Found: Her Long-Lost Husband

Secrets We Keep

Jackie Braun

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my 10 sisters-in-law: Martha, Patti B., Izumi,

Diana, Diane, Kathy, Barb, Judy, Patti H. and Holly.

How did I get so lucky?

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

CLAIRE MAYFIELD STEPPED off the connecting flight in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on the last leg of her long journey home and breathed deeply. She’d been on airplanes and sitting in bustling terminals in various spots around the globe for the past twenty-some hours, having flown out of Hong Kong International Airport.

She was jet-lagged, hungry for real food and eager to soak away the grime of travel with a hot bath. She also needed to find a man.

Not just any man. Her ex-husband, Ethan Seaver.

Just thinking his name had the air backing up in her lungs. Nerves, she told herself, even as her body’s reaction suggested something else. Claire ignored it, as she always did, exhaling slowly. Her reason for needing to find him had nothing to do with renewing their relationship, even if that were a possibility, which it wasn’t. No, she didn’t want to go back. She wanted to move forward. To do that, the past needed to be settled first.

As she made her way through the crowd of passengers, she switched the heavy carry-on case to the other shoulder. She was petite, fine-boned and just a hair over five-two in her stockinged feet, but for the first time in her life she had actual muscles defining her calves and thighs, and sculpting her shoulders and upper arms.

She had been away from Chicago for not quite three weeks, during which time she had bicycled four hundred kilometers through the Himalayas to raise money and awareness for the plight of exploited children. In many ways, though, it felt as if she’d been gone a lifetime. She was a changed woman—or at least a changing one. She felt stronger, more independent. She was determined to stand on her own two feet—this time for good.

In tackling the Himalayas on a twenty-one-speed bike, she’d begun another journey. This one was about self-discovery and, just as in the mountains, she had traveling companions for this trip too—Belle Davenport and Simone Gray. They made an unlikely trio—an American, a Brit and an Aussie who’d seemed to have little in common except for their gender and their obvious lack of athletic prowess. They were determined, though. Each had had something to prove—to themselves and to the people who looked at their seemingly cushy lives and sold them short.

They also had secrets. Secrets they had shared with no one until sitting in a tent high in the mountains, hands blistered, knees scraped, backs and behinds ridiculously sore, they’d exposed wounds far more damaging. Wounds that had festered for years.

In Belle’s case her seemingly perfect marriage was a sham, her well-heeled life a lovely façade intended to conceal an ugly childhood that had seen her and her young sister relegated to foster care and only one of them adopted. It hadn’t been Belle. She’d been forced to scrape and claw her way to adulthood on her own, where she’d become a successful morning television personality. Now Belle was determined to leave her husband and find her sister, Daisy.

Simone’s secret was equally heartbreaking. As a teenaged girl she’d killed her stepfather, an accident for which she had allowed her mother to take the rap and spend time behind bars. The lies had torn the family apart. Simone’s grandfather hadn’t spoken to her since then.

In comparison, Claire supposed her secret was not nearly so shocking. Still, it shamed her. A decade earlier she had met and married a man in a cowardly attempt to get out from underneath her father’s thumb. The marriage hadn’t lasted, nor had her spurt of rebellion. Both had been brief, their endings regrettable. She had only herself to blame for that.

Oh, she’d been genuinely fond of Ethan. At the time she had wondered if maybe she might be falling in love with the hard-working, sweet-talking young man who’d seemed so interested in her opinions, her dreams and her goals. No one before or since had taken her as seriously. God knew, she hadn’t taken herself seriously, which made her treatment of Ethan all the more appalling.

She’d used him.

Worse than using him, she’d set him up—his David to her father’s Goliath. Unlike the biblical version of the story, though, this time Goliath had come out the winner.

She hadn’t seen or heard from Ethan since. Nor had she become deeply involved with anyone else, despite her father’s efforts at finding her the perfect husband and her own attempts at dating. According to Belle, Claire was punishing herself. Simone had suggested she was waiting for a proper resolution to her marriage before moving on.

Closure. It was, they’d realized, what they all were seeking. And so, before their ride through China’s Yunnan Province had ended, the three women had made a pact. They would make amends and then they would start over. Getting from point A to point B, however, would be no easy downhill ride. It would require an uphill trek over very rocky terrain.

For Claire, it meant taking full responsibility for her actions and for her life. She would face Ethan, return the ring that had been in her jewelry box all of these years and finally make the apology that had been owed to him for more than a decade. What would he say? she wondered. How would he react when she contacted him? Memories beckoned, at first sweet and then turning sour, just as their relationship had. She’d be kidding herself if she thought he was going to be happy to see her.

“Miss Mayfield,” someone called. “Welcome home.”

She glanced over to see Dolan, her father’s driver, standing near the gate. Her gaze veered momentarily past his lanky, black-clad frame, but she recognized no one else. She chided herself for thinking her parents might have ventured to the airport to welcome her home. Sumner and Marianna Mayfield hadn’t wanted her to go on the bike trek in the first place, regardless of its role in raising funds for charity.

Unseemly, her mother had called it. Just as she had found Claire’s more sculpted physique unfeminine. Apparently it was better to be wisp thin and sickly all the time like herself.

During the months leading up to the trip, her father had appeared impressed by her dedication to the grueling training regimen she’d put together. Ultimately, though, he’d considered the entire endeavor unnecessary.

“Write a check, kitten,” he’d suggested.

Checks took care of all sorts of things—even idealistic young men who were not deemed suitable hus-bands for the debutante daughter of a wealthy Chicago businessman.

Mayfields were good at writing checks. And Claire had been good at taking her parents’ advice rather than risking her father’s wrath or upsetting her mother, who was always suffering from some malady or another. This time, though, she’d held her ground. This time she’d been determined to do more than donate money, which God knew she had in abundance thanks to her trust fund. Instead, she’d decided to put herself to the test. She’d had something to prove—to the people who believed she would never have to earn her way, and to herself.

So far, she was happy with the results.

“I trust your trip was uneventful,” Dolan inquired politely, taking the bag from her hands. The courtesy was second nature and one he was paid to perform. Even so, it startled Claire, who nearly snatched it back. In a matter of weeks, she had come to rely on herself.

“Not exactly.”

She recalled the bruises, scrapes and blisters, many of which had not yet healed. Nothing about the trip had been easy, but even as she sighed, she was smiling. She hadn’t felt this rejuvenated, this motivated, this damned purposeful in a very long time.

Dolan smiled in return, mistaking the meaning of her sigh. “Don’t worry. I’ll have you at your condo in short order. Traffic should be light this time of day. I’ll have you sitting poolside, sipping an apple martini well before dinner.”

Claire shook her head, though, and retrieved from her purse the folded classified section of the previous day’s Chicago Sun-Times. She’d picked it up during her layover in Los Angeles and had already made the necessary calls to set up appointments with Realtors. Handing it to the driver, she said, “Actually, I need to make a couple of stops first.”

Dolan’s graying eyebrows rose as he studied the circled addresses. “Apartments, miss?” And she knew he was good and flummoxed when he overstepped his bounds by asking, “Why do you need to look at apartments?”

“I’ve decided to find a place in the city.”

“In the city?” he repeated blankly.

Claire nodded. “I’m moving.”

And this time that would involve more than having the staff tote her belongings to a condominium her parents owned not far from their sprawling suburban Chicago estate. She’d done that after the marriage fiasco. Looking back, she realized what a pitiful attempt at independence it had been. No wonder her parents hadn’t tried to talk her out of it. This time they would.

Dolan’s startled reaction was mild compared to what she suspected her parents’ would be. Her father was going to erupt. After all, how could he continue to run her life if she was living an hour away in the city? Her mother would probably suffer one of her debilitating migraines brought on by emotional stress.

Claire wasn’t looking forward to the coming confrontation any more than she was eager to contact Ethan. To hear his deep voice again. To lose herself in the vivid green of his eyes—eyes that no doubt would brim with condemnation.

“I can do it,” she murmured.

“Pardon me, miss?”

She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Sometimes you just have to trust yourself, take your hand off the brake and let momentum carry you all the way down the hill.”

She’d done that on the descent into Tiger Leaping Gorge, heart jammed in her throat and blocking her scream as the bike’s narrow tires had raced over bumpy and winding cobblestone roads that hugged the mountain on one side and dropped away into the gorge on the other.

Safely at the bottom, she’d pumped her fists in the air and whooped in triumph. Of course, once the adrenaline rush had abated, she’d heaved the contents of her stomach on to the tops of her shoes.

Dolan eyed her curiously, but merely nodded. “Of course, miss.”

He didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. For that matter, Claire herself had only just begun to understand all of the lessons she’d learned.

She just hoped to God that when she found Ethan it would be far less painful and humiliating than when she’d hit that rock on the second day of their trip and wound up flying headfirst over the handlebars.

CHAPTER ONE

DID THE MANhave to be so good-looking?

That was Claire’s first thought as she stared at the color photograph of Ethan Seaver.

It wasn’t fair. He’d been approaching Greek god status a decade ago, with his deep-set green eyes, sexy mouth and well-defined cheekbones. He’d only improved with age.

The picture on the Web site was a head and shoulders shot, a professional portrait of a professional man. She could just make out the knot of a tie and the collar of a snowy-white shirt. She tried to concentrate on these innocuous details rather than the leanness of his cheeks or the sculpted line of his jaw. Even so, as she unscrewed the cap from a bottle of spring water and took a swig, she was wishing for something with a little more kick.

Locating her ex had proved remarkably simple. She hadn’t even required the services of a private investigator. All she’d had to do was type Ethan’s name into the search field on her laptop computer and hit Enter. Within seconds the search engine had spat back several screenfuls of possible matches to her rather broad inquiry.

The first couple of hits had provided links to newspaper stories, one from The Detroit Free Press and another from a respected national business journal. She had dismissed both at first, assuming it was a different Ethan Seaver who had been named as one of the thirty American entrepreneurs under forty to watch. But then her gaze had caught on the third entry down: Seaver Security Solutions, Ethan J. Seaver, president. Her heart had thumped and the blood had pounded noisily in her ears. Yet Claire swore she could hear his voice.

I plan to own my own company, Claire. A security firm protecting the assets of the Fortune 500. Some day even the likes of your father will be seeking my advice.

He’d told her that not long after proposing, as if wanting to assure her that his ambitions reached well beyond remaining a second-shift worker who punched a clock for somebody else.

According to the Web site, Ethan was the president and founder of a growing and respected commercial security firm that did everything from installation and monitoring to consulting and product development. Its headquarters was in Detroit with clients all over the Midwest.

Including Chicago.

Claire laughed out loud. The sound echoed off the bare walls of her apartment, a spacious two bedroom in a trendy section of Chicago that commanded a high price thanks to its sunrise view of Lake Michigan. Only a couple of days had passed since her return from the Himalayas, but she’d certainly managed to shake things up by signing a lease. As a result, her mother had taken to her bed and wasn’t speaking to Claire. Unfortunately, her father was. He’d spent the better part of the morning trying to “talk some sense” into Claire as a crew of movers had carried her boxed-up belongings to a waiting van.

It had irritated Sumner to no end that this time, no matter how much he blustered or threatened, Claire hadn’t budged. The problem—his problem, not hers—was that she’d never felt more sensible in her life.

Sensible. Yet here she was, sitting cross-legged on the bare floor and laughing like a happily medicated root canal patient because Ethan had essentially been right in her backyard all these years. Not only that, but he’d been providing surveillance and other high-end services to some of his ex-father-in-law’s competitors. The payback quotient was subtle but there.

Of course, even a decade ago Ethan’s dogged determination had been obvious. It was one of the qualities she had admired, respected. Claire had never met anyone quite like him in her sheltered life. He’d come from a modest background and yet words like “no” and “I can’t” hadn’t been part of his vocabulary. He’d been so driven, so purposeful. So…disappointing.

She rested the chilled bottle of water against her forehead, mirth and pride subsiding as anger sneaked in.

She had little doubt where Ethan had gotten the start-up capital for his business. She’d watched her father write out the postdated check. A very hefty sum paid to the order of Ethan Seaver on one condition: he needed to go away quickly and quietly.

And he had.

The one person Claire had counted on to be immune to her father’s high-handed bullying, the one person she had assumed would be too proud to take the powerful Sumner Mayfield’s money, had done just that, consenting to a divorce, keeping their marriage hush-hush, disappearing.

She swatted her anger aside. It didn’t matter. These days, Claire was counting on herself. She should have done that back then too, instead of involving a third party in her sticky family dynamics.

Staring at Ethan’s photograph, she swore his gaze held the same amount of accusation it had the last time they’d been face-to-face.

“Why in the hell did you marry me, Claire?” The demand had sounded almost like a challenge.

“I am sorry, Ethan,” she murmured now to the image on the computer screen.

That doesn’t count, honey.

Claire could almost hear Belle saying it, the words clipped with her British accent. She could almost hear Simone’s laughter trill. How she missed them. She had other friends, of course, but none in whom she had confided her shameful secret. That made the bond they shared all the more special.

Then, as if she had conjured up the pair, her computer chimed, signaling an e-mail had just been received. Claire clicked on her mailbox and discovered two, both delivered to the group account they had set up for their correspondence. The first message was from Simone and had come in several hours earlier. The latest was from Belle and apparently was in response to Simone’s. The subject lines didn’t bode well: diary missing.

Claire clicked on Simone’s e-mail first:

Hullo, ladies. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I seem to have lost the journal I kept during our trip.

Claire sucked in a breath. Simone had kept rather detailed notes of their travels, their burgeoning friend ship and finally their secrets and what they planned to do about them. Now the diary was gone, apparently dropped at the airport in her rush to catch a taxi. It made Claire a little queasy to think someone might be reading it. She clicked open Belle’s response:

Oh, Simone! What a shame about your diary. I know how hard you worked on it. Will you be able to put together your article without it?”

Simone worked for Girl Talk magazine.

If you need any details, I’ve got the stuff I wrote for my reports that you can have. As for anyone connecting us with it, I wouldn’t worry too much. It’s most likely in some airport waste compactor by now.

Probably, Claire thought. Even if someone had opened it, the beginning pages were likely bland enough to quell any interest.

Belle had continued,

Now for my news…

Claire blinked at the screen. And here she’d thought she had been working at a fast pace. But then, Belle never could stand to have anyone else in the lead. Already she’d left her husband, Ivo, moving out of his upscale Belgravia town house, and was living in the flat at Camden Lock she’d kept since before her marriage. And she’d cut her hair, changed her look. She’d attached a photograph that had Claire smiling. Belle’s trademark blonde locks were gone, clipped off into a softly layered short ’do that complemented her lovely face.

Claire wrote back to Simone first:

Don’t beat yourself up about this. It’s disappointing and frustrating, but I can’t imagine it will cause any problems for any of us.

She added a one-sided happy face. Then she wrote:

By the way, I moved out, too. I’m in my new apartment right now, sitting on the floor since I have no furniture yet. Not even a comfortable bed. Reminds me of our trip.

This time the smiley face icon was all teeth.

And, drum roll please. I’ve found my ex. Turns out he’s made quite a name for himself. I’m attaching a URL to his Web site.

Send.

To her delight, Belle answered just as Claire was getting ready to log off. Apparently she was still online:

Hmm. A prime specimen, that one. I can see why you were attracted to him.

Claire ignored the tug of lust that lingered when she recalled his face…and remembered his very capable hands. She wrote back:

Wish me luck. I’m going to call him first thing tomorrow morning.

You’re calling him? Why not a face-to-face meeting? He deserves that much, don’t you think?

Belle’s query nipped at Claire’s conscience.

Yes, but I think I need to call first. He lives in another state now, a good six hours’ drive.

A day’s ride away. Take your bike.

Belle teased in return.

A little chilly for that here in November.

Freezing rain tapped at the windows as she typed the words.

Fine. Take a car then. But go.

Belle could be relentless.

Claire promised:

I will. Eventually. For now, a phone call.

Okay. For now. Let us know how it goes. It must be late in Chicago.

Nearly two in the morning.

Better get your beauty sleep then. Not that you need it. Good night, love.

‘Night.

Claire jotted down Ethan’s office number from the Web site and then turned off the computer. First thing in the morning, she vowed silently, she would speak to him.

Ethan Seaver believed in setting goals and going after what he wanted—even the seemingly impossible. That was how he explained his success in business when the odds had been stacked against him and his small independent company at the outset.

A man had to be determined, decisive. He had to be willing to take risks. He couldn’t let the fear of failure hold him back. Ethan wasn’t afraid to fail. In fact, he refused to accept it as an outcome. Professionally.

His personal life was another matter. He’d learned his lesson—a very painful one—a long time ago courtesy of a beautiful woman. Some risks just weren’t worth taking, just as sometimes failure was the price one paid for being blind and foolish. His disastrous marriage to Claire Mayfield had taught him to be cautious—his sisters-in-law claimed suspicious—of women in general and love in particular. He dated, but he was careful to keep things from developing beyond a casual relationship. That suited him. After all, he didn’t have time for more than dinners out and the occasional romantic evening in. Business was his main focus and his business was growing.

Seaver Security Solutions had posted record profits the previous year. Ethan wanted to expand the bottom line further by moving into new markets and beginning production of the new security system he’d developed. Record profits notwithstanding, he needed serious money to do that. He’d put out feelers, quietly seeking an investor, but he was having little luck finding one who shared his vision. Meanwhile, his accountant was suggesting he consider taking Seaver public.

“The initial public offering would bring in more than enough to cover your research and development needs,” the accountant had assured him during a recent meeting. “It could even be a carrot to attract and retain quality workers if you compensated your top managers and executives with stock as well as a competitive salary.”

It made sense. Still, Ethan wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of sharing the fruits of his labor with outsiders. Nor was he sure he wanted the added headache of filing regular reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission, even though a publicly held Seaver Security Solutions would certainly enjoy greater prestige.

He was flipping through the prospectus he’d had a team of lawyers draft just in case when his secretary buzzed him on the office intercom.

“There’s a call for you, Mr Seaver.”

He glanced at his watch. Not quite seven-thirty. He liked to start his work day early, by seven at the latest. He found himself most productive before ten. Curiously, he’d met few movers and shakers in the business world his security firm served who believed likewise, unless it involved a meeting on a golf course.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Claire Mayfield.”

Ethan prided himself on having nerves of steel and a poker face. He routinely cleaned up in Friday night card games with his two brothers and their friends. But nothing could have prepared him for hearing that name. It blasted from his past, landing like a sucker punch. He was grateful to be alone in his office since his mouth had slackened with surprise. He snapped it shut and tamped down on the unexpected and unwanted flood of emotions.

He pressed the intercom button again. “Claire Mayfield?” he managed in a casual tone.

“She claims you know her,” Anita Dauber replied.

Hardly, he thought. Bitterness welled again, spew-ing with the destructive force of molten lava. I never knew the woman at all. He cleared his throat. He was calm once again when he inquired, “Does she say why she’s calling?”

“Just that it’s personal. Should I ask her to be more specific?”

God, no! The last thing he wanted was to have his private life paraded in front of an employee, no matter how discreet Anita could be. He’d only told his immediate family about his hasty nuptials to Claire, and even then he’d skimped on the particulars. The outcome had been too embarrassing, too—painful, to give a detailed account.

“That’s all right. I’ll speak to her.”

Ethan let Claire stew on hold for a good five minutes, almost hoping the uninspired instrumental versions of pop tunes piped through the line would get to her and she would hang up. But the light on his phone continued to blink. It was just his luck. For once, the woman wasn’t going away.

Let’s get this over with.

He snatched up the receiver. “What can I do for you, Claire?”

Not bad, he decided. He came across as busy, impatient, maybe even a little bit bored. She, on the other hand, sounded just as he remembered when she said his name: sexy as hell with that smoky, throaty tone.

“Ethan. How are you?”

He leaned back in his chair, resting one ankle across the opposite knee, and ignored the tug of lust. “Fine, but a little surprised. I have to tell you, Claire, I didn’t figure you’d even remember me after all this time.”

“I remember you.”

Because her tone had gone soft, he hardened his. “I remember you, too.” Not fondly was implied. “So, to what do I owe the…pleasure?”

“I need to speak with you.”

“Mayfield in the market for a new security system? Hope you’re not counting on the family discount.”

She ignored the insult, which made him feel small for issuing it in the first place. “No. Actually, it’s a…personal matter.”

He planted both feet on the floor again and straightened. “Nothing between us was ever personal.”

“We were married,” she said.

“Do a couple of days spent as husband and wife qualify as a real marriage?” he asked softly.

“It felt like the real thing at the time.”

The words surprised him. They sneaked past his defenses and made him remember things best left forgotten.

“Well, you’d have more experience in that regard than me,” he replied.

“What do you mean by that?”

She sounded honestly baffled. He had no intention of enlightening her since it would involve delving into their past. “Look, Claire, I’m busy.”

“I know. I checked out your company’s Web site, by the way.” There was a smile in her voice when she added, “Seaver Security Solutions is quite a success. You must be very proud.”

“I am.” After a brief pause, he said, “Is that what you called to tell me?”

“No. Actually, I…I have something of yours I need to return and some things I’d like to say. I’m calling to set up a meeting, perhaps later this week. I promise not to take up much of your time.”

“You already have,” he informed her. “Besides, I’ll be out of the office later this week.”

“Next week, then.”

“Next week too. Whatever you have of mine I haven’t missed it, so there’s no need to return it. As for what you want to tell me after all these years, I’m listening.”

“It’s hard to explain, especially over the telephone.”

His curiosity was well and truly stoked but he replied blandly, “Try, because this is the only opportunity I’m going to give you.”

On the other end of the line, Claire paced in front of the large window in her apartment’s living room. Outside, the sun was just coming up, spreading a warm amber glow over the velvety smooth waters of Lake Michigan. Inside, her emotions were choppy and churning. This wasn’t going as she had hoped. She’d rehearsed what she’d planned to say, knew the words by heart. The problem was that Ethan was refusing to go along with her script and she was just no good at ad-libbing.

“Well?” he prompted as she continued to grope for the right words.

Claire studied the simple gold band she held between her index finger and thumb. “I…I regret the way things turned out between us. I never meant to hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me.” Ethan’s harsh laughter scraped against her ear. “Hell, you get right down to it, Claire, we hardly knew one another.”

Hardly knew one another? There were times when she’d thought he could see into her soul. In a few short weeks, she’d sworn he’d understood her better than anyone else ever had.

“You ticked me off, sure,” he continued conversationally. “I have wondered, though.”

She swallowed. “About what?”

“Why me? What made you pick me? I mean, there had to have been other guys who were, shall we say, more in your league?” He made a humming noise. “Hell, maybe that was my appeal. Blue-collar background, dirt under the nails so to speak, a little rough around the edges socially. I suppose I provided what you would call shock value.”

“No.” Though he couldn’t see her, Claire shook her head vehemently. “I…I liked you, Ethan. Really. I liked you a lot.”

He snorted. “You liked me. I hope you haven’t made it a habit to marry every man you like.” His voice lowered. “But then you didn’t marry me because you liked me, did you, Claire?”

“No.” One small word, and yet she all but choked on it. “You used me.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, ashamed. He’d known. Of course he’d known. “I’m sorry, Ethan. Truly, I am. I acted badly, selfishly. I put you in a very awkward position because I was immature.”

In response to her heartfelt mea culpa, all he offered was a bland, “Yes.”

She tamped down the beginnings of temper. It wasn’t as if Ethan hadn’t gotten something for his trouble. She remembered the check. He’d had it in his hand, hadn’t even tried to hide it as he’d let her walk away.

Claire studied the gold band in her own hand. This was about her behavior, not his.

“I am sorry,” she managed again.

“Why?”

Claire frowned. “I think I just explained why.”

“I guess I mean, why apologize now? It’s been, what, ten years? Excuse me for suspecting an ulterior motive here, but it seems strange that, after all this time, you are suddenly calling me to say you’re sorry.”

Claire caught her reflection in the window’s glass. A woman with short, sassy hair and an angled-up chin that bespoke confidence stared back.

“I’ve changed.”

He was quiet for a long moment. “Me, too, Claire. I’ve changed, too. Don’t contact me again. Unless, of course, it’s to discuss business. In that case, I’ll be more than happy to give your father a quote for a new security system, either for Mayfield’s Chicago headquarters or any of its other sites in the United States or abroad.”

“It wouldn’t bother you to take his money?” she asked quietly, though she already knew the answer.

“Not in the least. Goodbye.”

“Ethan—”

But he’d already hung up. The dial tone had switched to an agitated beep before Claire finally placed the cordless receiver back on its charger.

Disappointed, that was how she felt. She’d expected to experience a vastly different emotion once she’d contacted him, confronted her past. Instead of moving forward, though, she was stuck in Neutral.

“I said I was sorry,” she murmured. It dawned on her that he’d never accepted her apology. “But he would accept a check.”

She prowled her apartment, too restless to sit still. Not that she had much of anything to sit on. She had no furniture, although she had picked out a couch, chairs and an ottoman for the living room, as well as a cherry bedroom suite. It would be several weeks yet before any of it would be delivered. The bare walls and floors didn’t lend any hominess to the place. Indeed, they added to her sense of isolation. She paced to the bedroom, where a queen-sized mattress and box spring were pushed against one wall. At least she wasn’t sleeping on the floor any longer.

But she was sleeping alone.

For the first time in years she allowed herself to recall the way it had felt to slumber next to Ethan and to wake with his heavy arm draped across her torso. The gesture had seemed protective rather than possessive, just as the caresses had been patient and instructive as well as seductive.

She shivered now. She’d trembled then.

I promise I’ll make you happy, Claire.

Caught up in the moment, caught up in the magic, she’d promised him the same. Another vow that both of them had broken.

Angry with Ethan, but more angry with herself, Claire tossed her workout clothes into a duffel bag and tugged a baseball cap low over her brow, leaving her short locks to sprout out the sides. She didn’t bother with makeup. She left for the gym she belonged to across town, determined to exorcise old demons and sweat away her frustration and self-directed irritation on a stationary bike.

An hour later, as she pedaled furiously, perspiration slicking her brow and sliding down her spine to soak the waist of her cotton workout shorts, Claire didn’t miss the irony that, just as with her ex-husband, she was getting absolutely nowhere.

Ethan thought he had come so far since his short-lived and foolishly impulsive marriage to Claire, but merely hearing her voice that morning had yanked him backward and left him dangling from the same high precipice he’d fallen off a decade earlier.

It had been nearly two hours since her telephone call and he still couldn’t get his mind to settle or his memory to shut off. Recollections from their past haunted him. Snippets from their conversation nagged.

“I’m sorry.”

He had to admit, the apology had come as a complete surprise. Even more shocking, though, had been the fact that Claire hadn’t denied using him. Nor had she tried to foist the blame for the fiasco that had been their marriage onto anyone else. No. She’d accepted full responsibility for behavior she’d readily conceded was selfish and immature.

Why didn’t that make him feel any better? Why was he still sitting at his desk two hours later poking at her every word with the same morbid fascination of a gawker slowing down at the site of a car wreck?

Why hadn’t he just said, Apology accepted, nice knowing you, and let it go at that?

Perhaps because she’d also claimed, “I’ve changed.”

The words had him wondering. They had him curious.

Changed? What exactly did she mean by that? Had she grown a conscience? Or had she, too, at odd times over the past decade, found herself wondering where he was, what he was doing, if he was happy?

She’d been the only woman who’d ever made him fall so hard and fast. Love at first sight? Not exactly, but damned close. Ethan shoved a hand through his hair in disgust and sipped his coffee. The usually mild blend seemed as bitter as his mood. Well, whatever the reason for her call, he wasn’t about to find himself in the same room as Claire Mayfield again.

It wasn’t like him to avoid confrontation. Claire, of course, had a way of making him do things that were out of character. Like marrying her after only a handful of dates. Like seeking a divorce mere days after making what he’d thought would be a lifetime commitment.

I, Ethan James Seaver, take thee, Claire Anne Mayfield, as my lawfully wedded wife…

Even though he didn’t want to remember, he was tugged back in time. He’d been twenty-six, determined to take on the world even though he’d been a mere security guard working second shift at the Mayfield corporate headquarters in Chicago. The family-owned company manufactured everything from toothpaste to pharmaceuticals with operations in seventeen countries around the globe. Claire had been twenty-one, reserved to the point of shyness. She’d been vulnerable, delicate, the kind of woman a man felt he needed to protect.

And she’d been beautiful.

Her hair had hung nearly to her waist, a dark veil of sorts behind which she’d seemed to hide. Once they’d properly met it had been his habit to push it away from her face and tuck it behind her ears so that he could see her better. The first time he’d done it, her eyes had grown wide. Then she’d smiled slowly and he’d felt the earth shift under his feet. She was the only woman who’d ever had that effect on him. He told himself he didn’t miss that feeling of being out of control, that feeling of being…lost.

Claire had been doing an internship in the marketing department at Mayfield that summer. Each day, she’d left work at precisely five-thirty—the same time that Ethan took his dinner break in the employees’ cafeteria. She’d always stopped in for a bottle of water to drink on the drive home. At first, Ethan hadn’t known who Claire was, not that her identity would have mattered much or ended the attraction. He might have grown up poor on Chicago’s south side, but even back then he’d had no shortage of confidence, no dearth of pride.

He’d never considered that he might not be “good enough” for her. What did it matter that his diploma had come from a community college rather than the Ivy League? What did it matter that her family’s name regularly appeared in the newspaper, announcing Mayfield’s many innovations and triumphs, whereas the only time the Seaver name had made the Sun-Times or Tribune it had been in the obituaries?

Everett Daniel Seaver, beloved husband of Mary, doting father of Ethan, Michael and James, died on Monday as the result of a motorcycle accident. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the family to cover funeral expenses.

Ethan had been in elementary school and, at eleven, the oldest. His father had held a low-paying job. He’d had no life insurance, no savings put away. He’d left behind a heap of credit-card debt and a devastated wife who had barely managed to keep their family intact. In fact, for a little while Mary Seaver had been so broken that she hadn’t managed at all. Ethan still remembered the confusion, the fear he and his brothers had experienced when the authorities had come to take them to foster care.

He’d been determined not to repeat his father’s mistakes. He’d planned to make something of himself. In fact, he’d considered himself well on his way with a college degree under his belt and a growing bank account with which he planned to start his own business. So, after a week of his polite nods and her sidelong glances, he’d asked Claire for her telephone number. She’d blushed as she’d written it out on a paper napkin for him.

Their first date, if it could be called a date since it had occurred during his forty-five-minute dinner break, had ended with a polite handshake while she’d waited for her father’s driver to arrive at Mayfield’s front entrance. He could still recall the way her slim fingers had brushed against his rough palm as she’d pulled away. He’d never been so turned on in all his life.

The second date had ended with a brief kiss that nonetheless had heated his blood from simmering to a rolling boil and had made him desperate for much, much more. Barely a month afterward he’d asked her to marry him. It wasn’t until later that he’d realized Claire actually had been the one to bring up the subject of matrimony.

Memories he’d long kept buried resurrected themselves now. He recalled the way she’d looked during their hasty Las Vegas wedding—small, delicate, her dark hair twisted into a clever knot at the back of her head that kept it away from her face. Her gold-flecked brown eyes had been luminous.

She hadn’t worn the traditional bridal gown, but a simple suit whose pencil skirt tapered to the knee. It had been white, a fitting color he’d discovered later when they’d been alone in their hotel room, consummating the vows they’d just spoken. For a brief time, he’d counted himself the luckiest man in the world and he’d looked forward to building a future together.

…Till death us do part.

The words rang in Ethan’s head and snapped him back to the present. He scrubbed a hand over his face. A fool, that was what he’d been. Played from beginning to end by someone who might have been innocent but had been no novice at getting what she’d wanted.

He’d let himself be taken in by her slow smile and wide eyes. But Claire hadn’t loved him. She hadn’t planned to stay married to him, he’d learned soon enough. Ethan had been a means to an end, a payback, according to her father, who had arrived at their hotel suite late the following day.

Sumner Mayfield had come to take her home. He’d pulled her aside. Words had been spoken. Ethan had thought he heard Claire’s mother mentioned. Then Claire had turned, smiled sadly.

“I have to go.”

“Don’t leave, Claire.” Something had told Ethan that if she went now, she wouldn’t be back.

“Think about your mother,” her father said. Ethan watched her swallow and stifle a sob. Then she fled to the bedroom where the sheets were still warm from their lovemaking.

In the sitting area Sumner Mayfield explained his daughter’s “rash” behavior to a thunderstruck Ethan.

“I’m afraid she’s not happy with her fiancé right now.”

“Fiancé?” The word had all but choked Ethan when he uttered it. No. The man was mistaken. He had to be. “She’s not engaged.”

“I’m sorry, son,” Sumner said. “His name is Ashton Beaumont. They’ve known each other for years. Our families have always been close.”

“Ashton Beaumont,” he mumbled.

“Yes. Perhaps you’ve heard of his father. Rolland Beaumont owns a few dozen television and radio stations around the country. Ashton is being primed to take over after his father’s retirement in a few years.”

“I’ve heard of the Beaumonts.” And, while Ethan had always considered himself any man’s equal, he knew a paralyzing moment of self-doubt and insecurity. Later, as much as for her lies, he’d resented Claire for that. “So, when were they supposed to marry?”

“Well, that’s the problem. Ashton wants to wait till she graduates from college in a couple of years. Sensible man.” Sumner nodded thoughtfully. “You know, she needs to grow up a little more and enjoy some independence before settling down.”

“She seems ready enough,” he countered. But the statement had been made with more bravado than confidence.

“Yes, she thinks so,” Sumner agreed. He sighed wearily. “Her heart’s been set on being a June bride. This June. It looks like she got her wish.”

“That’s right. She’s my wife now.” Ethan crossed his arms, braced his legs. The last stand of a doomed man.

“I know.” Sumner nodded. “But for how long, son? Do you really think she plans to stay married to you? Your backgrounds, your lifestyles, they’re simply incompatible.”

Ethan’s arms dropped to his sides, although his hands remained fisted.

“Claire can be surprisingly impulsive,” Sumner continued. “She’s regretting this hasty marriage already, believe me. She wanted to make Ashton see reason. She never intended for things to get this far.”

Ethan said nothing. Instead, he fingered the simple and inexpensive band of gold on his left hand. Claire was wearing its twin.

“I know my daughter.” Sumner’s tone and his expression were appallingly sympathetic as he stepped for-ward to rest one hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “That’s why I’m here.”

While Ethan stood there—stupefied and numb—Sumner wrote out a check.

“For your trouble,” he said, tucking it into Ethan’s hand.

When he turned, Claire was standing in the bedroom doorway. Her hair was loose, partially obscuring her face. Still, he saw the truth clearly enough in the flush of color that stained her cheeks.

Words were exchanged, although exactly what had been said, he could no longer remember. Only that he had ached after he’d watched her follow her father out the door.

They hadn’t spoken again, although when he’d returned to Chicago he’d had a visit from her family’s attorney. Ethan’s employment with the company that provided security for Mayfield was terminated—dereliction of duty cited as the reason. He could have protested it, but why bother? Just as he could have objected when he’d been asked to sign divorce papers. He hadn’t. In short order Claire Seaver had become Claire Mayfield once again. Ethan had moved to Detroit, where he’d worked like a dog to start his own business.

He’d been trying his damnedest to forget the woman ever since, and he’d been doing a fair job of it…until today.

CHAPTER TWO

SUMNER MAYFIELD WAS average height and a little on the heavy side. He carried his weight well, though, thanks to broad shoulders and cleverly tailored clothes that helped hide his widening girth. To Claire, her father had always been larger than life, someone she had feared as much as she had revered. Today, as she sat across from him in his office in the Mayfield headquarters building, she noted the deep lines that fanned from his eyes and the thinning hair. He’d grown older, she realized. And she’d finally grown up.

“Your mother was wondering if you’d be by for dinner this evening,” he said.

“I have plans.” She didn’t, but neither did she intend to subject herself to an evening of badgering and emotional blackmail. “Sorry.”

“You disappoint me, Claire. Aren’t you even going to ask how she is?”

“Has she recovered from her migraine?”

“Thankfully, yes. She’s been in bed for days, you know. Even the prescription the doctor gave her failed to take the edge off for more than a day.” His tone held accusation.

“Why is that my fault, Dad?” He always did this, both of her parents did. They tried to make her feel guilty and responsible, as if her mother’s very survival depended on Claire toeing the line.

“Well, your current behavior certainly isn’t helping matters. You know how delicate her health is.”

Claire sucked in a breath, held it a moment before exhaling slowly through her teeth.

“I’m not here to talk about Mother. I’m here to discuss business. I want you to reconsider my application for vice president of new product development for our North American market.”

“Kitten, we’ve been over this,” he said condescendingly. “Before you left for the Himalayas I explained why I passed you over. You’re just not ready.”

“Clive thinks I am,” she said, invoking the name of the department’s executive head. He was set to retire by the end of the year, at which time the current vice president would take his place, creating the opening Claire sought. Clive said she reminded him a lot of her father.

“You have great instincts,” he’d told her a couple of months back when he’d encouraged her to approach her father.

Sumner didn’t share his opinion.

“I think you need more time,” he said, steepling his fingers. “Besides, Roger Fleming has been in the department longer.”

“So longevity trumps ingenuity? For goodness’ sake, Dad, Roger Fleming wouldn’t recognize innovation if it bit him in the butt,” she countered. Claire had ideas. She saw potential for greater opportunities for Mayfield to move into so-called green products that were more environmentally friendly. It was a largely untapped market for the company. “Mayfield is on the cusp. We can embrace change or we can watch our customer base continue to erode.”

“Some of our products face stiff competition,” Sumner conceded. “But overall we’re solid.”

“Dinosaurs were solid too. Look what happened to them.”

He snorted. “Mayfield is never going to become extinct.”

“Maybe not extinct, but we’re following where we used to be leading. You’ve told me often enough that Granddad was a pioneer. That spirit has been lost. We’re reacting to our competitors, rather than being proactive and forcing them to react to us. I can be a great asset to this company if given half a chance.”

After that impassioned monologue, Sumner merely shook his head. “I’m sorry, Claire. My mind is made up. Maybe in another couple of years you’ll be ready for a position like that. For now, I think you need more…seasoning.”

“Another couple of years?” She thought about the bike trip, the hours she’d cycled, the distance she’d traveled in more ways than could be measured in miles or kilometers. She couldn’t tolerate the status quo any longer. “I’m sorry too, Dad, because you leave me no choice but to look for work elsewhere.”

Sumner looked amused by her bold declaration. “And where would you go, kitten?”

She gritted her teeth at the childish nickname. Even now he didn’t see her as an adult. “I’m not sure, but I don’t think I’ll have a problem getting a job.”

“Oh, really?”

“As you’ve always told me, Dad, the Mayfield name opens doors.”

Sumner glowered in response. “Don’t threaten me, young lady,” he admonished, standing so he could lean forward to rest his hands on the desk.

It was a tactic she’d seen him use often in the boardroom, generally with favorable results. It didn’t work on Claire—this time. She rose to her feet as well.

“I’m not threatening you.” She kept her voice calm, her gaze steady lest he accuse her of being hysterical. Her father could be disgustingly sexist, a character trait Claire’s mother enabled with her feebleness. “I’m stating fact. I want to stay at Mayfield. That goes without saying. But only if you finally start taking me seriously and recognize that I have real contributions to make.”

“Perhaps I’d take you more seriously if you’d settle down and stop acting so outrageously. Moving into the city, breaking your mother’s heart.”

“What’s outrageous about wanting to run my own life? I could be the best thing to happen to product development in a long time if you’d stop treating me like I’m twelve and start remembering that I have a master’s degree in business. As a Mayfield, I have a stake in this company, which is why I’ve stayed even after watching less qualified people be promoted above me. I want a position that reflects my capabilities and challenges my potential. If I can’t get that at Mayfield, then I’ll go elsewhere to meet my needs.”

“Your needs?” He levered himself away from the desk and walked to the window. Over one shoulder he asked, “What do you need, Claire? Your mother and I have given you everything you could ever want.”

“Except the freedom to push myself,” she said quietly. “That’s what I liked about the Himalayas trip. For the first time in my life, being a Mayfield wasn’t enough. I had no one else to fall back on.” She thought of Ethan when she added, “I had no one to use.” And then she thought of her parents. “I had no one to blame. It all came down to me, to my stamina, to my skills and to my sheer will.”

“It was just a bike ride.”

She shook her head. He still didn’t get it. “You know, Dad, I’ve never considered myself to be very much like you. Everyone has always told me I’m the picture of Mother, soft-spoken and delicately built. For a while, I started to believe that I needed to be cared for, looked after. But you know what? I inherited some of your steel after all. I’ll give you until the end of the week to reconsider the promotion. I won’t take no for an answer this time.”

He issued an oath. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you.”

Her smile was sad. “I know you don’t, but I do.”

Early the next morning, Claire sat alone at a table in Café Connections, an Internet coffeehouse within walking distance of her apartment. Her life certainly was in chaos, which she recognized and accepted as a necessary first step to true change. Recognizing and accepting, of course, weren’t the same as liking. She’d spent a sleepless night trying to figure out how to tidy up the current mess so she could move on. She sipped a cup of French roast and considered her options.

“I won’t take no for an answer.”

She’d told her father that yesterday. Maybe she should have said the same thing to Ethan when they’d spoken earlier in the week. Despite offering an apology, nothing between them felt remotely resolved. In fact, quite the opposite.

She needed encouragement. She needed advice. And so she booted up her laptop, logged on to the Internet and wrote an e-mail to Simone and Belle.

Lots to report in the past week here…

She summarized the meeting with her father and then the conversation with Ethan.

We spoke on the telephone—and before you say anything, Belle, he refused to meet with me, so he left me little choice but to do my groveling over the phone. I said I was sorry. He didn’t appear moved by the apology. The exchange was relatively brief.

She sipped her coffee, recalling that there had been a time when they’d been able to talk for hours.

And not all that polite.

Just as there was a time when he’d been solicitous, gentlemanly.

Claire glanced out of the window for a moment, watching the traffic speed by and the pedestrians file past. They all seemed to know where they were going.

I don’t feel any better, she confided. I don’t feel like I’ve resolved anything. In fact, I realized as I spoke with Ethan that I’m still a little bitter that he took that damned check from my father.

And she was.

She remembered seeing it in his hand, a pale green slip of paper that had sealed their fate. Ethan hadn’t refused it or torn it to bits as she’d expected him to, had wanted him to. The dollar amount had been visible, and though it was a princely sum, her only thought had been: is that all I’m worth?

“Things are easily taken care of in your world, aren’t they?” he had the nerve to say, sounding angry.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Are you going to stand there and tell me you planned to stay married to me?”

The truth was she hadn’t been sure…not until the previous night when he’d made love to her with such tender conviction. Her face heated and she was too embarrassed, felt too exposed to share that thought with him. He apparently took her flaming cheeks to mean something else.

“Claire.” Her father was at the door to their hotel suite, holding it open, impatient to be on his way. “We need to leave. Now. You’re Mother is waiting.”

“Better go, kitten.” Ethan’s lips twisted as he used her father’s nickname for her. He knew, of course, how much she despised it. “No need to keep slumming now that you’ve made your point.”

Claire didn’t understand what he’d meant by that nasty comment, but her father ushered her out before she could ask. On the flight home, she was so confused. What did she want to happen now? What exactly had she expected to happen between her and Ethan after their hasty nuptials? She hadn’t thought that far ahead.

Later, when it had become clear she would never see Ethan again, she’d felt disappointed, disillusioned. Finally, all that had remained was shame and regret for her behavior. Apparently anger had been hiding in there as well.

She wrote:

So, what do you guys think? Do I try again? And, if so, how do you suggest I go about it?

Send.

She sipped her coffee and waited for a response. Belle would be done for the day at the television studio, her London morning talk show long off air. As for Simone, she’d probably be kicking back in her Melbourne apartment after a long day at work at the magazine.

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