of anger. “Is that what this was? Payback?”
“No, it wasn’t like that.”
“Some man saves you in a blizzard and you end up in his bed—how do you explain that, Livie?”
“That’s just it. I can’t.” She wiped angrily at her tears. She could see herself sitting in the man’s cabin, sunken into a deep leather chair in front of the fire, feel the heat of the crackling blaze he’d built, taste the wine on her lips. Red. The glass in her hand glowing like rubies as the music lulled her.
“It must have been the wine.”
“The wine?”
“It was just one glass.” She remembered him refilling her glass. “Maybe two. I was cold, the fire, the wine, I hadn’t eaten...and I’d hit my head when I went into the ditch.”
Cooper shook his head angrily. “And you don’t know how you ended up in his bed.” He let out a curse as he turned away from her and rubbed angrily at the back of his neck.
The man had seduced her, just not the way Cooper thought. She’d trusted him, believing he’d saved her when all along he must have been planning to do exactly what he’d done. “I think he might have put something in my wine.”
“Are you saying he drugged you?” His jaw muscle jumped as he spun back around to look at her. “What else did he do?” Seeing her expression, he let out a curse. “So you called the sheriff, right?” When she said nothing, he let out a bark of a laugh and said, “Wouldn’t a woman who’d been drugged and possibly raped have called the sheriff on the bastard?”
“I don’t know if he drugged me or if the wine just hit me and I passed out.” She shook her head and began to cry again. “I was too embarrassed to do anything but get out of there.”
She’d blamed herself for being lured into thinking she was safe with the man. The next morning, she’d found that he’d had her car towed. It was out front, just as he’d promised. She’d quickly grabbed her things and left. Her plan had been to never look back. To never tell anyone, especially Cooper.
She would have taken the secret to her grave.
“You must have at least confronted the man the next morning,” he said, studying her with an angry, disappointed intensity that made her squirm.
She hated to admit waking up to find herself not only naked in the man’s bed, but discovering him long gone. “He’d already left.”
“Left? Without a word? Slam-bam, not even a thank-you-ma’am?”
She said nothing. What could she say? She couldn’t explain how comfortable she’d felt in the man’s company the night before. How protected. She’d relaxed, let her guard down, drank too much wine on an empty stomach. But how she’d ended up in his bed...she didn’t know. The drugged part sounded far-fetched, she had to admit. Maybe she just wanted to believe that over the alternative. She could tell Cooper certainly had his doubts about her story.
Cooper was still rubbing his neck, his face filled with anguish. She couldn’t bear the pain she was causing him. Suddenly, he froze, his gaze slowly lifting to hers. “Why are you telling me this now? Assure me it is only because you don’t want to go into the marriage with a lie between us.”
She swallowed again, choking back sobs as she tried to pull herself together. When she met his dark eyes, she cringed at the way he was looking at her. “He’s blackmailing me.”
“Blackmailing you?” Cooper let out a curse, then a bitter laugh. “Of course he is. How could I forget for even an instant that you are Buckmaster Hamilton’s daughter?” He raked strong fingers through his dark hair. “So if this man wasn’t blackmailing you, you would never have told me about this, would you have?”
“I didn’t tell you because I wanted to spare you,” she cried. “That’s why I didn’t tell you about the first blackmail demand.”
His voice turned deadly. “First blackmail demand? Are you telling me you paid this man?” He started to turn toward the door as if he had to get out of this room or he wasn’t sure what he would do.
“You can’t leave.” She reached for him, needing to touch him, to feel the connection between them.
“Give me one good reason to stay here right now.”
“There’s more.”
He turned, but took a step back out of her reach. “More?” His laugh was harsh. “You get a blackmail note and you don’t come to me, the man you say you’re going to marry? Of course not. You went to Daddy. You got the money from him, didn’t you? Why would you go to the man you say you’re going to spend the rest of your life with when you were in trouble?”
“I didn’t go to Daddy. I used some of my own money.”
“How much?” Cooper asked from between clenched teeth.
“Ten thousand.”
“You paid the man who you say possibly drugged and raped you ten thousand dollars rather than come to me with the truth?” Cooper stared at her as if he didn’t know her. “And now he wants more, right? What a surprise. The man must have thought he struck oil when you told him your name.”
Livie hadn’t told him her name, though. She’d given him the name of a friend of hers from college. She’d lied and even now she wasn’t sure why she’d done that. She guessed she’d done it because that night she hadn’t wanted to be Olivia Hamilton, daughter of Buckmaster Hamilton. And future bride of Cooper Barnett.
Apparently she’d been more angry with Cooper than she’d realized.
When she’d gotten the first note, she’d wondered how the man had found out the truth until she realized how easy it would have been for him to check her driver’s license while she was asleep. Or knocked out.
As if suddenly too exhausted to stand, Cooper lowered himself into a chair. He looked defeated. She watched him drop his head to his hands for a moment before he looked up at her. She couldn’t bear the pain in his eyes. “You didn’t trust me to help you. Livie,” he said with a shake of his head.
The way he said her name was a knife to her heart. No matter what he thought right now, she loved him and couldn’t imagine a life without him.
“How could you be so naive?” Cooper sighed. “Give me the blackmail note.”
She reached into her clutch and handed him the envelope.
He opened it carefully as if to not get any more fingerprints on it than was necessary. His gaze flew up to hers when he saw the amount her blackmailer was now demanding. “Fifty thousand dollars? When did you get this?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer, as if he’d already read the answer on her face. “Today. That’s why you had to tell me the night of our engagement party.”
“I didn’t tell you because I hated that I’d been duped like that. All this is my fault. I wanted to fix it myself. Also I was afraid you would never forgive me.”
He pocketed
