He stared at her, shaking his head.
“It’s true. I’m Torie Sands.”
“Sands? As in...?”
She drew in a deep breath and came clean. “Jarvis Sands was my father.”
He stared at her. “The butler.”
“Yes.”
“The one who stole the Don Carlos Treasure.”
“No!” she said fiercely. “He never did. He was falsely accused.”
Marc’s head went back. “As I remember it, he went to jail....”
“He was never formally indicted and the treasure was found. He was released.” She shook her head, wishing her eyes weren’t stinging with tears. How could her emotions about that time be so close to the surface when it was so long ago? “It was all a horrible mistake.”
He was frowning, his gaze ranging over her face, studying every feature as though he could randomly rearrange them and get to the truth. “You used to live in the gatehouse.”
She nodded, holding herself together with effort.
“Your name wasn’t Torie though, was it?”
“No. It was Vicki.” She shrugged. “Actually, Victoria.”
He was looking at her in wonder. “You were the chubby little girl who used to throw things at me from the apple tree.”
“I never threw anything at you,” she replied, wishing she didn’t sound as though she were pouting. “But I was that little girl.”
“Vicki Sands.” He nodded slowly. “Sure, I see it now. That was you.” He shrugged as though hardly knowing what to think. “I can’t believe it.” His gaze sharpened. “So what are you doing here, Torie? Why did you come back?”
She searched his handsome face and considered telling him the truth. She wanted to. But was that smart? After all, what she was here for was to prove his family wrong. He wasn’t going to help her do that, was he? The best thing that could come out of this was if she could convince him to leave her alone and let her get on with it. She wasn’t going to get anywhere with him hanging around.
She shrugged and looked away. “Nostalgia, I guess. I thought it would be fun to see the old place again.”
“Really.” His skeptical take on her statement was obvious. “I see.” His head tilted to the side as he considered her words. “So that’s why you went straight for the caves. It had something to do with the Don Carlos Treasure. Of course.”
“No.” She turned, wanting to defend her actions, but she saw the disbelief in his eyes and she was glad she’d kept the truth to herself. “Actually, I went out there because I used to play in those caves and I wanted to see them again. For old time’s sake.”
“Right.”
He didn’t believe her but she tried to get past that. After all, what did she care if he didn’t believe her? All she really wanted from him was to be left alone. Still, there was something she had to say.
“I...I heard about what happened to your father,” she told him. “And despite everything, I was sorry he had to go that way.”
He frowned. “What do you mean, despite everything?”
She blinked at him. Didn’t he remember how it was? His father had been the one who’d had hers arrested. There was certainly cause for her to resent the man. Her father had loved working for Hunt, as they called him, and had felt personally close to him. The way his old friend had turned on him had seemed a complete betrayal. It was a major factor in his taking his own life.
She frowned and turned away, fighting back emotion, but he didn’t seem to notice that she hadn’t answered.
“Wait. I’m trying to remember. Didn’t your father die shortly after you moved back down to Los Angeles that year?” he asked her. “I thought my father had told me that.”
She nodded, holding tears back with all the strength she had. There was no way she was going to cry in front of him.
“Yes,” she said gruffly. “My mother always says he died of a broken heart.” She coughed, covering up how her voice was shaking. “But actually...actually...” She turned and looked right into his face. “Actually, he shot himself.”
“Oh God.” His face registered pure compassion for a moment, and he reached out and touched her arm. “I’m sorry, Torie. I don’t think I knew that.”
She shrugged, forcing back the lump in her throat and pulling away from his hand.
“Funny,” he said softly. “So both our fathers committed suicide. How strange.”
“Oh!” She stared at him. His eyes looked troubled in the dark. “I didn’t know. The papers didn’t say... I thought...”
“It was an accidental drowning? Yeah, we got that announced and it stuck, luckily. But he left a note. We knew he died on purpose.”
She felt as though she’d been slugged in the stomach. She’d had no idea. She’d spent a lot of time resenting the man, but to hear he’d been tortured enough to want to end it all changed a lot in her heart.
Impulsively, she reached out and took his hand. “Oh Marc, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
He gazed down into her face. Tears still shimmered in her eyes. He looked at her pretty mouth and everything in him hungered to kiss her. Why? Just because she was pretty? Just because she was so close? No matter how much she appealed to him, she wasn’t available. She might not be married to Carl, but that didn’t mean she was free.
Deliberately, he pulled away from her touch.
“Carl,” he said, reminding himself as well as her. “What’s the deal with him? What’s he looking for?”
She shook her head. “I really don’t know. He hasn’t told me.” She hesitated, thinking fast. She needed to keep her cards close to her vest. She shouldn’t tell him too much. “I thought he was interested in buying the place and wanted to check out all the details. And that’s probably all it is.”
“But you don’t know.”
She bit her lip. What could she say? “When you come right down to it, I don’t really know him all that well,” she admitted. There was no use trying to maintain the fiction that they had ever been married. It was too late for that.
“I’ve worked for him a few times. He found out I grew up here, so when he decided to come check it out, he asked if I wanted to come and pretend to be his wife.”
She looked up into his eyes, hoping she was coming across as undeniably innocent—because that was what she was. Wasn’t she? Sure she was. She was using Carl, but he was using her. They both knew the score. It was basically an arrangement of convenience for both of them.
“I
