The Billionaire's Con (15 page)

She couldn’t recall a single word she’d said to the diners. For all she knew, she’d babbled like an idiot. All of her concentration was focused on denying the urge to march up to the bar and knock the billionaire lawyer on his ass.

Seeing him sitting so chummily with Jasper, her throat closed up at the realization that there would be still more unpleasant fallout to face from yesterday’s revelations. Just a matter of time until the whole town knew the truth. That truth being, the Palmerton pit bull had made a complete and utter fool of herself, lapping up Trevor’s deceitful attention like a desperate pound puppy while the entire town looked on.

Until very recently, she hadn’t been one to run from an unpleasant situation. Facing things head-on had always been her style. It pissed her off that she wanted to run, from
him
, so she focused on the anger instead. She’d be damned if she’d let him intimidate her in her own place.

She lifted her chin against the curious looks that followed her as she approached the bar. There’d be no more embarrassing shows for the town’s entertainment. Until Trevor took her words to heart and went away, she would simply ignore him.

Shan’s gaze was full of impotent apology.

Meggy did her best to reassure her friend with a smile. She ignored Trevor’s disturbing presence, focusing her attention on Jasper. “Hello, Jasper.” She paused beside his stool. “If I’d known you were coming in tonight, I would have added my sour cream pumpkin cake to the menu,” she said, knowing of his notorious sweet tooth and of his enjoyment of that recipe in particular.

“I hadn’t planned to come in tonight,” the town’s oldest citizen admitted. “But after this afternoon’s excitement…” He chuckled and his eyes twinkled. “I decided to come check out things for myself.”

“This afternoon’s excitement?”

The old man fixed her with a stare, the knowing look in his eyes telling her he was well aware she was consciously avoiding looking at the man sitting to his right. His gaze shrewd, he turned to pin Trevor with a glittering smile. “It looks like you’ve got some more groveling to do if you’re going to get back in her good graces.”

“Excuse me?” She blinked, at a loss. No one but the O’Sheas knew there was a reason for Trevor to have fallen out of her good graces. None of
them
would have shared her shame.

“The writer here.” Jasper jerked his head in Trevor’s direction. “Who, it turns out is no writer at all, came into the Bluebell today to explain his real reasons for coming to town.”

“He what?” She finally looked at Trevor. Her fingers curled into claws at the crooked smile on his face. “You what?”

“They would have found out the truth soon, anyway. I just made sure they got the correct story. And I wanted to apologize for being dishonest with everyone.”

Jasper ignored her gasp at Trevor’s calm explanation. “I admit I was none too happy to learn he’d lied, but once he’d explained the situation, it was easy to see it from his point of view. Imagine, our own little Meggy, the long lost heir to the Ashford fortune. Why, it’s like something you’d read about in a book.” He cackled a dry laugh. “Besides, I owed him one for all those meals he bought me.”

Jasper’s endorsement was one shock too many, in a day full of incomprehensible shocks. She flew at Trevor, her eyes blazing. She forgot where she was and the avid audience. Shan was already skirting the edge of the bar in an attempt to head off the explosion when it hit.

She shoved him for all she was worth, disappointed when he barely budged on the stool, which shouldn’t have surprised her. He had ten inches and fifty pounds on her. Still, it infuriated her that he wasn’t laying flat out on the floor.

Instead, he rose to his feet and reached out a hand.

She slapped it away. “You announced my private business in front of the entire crowd at the Bluebell?” She gulped in air. “You had no right!”

The commotion had caught the attention of not just those in the lounge. Quiet had descended over the dining room as well.

The oddity of that had brought a curious Cal out of the kitchen. He hurried toward the bar at Shan’s pleading look.

“You had no right!” Meggy repeated on a shout.

However Trevor would have responded was lost when Cal stepped between them. Her sous chef slung a thick arm over her trembling shoulders and began muscling her toward the kitchen, calling out in false cheerfulness, “You’re needed in the kitchen, boss.” He leaned close to press his mouth to her ear. “Meg, are you crazy? The entire place is watching and listening.”

Hours later, she was still horrified that she’d let loose her temper without a single thought for her customers. The man was making her crazy! She flicked off the lamp and stared at the dark shadows on the ceiling of her quiet room.

The only good thing that had happened on this day from hell had been her conversation with her great-grandmother. Surprisingly, she’d been left hopeful they could eventually forge a mutually satisfying relationship. Far from slamming the proverbial door in her face, Elizabeth was demanding they get to know one another—and amazingly was staying in town to see that happened. To her delight, she found the Ashford matriarch to be a charmingly assertive woman. A tough old bird with a soft heart, as Brody had described her. She smiled at the apt description.

That soft heart had been apparent in the tears she’d shed when she’d read Rachel’s letter. She’d gone on to tell her what she believed had led to Rachel’s disappearance all those years ago and her subsequent decision to give up an unexpected baby. Rachel had always been a difficult child, she’d explained, wanting her freedom from the time she was eleven or so. She’d never shouldered responsibilities well, especially those that came along with the Ashford name. She had bristled against the need for the security being Anne’s daughter required, even when she was very young. Elizabeth suspected she’d begun using drugs, perhaps in rebellion, but that was just assumption. Whatever the reason, she’d been an unhappy young woman.

The postal stamp on Rachel’s letter was the first real lead they’d had on her whereabouts in a quarter century. Meggy had seen the hopeful excitement in Elizabeth’s eyes, even as she admitted that if Rachel still didn’t want to be found, the odds of doing so weren’t good. The letter had been written four years ago and, for Elizabeth’s sake, Meggy could only hope it wasn’t another dead end. She couldn’t give Elizabeth back her granddaughter, but she
could
settle the matter of her great-granddaughter. First thing tomorrow, she’d have the DNA test done.

Shutting her eyes, she tried to will herself to sleep, but her mind insisted on playing a film strip of memories against her closed eyelids. She told herself to focus on the fury that had blasted from Trevor's pale eyes when she’d slipped off his charm bracelet, but those other, softer images kept sliding back in to thrash and tear at her. Trevor’s smile that first morning in the carriage house. His boyish excitement at the unexpected treat of floor seats for the Celtics game. His seeming sincerity as he held out a fat, silver heart and told her he loved her.

Fighting against the silent stream of salty tears flowing into her hairline, she squeezed her eyelids tight.

She’d been a fool, scoffing at women she’d met over the years who yearned for a man who’d crushed their hearts under a careless heel. But she hadn’t understood. Hadn’t known the true scope of her woman’s heart. Hadn’t realized that once given, once caressed by the fingers of love, that tender organ pulsed with a steadfast beat that transcended pain, and betrayal, and the knowledge of the mind.

Trevor Bryce Christos, with his dimpled smiles and calculated deceit, wasn’t worthy of a single thought, much less her heart. Her mind railed at the injustice of his betrayal, demanding she cross him off as a difficult, but well-learned lesson, but her heart… Her heart lay shattered in a thousand razor sharp shards.

With a low moan, she rolled to her side and curled in a tight ball. Her gasping sobs echoed in the silence, an audible witness to the painful quaking of her grieving mind and body.

Chapter Eighteen

Trevor flung open the door to the carriage house and scowled at the empty driveway.
Where the hell had she gone?
The question had been driving him crazy since he’d watched her climb into the big SUV that had rumbled up the driveway a few minutes before seven that morning.

Justin Cooper had hopped out of the vehicle and strolled through the front door of Palmer House as though he had every right to be there. He’d emerged several moments later, his arm slung across the shoulders of a smiling Meggy.

The door slammed with a satisfying thump. He wasn’t accustomed to leaving a pressing situation hanging as he had with Meggy, any more than he was accustomed to having a woman who claimed to love him refuse to speak to him—unless it was to yell at him. A number of women had claimed to love him over the years, and each of
them
had done everything they could to get close to him and stay there. Now that he had finally found the one woman he
wanted
close, she didn’t want anything to do with him. The situation was unacceptable and infuriating.

And his fault, he knew.

The knowledge didn’t make it easier to accept. Not that he was accepting anything. This situation couldn’t be allowed to go on indefinitely. He had no intention of letting her call a halt to their relationship as she planned.

In the meantime, he was needed in Virginia. A problem at one of the family’s holdings needed his immediate attention. He forked fingers through his hair. And Meggy and Elizabeth needed some time to get to know each other. They could have the time until he returned, and then, by damn, he and Meggy would have things out. He paced the room once more just as he’d done so many times during the night.

Her relationship with Justin Cooper would be the first thing they addressed. He wasn’t about to stand by and let some muscle-bound cop beat his time.

The sound of a vehicle turning up the drive had him rushing to the door. He yanked it open just as a black pickup truck came to a stop at the back of Palmer House.

Cara Finnegan’s curvy frame slid from the lifted vehicle to land gracefully on the ground.

With the sharp claws of jealousy shredding his already tenuous control, he stomped up the walkway. He didn’t wait for her to finish pulling the two shopping bags from the cab of the truck. He leaned past her and grabbed them himself.

She yelped at his unexpected presence.

“Where’s Meggy?” he demanded.

“Do you always sneak up on people and scare the crap out of them?” She snatched the bags from his hands. “Or am I just today’s lucky victim of your inconsiderate tendencies?”

“I’m sorry,” he grumbled, and he was. He knew his temper was a bad one, and Meggy’s best friend was the last person he wanted to alienate. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just thought you’d know where Meggy ran off to.”

“Aren’t you the clever one?” Her big green eyes sparkled like cold emeralds and her voice was a slicing purr. “It just so happens I
do
know where Meggy ran off to, but I wouldn’t tell you, even if you offered me, oh, let’s say...three quarters of a billion dollars!”

“Cara.” He sighed, his shoulders slumping. “I know the way I handled things looks bad, but…”

“Bad?” Fury was evident in the stiffening of every curvy inch of her body. “What you did stinks! I don’t like what you did, and if we’re being truthful here, I don’t think I like you either!”

“I was protecting my grandmother, Cara. And Meggy isn’t completely innocent in this situation. If she’d come to the farm and been honest with us, none of this would have happened.”

“She didn’t go down there, lie to you, and make you fall in love with her, you son of a bitch.”

“No, she didn’t. But she wasn’t the only one to fall in love. Do you know how difficult it is to discover you’ve fallen in love with someone you consider a thief? Believe me, that wasn’t in my plans.”

One of the shopping bags slid to the crook of an elbow when she lifted her hand to her temple, rubbing. “You hurt her,” she growled.

He took a step closer. “I hurt her. I did. I’m sorry about that, and I’ll make it up to her as soon as she calms down enough to let me close again. I love her, Cara, and I mean to marry her.”

A frown appeared on her stunning face, and she blinked suddenly. She braced her free hand against the truck beside them, the contents of the second bag thudded against the driver’s door. “If you used that silver tongue on her, I can see why she fell in love with you.”

Her unexpected acknowledgement of Meggy's feelings eased some of his panic. “She told you she loves me, huh?”

The frown turned to a scowl. “That’s your one freebie, Trevor. If you hurt her again...well, you won’t like the consequences. She’s special to me.”

“She’s special to me, too. If I can ever get her to calm down and talk to me, I’ll prove that.” A thought occurred, and his gaze sharpened. “She seems as scared as she is mad. Do you have any idea why that would be so?”

“You already had your freebie, Trevor. Don’t push it.”

“Cara, I can’t fix things with her if I don’t understand the problem.”

She stared at him.

He could see her loyalty to her friend bumping up against her desire to help.

The fingers of one hand continued to rub at her temple. Finally, she sighed. “Did you know that after going to the farm, she couldn’t decide if she really wanted to make contact with Elizabeth?”