I remember. I meant, how did you find me here?”
“I was eating lunch across the way and spotted you.”
“Oh. For a minute I thought you’d been stalking me.”
The droll look on his face made her feel just a little bit foolish. But her response to him underscored something for her. She realized, for her own sanity, she couldn’t allow Kane to get close enough to set up her foundation.
“I’ve changed my mind about accepting your help.”
“Why?”
“Channing is going to be watching me like a hawk, trying to find some kind of chink in my new behavior so that he and his family can inherit instead of me.”
“Darling, I’m the soul of discretion.”
That was true, he always had been. It was her reaction to Kane that worried her more than anything he would do. That and the secrets of their shared past—both the nature of their relationship and the truth she’d kept from him.
“You don’t understand. If they found out I was your mistress, I’d lose everything.”
“No one knows the truth except you and I,” he said quietly.
She turned away from the window as Emma finished up with her customer. She didn’t want her friend to see her with Kane in tow. She took a few steps away from the shop and he followed.
He put his arm around her shoulder, drawing her close to him as he directed them across the street to a small park with a gazebo in the center. Underneath the shade of a large maple tree he stopped, leaning back against the trunk.
“I’m sorry, Mary.”
She was taken aback by his words. “For what?”
“For not doing things properly when we first met.”
She shook her head. She’d been over their relationship so many times and she knew that a big part of her had liked being Kane’s mistress. Had liked that her parents were outraged by it. She closed her eyes at how immature she’d been regardless of how sophisticated she’d felt.
“I think there’s plenty of blame to share,” she admitted.
He pulled her off balance and into his arms. Mary was very aware that this was her third public embrace with him and that Channing had actually witnessed the other two.
She pushed against his chest. “Let me go.”
“Not this time.”
A part of her wanted a relationship with Kane. What had started as a way to outrage her parents and to rebel had turned into love on her part. And she’d never forgotten Kane. But she wasn’t ready for the roller coaster of emotions being with him would entail. Especially now with so much at stake.
“I mean it. Let me go. If I’m seen like this, it will give them ammunition to use against me.”
“I’ll let you go on one condition.”
“And that is?”
“You let me work with you to establish the trust.”
“It would have to be strictly business. No more touching or kissing. I can’t risk it.”
“I can’t make any promises to not touch you. But I can assure you that I will do my utmost to make sure no one else witnesses it.”
“Then my answer will have to be no. Thanks, Kane.” She paused. “I know that this sounds weird, but it’s been really nice seeing you again.”
She turned to walk away, but his low voice stopped her in her tracks. “That’s not the answer I was looking for, Mary-Belle.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. He hadn’t moved from his relaxed pose against the tree. He looked every bit the brooding English lord she knew him to be.
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“You won’t for long. Since you’re so concerned about keeping me a secret…I’m going to blackmail you into accepting my help.”
Three
Kane watched the blood drain from Mary’s face, saw her eyes narrow and her temper flare. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for her to blast him.
She took two steps toward him and then stopped abruptly, taking several deep breaths, glancing up at the leaves of the maple until she had herself under control. The mask of her composure slipped over her features and the small glimpse he’d had of the real Mary disappeared.
“Who would you tell?”
“I think I’d start with your cousins.”
“I don’t believe you,” she stated boldly.
Kane didn’t believe it himself, but he knew he couldn’t let her walk away so easily again. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and all that. “It wouldn’t be a decision I made lightly. But I’m not going to allow you to dismiss me from your life.”
“Kane, please.”
He’d heard those words from her so many different times. In the bedroom when she was begging him to touch her breasts. In that run-down flat in Paris that she’d fled to when he’d gotten engaged. And now when he was blackmailing her. He fought to keep focused on the end result: helping Mary and winning back a place in her life.
“I’m a different person now.”
“I can see that,” he said, catching a strand of her dark hair between his fingers. Her hair was still softer than silk, but now it was cut to her shoulders and straight, with none of the wild curls she used to have. It was one more thing about Mary that was so foreign to him, that he had to figure out what had caused the change.
“I want to get to know the new Mary. I’m a different man, too.”
“You still seem arrogant to me.”
“I am.”
He wanted her. He’d been in a constant state of semiarousal since he’d read her name in the newspaper. Seeing her had brought all the lust to life in him.
“So what’s it to be?” he asked.
She wrapped her arms around her waist and glanced down at the ground. After a few moments she looked up at him. “I guess you can help me.”
He felt a surge of triumph and absolutely no guilt. He wasn’t about to let anything harm Mary again. As it was, she looked a little pale and her face was drawn. He knew that the process of grieving was a hard one, and Mary didn’t seem to be taking care of herself. She was thinner than he’d ever seen her.
“Have you had lunch?”
“Um…what?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
“Have
