you have to tell us the truth.”
“I am, dammit.”
“The whole truth,” he added with emphasis.
“I am,” she said again, but without the same vehemence.
Naturally Dylan didn’t miss the difference. She could see it in his eyes. He knew she was lying.
What if she told him about the pills? She almost did, then caught herself. For if Paul found out she had broken her promise and told anyone, who knew what he would do? It wouldn’t matter to him that he had broken their agreement first by coming after Bobby. No, she reassured herself again, she had to keep silent, for all their sakes.
Dylan wanted to shake the whole truth out of Kelsey James. She was obviously a bright woman. She had to know that forcing him and Justin to operate blindly just made everything twice as difficult as it needed to be.
The noise level in the living room climbed as neighbors discussed the call that had just come in. He saw Kelsey’s gaze seek out Lizzy, probably for moral support, and realized he needed to get her alone, just the two of them. He had to find a way to gain her confidence, so that she would trust him with the whole truth.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Where?” she demanded, balking.
He latched on to her hand and urged her back in the kitchen, then shooed everyone else out and shut the door. Kelsey looked as if she might protest, but then she sighed and sank onto a chair and accepted the cup of tea he handed her. She sipped automatically and stared warily at him over the rim of the cup, as if she sensed his displeasure. Dylan concluded that she was terrified enough without him coming down on her as hard as he wanted to. Tact wasn’t his long suit, but maybe it was worth a try.
He turned a chair around and straddled it, took out a notebook and pen. “Okay, let’s try this another way. Tell me about your ex.”
She blinked rapidly, then studied her cup of tea as if it were the most important thing in her universe.
Dylan’s short supply of patience was dwindling. “Kelsey, help me out here. I need to get a fix on this guy, get into his head.”
“I know. It’s just…” She shook her head. “I don’t know where to start.”
He bought her confusion. He sensed she really was struggling to sort through the information and put some order to it. He didn’t need order. He needed raw facts. Still, he kept his tone mild as he suggested, “How about the beginning? Where did you meet? How long did you know him before you got married?”
She closed her eyes for a minute, as if the memories were painful. “He was a stockbroker,” she began finally.
“Which firm?”
She named one of the biggest.
“Still there?”
“As far as I know.”
He made a note, then nodded. “Go on.”
“One of Paul’s clients was a doctor at the hospital where I was in med school. We were just finishing rounds when he came in for an appointment to go over the man’s portfolio. The doctor got called away on an emergency so he asked me to take Paul to the cafeteria and keep him company until he could get there.” She regarded him wearily. “How is this helping? It’s ancient history.”
“Trust me. It will. So, was it love at first sight?” Dylan asked.
“Hardly,” she said with a touch of wry humor. “I thought he was way too full of himself. A lot like you, in fact.”
Dylan shrugged off the jibe. It wasn’t the only thing he and Paul James had in common. He wondered how she would feel if she knew the truth about that.
“And?” he prodded.
“I never thought he would look twice at me.”
“Why?” Dylan asked, genuinely incredulous at the suggestion that she wouldn’t catch a man’s attention.
“Let’s just say I was a very bookish student. I didn’t spend a lot of time with my appearance. He was very slick, very handsome, the ultimate yuppie. When I was studying, I was lucky to remember to put on lipstick and matching socks before I went out the door.”
Dylan tried to reconcile the image she was painting with the woman seated across from him. He couldn’t. Even in her shorts and T-shirt, her feet in sandals, she radiated both inner beauty and confidence. Her hair framed her face with the sort of tousled curls a man’s fingers just itched to untangle. She had a scattering of freckles across her nose, but otherwise her complexion was near perfect. And those eyes—a man could sink in their glittering sea-green depths and go down for the third time happy. A sudden rush of heat told him he needed to avoid spending too much time gazing into those eyes.
“If you two were such a mismatch, how did you wind up together?”
“I don’t know,” she said with apparent bemusement. “Somehow we just clicked. Not overnight. It took a few weeks, but suddenly everything changed. Then things moved very quickly. We got married, moved into an old Coral Gables house that had great history and lousy plumbing and then Bobby came along. I was doing my residency in pediatrics by then.”
“Sounds stressful. Was your husband a big help around the house?”
A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Paul? You have to be kidding. The only thing he did was hire a nanny, then race off to the office. I don’t know what you know about being a resident in a trauma center, but the hours are hell. Paul’s were worse. Into the office before the market opened to get a jump on things, out with clients after Wall Street closed to celebrate the victories or solidify the relationship.”
Dylan thought back to Kit’s complaints about his work habits. More than once, she had accused him of being an absent husband and father. It sounded as if in the James marriage the two of them had shared the blame.
As if she sensed his disapproval, Kelsey said, “We did the best we could.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you did,” he said perfectly aware of the note of sarcasm that had crept into his voice.
Bright patches of color flamed in her cheeks. “You don’t approve of me, do you, Mr. Delacourt?”
Dylan was surprised that she had called him on it. So the lady had a temper, after all. And good instincts. Maybe that could work to his advantage. He’d rather have her fighting mad than docile and defeated. He deliberately shrugged. “It’s not my job to judge you,” he said, careful to imply that he did just the same. “All I care about is finding Bobby.”
After an instant’s hesitation, she nodded. “Good. Then we can agree on that, at least.”
He bit back his amusement at the tart tone. “You don’t approve of me, either, do you, doctor?”
“Honestly?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t care what sort of foul-tempered beast you are.
