eyes seem enormous. Purple shadows smudged the delicate skin beneath. Her gaze also seemed shadowed, with pain or worry.
“That’s excellent,” Lara said. “I’m looking for someone to deal with my mail and other paperwork, but if you’re athletic, as well—I’m so out of shape—we could train together. An exercise buddy would get me off my duff, get me moving. Can you lay on the guilt? I’m hopelessly lazy!”
“Oh, I can guilt-trip with the best of them.” Gillian laughed. “I learned from an expert—my mom.” Her laughter jammed in her throat, turned to a fit of coughing that brought the tears to her eyes. Mom, how could I?
But it was true. Her adoptive mother, Eleanor Scott—her Real Mother any way you counted—had wielded that parental weapon with surgical deftness. Gillian couldn’t recall a single spanking in all her childhood years. A few well-chosen words of reproach, or one look of loving despair, was all it had taken to make her toe the line. She glanced up to find her own sorrow reflected in Lara’s eyes.
“You love your mother,” she said softly.
“Yes.” Gillian rubbed her lashes. “She died two years ago.” Why am I telling you that? Perhaps because that had started it all. After the funeral they’d found the key to the safe-deposit box. And the letter waiting there for Gillian, which had turned the first twenty-six years of her life into a lie. She wasn’t—never had been—who she thought. So who was she?
Only Lara knew, and in one savage letter she’d closed off all possibility of Gillian’s ever asking.
“I’m sorry,” Lara said. “I understand what it’s like to...miss somebody.”
She was nice! Gillian had expected anything but niceness. How could this woman have written that soul-crunching letter?
She’s an actress, she reminded herself. And a fine one, if winning an Emmy signified anything. Give her a role and presumably she could make it live. But still—
“You went to college. Where?” Trace Sutton cut in briskly. As if he’d heard enough emotional female meandering and it was time for some facts.
“University of Texas at Austin,” she answered in kind. “A double major—art and education.”
“So you should be teaching art in a public school,” he challenged. “Why earn a poor living doing jumping jacks at the Y?”
She could really dislike this man! “I...don’t have the temperament for teaching.” Not at the high-school level anyway, where she’d tried for three years, then resigned. She had no taste for the profession’s disciplinary side, and the paperwork had been a nightmare. “I hope to illustrate children’s books someday.” The truth again, though she’d turned the clock back. She already had three children’s books to her credit, was contracted to finish a fourth by Christmas. That didn’t pay her whole way, but supplemented by the exercise classes, she made do. “For now...” She shrugged. “I’m enjoying traveling around, seeing new parts of the country.”
“So you wouldn’t plan to keep this job long,” Sutton suggested gently. Drifter, his eyes jeered.
He really, really didn’t want Lara to hire her. Why? “On the contrary.” She gave him a look of limpid sincerity. “I’ve fallen in love with Newport. If I could find an interesting job that allowed me to stay here...”
“Then I doubt this position would suit you. Lara lives in New York whenever she’s acting.”
“But that won’t be for months, probably not this year at all,” Lara interjected. “They’ve written me out of this season’s scripts. My doctor doesn’t think I’m quite ready to—” Her shrug was apologetic, as if she’d willfully chosen her horrific fall in a fit of selfishness. Then she brightened. “Still, all this fan mail keeps pouring in, piling up in corners, and I really need to get back in shape, so when do you think you could start, Gillian?”
Trace Sutton coughed and bumped Lara’s shoulder.
She bit her lip. “If I decide to hire you,” she added like a good child reciting a lesson. A tinge of pink brightened her pale cheeks.
“I could start right away,” Gillian said promptly, refusing to even glance at the overbearing brute. “That is, if you don’t mind my juggling this job around my aerobics classes for a few weeks till the Y can find a replacement. I think I could swap some of my day classes with a woman who teaches nights and—”
“That sounds perfectly satisfactory.” Lara laid a slim hand on Trace’s arm as he stirred again. “Gillian, is there a phone number on your résumé I can reach you at? Good,” she continued decisively when Gillian nodded. “Then may I call you later today with my decision? I’m afraid it’s time for my physical therapy session at the hospital.”
“Of course.” But Gillian knew the verdict already. A lover’s word carried all the weight in the world. She searched her mind for something to prolong the interview, but short of crying I’m your daughter! You really ought to give me a chance this time! she could think of nothing to do.
Except swear to herself she would never ever forgive Trace Sutton for wrecking her best, probably her only, chance to learn the truth about her origins. Inwardly raging, she maintained a stony silence as he escorted her not only out of the house but all the way down the long, curving driveway to the front gates of the estate. What did he think—she might hide in the bushes, then pop out at Lara’s car when it passed?
“I figured you’d appreciate a boost over,” he said gravely as they arrived at the gates, an eighteen-foot barricade of ornately curlicued wrought iron topped off with vicious spikes.
He could joke while he snatched a job away from her? Maybe he didn’t realize what this meant to her, but still, for all Sutton knew she might desperately need employment. Terminally selfish, that’s what he was! All she could conclude was that he wanted Lara to himself. No doubt he’d make sure she hired some grim-faced old bag who typed a hundred and fifty words a minute.
“Or if you don’t want to climb,” Sutton continued when she refused to smile, “you walk between this electric eye and that one.” He nodded at two knee-high metal posts implanted at intervals along the driveway. “They decide you must be a car heading out and-voilà.” The gates swung majestically open. “Goodbye, Gillian,” he added gently. “And...don’t get your hopes up.”
“I—” She spun and stalked off, tears of rage gathering in her eyes. So close, so close! All but for that selfish... brute.
CHAPTER THREE
HANDS JAMMED IN HIS pockets, a reluctant smile quirking his lips, Trace Sutton watched her go.
Most people tightened up with rage. Gillian swung off on those long, long legs like a woman on a mission—a tiger to shoot or a city to sack. As if she’d just heard about a summer sale on silver platters. She needs one for my head, he acknowledged ruefully.
He leaned against the bars of the gates to keep her in sight as long as possible and crossed his arms. After a moment he noticed he was rubbing his right forearm. It still tingled where he’d snugged it around her waist. With a grimace, he shoved his hands back into his pockets.
She hadn’t been toting; he was reasonably certain of that. A weapon tucked in her waistband had been the logical assumption since
