?
“Hear that? Help’s almost here.”
Her raspy breathing evened out until its rhythm was once again slow and steady.
“I never doubted that you were a survivor,” he murmured. But it wasn’t bitterness he felt. Attraction was the edge to this particularly dangerous sword. And, God help him, he’d felt it since the first time he’d snapped her photograph two years before.
No one else in the room was conscious to question his action or to remind him of it later, so Seth gave in to the bewitching scent of her perfume and the odd protectiveness he didn’t want to feel. Lowering his head, he inhaled deeply and then, before he even fully understood what he intended to do, he brushed his lips over the scar on Audra’s temple.
CHAPTER TWO
AFTER the doctor authorized her release, Audra waited with an aide in the hospital lobby for her driver to arrive. A pair of dark sunglasses shaded her eyes and she had covered her trademark platinum hair with a long silk scarf, the ends of which were tied loosely around her neck to hide the bruising. She knew she wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all herself, with the disguise she had purchased in the hospital’s gift shop.
The morning papers were probably full of details about the attack and what had motivated it. Her late husband had left nearly everything to his young bride of less than a year, rather than his son and heir. Plenty of those who read the articles would work up more sympathy for Henry Dayton Winfield the Fourth, whose wife had just given birth to Henry Dayton Winfield the Fifth, than they would for the thrice-married Audra, the not-so-little matter of attempted murder aside.
She pushed the glasses more securely onto the bridge of her nose and shuddered in apprehension. She’d made mistakes, too many to count, and she wasn’t sure she deserved the second chance she’d been handed. But she intended to make the most of it.
New and improved, as the saying went.
After fully regaining consciousness, she’d made a pact with God. She was going to turn her life around. She wasn’t going to continue taking baby steps toward redemption. She was going to tackle the job with all the gusto of a long jumper. As an act of good faith she’d decided to start by giving up smoking. The hospital was a smoke-free facility and she was desperate for a cigarette right now, the craving so strong she actually had nibbled on one thumbnail. Nicotine addiction. She supposed it was just one more example of the self-destructive recklessness that had been her modus operandi for much of the past decade.
For a while the night before as she’d floated in the breach between this world and the next, she’d thought she had seen an angel. That had given her a bit of a shock since, truth be told, she had figured, in spite of her recent attempts to change, she would be taking the down elevator to the afterlife. She couldn’t recall the angel’s features, but he had been blond and…hero-like. He had crashed into her house and rescued her from her stepson’s murderous grasp.
The lack of oxygen must have really played tricks on her mind, because she vaguely recalled being cradled in his arms. She’d felt safe then, protected, and she had experienced something akin to longing when, drifting toward unconsciousness, she’d sworn the man had lowered his head and dropped a light kiss on her temple.
Audra frowned. She must have imagined that. No one had kissed her with such sweet tenderness in too many years to count. And certainly her Good Samaritan or guardian angel or whatever one chose to call him wouldn’t. The police told her he’d given his name as Scott Smithfield.
Smithfield! It seemed incomprehensible that her larger-than-life hero and that omnipresent paparazzi photographer were one and the same.
Although she couldn’t have picked the man out of a lineup if her life depended on it, Smithfield had snapped dozens of unflattering photographs of Audra during the past couple of years. His work was top-notch, she had to admit, even though he had a knack for showcasing her in the worst possible light. The exposure she didn’t necessarily mind. What would be the point of behaving outrageously in public if not to garner free publicity and keep her name out there? But Smithfield’s work didn’t just expose, it damaged. It had managed to make her the butt of jokes among Hollywood’s insiders and power players.
For a long time she had blamed him for the fact that her career was in the toilet, but now she could admit she was the one responsible for that.
She glanced at the throng of tabloid photographers lined up outside the exit, waiting for her to appear. Scanning the crowd, she wondered if Smithfield was out there now. They all looked the same holding up those bulky black cameras. God, but she didn’t feel up to facing any of them this morning. But she would have to. Her chauffeur-driven stretch limousine had just lumbered around the hospital’s horseshoe-shaped main driveway and come to a stop.
“Ready, Mrs. Winfield?” the aide asked.
He was a big man, with a barrel chest and a tattoo on both forearms. He looked more like a bodyguard than a health care worker, which was fine with her. Audra figured she needed a bodyguard right about now.
“Ready.” The word came out an unintelligible rasp and so she nodded instead. Then she sat up straighter in the wheelchair and squared her shoulders as the automatic doors parted for them.
She kept her gaze riveted on the limo and the rear door her driver, Nigel, held open, but she might as well have been striding up the red carpet on Oscar night the way the photographers and assorted tabloid reporters hollered out her name. Only the fact that they were held back by hospital security kept them from blocking her path.
“Audra! Audra! Look this way.”
“Over here, Audra!”
“Turn to your right, gorgeous!”
“Take off the scarf!”
“Show us your neck!”
In the past, she had always hammed it up for the cameras. She’d been more than willing to pose provocatively. On this day, though, she faced them stoically. When she reached the limo, she climbed in, closed the door and melted back against the seat cushions. No more, she thought. I’m no longer that woman.
“Where to, Mrs. Winfield?” her driver asked.
“Home,” she managed to murmur hoarsely after a couple of attempts.
As the limo took the familiar route toward the Brentwood estate a wave of loneliness swamped her. Henry’s mansion wasn’t her home. His son had pointed out that very fact in rather indelicate terms the evening before, right after which he had grabbed her by the throat.
“I wasn’t going to keep the house,” she whispered now. She still wasn’t going to keep it, or anything else of Henry’s for that matter, although she didn’t think the man who had attempted to kill her deserved it, either.
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
“I don’t want to stay here,” she rasped a little louder as the limo turned up the estate’s tree-lined driveway.
“Where do you want to go, ma’am?” Nigel inquired politely.
Unbidden, Trillium Island came to mind. Audra had been gone ten years and married three times, but that small patch of land tucked up in the northeastern corner of Lake Michigan was the only place that had ever qualified as home, she realized now.
It was spring in Michigan, which could mean the weather was either bone-chillingly cold or warm enough to forgo a coat. The trillium would be in bloom on the island that bore its name. She’d always loved those flowers and the three snowy-white petals that served as a reminder to weary inhabitants that summer was just around the corner.
When Audra had left the island at age twenty, she’d burned the proverbial bridge behind her. She’d never intended to return. At the time, she’d convinced herself she was leaving because she craved excitement and wanted to live in a big, busy city. Now she could see that she hadn’t left Trillium so much as she had run away from it, chased by demons that she’d only recently begun to understand and to exorcise. Demons that still filled her with shame and embarrassment after all these years. But she was determined that those events would no longer define her. Nor would they define her sexuality.
Of course, the past wasn’t the only reason she’d fled Trillium. In part, Audra supposed she sought fame and fortune to prove to all of the islanders who’d sold her short that she was every bit as smart, determined and talented as her straight-A, straight-arrow fraternal twin.
Thinking of her sister, Audra made up her mind. It was time to go back. It was time to confront her past, and it was time for the New and Improved Audra Conlan to make things right with the people she had wronged.
She would start with Ali. She’d deserved an explanation and an apology for more than a decade.
“Keep the car running, please,” Audra whispered. “I won’t be long. I just need to throw clothes into some suitcases.”
“Are you going on a trip then, Mrs. Winfield?” Nigel asked. He was older than her father and had been employed for at least a couple dozen years by her late husband. Whatever he thought of her, and she was sure it could not be good, didn’t show in his bland expression.
Audra offered him her first genuine smile in a very long time.
“Not a trip, Nigel. I’m going home.”
It was nearly midnight, but Seth wasn’t sleepy. Nor was he hungry, he decided, tossing aside the half-eaten burger he’d picked up at the takeout joint up the street. He glanced through the stack of evening newspapers—both tabloid and more legitimate press—spread over the coffee table in his sparsely furnished apartment, and took a long pull from his beer. He, or rather his alter ego Scott Smithfield, had not taken any of the dozens of shots of Audra as she’d left the hospital, or later, when she’d arrived at the Los Angeles airport and boarded her deceased husband’s private jet.
“The almost late Mrs. Winfield was on time for her flight today,” one tabloid report quipped darkly.
The story went on to say no one was sure where she’d gone in the jet, which had made several stops before returning to California without her on board. Some speculated she was in Michigan, in the affluent Detroit suburb listed in her official biography as home.
But Seth thought differently. Through his meticulous research he’d discovered that Audra actually hailed from a small island community off the northern Michigan mainland. He’d bet his Nikon and every last lens he owned that she was going home. After all, wasn’t that where people always went when they needed to lick their wounds?
In the pictures she wore dark glasses, a scarf and the same sexy outfit she’d had on the night before. But she didn’t wave to the cameras, flash that wide smile of hers or even acknowledge the flock of photographers. That certainly was out of character, but then it was harder to flirt while riding in a wheelchair. Besides, a near-death experience tended to have a chilling effect on most folks. Apparently Audra was no exception.
“Attack subdues Hollywood’s flamboyant party girl,” a photo caption read.
Not for long, Seth thought. People like Audra didn’t change. Why would they? No one expected them to. No one demanded it. As Seth knew most painfully, the rules the rest of the world observed didn’t apply to celebrities, even someone like Audra, who was famous for being infamous. They did as they pleased, often without paying any meaningful price.
Audra certainly hadn’t paid. The old anger and bitterness resurfaced, shredding the veil of compassion he’d felt for Audra the evening before. While Seth had been busy burying his stepfather and half sister, and sitting vigil by his mother’s bedside, Audra’s high-priced lawyer had seen to it that she hadn’t been charged in the accident, even though her actor boyfriend, Trent Kane, had been at a party at her house and had left drunk and high behind the wheel of her car.
She’d worn black to Kane’s funeral, Seth recalled from the tabloid photographs, and then a year later she’d marched down the aisle for the third time as Henry’s bride, expanding her wealth by a cool couple billion dollars when he’d kicked the bucket before the couple had celebrated a single wedding anniversary.
“You’re going to pay, sweetheart,” Seth murmured to one of the grainy black-and-white photographs, relieved he was over whatever weakness he had succumbed to while she’d lain unconscious in his arms the evening before.
After he’d handed her over to the emergency medical technicians, Seth had spent half the night giving his statement to the police. Then, he’d wound up missing Audra’s exit from the hospital because he’d spent half the morning having his busted-up camera repaired.
“Too bad you didn’t get that shot of her being choked,” the repairman, who knew him only as Smithfield, had said. “I bet the tabloids would have paid out big for it. You could have retired.”
Seth had merely smiled. He was not ready to hang up his camera just yet, and money wasn’t the issue. He had plenty of it, thanks to various insurance settlements from his family.
Taking another gulp of his beer, he glanced at the photograph of his family that hung on the wall. He’d taken that picture two years ago, just hours before the fatal accident. Later, he’d had it enlarged, professionally matted and framed. In it, his sister and mother wore smiles, although the smiles didn’t reach their eyes. His stepfather stared back, no hint of a grin in his tightly compressed lips.
The old argument echoed in his Seth’s head for a moment. The raised voices taunted him because one of them was his own. The familiar pain lanced through him as it always did, leaving that hopeless ache in its wake. Three hours after he’d snapped that shot, his stepfather and half sister were dead, and a serious and eventually fatal injury had left his mother comatose.
He’d never said goodbye to any of them.
I never got to tell them all how sorry I was.
The guilt jabbed again, but Seth ignored it.
He had a job to do, a crusade to finish. Booting up his computer, he connected to the Internet. Fifteen minutes and a few clicks of the mouse later, he was booked on a nonstop flight to Detroit Metropolitan Airport that would leave Los Angeles in less than eight hours.
CHAPTER THREE
IT LOOKED the same.
Audra stood at the ferry’s rail and watched the island grow larger in the bright morning light. There were more houses north of the boat dock than she recalled. Big houses with huge windows to take advantage of the incredible view of the lake. But so much of it was still the same, as if the island were some sort of Brigadoon, untouched by time.
She’d been in Michigan for four days and it had taken her that long to screw up her courage. The trip over from Petoskey only took about half an hour, and all the while she kept wondering what she would say to her sister when they finally stood face-to-face.
Sorry for disappointing you.
Sorry for hurting you.
Sorry for running off…with your boyfriend.
It hadn’t been as sordid as all that, of course, not that Ali would believe her. Or that Audra had ever tried to convince her otherwise.
Audra had merely accepted a ride from Luke Banning. He’d been leaving the island, too, heading for the ferry at the same time. She’d hopped on the back of his Harley and neither of them had looked back. They’d parted ways on the mainland. He’d headed east to New York, driven as always to prove his worth. Audra had gone west to Hollywood, seeking fame. She wasn’t quite sure when she’d decided to settle for infamy.
She felt the ferry’s great engine reverse, slowing the big boat’s forward motion so that it bumped gently against the dock before stopping. The steel gangplank lowered with a mechanical hum and the cars began to drive off. Audra followed them on foot. She’d left her rental back on the mainland to slow her escape just in case she gave in to her nerves and tried to retreat.
Scanning the crowd, she sucked in a breath and bit her lower lip. So many faces. A lot of them were familiar despite the passage of ten years. Some of the people recognized her as well. She could tell by the way their gazes swiveled back to before their expressions twisted in censure. Otherwise they didn’t acknowledge her. No surprise there. None of the islanders had ever gone public about her ties to Trillium, apparently too disgusted by her to admit she’d been born and raised here.
Still glancing about hopefully, she walked past the queue of cars waiting to board the ferry for its return trip to the mainland. In her heart, though, she knew Ali hadn’t come to meet her. Audra had called ahead last night and left voice mail messages for her sister both at home and at the resort where she worked. Ali knew Audra was here.
Oh, well. She hadn’t expected this to be easy.
The walk to the resort wasn’t that long, but it was mostly uphill. Despite the fact that she smoked—or had until a week ago—Audra prided herself on being in shape. She routinely did five miles on her treadmill and twenty minutes on her StairMaster. Two miles, even uphill, wouldn’t be a big deal, she decided. Half a mile later, she revised her opinion.
And cursed her designer heels.
The temperature hovered in the low-sixties, but it felt cooler thanks to the lake. Even so, Audra shucked off the pricey black leather boots, casting a rueful glance at their lethal four-inch heels. In her stocking feet, she set out again, careful to dodge the rocks that dotted the surface of the asphalt.
Seth saw the gorgeous blonde limping along the side of the road as he rounded the curve. He was already pulling the feisty little Pontiac he’d rented to the shoulder when he realized who she was. Audra Conlan Howard Stover Winfield, in the flesh. He could hardly believe his luck.
He had scoured the island looking for her for the past few days, making discreet inquiries that had yielded very little information from the island’s tight-lipped locals. He’d come close to thinking he had been wrong about her destination. Now he was only too happy to offer his assistance—again.
Audra flashed a relieved smile when he pulled up alongside her and Seth felt as if a mule had landed a rear hoof on his solar plexus. At that moment he thought he understood perfectly why three wealthy, smart and established men had rushed her to the altar, two of them without the benefit of a prenuptial agreement.
Her looks were downright lethal, especially now. Gone was the Marilyn-blond hair she’d sported back in California. It was several shades darker, closer to honey than platinum. It still fell past her shoulders, but instead of being stick-straight it was now a windblown tumble of curls that made a man’s hands itch just to touch it. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
Other things were different, too. Her makeup was toned down, eye shadow and lipstick in hues far more neutral than vivid. Even her choice in clothing seemed reserved if fashionable. No hint of cleavage was allowed to spill from the almost prim neckline of the blouse she wore beneath a short fitted jacket. A carelessly knotted scarf hid the marks on her neck. As for her pants, they weren’t made of eel-skin or suede or the faux leopard fur she’d sported to a Kid Rock concert the previous fall. They were simple denim cuffed at mid-calf. Of course, the pointy-toed black boots she held in her hand were vintage Audra: Impractical, sassy with their dangerously high heels and sexy as hell.
“Can I give you a lift?” he asked when he recovered the power of speech.
“Oh God, yes.” She sank into the passenger seat with a low moan of relief. “You’re an angel.”
“Actually, I’m Seth. Seth Ridley.” He settled on his real name, since he had little doubt she was familiar with the assumed one under which he worked.
“I’m Audra…Jones.”
Interesting, Seth thought. Trying to cover her tracks to keep his fellow vultures at bay, no doubt. Seth appreciated her efforts. He wanted an exclusive, and the stars seemed aligned in his favor. He had not seen any paparazzi since arriving on the island.
“And you are an angel,” Audra added, holding out a hand once she’d fastened the belt.
Her hand was slim and fine-boned, and Seth remembered only too well how neatly it had fit within his much larger one when he’d held it the other night. As he shook it now it was warm and, like the other one, devoid of all jewelry. He realized something else then, as well. She was no longer sporting the long, blood-red nails that had been as much her trademark as the platinum-blond hair. All in all, she didn’t look much like the woman whose image he’d captured and preserved in several hundred digital photographs over the past two years. For some reason, that bothered him.
Seth cleared his throat. “It’s nice to meet you.”
She tilted her head to one side. Neatly arched eyebrows pulled into a frown. “You look…Have we met before?”
“Can’t say that we have.”
It wasn’t a lie, exactly. They’d never met. They’d never come into direct contact with one another before the other night when Seth had held her in his arms, stroked her hair and dropped that foolish kiss on her temple in a moment of regrettable weakness.
“Hmm. You seem familiar.”
“Guess I just have one of those faces,” he replied with a shrug. “Where are you headed?”
“The resort.”
He’d already learned that on this island there was no need to be more specific. Assorted cottages, cabins and small mom-and-pop motels dotted its eighty-five miles of shoreline. But there was only one resort: Saybrook’s. It took up three hundred and fifty acres of prime land, including several hundred yards of lake frontage.
He smiled. “Me, too.”
“Are you staying at the resort?” she asked.
“Yes. You?”
She shook her head. “Actually, I’m staying at a hotel back on the mainland. I’m just here to see…someone.”
He didn’t like either part of her answer. He wanted her close at hand and he wanted her alone.
“You’ll break my heart if you say it’s a man.” He added a wink, recalling that flirting was an art form at which Audra excelled.
She laughed, but surprised him by not flirting back.
“Family,” she murmured softly.
“Oh, are they staying at the resort?”
“No. She…she’s not.”
He couldn’t help but be intrigued by these cryptic answers from a woman who used to bare more than her soul for the paparazzi.
Audra turned her head, and he caught a glimpse of the little scar on her temple. Secrets. Let her try to keep them. He planned to expose every last one.
Saybrook’s Resort sat at the top of a hill facing Lake Michigan and the mainland three miles beyond it. The hotel was three stories tall, with thick columns spaced along the front, and every inch of it was painted a pristine white. A wooden porch ran the length of it, dotted with comfortable wicker rockers that swayed in the crisp morning breeze.
The main hotel had nearly a hundred rooms and dated to 1910. Back then it had drawn wealthy families from Detroit, Chicago, New York and even abroad. Old-money families that preferred not to mingle with the new rich, let alone the lower classes.
A small lodge and several cottages had been tucked into the nearby woods in the 1940s and 1950s. By then, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable and other megawatt stars had made it their own Midwest oasis, adding a generous helping of glamour to its already gilded image.
Audra’s parents had worked at the resort. It was the main artery of the island’s economy, providing jobs for many local families. While growing up, Audra and Ali had often sneaked into the rose garden just outside the main dining room so they could catch glimpses of celebrities. Audra had had stars in her eyes from grade school on. Then she’d gone to Hollywood and realized that even good looks and a fair amount of talent didn’t necessarily translate into a lucrative career in front of the camera.
Seth pulled his car into the inconspicuous lot just beyond the hotel. Not many cars were parked there, but then peak season wouldn’t begin until Memorial Day weekend, which was still a few weeks off.
“Here we are,” he said.
Audra slipped back into her boots, grimacing at the blisters that had already formed on her heels.
“Thanks again for the ride.”
“My pleasure.” He hesitated a moment. “Are you free for dinner?”
The invitation had her smiling. He didn’t look like the sort to read the tabloids, so she doubted he was up on her escapades or even her latest run-in with infamy. He apparently didn’t know who she was or her net worth. It might have been nice to spend an evening with someone who didn’t harbor any preconceived notions about her. Someone who wouldn’t expect her to act a certain way: Outrageous.
Still, she turned him down. “I don’t think so.”
She planned to steer clear of men for the foreseeable future. They’d brought her nothing but grief. Her first husband had broken her heart. The second one had broken her spirit. Her relationship with actor Trent Kane had been a disaster from its rocky start to its deadly car-crash finish. As for Henry, he’d seemed so safe, a calm harbor in which to ride out the self-made storms of her life. He’d been kind and considerate and yes, she could admit now, a father figure. Theirs hadn’t been a love match, but she had respected him, liked him. Even so, she hadn’t expected him to rewrite his will in her favor and to the exclusion of his son.
“You’re frowning. Does that mean you’re reconsidering?” Seth asked.
“No. I’m sorry.”
He dug a piece of paper out of the car’s console, glanced at it and, apparently satisfied that it wasn’t anything important, scribbled something on the back.
“Just in case it turns out that you are free.” He winked as he handed it to her.
His room number. Oh, he was a slick one, Audra thought, tucking the paper into the pocket of her jacket. And gorgeous. Tawny hair, eyes an intriguing combination of gray and blue, a straight nose that went along nicely with his strong jaw and wide mouth.
She guessed him to be just over six feet tall and not an inch of it appeared to be wasted. He wasn’t overly muscled, but gauging from the way his jeans fit snug across the thigh, she would bet he was plenty toned.
Seth Ridley was the complete opposite of the slick business types and designer-duds-wearing men she had dated in the past, and yet she couldn’t say she didn’t find him appealing. Again, something about him seemed familiar.
When he coughed, she realized that nearly a full minute must have ticked by as she had searched his face for that elusive puzzle piece.
“Sorry,” she murmured, embarrassed, and glanced away briefly before adding. “Well, goodbye.”
She opened the door and got out. Then she heard his door slam shut and realized he had fallen into step beside her. Of course. He’d told her he was staying at the resort.
She offered a polite smile, which he returned when he held open the door that led to the resort’s main lobby. Then she stopped, stared and let the memories come. They flooded over her, a warm river of hope.
The inside of Saybrook’s was just as she recalled it, until she took a closer look. Because of its gorgeous architecture, generous beveled-glass windows and the graceful brass and crystal chandeliers that hung from the sixteen-foot ceiling of the main lobby, it still oozed class and style. But it was showing its age. The deep green carpeting was worn thin in the high traffic areas. The massive mahogany reception desk had scuffs and scrapes near the floor from being bumped by luggage. The windows were smudged and almost filmy in the bright morning light.
“Quite a place,” Seth said. Wrapped in the past, she had nearly forgotten he still stood beside her.
“It used to be even better,” she replied, feeling somewhat disappointed. Corners were being cut, apparently starting with the cleaning staff. Audra intended to give the manager a piece of her mind. But then she caught sight of Ali and remembered the real reason she was here.
“Excuse me,” she said to Seth. Without waiting for a reply, she walked to where her sister stood near the old-fashioned elevator, talking to a bellhop.
Ali wore a crisp white blouse, buttoned primly at the collar and topped off with one of those silly little necktie things that apparently were intended to scream “professional woman.” A neat navy skirt fell to just below her knees, and on her feet were a pair of blunt-toed leather shoes that could only be described as sensible. They did absolutely nothing for her sister’s long, slender legs.
Clearly, in the decade since they’d last seen one another, her sister’s fashion sense had not improved. Nor had Ali changed her hairstyle, if that was what it could be called. She still insisted on tugging that gorgeous mahogany mane into a no-nonsense ponytail. Audra’s fingers itched to pull it free and then push her sister into the nearest stylist’s chair. A clip here, a clip there and Ali’s face would be framed most attractively.
The bellhop moved away and Ali turned slightly, then. Her posture became rigid when she spied Audra, who swallowed hard before forcing a bright smile onto her lips.
“Hello, Ali.”
She crossed the distance that separated them since she doubted Ali would. Audra didn’t intend to shout during the first face-to-face conversation she’d had with her sister in more than a decade.
Ali scowled at her. “Audra.”
“I’d hoped you would meet me at the ferry. Maybe you didn’t get my messages.”
“I got them.”
She absorbed the hit, nodded once in acceptance. “Oh. I see.”
“Look, I’m kind of busy right now—too busy for whatever little family reunion you have in mind,” Ali said stiffly.
Audra glanced at the name tag pinned to her sister’s shirt: Ali Conlan, Manager.
She thought of the dusty windows and battered reception desk. It seemed so out of character for her perfectionist sister to allow such transgressions when she had the power to do something about them. Audra couldn’t help but recall the many battles they had engaged in as kids over the state of their shared bedroom. Even the socks in Ali’s drawers had been folded, sorted by color and then lined up in neat little rows. The drawers in Audra’s bureau, by contrast, would barely close, and even then bits of their unfolded contents sprouted out like weeds.
“You’re the manager? In the Christmas card I got from Dane he said you had just made assistant.”
“I was promoted to manager after…last month,” she finished.
Perhaps that explained it, Audra thought. Her sister wouldn’t have had time to whip everyone and everything into shape in a mere thirty days. Then she reminded herself that the state of the resort was not the reason she’d come back. The woman before her was.
“When do you get off work? I…I’d really like to talk to you.”
“There’s nothing you have to say that I want to hear,” Ali replied firmly, crossing her arms in a pose that said no quarter would be given.
And still Audra persisted. “Please.”
She laid a hand on her sister’s crossed arms. It was promptly shrugged off. Anger flashed in Ali’s dark eyes, cutting to Audra’s soul, even more painful than her stepson’s strangling hold had been.
“You haven’t wanted to talk for ten years, Audra. You fell off the face of the earth after you took off with Luke.”
“I didn’t actually take off with Luke. We—”
“Spare me the details,” Ali interrupted.
“You knew where I was.”
“Oh, yes, how could I not. Even your private life was lived out in public. We read all about your weddings—after the fact.”
“I invited you to the first one,” Audra reminded her. Dane had come, as had her parents. But not Ali.
“I was busy.”
Audra hadn’t invited any of them to her subsequent weddings. At the time she’d told herself it was because the nuptials had been so hastily arranged that there simply wasn’t time. Now she realized it had more likely been because she’d known she was making a mistake and preferred not to have anyone from her family present as witnesses.
Well, that was all in the past.
“I’ve changed.”
“Developed a conscience after your recent near-death experience?”
Audra sucked in a breath. “So you heard.”
“Again, how could I not? We get the news even here in the sticks.”
“Are you sorry he didn’t succeed?” She asked the question with a casual lift of one brow, even as her heart pounded like a sledgehammer in her chest. It terrified her to think that her sister might actually wish her dead.
Ali didn’t answer. Instead, she asked a question of her own.
“Why are you here, Audra? The island was never good enough for you when we were growing up.”
“That’s not true.”
Ali merely arched an eyebrow. “Why?” she asked again.
“It’s home,” Audra said quietly.
Something in her sister’s countenance seemed to soften, but then she shook her head.
“Don’t expect me to roll out the welcome mat. Dane might do that. But then our brother was always one to try to keep the peace.” She cocked her head to one side. “He just got back from L.A., by the way. He flew out to see you right after watching CNN’s account of the attack. By the time he got to the hospital, though, you had checked out and disappeared.”
It warmed her heart that her big brother still cared so much after all of the hurt she had caused, and it hardened her resolve.
“I’ll apologize to Dane when I see him,” Audra replied. “I’m not going anywhere. I want to apologize to you, too. I’ll be here when you’re ready to listen.”
“Just let it go.”
Ali turned and walked away, leaving Audra to wonder if she meant let go of the need to explain or let go of her sister. Neither was an option.
Seth watched what appeared to be a heated exchange between the two women with interest. What’s the story there? he wondered, as the brunette stalked away. He told himself that it was only because he couldn’t curb his curiosity that he crossed the lobby to where Audra still stood. It wasn’t the fact that she looked so alone or so utterly dejected.
“Is that the family you said you were coming here to meet?” he asked.
She started at his voice, and when she turned he swore tears glittered in her blue eyes, but then she blinked and they were gone. Or maybe they’d never really been there. A trick of the light.
“My sister,” she confirmed.
“Oh? Younger, older?”
“Twin,” she murmured.
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. His research had never turned up that fact, but then he hadn’t really been interested in learning anything about her family, only avenging his own.
One side of her mouth lifted in a wry grin. “Don’t say it. I know.”
“What?”
“We don’t look anything alike.”
Seth shrugged and divided a considering look between Audra and her sister, who now stood behind the reception desk a couple dozen feet away, talking with a guest. The women were the same height and polar opposites in every other way: Blond to brunette, blue eyes to tawny-brown, voluptuous to slender. Still, they did have one thing in common.
“Oh, I don’t know. You’re both beautiful.”
She acknowledged the compliment with a small smile and Seth pressed his advantage.
“Let me buy you a cup of coffee. We can take it out onto the porch and make use of a couple of those rockers. The view of Lake Michigan is incredible and the coffee’s not too bad, either.”
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