this meeting quickly spiraled out of control. “A genuine accident. Although it didn’t help that Cameron signed a waiver saying he didn’t care if the matches had been vetted—”
“He clicked a button online to agree to that. Hardly the same as signing something.”
“But my assistant explained to him—”
“An assistant who impersonated you, by the way.”
Which was something Lydia regretted tremendously. But she’d handed off Cameron McNeill as a client because she hadn’t been ready to face Ian’s brother with her emotions still raw where Ian was concerned. By the time she’d realized the error in Cameron’s match, it was too late to fix it. Jumping in to deal with the aftermath would have meant facing Ian in person—and she hadn’t been ready for that at a time when she’d only just started to recover emotionally from the miscarriage.
“I am sorry about that.” She pivoted to face him head-on. “I really weighed the options for getting involved after I realized what had happened. But would you really have wanted me to step in when Quinn and Sofia had already announced an engagement? I didn’t want to undermine whatever was happening between them by drawing even more attention to the mismatch with Cameron.” She’d followed the courtship of Sofia Koslov and Quinn McNeill closely and it had been obvious to her from the photos of them together that they were crazy about each other. “And yes, I was trying to protect my identity. My work had become very important to me by then.”
“Very important or very lucrative?”
“Both.” She refused to be cowed by him. Straightening to her full height she narrowed her gaze. “I put one hundred percent of the profits after expenses from matchmaking toward a very worthy cause.”
“Moms’ Connection.”
His quick reply unsettled her. How much did he know about her life in the past year? Her shoulders tensed even tighter.
“How did you know that?”
He rested an elbow on the railing, relaxing his posture.
“That’s actually one of your less well-guarded secrets. I hired a friend to learn the identity of Mallory West in the hope of sparing Cameron any further embarrassment.” Ian shrugged a shoulder. “And to spare Sophia Koslov further embarrassment, since Cameron’s potential bride turned out to be the love of Quinn’s life.”
“I read about that. I’m glad that some good came out of the situation.” She hesitated a moment before deciding to press on. “You hired someone to find me?”
What else did he know about the last year of her life? Worry knotted her gut, but she had to hope that the confidentiality of her medical records had withstood his investigation.
“I wasn’t expecting to find you, Lydia. I hired someone to track Mallory West.” His words were clipped. “I can’t begin to describe my surprise at discovering you’d had a hand in my affairs ever since you broke things off with me last summer.”
“You gave me no choice,” she reminded him, remembering the sting of seeing his smiling, handsome face on a friend’s page of potential matches on the Mates International dating site. “You not only betrayed me, you did so publicly. If we’d been dating in Manhattan instead of Rangiroa, I can only imagine the fallout.” She needed to leave now. To escape whatever dark plans he had in mind by following her to South Beach and insinuating himself back into her life. “But thankfully, that wasn’t the case and the rumors of our affair died quickly enough.”
Pivoting on her heel, she retrieved her tote bag, prepared to request an Uber.
“I just have one question.” Ian followed her across the private terrace, his arms folded over his broad chest as he walked.
“I’m listening.” She found her phone and clutched it in one hand.
“Why do all the profits go to a charity benefiting single mothers?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to lie. To tell him that it was a way to help women like her mother, who’d allowed being a single parent to turn her into a bitter person.
But she knew that he wouldn’t believe her. He knew her better than that, understood the complex and difficult relationship she had with her mom.
“I met a few women who worked with the group.” That was true. Still, her mouth went dry and the heat was beginning to get to her. This whole day was getting to her.
No. Ian McNeill was getting to her.
Those intensely blue eyes seemed to probe all her secrets, seeing right through her.
“How? Where?” he pressed, even as he gestured her toward a seat on the couch again.
He lowered himself to sit beside her as she wondered how much he already knew. She didn’t want to equivocate if his personal investigation had already revealed the truth.
“At a support group for single mothers.” Her eyes met his. Held. “I attended a few meetings in the weeks after our affair.” She had been so touched by those women. So helped by their unwavering support. She took a deep breath. “That was before I lost the pregnancy and...our child.”
* * *
Ian felt like he’d stepped into the elevator shaft and fallen straight down all forty stories.
“What?” He thought he’d been shocked to discover Lydia was the woman behind Mallory West. Yet the blow he’d felt then was nothing compared to this. “You were pregnant when you ended things between us?”
She’d been so fierce and definite. So unwilling to listen to any explanation even though Ian hadn’t done a damn thing to post that stupid profile. And all the time she’d been carrying his child? A new anger surged—putting all the other frustrations on the back burner.
How could she hide that from him?
“I didn’t realize it at the time. But yes.” Lydia unclenched her hand where she’d been holding her cell phone. Setting it carefully aside on the table beside their untouched lunch, she shifted her tote to the outdoor carpet at her feet. She seemed unsure where to look, her eyes darting around the terrace without landing on any one thing. “I realized later that the pregnancy hormones were probably part of the reason why I reacted so strongly to finding your profile online. But it never crossed my mind that I could be pregnant for another week, and then—”
“We were so careful.” His mind went back to those long, sultry nights with her. Lydia all wrapped around him in that villa with no walls where they could look straight out into the Pacific Ocean, the sea breezes cooling their damp bodies after their lovemaking. “Every time we were careful.”
“There were a couple of nights we went in the water,” she reminded him, nibbling on her lower lip. “The hot tub once. And the ocean...remember?”
Her green eyes brought him right back to one of those moments when he’d been looking into them as a rainfall shower sprayed over them in the outdoor Jacuzzi. Her delicate hands had smoothed over his shoulders, nails biting gently into his skin as he moved deeper inside her.
“Yes.” His voice was hoarse with how damn well he remembered. “I recall.”
