Matter Of Trust (2 page)

“I don’t know.” The sound of his voice made her lose all sense of reality. She’d left Boston to start a new life without him, something she’d done quite well for the past twelve months. The last thing she wanted was him stirring up buried emotions that were better left to rest. “I don’t think that would be wise.”

“Please, Kayla. I promise I won’t put any pressure on our getting back together. That’s not why I want to see you.”

“Really?” She didn’t believe him.

“I won’t deny I still have feelings for you, but I just want to talk. That’s it. I have some things I need to tell you.”

Kayla bit her lip, knowing she should hang up the phone. She had no reason to trust him. From the beginning of their relationship she’d been naïve not to see him, with his Italian suits and expensive gifts, as nothing more than a liar and a manipulator. What made today any different? Her mother had always told her people never really changed, and she believed it.

“Please, Kayla. I promise I won’t put any pressure on you.”

“All right.” She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed she wasn’t making a mistake.
Just this one time
. Then she would never see him again.

“I know it’s short notice, but what about tomorrow night?”

Thursday. Kayla mentally checked her calendar. She didn’t have to be at tomorrow night’s catering event, a surprise fiftieth birthday party for Raymond Bridges. Besides, the sooner she saw him, the sooner she could put him out of her mind. “Tomorrow night will be fine.”

“Then how about we eat at the country club?”

She hesitated. Another fancy restaurant. Ty knew enough about Farrington to know the Blue Moon was a well-established restaurant that catered to the wealthy in the area. No, Ty had not changed at all. He would only choose the best. This time, though, she knew the real Ty, and she would be ready.

“Come on,” he said. “I know how much you love looking over the city lights at night. The view can’t be beat, not to mention the food.”

“I’ll meet you there at seven.”

She hung up the phone, shaking inside. If just the sound of his voice could do that, what would she do sitting across the table from him?

Kayla walked to the front closet, opened the door, and rummaged through a box in the back corner until she found the crystal frame that held their engagement picture. She had no idea why she’d even kept the photo. Perhaps a reminder never to make the same mistake again. She ran a finger across Ty’s face and wondered how she could have been so wrong about someone. At least she had found out before the wedding and not after.

She would have to be strong tomorrow night. The last thing she needed was to lose her resolve toward this handsome man who had once swept her off her feet before shattering her heart into a million pieces.

Ty set down the phone in his newly rented apartment and took a deep breath. For one usually in control, his legs felt as if they were about to melt into the tan carpet beneath him. He hadn’t expected the mere sound of her voice to have that effect on him, but on the other hand no woman had ever affected him like Kayla. From the first day they met there had been something irresistible about her. Her laugh, her sense of humor, those dark dreamy eyes, and especially her wide smile that never failed to take his breath away.

Ty glanced around the living room cluttered with boxes, his favorite brown leather recliner, a matching sofa, and a few framed prints that lay against the stark white wall. For a moment he missed his apartment in Boston overlooking the bay. This apartment boasted a view of the parking lot and an all-night diner.

Walking to the fireplace, he picked up the framed engagement picture that sat alone on the mantel. For the photo session Kayla had insisted he wear jeans, a far cry from his usual office attire. She’d been right. They seemed totally relaxed in the picture.

And in love.

“Ty Lawrence, you look stunning.” Kayla had fumbled with the collar of his forest-green shirt before the photographer snapped the picture in the park a block from his Boston office.

He’d grabbed her hands and wrapped them around his waist. A strand of her reddish-brown hair, shimmering in the late afternoon sunlight, tickled his nose. “You’re the one who’s beautiful. I don’t deserve you.”

He hadn’t then. But now things had changed. He’d changed. Maybe he still didn’t deserve her, but there was one thing he did know. Life without Kayla wasn’t the way he wanted to spend it. She was the missing piece in his heart.

He put the framed photo back on the mantel, longing for the warmth of her touch and the feel of her hand in his. He’d have to be careful tomorrow night. It would never do for him to come across too strong and scare her off. But the truth remained. He still loved her and wanted to marry her. There would never be anyone else for him. If only he could convince Kayla of that.

Richard Abbott leaned back in his leather office chair and struggled to loosen his designer tie. How had it come to this? Thirty-five years ago he’d been one of hundreds of ambitious Yale graduates with an empty bank account and a suitcase of dreams. Today he was the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe
, and even
The New York Times
had declared him one of America’s leading businessmen.

Now he faced the threat of indictment, while questions were being whispered throughout office cubicles. He might have $175 million hidden in offshore accounts, but if something didn’t happen quickly his name was about to be trampled across Wall Street as the latest executive to have let the lure of money ruin him. He might deserve prison time, but it wasn’t going to happen if he could help it. Ty Lawrence flashed in his mind. If he went down, he wasn’t going down by himself.

two

“This was a mistake.” Kayla twirled around in front of the full-length mirror and studied the sixth outfit she’d tried on in the past thirty minutes. Normally she loved the semiformal, black and white dress, but today it looked too … too inviting. An impression she certainly couldn’t leave. How could she have ever agreed to see him again?

She turned to her best friend, Jenny, who sat cross-legged on Kayla’s quilt-covered bed for moral support. “So what do you think?”

Jenny flipped one of her bobbed, dark-brown tresses behind her ear and cocked her head. “About the dress or your date with Ty?”

Kayla shot a pointed look, then frowned. This wasn’t a date; it was simply a casual get-together. “Both, I suppose.”

“The dress looks beautiful. It’s the other part of the equation that’s incorrect in my opinion.”

Kayla fell back on the bed and blew out a sharp breath of air. “You sound like a mathematician.”

“I am a mathematician.”

Kayla laughed. “Then you sound like my mother.”

Her mother’s reaction to Ty’s dinner invitation had been received about as well as a case of the measles. This was the one disadvantage of living five minutes from her mother’s house in a small town where everyone assumed everyone else’s business was their own. In Boston, where Sam Peterson ate lunch Sunday after church or who was visiting the Bakers for the Memorial Day weekend wasn’t printed in the
Boston Globe
. No doubt tomorrow’s leading story of the
Farrington Chronicle
would be a play-by-play recap of her date with Ty. She could see the headlines now: O
LD
F
LAME
S
TIRS
up T
ROUBLE FOR
E
X-FIANCéE
. Or if nothing else, stirs up unwanted emotions that were better left buried and forgotten.

No doubt about it. Ty Lawrence spelled trouble. All seventy-four inches of his muscular frame … Kayla groaned. If just the thought of his pale blue eyes and square jawline made her pulse race, how was she going to handle him sitting across from her at an intimate table for two?

“Kayla?”

Kayla jerked her head up and caught her friend’s gaze. “Sorry. I was just …” Just what? Daydreaming about the one man she’d vowed to forget?

Jenny frowned. “You need to focus, Kayla, or he’s going to have you wrapped around his little finger by the end of the evening.”

“Never.”

Jenny began pacing the beige carpet of Kayla’s bedroom, her finger tapping the bottom of her chin. “Think of it this way. You’re a top military officer—make that a navy seal—and you’re going in to face the enemy. You have something he wants—”

“Something he wants?” Kayla’s eyes widened.

Jenny stopped in front of the window and quirked her left eyebrow. “He wants you back, doesn’t he?”

“I don’t know that. He told me he just wanted to talk—”

“And you believed him?” Jenny shook her head. “Please, honey. Guys don’t call up their ex-girlfriends just because they want to gossip like a group of old ladies sitting around a pile of quilting squares. Either he’s getting married, or he’s got a plan to win you back.”

“Married?” She hadn’t thought of that scenario.

“Forget the married picture for now. What are you going to do if he makes a move?”

“Don’t you think you’re taking things a bit too far?” Kayla fiddled with the top button of the dress. Any anxiety that had been swirling in her stomach had just escalated a notch or two due to Jenny’s incessant suspicions. Which she had to admit had merit. Dealing with Ty required the precision of a surgeon paired with the intuitive skills of an undercover agent.

Jenny obviously didn’t agree with her assessment of taking things too far. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“It’s just dinner. What could happen?”

“This is serious.”

Kayla blew out a sharp breath. “So what do I wear?”

“The purple dress. It’s pretty while extra conservative. It will make him think about how much he lost without giving him the impression you’re ready to restart your relationship with him.”

Kayla jumped off the bed and pulled the dress from the pile. “Are you sure?”

Jenny let out a short breath. “What’s up with you? I might be the mathematician, but you’re normally the decisive one.”

Decisive until Ty had somehow managed to step back into her life. He’d always left her emotions fluctuating wider than a barometer in a storm. “I’m just nervous.”

“And I suppose I’m not helping.” A sympathetic grin flashed across Jenny’s face. “Listen—you’re right. It’s just dinner. All you need to remember is that when you’re finished you have to tell him you don’t ever want to see him again. Now get moving. You have to leave, or you’re going to be late. Put on that purple dress.”

Kayla held the dress in front of her and cocked her head. “First, remind me again why I broke things off with the most gorgeous guy I’ve ever known. Handsome, considerate, funny—”

“A workaholic, a manipulator, and a liar.” Jenny jumped off the bed and rested her hands on Kayla’s shoulders. “Listen, honey. You did what you knew was right, and nothing has changed since you gave him back your ring.”

Kayla quickly put on the other dress, her heart still heavy with the reminder of what might have been between them if things had been different. “Why couldn’t he have been a Christian? Why did he have to lie to me about that?”

“It will all be over before you know it.” Jenny handed Kayla a lavender beaded necklace from her dresser to go with the outfit. “Let him say whatever it is he has to say; then you can close that chapter of your life forever. One day you’ll find someone ten times better than Ty. Trust me.”

Kayla slipped on the earrings and sighed. “How come your life is so simple and mine’s so complicated?”

Jenny lowered her glance. “My life is simple?”

“You know what I mean.” Kayla turned around and caught her gaze. “You met Greg and fell in love, and before you know it he’ll be asking you to marry him.”

Kayla stood once more in front of the mirror. Jenny had been right. The outfit was perfect. The simple, sleeveless dress almost reached her ankles, but most important it was extremely modest. No need to give him any ideas and make him think she was reconsidering their relationship.

Besides, she didn’t believe in happily ever after anymore. Let Romeo have his Juliet, and Anthony, his Cleopatra. She ran a successful catering business with her mom, had great friends, and a wonderful church home … there simply wasn’t room for Ty in her life again.