Her forgiveness is the only win that matters

Former defense attorney Cedar Wilson is on a mission for redemption. After losing sight of everything but winning, he betrayed the love of his life, Heather Michaels, to help a guilty man go free—a wrong he finally has a chance to make right when a potential new witness checks into The Lemonade Stand shelter.

Cedar needs Heather’s help as a top polygraphist to uncover the truth. And while he has no right to expect her forgiveness, the passion between them makes Cedar believe they could still have a future together. Maybe solving one case can fix two mistakes...

Having written over eighty-five novels, TARA TAYLOR QUINN is a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is known for delivering intense, emotional fiction. Tara is a past president of Romance Writers of America. She has won a Readers’ Choice Award and is a seven-time finalist for an RWA RITA® Award. She has also appeared on TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. She supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you or someone you know might be a victim of domestic violence in the United States, please contact 1-800-799-7233.

Also By Tara Taylor Quinn

Where Secrets are Safe

Wife by Design

Once a Family

Husband by Choice

Child by Chance

Mother by Fate

The Good Father

Love by Association

His First Choice

The Promise He Made Her

Her Secret Life

The Fireman’s Son

For Joy’s Sake

A Family for Christmas

Falling for the Brother

Shelter Valley Stories

Sophie’s Secret

Full Contact

Family Secrets

For Love or Money

Her Soldier’s Baby

The Cowboy’s Twins

MIRA BOOKS

The Friendship Pact

In Plain Sight

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

A Defender’s Heart

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08469-7

A DEFENDER’S HEART

© 2018 TTQ Books, LLC

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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“I have a favor to ask.”

Heather held her purse in her hands. “I’m not going to...”

“Please hear me out,” he interrupted before she could walk out on him. No matter how much he probably deserved it, he wasn’t up to having her leave him again. The first time had pretty much killed him.

Killed the old him, anyway. Leaving him with a shadow of a man who lived to make amends—not to be happy.

“It’s not for me.”

“Of course it’s for you. Couched in a client’s need, perhaps, but it’s about your win. I’m not going back down that road, Cedar.”

He swallowed. Pursed his lips so they wouldn’t open until he had himself in check. He wasn’t going to pour out his truths. Couldn’t play with her emotions that way. The turns his life had taken were personal. His alone. They weren’t to get her back. Or even to show her that he’d become a better man. He was a man who’d lost his way, and that was a shadow he would carry forever.

Dear Reader,

On one hand this letter is very, very difficult to write. After twenty-five years writing for Superromance, this is my very last one. One of the very last that will ever be printed. I’m so, so thankful to all of you for your years of faithful support and following. A Defender’s Heart is everything that is TTQ and Superromance. It’s full of intense emotion—and a situation that is seemingly hopeless. And yet...there’s hope. Because that’s the bottom-line truth. Hope. It’s what I, and Superromance, have spent decades giving to you and what I pray you will take with you from our immense body of work.

A Defender’s Heart stole my heart. It’s a story of imperfect people making mistakes that aren’t just going to go away. It’s about choices. And the will to fight for what matters most, even when fighting for right might mean giving up. We’re giving up Supers; we aren’t giving up story. Love. Or hope.

And because I don’t just write fiction for entertainment, but believe wholeheartedly in the hope and love we portray in our books, I’ve got hope to leave with you! My stories are going to continue to be available to entertain you into the foreseeable future. I’ll still be right here at Harlequin, writing for Special Edition. And more great news—it looks like while Superromance is ending, The Lemonade Stand and Where Secrets are Safe are not. Stay tuned!

Tara

For Paula Eykelhof, Jane Robson, Victoria Curran and Piya Campana—I am the only one left here, and yet I take each of you, every day, into every story I write. God gave me talent, I have the will, but you made me the writer I am. Thank you from the depths of my soul. I love and miss you all.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Dear Reader

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

THE PARTY WAS in full swing. Vehicles, mostly expensive ones, lined both sides of the street. Slowing his SUV out front, Cedar could see the shadows of people milling around behind the sheer drapes that covered the massive windows. Men, women...indeterminate ages.

He could almost hear the laughter and the conversation. Figured most of it would be sincere.

Heather wouldn’t surround herself with fakes.

In black jeans and a new button-down, black-and-white striped shirt, he started to feel underdressed. Thought about taking off.

Judging by the quiet surrounding him outside, there were no other late arrivals. His entrance could cause a stir.

She’d invited him to her engagement party.

As someone who paid attention to people—although, admittedly, he’d used what he got to his own advantage—he was curious why his ex-lover and, he privately suspected, the one woman he’d ever loved, had issued that invitation. Curious enough to maneuver into a spot between two sparkling-clean SUVs and pocket his keys.

He’d have stayed anyway, curious or not. His goal was atonement.

It didn’t come easy.

* * *

“YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL...”

In a figure-hugging, short black dress and matching wedge heels, with her blond hair in a sophisticated updo, Heather smiled as yet another of her parents’ friends spoke to her as she passed by on her way to somewhere else. She’d occasionally worn the dress clubbing in LA, but had little reason to put it on now that she was back in Santa Raquel full-time. She exchanged a few more pleasantries, acknowledging that, yes, her independent polygraph business of five years was thriving, and moved on.

She was looking for Charles. She’d seen him a total of five minutes max since they’d arrived at her parents’ beachfront home, just down the road from Charles’s house—and ten minutes from her own beachside bungalow.

Fifteen years her senior, her fiancé was handsome. Fit. A dentist who was actually popular with his patients. He had a way of putting people at ease. She’d known him since he’d moved into her parents’ neighborhood after his divorce ten years before; she’d been home visiting while on break from college. And she’d started dating him the previous summer, when they hooked up at a neighborhood Fourth of July bash she’d attended with her folks.

Because she’d been too lame to have plans of her own.

Or a date.

She thought she saw his thick, slightly graying hair on the other side of the living room and moved in that direction, hoping she could make it to him without being waylaid again. The party had been her mother’s idea. And the guest list pretty much comprised the people invited by her parents and by Charles.

Heather’s friends had mostly faded into lives of their own when she’d started dating Charles—and before that, too, after the “big breakup.” She’d been part of a couple for almost six years, and while mutual friends had stuck by her—and him—she’d been the one to pull away from the group.

She’d been the one to break things off with him.

Thinking she’d go through the kitchen and enter the living room from the other side, Heather slipped away from the party and walked into a much smaller gathering—the two guests she’d invited, Lianna, her closest friend from elementary school on, and Raine, her college roommate. They stopped talking the second she came in.

“What’s going on?” she asked, wondering if there was a problem with the food. Not that they were in charge of it. Her mother’d had the party catered. But they were in the kitchen and...

“I’ve been looking for you two,” she added, glancing from green eyes to blue, red hair to blond. “You’re supposed to keep me sane here!” She was only half joking. She couldn’t wait to marry Charles—sometime after the year engagement she’d insisted upon—but this gathering was not her favorite part of the festivities.

If it hadn’t been for Charles’s need to introduce her to his large circle of acquaintances, she never would’ve agreed to have the engagement party, no matter how much her mother nagged her about social etiquette and doing the right thing.

Lianna and Raine exchanged a glance, Raine cocking an eyebrow at Heather’s closest childhood friend. Almost as though conceding best-friend status or something.

“What’s going on?” she asked again. The two had met a few times, but didn’t know each other well enough to be involved in some big heart-to-heart. If this was about which of them was going to be maid of honor...

Her mother had been after her to make a choice—strongly preferring Lianna, of course, since the redhead had been part of their family since grade school. But Raine had seen her through the best, and then the worst, times of her life. The ones that had defined the woman she was, and would be.

Still, she couldn’t imagine getting married without Lianna, her rock, by her side. And Raine was her safety net...

It was all too much. She’d decide later. Right now, she had to get to Charles.

“We’re worried about you,” Lianna blurted when Raine gave her a far-too-obvious silent nudge.

Heather chuckled. “About me? Are you kidding? I’m finally at a place in my life where there’s no need to worry.” She looked from one to the other, knowing that what she said was true. “Seriously.” And then, when they both looked unconvinced, she added, “A year ago, yes.” She’d come close to the brink of despair, close to not caring if she lived or died, when she packed up and moved out of the home she’d shared with Cedar. “But I’m fine now. Great, even. Or I will be as soon as this party is over.”

“This engagement is so sudden...”

“Charles and I have been dating for more than six months. I moved in with Cedar three weeks after I met him.” The math was important to her. She wasn’t jumping into love ever again. Hadn’t figured herself for someone who’d ever have done so.

She’d allowed herself that mistake, with the promise that she’d learn everything she had to learn from it, so she wouldn’t have to repeat the lesson.

“And I insisted on a yearlong engagement,” she reminded them. And herself. Charles wanted to get to the justice of the peace as soon as possible and start a family together.

Understanding that he wanted to be young enough to play ball with his kids, to coach Little League and soccer teams or move stage sets for dance competitions, she’d shortened the engagement from two years to one, but because of the oh-so-painful past, a result of the three-week courtship, she was holding firm on that year.

“He’s fifteen years older than you.” Raine acted as if she was making some big announcement. Heather slowed down for a second and stared at her two best friends.

“Surely the two of you aren’t having a problem with our age difference? My God, Raine, your stepfather is closer to your age than your mom’s, and you love him to death. Because, for the first time in your life, she’s happy. Truly happy.”

In colorful leggings that hugged gorgeous legs and a black formfitting shirt that defined hips that were just about perfect, Raine withstood Heather’s intent look without fidgeting. Or answering.

“And you...” She turned to Lianna. “Dexter’s only five years younger than Charles.”

“We fit each other,” Lianna came back without a second’s hesitation. She took a step closer. In black dress pants and a cream-colored silk blouse, she could command any room she entered. “Charles fits your parents, sweetie. Look at him in there. He’s having the time of his life.”

“And you’re in here.” Raine came closer, too. “Trudging through a party you didn’t want and counting the seconds until it’s over. Is that really how you want to spend the rest of your life? Counting the seconds away?”

So she’d been watching the clock. But she’d been counting minutes, not seconds. And only because she’d never been a big partier. She liked to spend time with people in small groups—not coming at her all at once.

“Charles is good with large groups of people,” she explained. “It’s a strength he has that counters my weakness in that area. He covers for me there, and I cover for him in other areas, where my strengths counteract his weaknesses.”

“He has weaknesses?” Lianna’s droll tone wasn’t lost on her.

“Come on, you guys.” Heather looked from one to the other, pleading unabashedly. “You just need to spend more time with him. Get to know him like I do.”

Well, not quite in that way, but...

“Seriously,” Lianna said. “What strength of yours counteracts a weakness of his?”

“He sucks at anything to do with aesthetics. I have a talent for creating beautiful spaces.”

“Your greatest talent is your ability to read people.” Raine’s tone, softer than Lianna’s, was no less compelling. “Does he even know that?”

“He knows what I do for a living.”

“Strangers know what you do for a living, sweetie,” Raine said. “Every time you appear in court, everyone there knows you’re a polygraphist. One trip to your office would tell someone that you administer lie detector tests, are a certified criminologist and also have a degree in psychology. I’m talking about your gifts, not your training. You deserve to be with someone who respects your ability to see inside people and relies on it. Someone who needs you in particular for what you have to offer. Someone who values your specialness.”

Like Cedar had? She felt the familiar sensation of lead falling in her stomach, and she quickly diverted her thoughts before she sank down with it. She’d gotten over all of that.

Was beyond it.

Had moved on.

Her friends were staring at her. Raine had once told her she believed Heather was empathic. Heather’s take was that other people could see what she saw if they just slowed their own thoughts and feelings enough to hear and see those around them.

Which was why she’d failed so miserably where Cedar was concerned. She’d been unable to get beyond her own feelings for him when he was around. She could now. And was ready to prove it.

“Being used isn’t my idea of happiness,” she said, as if any of them needed a reminder.

She’d had her doubts about Cedar, had seen what he was becoming, but she’d let passion cloud her judgment.

“So why did you invite him here tonight?”

No one had said the name aloud. They hadn’t needed to. It was as if the renowned defense attorney was standing there, in the room with them...

“He didn’t show.” So the whys didn’t matter.

“But why did you invite him?” Lianna pressed.

“It’ll be easier if we find a way to be friends. Because if we ever run into each other professionally...”

“That’s weak, Heather.” Lianna again. Sometimes Heather wondered how she’d remained friends with her for so long, but deep in her heart, she knew. Lianna understood her. Well enough to see when she was faltering—and to give her the hard truths when she needed them. Lianna had always been a source of strength.

Just as she’d been one of Lianna’s few sources of unconditional love.

“I heard he’s still in the area,” she said now, in her own defense. He’d sold the house they’d bought together, had paid Heather her share of the proceeds, which she’d used to buy the little bungalow within walking distance of the beach. She’d assumed he’d moved back closer to LA, but when she’d had lunch with a mutual friend from the city the month before, she’d found out differently.

Apparently he’d given up the apartment they’d kept in LA, too, but she assumed he’d bought another one there. Probably twice as nice.

Back when they’d been together, they’d spent some days in the city and some in Santa Raquel every week. Since the breakup, she’d quit staying in the city, choosing to make the hour-plus commute on the days she had to be in court. Or to interview someone who couldn’t come to her Santa Raquel office. She’d figured Cedar had done the opposite—left Santa Raquel, making the commute from LA for as long as he kept his Santa Raquel office. Apparently she’d been wrong on that one.

“Just being in the area doesn’t explain why he’d be on your guest list.” Lianna wasn’t dropping this.

“Because I’m over him.” The words sounded slightly pathetic. Her reasoning was not.

“Again, no reason to party with him.”

Raine’s hand was fidgeting against her thigh. A sign that her college friend was truly upset...and holding back. “What do you think?” Heather asked her.

“I don’t know,” Raine told her. “But I think it’s important that you do. So far, I’m not sure that’s the case.”

“I’m over him.” That was the reason. Period.

“Are you?”

“Of course!”

Raine, of all people, knew that.

“You said yourself that I’m a different person now than I was a year ago.”

Raine nodded. Licked her lips. Another sign of agitation.

Lianna’s gaze was softer than usual as she stood there, watching the two of them. Her silence was more telling in that moment than anything else. She clearly thought that this was bigger than frank talk was going to solve.

“He didn’t show, and I’m not even upset. What does that tell you?”

“That you didn’t expect to see him here.”

She hadn’t really. But she’d been prepared, just in case. And she would’ve been fine.

“I invited him because I am over him,” she said again. “Because I knew I could handle it. And because I’d like us to be able to be friendly. If he’s still in town, we’re bound to run into each other at some point.” As Raine had said, she was a criminologist with an undergraduate degree in psychology. A polygraphist who used the test as one of various methods of assessing the truthfulness of the people she tested. One of the skills that made her different from the rest was that she didn’t just use a predetermined set of questions. When something raised a dubious response, she listened to what wasn’t being said and asked more questions until she got a response that gave the signs of being truthful. The scientifically based insights she offered, coupled with the opinions she wrote, made her unique—and valuable. In the state of California, because of the track record she’d quickly built, she was considered an expert witness.

And Cedar defended criminals.

“Charles was okay with you inviting him?” Lianna asked.

“Yes.”

The girls exchanged another glance.

“Now what?”

“Don’t you find it the least bit odd that a guy doesn’t mind if his fiancée’s ex is at their engagement party?”

“Charles trusts me.” That part sounded a bit weak, even to her, but... “And I think he wants Cedar to see that I’ve moved on. He wants him to know that I’m with another man now.”

He hadn’t actually said so, but she’d read that into the conversation that had taken place between them. When she’d asked if it bothered him that she wanted to invite Cedar, he’d lied to her. He blinked more rapidly when he lied—making him an easy man to read.

One of the many things she loved about him.

She’d continued talking to him until she got to a semblance of the truth.

“Listen, you two, I promise you, I’m over Cedar Wilson. Completely. I’ll do whatever you need me to do to prove that to you.”

Instead of looking convinced, or even somewhat placated, her two best friends suddenly looked stricken.

“I’m guessing turning around ought to do it.” The voice came from behind her and Heather froze. If it was possible to live without a heartbeat, she was doing it.

She knew that voice. Had heard it in her dreams for months after he’d betrayed her.

And woken up with wet cheeks every time.

But no more. She’d cried her last tears for the man who’d purposely manipulated her, who’d used her skills to set a guilty man free.

CHAPTER TWO

I’M OVER CEDAR. COMPLETELY.

There she was. Heather Michaels. His Heather. Standing right in front of him.

Saying she was over him completely.

“Cedar! You made it. How are you?”

She sounded like her mother. Or any of the other thirty or forty voices coming from the front room. Superficial. Yet not ten minutes earlier, he’d been certain that the voices emanating from the party had to be sincere. Because the Heather he knew wouldn’t have been celebrating her engagement with her parent’s crowd.

What had they done to her?

Rather, was this what he’d done to her?

“I’m well, and you?”

Raine stood just off to her left. He wanted to catch the other woman’s eye. It was good to see her, too. She’d been Heather’s roommate when he and Heather first met. Had been there through all of their ups and downs.

It wouldn’t be good to be on the receiving end of one of those looks of disappointment he’d occasionally seen on her face in the past. When he’d shown up late. Or not at all. Without bothering to call and let Heather know.

He’d been all about saving his clients’ quality of life. At least that was how he’d described it. The way he’d thought about it. When he’d thought about it. If he’d ever thought about it.

“She’s great!” Lianna burst into the silence that had fallen, alerting him to the fact that he and Heather had been standing there, staring wordlessly at each other.

He could only imagine what she was getting from him. What “tells” he was sending.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said, instinctively sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Feeling damned conspicuous because she’d read some kind of message into that, too. Figuring he had something to hide. He wanted to pull them back out, but if he did so, that would communicate another message he didn’t want her to have.

He’d learned a lot from her. And not nearly enough.

“Um, can you two please leave us alone for a sec?” Heather’s tone had changed. Her gaze was still locked with his, but she sounded more like the confident woman he’d been with for the best five years of his life.

Pretty pathetic that his best five years included debts he’d spend the rest of his life paying off—debts of the soul. And he’d die without ever having paid them off. In spite of the millions he’d amassed and was successfully investing. This wasn’t a matter of money...

His peripheral vision caught a movement. The two women slid closer to Heather.

“Please,” she said to them. “Just for a sec. I’m fine.”

No one moved for a long few seconds. He had the sense of stopped time, the kind that was filled with tension and you knew you were at a make-it-or-break-it point. His cue to move in for the kill. The witness on the stand was about to crack. To present him with the source of that shadow of a doubt he had to put in the minds of the jurors.

His jaw ached with the effort it took to keep his mouth shut, the muscles in his neck bearing the brunt of the tension as he remained locked on Heather, rather than turning his manipulative abilities on her friends to help her get them out of there.

He wanted her alone.

God, how he wanted her alone.

But whatever was going on between Heather and her friends—the choice to leave her with the wolf or not—was solely up to them. He could use his skills and probably get what he wanted—Heather alone. But he couldn’t take on any more of that kind of debt.

There simply weren’t enough years left in his life to pay for it all. Unless medical science found a way for a guy to live to a thousand. He figured that just might cover it, considering that a few of the worst criminals he’d put back on the street not only came with the current victim to atone for, but the future ones, as well...

More movement. Heather’s deep blue eyes seemed to glisten as her friends quietly—and very slowly—backed up. They were still watching him when they exited the room opposite the side he’d come in.

Then he was alone with Heather. He’d hoped he’d have that moment, of course...but hadn’t counted on it.

He had nothing prepared to say to her, although there was so much he needed to tell her. No way to do that with a throat tight enough to strangle him.

Strangling. No less than he deserved.

But not until he’d done one hell of a lot more work.

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded. “That’s all behind us now. I’m just glad you could come. I want you to meet Charles.”

He had it coming—watching her with the guy she’d chosen. The man who’d treated her right.

“I’d like to meet him,” he told her, speaking for his better side. A small side, to be sure, but there.

“I’m sorry about the girls,” she said, nodding toward the door through which her friends had just left.

She’d made no move toward that door, which would lead back to the party and, he presumed, her fiancé. It occurred to him to wonder what the guy would think, knowing that the woman he was going to marry had skipped out of their party and was alone in the kitchen with the man she’d slept with for five years. Slept with. Vacationed with. Did laundry with—in the early days, when they’d done their own. Cooked with.

“They’re looking out for you,” he said, forgiving Lianna and Raine even as he wished they’d been a bit more supportive of his presence. He needed their approval if he had any hope of convincing Heather to help him.

The irony was not lost on him. The jerk he’d turned out to be had broken Heather’s heart, and now, in order to redeem himself, he’d come to her.

“They’re afraid you’re going to hurt me again.”

“By saying hello?”

She shrugged and smiled. “They seem to think you’re a lot more irresistible than I do...”

The words stung. He deserved them. But they stung.

“Are you sure there isn’t a tiny part of you that wonders if there’s anything left?”

He felt like he should smack himself upside the head as soon as the words were out. Coming on to Heather wasn’t in the plan. It was the furthest thing from the plan.

But she’d asked her friends to leave and made no move away from him. On the other hand, she’d given no indication that she had anything in particular to say to him, either. She just stood there, so close, looking at him, taking him in, making it seem as though they were talking without saying a word.

As though they were still who they’d always been.

They weren’t, of course. He knew that. Didn’t even want them to be. He had no intention of being that man again.

Not that she’d be able to tell with him practically begging her to admit, on the night of her engagement party, that she still felt something for him.

“You’re wearing my favorite dress,” he said aloud, in spite of his best intentions. He’d noticed the second he’d come in through the kitchen door and seen her standing there.

Thankfully he’d made it that far without either of her parents catching sight of him. Obviously they’d be polite, and he did have an official invitation, but he doubted they’d have left him alone with their daughter.

He wouldn’t have blamed them.

Still, she’d invited him to the party and then chosen to wear the dress that she knew turned him on more than any other she’d owned. Just thinking about the last night she’d worn it with him... They’d gone to a business dinner, and then, in a rare moment of relaxation, he’d asked her to go out to a club. To dance and have some fun, for a change from the constant pressures of work.

They’d closed the club and then, completely sober, had gone home to make love for the rest of the night. The way she’d touched him that night...and let him touch her...

Looking at her now, under the bright lights in her parents’ kitchen, he knew she was remembering, too. Her eyes had darkened, the way they got when she was aroused. He might not be an expert at determining the truthfulness of a statement as she was, probably because, at some point, he’d forgotten to respect the truth, but he could sometimes match her in the reading of body language.

Hers in particular. It had been like that from the very beginning—the physical and mental combustion that had melded them into an almost-instantaneous partnership, one he’d taken for granted. One he’d believed couldn’t be severed. He’d been confident. Cocky.

And wrong.

Why had she invited him tonight?

And worn that dress?

Heather didn’t do anything without reason.

Clearly her two closest friends had been communicating a similar message to her just before he’d come in. She’d felt compelled to assure them that she was over him.

Swelling with a bit of...he didn’t want to examine what...he momentarily liked the idea that they’d been talking about him.

At her engagement party.

Because she shouldn’t be marrying another man.

They belonged together. They always had.

He stepped closer to her, his lips a couple of inches from hers, when the swinging door from the living room pushed open and a man he vaguely recognized stood there.

In black pants, a white shirt and a black-and-white silk tie, the man put Cedar on edge. It was his confidence, his wealth—judging by the quality of his clothes and the watch he wore—and the way he held himself.

He remembered where he’d seen this man before. At one of Heather’s parents’ parties. He was the dentist who lived down the street.

So why was Heather leaving Cedar and the kiss they’d almost shared to walk over and put an arm around this man?

“Cedar, I’d like you to meet Charles,” she said.

If not for years of courtroom practice, Cedar might have let it be known that his solar plexus had just taken a massive blow.

“The dentist,” he said, reaching out a hand. “We’ve met.”

He hadn’t remembered the guy’s name. Or had any inkling that this...this dentist was the man Heather planned to marry. He was closer to her parents’ age than their own.

“At the Labor Day barbecue, year before last,” he continued, feeling ornery and not happy with himself. “Heather and I had just returned from a trip to Egypt, and her parents insisted they see for themselves that she’d made it back unharmed.”

They’d been travel-weary, wrinkled and could hardly manage to keep their hands off each other. The trip had been partially for business—he’d had to meet with a man who’d skipped the country, but had information that could exonerate a very important client of Cedar’s. He and Heather had also had a lot of time alone. He’d been able to focus on her almost exclusively for three whole days.

Charles, the fiancé, nodded, seemingly not the least bit put out by Cedar’s rudeness.

“Glad you could make it tonight,” he said instead. “I know it meant a lot to Heather to have you here.”

And the guy didn’t find that discomfiting? Or odd?

“I told Charles the same thing I told the girls,” she said, her free hand on the man’s flat stomach, just above his belt. “I’d like us to be able to be friendly if we ever run into each other, and I’m glad to see you here with none of the old feelings between us. Good or bad.”

Was that so?

What did you call the almost-kiss that would have happened if not for Charles’s suspiciously timed entrance?

Lianna had sent the older man. Cedar knew it as surely as he knew he’d be getting drunk that night when he got home.

“I wanted you to meet Charles and hoped you’d wish us well,” she continued now, sounding more like her mother than ever.

“I do wish you well,” he said, including them both in his best courtroom smile.

Heather would see through it. But then he wasn’t buying her stance, either.

Still, he’d play along.

Didn’t have much choice, really.

He needed her help, or a young woman might die at the hands of a man Cedar had put back on the streets. The man he’d manipulated Heather into helping him set free.

He hadn’t done it to serve justice, but to serve his own compulsion to win.

“Then I hope you’ll come join us for our celebratory toast. The champagne’s been poured and passed around. We were just missing my bride-to-be.”

With a bow of his head, Cedar conceded defeat. Or compliance. Or whatever the hell he was doing. Because Heather had asked him to come to her party.

He stood beside the happy couple as they were toasted again and again. He sipped champagne. And tried his damndest to be okay with the fact that the woman he loved was about to marry another man.

CHAPTER THREE

SHE’D ALMOST KISSED HIM. Or let him kiss her.

It had been a conditioned response. She knew that. But she was still disappointed in herself. If she was going to be happy, to quit worrying about making poor choices and letting herself down, to stop being paranoid about people using her and about being unable to use her skills on a personal level, she had to manage to be around Cedar and not capitulate to whatever he wanted.

To anything he wanted.

He wanted her. The knowledge was a boost to the pride he’d injured when he’d put her low on his list of priorities. But she wasn’t proud of herself for having felt a thrill of gratitude that at least she’d mattered to him for more than how she could help him reach his goals. For more than the asset she’d been to his career and his unending drive to win.

He hadn’t won her, and he wasn’t going to.

The only reason she’d agreed, before he’d left the other night, to see him again—to meet him for lunch to discuss some business matter he had—was to prove to herself, and to him, that the incident in the kitchen had been an anomaly. A natural reaction to seeing a lover again for the first time since their intensely painful split. The pain had faded, the hurt feelings and blame dissipated, leaving room for good memories to slip in. Good memories were healthy. She welcomed them.

However, she wouldn’t be swayed by them. Because she knew that memories were all they were. A few good times in between all the bad. They weren’t significant, didn’t represent a way of life. Or possibilities. They were merely the bag that lined the trash can.

Trying to scroll through the bad memories, she faltered, finding far more good ones that outweighed the disappointments—regularly missed occasions, perennial lateness, a constant lack of returned phone calls... Until that last case, the last week, the last day.

While most of Cedar’s clients were wealthy businessmen who were charged with white-collar crimes, during the last year they’d been together, he’d taken on two high-profile criminal cases. She’d never been completely sure why. He’d earned a reputation by then; Cedar Wilson commanded the highest price, but he did what it took to get the job done.

The change in him had been gradual, as winning began to matter more than justice. More than right and wrong. Or even his clients. Maybe that was why she hadn’t seen it coming, because it had happened slowly, over time.

Or maybe because, at home, he was still the man who struggled with insecurities. A grown-up version of the young boy who’d never been good enough to deserve personal acknowledgment from his famous father, the singer Randy Cedar-Jones. He’d called him after every case, telling him—through voice mail—about every victory. Without taking offense when there was never a response.

At home, he was a man who touched her tenderly. One who cooked beside her, who slept beside her, who woke her with a smile and a cup of coffee every morning.

As she dressed for lunch on Monday, she reminded herself of all the hard-earned lessons of the past year. And of the happiness she’d felt the night Charles had proposed to her.

Something Cedar had never done—despite years of conversations about “someday.”

He hated seeing her in leggings, so she wore a pair of pink ones with black cactus shapes on them, topping them with a figure-hugging black tunic and short black boots. Not the professional he’d be expecting to see.

Not even how she’d normally dressed. The leggings were a gift from Raine, who’d become an online distributor for them. Heather had never actually worn them before.

Cedar had left shortly after the toasts on Saturday night, but not without a word in her ear about that day’s meeting. He’d said it was strictly business. And really important.

She felt he’d been telling the truth, so she’d agreed to see him.

She would let Charles know about the meeting just as soon as she knew what it was about. Then she could reassure him about her lack of involvement in this “business matter” before he had a chance to get nervous about the contact.

Cedar was already seated at a table by the window of a local eatery when she arrived. In one of his signature designer suits—this one in tones of gray, his put-at-ease choice—his thick dark hair a little longer than he used to wear it, he’d have stood out from the crowd even without the advantage of his six-foot-two height.

The restaurant was one they’d favored during their time together, not only because of the talented chef, but because of the ocean views. Heather couldn’t get enough of the water that kept rolling to shore, century after century. She wasn’t sure if Cedar had ever given the Pacific’s grandeur a second thought.

Charles had. He respected the ocean’s power. Its unending energy. He’d engaged in long talks with her about it as they’d walked, hand in hand, along the beach, watching the tide come in and go out.

“New outfit,” Cedar said, as he stood to pull out her chair and then, as she sat, took his seat again.

She knew he didn’t like it and was satisfied with her choice. But then she said, “Raine gave it to me. I have to wear it so when she asks me if I did, I can tell her yes.”

She was making excuses. Felt like she was sliding backward. She had no reason or need to please Cedar.

“I like it,” he told her. “It looks good on you.” The sexy grin on his face, the warmth in his straightforward dark brown gaze, didn’t give even a hint of untruth.

She didn’t like the outfit. That was the truth. She’d worn it to spite him. It hadn’t worked; she didn’t like that, either.

“But then, anything looks good on you,” Cedar added, picking up his menu. “Or nothing.”

Her feminine parts filled with heat.

And she was ashamed.

* * *

HE WAS A damned fraud. A man who’d created situations to fit what he knew people needed so he could get what he wanted. He’d vowed to himself he’d stop. And here he was...still orchestrating the situation.

The gray dress pants, white shirt, gray jacket and gray-and-white tie were proof of that. Although he’d gotten rid of most of his closet full of hand-tailored dress clothes, like an alcoholic pouring his stash down the drain, he’d held on to a few things. And he’d deliberately worn some of them that morning because he knew they’d be what Heather would expect to see. They’d put her at ease. He’d worn them purposely, to manipulate her comfort level.

Like he was the same man who’d used his lover to get the information he needed to manipulate a win.

His last win.

He’d ordered her sweet tea and his own black coffee. She glanced at both as she sat down, but said nothing. She immediately went for the tea, though. Took a long sip.

Sweet tea was her weakness.

He used to be, too.

“You said you had business to discuss,” she said, not even looking at the menu. He’d figured they’d order first. Maybe even wait to broach his discussion until after they’d eaten. She’d been on his mind pretty much nonstop since he’d left her parents’ house two nights before.

She was making a mistake, marrying Charles. Not because she wasn’t marrying him—not that he’d ever asked—but because there was no passion between her and the dentist.

If anyone knew and would recognize Heather’s passion, it was Cedar. He’d been prepared to see her sharing it with another man.

That hadn’t happened. Which meant nothing in terms of him. It meant only that she was making a mistake with her dentist.

Probably not a conversation starter at the moment.

“I have a favor to ask,” he said, looking around for Molly, the waitress who’d taken their drink orders.

Heather held her purse in her hands. “I’m not going to—”

“Please, hear me out,” he interrupted before she could walk out on him. No matter how much he deserved it, he wasn’t up to having her leave him again. The first time had just about killed him.

Killed the old him, anyway. It had left him a shadow of a man, one who lived to make amends—not to be happy.

“The favor, it isn’t for me.”

“Of course it’s for you! Couched in a client’s need, perhaps, but it’s about your win. I’m not going back down that road, Cedar.”

He swallowed. Pursed his lips so they wouldn’t open until he had himself in check. He refused to share his truths; he couldn’t play with her emotions that way. The turns his life had taken were personal. His alone. They weren’t to get her back. Or even to show her that he’d become a better man. He was a man who’d lost his way, and that was a burden he would carry forever. Telling her he was trying to change could serve his own good and that was the old him—serving his own good.

He wanted to ask her how she’d been. To know that she really was over him. That she didn’t still carry in the depths of her heart all the pain he’d caused her by putting his need to win above everything else. That there were no lasting consequences in her life because he’d lost sight of what mattered most.

And yet...he suspected her dentist was one of those consequences.

Suspected she was settling for safety because she couldn’t bear the idea of being hurt so badly again.

He didn’t want that to be the case.

Didn’t have time for more amends at the moment.

But this was Heather. If his actions had pushed her into a passionless relationship, if he’d driven her to a passionless life, he’d have to do whatever it took to undo the damage.

He’d figure that out. Take appropriate action if necessary. But first...

“I’m convinced a young woman is in trouble, that she’s protecting a man she thinks loves her. She might have done some things that could put her in prison, but...”

Heather shook her head. “I’m not helping you free another criminal who should be serving time. I understand that United States law allows everyone the right to a proper defense. I believe in and uphold our laws. But I will not be party to working the system in the name of preserving someone’s rights. I won’t be used again, Cedar. Thank you for the lunch invitation, but I won’t be staying.”

She stood, her purse slung over her shoulder.

“She’s not my client.” He had no clients.

Heather took one step and stopped. He stood up, too, facing her. “She’s the victim of a former client. I need you to help me get her to tell us the truth, Heather. Help me nail this guy before he kills her.”

“How exactly are you going to nail him?”

“I’m going to take whatever evidence we can get out of her and go straight to the police.”

She dropped back into her seat, and he slowly lowered himself into his.

“Isn’t that a conflict of interest?” She eyed him warily, and it stabbed him to know she didn’t trust him at all. He wasn’t surprised. He’d known. Like the ass he was, he’d betrayed her. But sitting there, seeing the evidence of the fallout...it hurt.

He’d never cheated on her. Never even wanted to. But he hadn’t been trustworthy. He’d never out-and-out lied to her. He’d just manipulated the truth to get what he wanted.

“It would be a conflict of interest if he were still a client.”

“Even a former client... He has protection under the law from anything he might have told you. You could lose your license, and any competent attorney will get him off...”

“Let me worry about my license.” At the moment, it was little more than a piece of paper. One he’d gladly burn if it would make things right. He knew he’d put criminals back on the street to bolster his own reputation. And he knew he had so much to do before he could even think about practicing law again.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever trust himself to do it.

Because while it was absolutely true that everyone deserved a good defense, in the end, he hadn’t been about his client’s rights. Or the spirit of the law. He’d become all about his own win. At almost any cost. Just like Heather had said the day she’d walked out on him.

The day she’d found out he’d used her to obtain testimony that would keep an abuser out of prison—knowing that her career choice was based on her own personal need to avenge the death of her aunt, her mother’s sister, who’d lied to law-enforcement officials to protect the man she loved.

“The woman I’m trying now to help never testified for me. The prosecution called her. Not me. And my client wasn’t up for abuse. I was defending him on unrelated charges, which means this is extraneous to anything my client said to me—or to client-attorney privilege. However, I think I could give you enough information to help you ask the right questions to get him on abuse.”

He was a top-notch manipulator. And she had the gift of being able to tell when someone was lying to her. Unless she was blinded by emotion...

That was the reason she’d thrown at him to explain her inability to recognize his duplicity. The fact that he’d never actually lied to her was irrelevant.

To his immense shame, he’d deliberately misled her to get her to do things he’d known she wouldn’t do if he’d asked.

“He’s beating her. And, he might be involving her in his drug trade. I never found anything to prove that, but I wouldn’t be surprised. She obviously feels indebted to him, in a subservient kind of way, and if we don’t intervene, she could end up dead.”

Heather watched him for too long. She ordered the Cobb salad he’d known she’d order when the waitress came to the table. And she waited patiently while he asked for his usual fish tacos without jalapeños.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“I...know her.”

“You dated her.”

He hadn’t, but didn’t deny it. He couldn’t pour his soul out to her. It could soften her toward him and that would serve his own selfish good.

“You slept with a client’s woman.”

“No! Of course I didn’t.” He couldn’t let her erroneous negative assumptions go that far. He’d done a lot of things. Infidelity wasn’t one of them. Not with her and not with any other man’s woman, either.

“You’d like to.”

Not at all.

“I don’t want to sleep with her. Never did. I just need to do this, Heather. I need to make this right. Will you help me?”

“If you’re playing some trick to get me to think you’ve changed, that you’re some kind of new man...you might as well give it up, Cedar. I’m not getting back with you. Not for one kiss. One night. Or a lifetime of them. I cannot fathom even entertaining the thought.”

Her words took away his appetite and a whole lot more. “I understand.”

She watched him. He withstood the silent interrogation.

“She’s at The Lemonade Stand, Heather.”

He knew the mention of the unique, resort-like women’s shelter in town would reel her in. She and her parents had been longtime supporters of the facility. But even as he spoke the truth, he cringed, too. Using that knowledge felt like a well-oiled tactic. Something he would’ve done deliberately in the past, simply because he knew it would work.

“She says her abuser is a family friend, and that she won’t press charges. She wants help but is afraid of the repercussions—with good reason. My personal opinion is that she’s using the Stand as a hideout to buy herself some time for her bruises to heal and to figure out what she wants to do. If things are left as is, I’d bet my life’s earnings that she’ll end up back with Dominic. This might be our only chance to help her.”

“Dominic?”

The man he’d set free by tricking Heather into getting to a truth his client wouldn’t give him. Dominic’s alibi for phone calls to the police had to do with domestic violence, not the drug trafficking for which he’d been standing trial.

It was the case that had blown him and Heather apart.

She dropped the fork she’d been toying with and stood up.

“If I do this...it has nothing to do with you. It would be for the girl. And only if, after I speak with her, I think there’s any merit to what you’re saying.”

“Fine.”

“If, on the other hand, I find out you’re working me...trying to get information that’ll protect your privileged and far-too-rich client from some other crime, I will go after your license myself.”

A year ago, the idea would have panicked him. He’d have protected his career at all costs. Had done exactly that.

And in the process, he’d lost something far more valuable. More vital than he’d ever known.

“Understood.”

He understood another truth, as well. If he was going to help Heather, if he was going to save her from the emotional consequences he was responsible for, then this case was his chance to get close enough to her to do that. He was, one by one, going through his client list, following up with everyone he’d helped set free, and doing what he could to protect those who might be hurt because of his actions...

And it occurred to him that by getting her to help him, he’d have a chance to help her. He had no idea how. The plan was just coming to him. But after seeing her again, seeing the lack of passion, hearing the superficial conversation the other night...knowing how much she’d changed...he had to do something.

He was walking a fine line here. Having other motives, while also telling her the truth—the worst kind of manipulation.

But if he saved Heather from a possible life of unhappiness caused by him, he’d choose to walk that line every time.

CHAPTER FOUR

HEATHER WENT STRAIGHT back to work. Her salad hadn’t been delivered when she’d walked out on Cedar, but she didn’t stop to pick up anything. Food would just choke her. Getting air past the lump in her throat was struggle enough.

She had to work. To focus outside of herself.

To quit shaking.

The drive back to her office was a blur. Pedestrians. Stoplights. Lanes. And...blur. Blur. Blur. Blur. She couldn’t let anything else in. Couldn’t let herself feel him.

He’d stolen her faith in herself.

It made sense that seeing him again would bring up the old pain. She’d miscalculated that point. The reality that she’d feel...something...based on a post-traumatic-stress kind of theory.

She didn’t really want him.

Her body just remembered sexual reflexes where he was concerned.

He’d given her a chance to help him right one of the horrible wrongs he’d done.

That thought kept her driving. Got her past the floor’s shared receptionist to her private suite and in the door without dropping her keys.

Inside, she moved immediately to her desk and took a long sip from the water bottle she’d left there. Sinking into her chair, she reached for the closed file in front of her computer screen. Lorraine Donahue would be there in a little less than an hour. The divorced woman was being accused of abusing her twelve-year-old daughter—by her daughter’s father, not by the daughter.

The family lived in Santa Barbara, and, at the request of Lorraine’s defense attorney, Heather was looking for the truth. Her goal was to keep that twelve-year-old girl safe. She’d already done preliminary interviews, reading them over would put her mind firmly in the Donahue household. She’d made a list of questions she was going to ask while the woman was hooked up to the polygraph machine. She had other questions ready, depending on the results of the first round. Not the way the test was generally run, but she wasn’t a typical polygraphist.

Her combination of skills had resulted in more confessions, acquittals and convictions in their region of the state than any other approach. She was good at ferreting out the truth. Or at least a meaningful portion of it.

That afternoon, she was hoping to find out if Lorraine was a decent parent or a horrible one. After first sitting with the woman—and separately with the child—Heather had been fairly convinced that Lorraine was more a victim of her husband’s divorce attorney than a child abuser. But she wasn’t sure enough to form an opinion she was willing to write.

Criminal charges had been filed. Lorraine, who’d been the sole caregiver for her daughter, since her ex had traveled all the time, was now allowed only supervised visits. Mother and daughter both desperately wanted to be reunited, to the point that Lorraine had chosen to forgo a trial by jury.

Heather’s opinion would likely have a huge impact on the judge’s final decision.

The mother’s and daughter’s desires couldn’t come into play. Children commonly fought to be with a parent who’d abused them. And Lorraine didn’t want to go to jail.

The truth was needed and—

Heather jumped as a knock sounded on the solid wooden door of her two-room suite. She was in the front room and had rounded her desk as she glanced at the clock on the wall. Lorraine was early...

Pulling the door open, she felt the clenching inside, like a steel band around her rib cage, even before she consciously acknowledged that Cedar, not Lorraine, was standing in the hall in front of her.

“Sheila wasn’t at her desk, so I came on back...”

He still had her security code to get from reception to the offices beyond. He’d just needed to type the numbers into the keypad on the wall...

He was the only one she’d ever given it to.

She could have changed it after they broke up. Should have. Had actually thought about it and hadn’t done it.

Mouth slightly open, she stared up at him. Afraid of the erroneous conclusions he’d draw about why she hadn’t changed her code.

Whatever they were...they’d be wrong. He couldn’t possibly know why she hadn’t done something when she didn’t even know herself.

There’d been some vague feeling along the lines of...if he used the code, that would prove he was untrustworthy. And if he didn’t, she’d know she hadn’t been completely insane to trust him. Maybe he wouldn’t care enough to try to surprise her with the little gifts he used to bring in an effort to win her back. But maybe he cared enough to respect her wishes and leave her completely alone. The whole thing was a little ambiguous. The choice had been made a year ago. So much had happened since then...

“I brought your lunch.” Cedar held out the restaurant’s to-go bag she’d failed to notice until then. “It’s your favorite.”

“Thank you.” As she took the bag, his gaze met hers. She continued to stare back at him. Like the proverbial deer in the headlights. She just stared. It was either that or flounder.

And then, with a quick nod, he was gone.

* * *

HER AFTERNOON SESSION was a clockwork example of why she did what she did. The truth wasn’t always what it seemed. Asking the right questions, after building her way to them with questions whose answers led her down an unexpected path, Heather got the truth out of Lorraine Donahue. She wasn’t hurting her daughter. Neither was her husband. The twelve-year-old was hurting herself, and Lorraine was afraid the courts would take the girl away from her. That they’d lock her up when she was certain that what the child needed more than anything was a stable, battle-free household, filled with the kind of love only a mother could give. That was the reason she’d filed for divorce from a man she still loved, but who argued about everything. She believed their relationship was at the root of their daughter’s problems.

Lorraine could be right. The answers ahead weren’t up to Heather. Writing her report was all she could do, but as she ushered Lorraine out, she wished she could give her a hug big enough to absorb some of the worry she was carrying inside.

Determining that she’d create a more honest, unbiased report if she took the night to distance herself from the situation, Heather put away the extensive notes she’d taken that afternoon, locked up her office and headed out to the Mustang convertible she’d purchased the previous fall. It was early. She wasn’t due for dinner with Charles until seven. A drive down the coast with the top down, the salty air against her skin, the ocean right there beside her, would be good therapy.

Not that she needed therapy. She just had to clear her mind. To take a couple of deep, cleansing breaths. To talk to Raine.

In the back of her mind, she’d known that if the drive alone didn’t do the trick, she could always stop in at YoYo, Raine’s—who would have believed it?—incredibly successful yoga and yogurt studio on the beach between Santa Barbara and LA. A certified yoga and reiki instructor, Raine also had a handful of employees who were as calming and as nurturing as she was.

Raine might not be earning millions, but she was supporting herself comfortably enough to be happy. But then, it took a lot less to make Raine happy than some people.

“I had lunch with Cedar,” she blurted out the second she and her college roommate were privately ensconced in Raine’s apartment above the studio. Then she corrected herself. “Or rather, I walked out on a business lunch meeting, and he brought me my lunch and I ate it alone. At my office. Before my afternoon appointment.”

There. She’d put it all out there, which would clear her mind. Like taking a pill for a headache.

And Raine was her “pill” when her thoughts were trying to trip her up.

“Why’d you walk out on him?” In bold, multicolored leggings and an orange tank top, Raine could’ve been any man’s dream. But she hadn’t met anyone who made her heart beat faster just by walking into the room.

That was a definition of love they’d come up with together during their freshman year of college. One that hadn’t panned out in the long run for Heather, either—with Cedar, as the first case in point, her heart had definitely beat faster, but...and Charles as the second—he was going to be the love of her life and her heart remained steady every time he walked into a room.

Cedar still turns me on.

“Because I’m not going to let him suck me back in.”

“And that was happening?”

She thought about the conversation she and Cedar had at the restaurant. Really thought about it, being completely honest with herself. “No,” she said. “He asked me for a favor. He used his knowledge of me to get what he wanted, starting with the suit he chose, ordering my tea, even mentioning The Lemonade Stand. I knew it. I saw it, Raine. My walls were firmly in place. It’s like I told you, I’m over him.”

“And you left. Good.” Raine’s blue-eyed gaze seemed more concerned than celebratory. Although Heather had looked away from her friend, she caught the glance in the mirror they were both facing. It was oblong, decorative, almost a chair rail along one wall of the living room. There to make the room appear larger, Heather assumed. It had been there when Raine bought the place. She’d put her couch against the opposite wall, with her television mounted above the long mirror.

There they sat, two thirty-year-old women, both blonde and blue-eyed, looking not much different than they had when they’d met a decade before. Heather’s hair was pulled neatly into a ponytail at her nape, while Raine’s was tucked in a scrunchie on top of her head.

In college, they’d been called the Bobbsey Twins a time or two. Completely inaccurate, of course, as those twins from the books her mother used to read to her were two sets and a boy and a girl.

“Hey.” Raine touched her arm, and Heather looked directly at her. It was why she’d come. To see herself reflected back at her with no judgment—and not just in the mirror. She wasn’t afraid. Wasn’t feeling weak. Didn’t need reassurance or a kick in the pants. Lianna would’ve been closer to run to, but she didn’t need strength. She needed understanding.

“I didn’t tell Charles that I was meeting him,” she said. She hadn’t lied to her fiancé, but she’d been duplicitous all the same by deliberately keeping the information to herself, until after the meeting. It wasn’t like her.

Unless Cedar and his manipulative ways had worn off on her without her being aware of it.

Raine’s expression seemed to ease. As though she wasn’t so worried anymore. Which eased Heather’s level of tension, too.

Good. She’d been right to come. She’d been overreacting and...

“And when you did tell him, he got upset?” Raine asked.

“I haven’t told him yet.”

“Lunch was what...three hours ago?”

She shrugged. “About that.”

“And you haven’t called Charles in all that time?”

“It’s been a busy afternoon.”

“Yet you had the time to drive here.”

If she’d been sitting with Lianna, the statement would have sounded more like an accusation. But the point being made was the same. Just more delicately put.

Was that why she’d come to Raine? To be treated like a hothouse flower, rather than the strong, capable woman she expected herself to be?

She unloaded in a rush. “I have to do the favor Cedar asked,” she said. “Charles is going to think it’s because I’m not really over him, or that he has some kind of hold on me. But I swear to you, Raine, I had no problem telling him like it is.” She told her about Dominic Miller’s woman-friend. About Cedar giving her a chance to help right an egregious wrong. “I might be the only one who can get through to her in the little time we’ll have. Residents can’t stay at the Stand for longer than six weeks max. At least, not without special permission.” The Stand didn’t have to adhere to state mandates, and sometimes residents did stay on...

“You don’t need to convince me, sweetie.” Raine’s brow was creased, but she was smiling, too. “This sounds like any number of other jobs you’ve done. It’s precisely why people call you.”

She had a good point.

“So...you think Charles will understand why I have to at least go talk to the woman?”

Raine’s shrug was noncommittal. “I can’t speak for Charles and don’t know him well enough to make an educated guess.”

Raine had given the problem right back to her. What was she missing that her friend could see? And expected her to get? Or was she slowly losing her mind, thinking everyone was seeing things she couldn’t?

She shook her head. There was a shadow side to everything. Doubt and uncertainty... And when it came to her ability to put herself in others’ shoes, to read them more accurately than most, that shadow side could interfere.

No...that problem hadn’t surfaced until Cedar had used her. She hadn’t questioned herself until then. Not like she had since.

“You think I’m overreacting as a side effect of having seen Cedar?”

Raine shrugged again. “Maybe.”

“What else would it be?”

“I could see you needing some space to process the whole Cedar thing before being ready to defend it to someone else.”

Yes. For the first time since Saturday night, when she’d agreed to the meeting with Cedar, her stomach settled.

“What I went through with him...the intense love and then the horrible betrayal... Of course I need time to process seeing him again.” It all made sense now.

“Which is why I was worried about you and Charles getting engaged so soon.”

Heather’s stomach clenched again. “You think I’m not over Cedar?”

“I think you’re over being in a relationship with him. You’re over some parts of having been in love with him. The rest... I don’t know...”

“What rest? What else is there?”

“The residual effects. I don’t know,” she repeated. “I’m not a professional counselor.” Heather had seen a counselor the year before, when she’d broken up with Cedar. Because of her job, she’d had to make sure her head was on straight. “It seems to me that the damage Cedar did... Well, you need to give yourself time to cope with that. And then to find out who you are when you come out the other side.”

How was it possible that a heavy weight would lift at the same time that that one settled on her? That peace would come with dread attached.

“I’m ready to be with Charles. Just not ready to be engaged...” She said the words aloud, but she’d recognized the truth of them before she spoke. “I need to learn how to be in a relationship in a healthy way before I commit myself to anyone... I have to be fully recovered...”

She wasn’t sure she’d ever fully get over the damage that Cedar had caused her psyche, her heart. She’d thought she had, until she’d seen him again.

Whenever she’d thought about him since seeing him at the party—and he’d been on her mind far too often because of the “secret” meeting she’d agreed to have with him—those thoughts had been accompanied by a horrible feeling inside her.

“I don’t know about a full recovery,” Raine said with a real, no-frown-attached grin. “But I’d say that you at least need to be able to talk to your fiancé about him.”

Her fiancé.

Oh, God. “I have to give Charles his ring back.”

“Or take it off for now. Postpone the engagement.”

Charles was in such a hurry to get married. Remarried. The first time hadn’t worked out, and his chances of being young enough to be the kind of involved father he wanted to be were diminishing.

He’d been completely honest with her, and she’d understood. But that didn’t make the quick engagement right for her...

“He’s the man for me,” she said now, still certain of that. She enjoyed being with Charles. Looked forward to their visits. Was entertained by his company. And felt absolutely none of the debilitating emotional-rollercoaster ride Cedar had taken her on. Charles was steady and affectionate, even in the hard times. Understanding.

He was going to be devastated.

“I’m having dinner with him at his place tonight,” she said, sitting forward. “At seven. He’s grilling steaks, and we were going to share a bottle of wine on the upper deck and talk about the wedding.” She’d been looking forward to the upper-deck dinner, the wine. The ocean view, the handsome man.

Raine was meeting her gaze, silent.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to talk to him.”

“I wasn’t worried about that. I’m just... I’m here if you need to talk, okay?”

Raine was worried about her getting hurt. The same way Heather worried about Raine ever finding the man of her dreams.

“You want to go up to wine country this weekend?” she asked, liking the idea even as it occurred to her. “A girls’ getaway, like we did in college?”

“I have class until noon on Saturday. I could go after that.”

“If we fly up, we can take the early Monday flight back and be home in time for work.” Just like they’d made it back for Monday-morning class more than once.

Raine stood, grinning. “I’ll make the reservations,” she said, reaching to give Heather a hug. “And why don’t you ask Lianna? We talked some the other night, and it seems like we should all be friends, rather than pulling you back and forth between us...”

Feeling as if a part of her life was finally flying high, while the rest of it was about to crumble, Heather hugged her friend back and then, keys in hand, headed for the door. “I’ll call her as soon as I get to my car,” she promised. And hoped that Lianna would be free. Spending time with her two best friends sounded like heaven.

CHAPTER FIVE

PULLING OFF THE sweaty bandanna tied around his head, Cedar walked over to his pickup truck in the employee parking lot of The Lemonade Stand. He was one of a dozen men on the construction crew, building new bungalows on previously unused acreage on the other side of the swimming pool. But right now, he was alone as he unbuckled his tool belt in the deserted lot. Dropping it on the floor behind the driver’s seat, he climbed inside, pushing the ignition button before closing his door. In the July heat, the Chevy was like a sauna without the steam.

A blast of warm air hit and he reached into the cooler on the floor below the passenger seat for his last bottle of water. Downed it. And glanced at the gray suit on the seat next to him. He’d donned it before lunch and quickly changed back into work clothes after delivering Heather’s salad to her office.

Heather.

She’d be coming to The Lemonade Stand, but there was no reason she’d ever need to know that he was working there. It wasn’t that she couldn’t know, but he didn’t want her to. He didn’t want to be responsible for swaying her in his favor again. Didn’t want anyone to convince her he was at the Stand as a way of proving that he’d changed. Or as an attempt to get her back.

His atonement was between him and...him.

The bungalows to which he’d been assigned were acres away from the main building, where Heather’d be meeting with Carin Landry, Dominic’s girlfriend.

The parking lot she’d use was a small space intended for general visitors, on the opposite side of the now seven-acre complex. It was the only parking available without a pass card—giving access to a small, nondescript outer reception area, through which she’d be admitted to the main building after showing her identification.

He’d finalized the details that afternoon, during his break, and then worked an hour of overtime to make up for the extra minutes he’d been away from the job. And maybe to work off some extra tension, too.

Seeing Heather...

Damn, he missed her.

He needed a beer.

Throwing the truck in Reverse, he heard his phone ring. Whoever it was could leave a message.

Unless...what if it was Heather? Lila McDaniels Mantle, the Stand’s managing director who had absolutely no idea—from him, anyway—that he and Heather knew each other other than professionally, had said she’d call Heather to arrange the appointment with Carin.

After putting the truck in Park, he grabbed his phone out of the heavy-duty case clipped to his jeans. And almost dropped it. The number on the screen was on his speed dial, but...

“Randy Cedar-Jones?” he said before the phone was even fully to his ear. His father was calling him!

Elation went to immediate alarm as he realized that something must be terribly wrong. Randy Cedar-Jones had never called him. Not once. Ever. They’d never met. He had the private number as part of a legal agreement designed by his mother. For all he knew, the line was only for him—set up when he was a kid. He called. Left messages. They were never returned. Never.

Most people didn’t even know that the famous pop singer had a son. Cedar’s mom, who’d been a groupie having a one-night stand, had chosen to keep it that way. She’d told the singer about him, and had signed a legal document that she’d helped him draw up, valid until Cedar’s eighteenth birthday, agreeing never to approach Cedar-Jones or speak of Cedar’s parentage—including no paternity testing—in exchange for child support. She didn’t want her son raised in an unrealistic world, nor did she want him to be part of a two-family, two-home lifestyle. One with her and an entirely different one with Cedar-Jones. Her one demand had been that Cedar, the man’s only child, always had his private phone number.

His mother, a kindergarten teacher, had never married or had other children. And she’d never made any secret of the fact that she was such a Cedar-Jones fan that she’d named her only son after the singer. Randy Cedar-Jones had sent flowers to her funeral when she’d been killed in a car accident shortly after Cedar graduated from college—but he still hadn’t picked up the phone when his son had called to thank him.

Nor returned that or any subsequent calls.

“Cedar! Is this a good time?” To talk, he figured his father meant.

And with a mind that felt encased by sludge, he tried to sound as nonchalant as the old man did.

“Sure, what’s up?” Something obviously was. But Cedar still couldn’t contain the excitement churning inside. His father had called him.

Thirty-four years into his life, and it had finally happened.

His mother would be glad. He had to tell Heather...

Slowing his thoughts to adult level, Cedar listened as Randy said he had a favor to ask. And he felt another rush—of an emotion he’d waited for all his life.

Wow. A younger Cedar had lived for this day.

“I’ve got a...friend...who’s gotten himself into a bit of trouble...”

Cedar listened, his mind racing ahead to possible fixes, thinking along the lines of cleanups and protection, even before he heard the gist of the problem.

“It’s not unlike that case you had three or so years ago, the one where the guy skipped the country and you were able to get him to give you evidence to clear his partner, since they couldn’t prosecute him if they couldn’t find him...”

The time he and Heather had gone to Egypt. And come home to meet Charles at her parents’ barbeque.

“And the case from last year where the guy was found with 1000 kilos, but you were able to show enough doubt as to the ownership and how it came to be where it was, that he walked...”

Dominic. Cedar had shown sufficient doubt, and then, just before he’d rested his case, the prosecutor had turned up with reports of 911 calls from neighbors, reporting suspicious activity at Dominic’s home. There’d never been any charges for anything as a result of those calls. Until then, he’d never known about them. And though one would expect there to have been a police report, none could be found. Other than the incoming calls to 911 that had been too vague to draw from. Concerned neighbors calling in suspicious activity. Dominic had been certain they had the case won, that the calls wouldn’t change that, so he wouldn’t come clean about them. Dominic had been willing to risk his freedom on the certainty that those calls wouldn’t matter, that no one would find a single report that would explain the calls, but Cedar hadn’t been willing to risk his win.

He’d risked his relationship with Heather, instead.

Cedar-Jones listed a couple of other cases, and Cedar began to see the link. They’d all been seemingly definite convictions—mostly white-collar crime—and even with digital trails, he’d managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat every time, and his clients had walked free.

He saw something else, as well. All those years, when he’d called Cedar-Jones after every case...his father had been listening to his voice mails.

He sat there, half listening, knowing without a doubt that he’d give his father the affirmative he was after. And that whatever the old man had to say about the case wouldn’t matter nearly as much as Cedar doing his own digging.

What mattered right now was that, when his famous father had finally acknowledged him, he could give him exactly what he needed.

For the first time in his life, he felt...good enough.

Complete.

Holy hell!

* * *

CHARLES HAD INVITED another couple to dinner. A friend of his, Rebecca, from college, who’d been in LA for a church conference and had an unexpected free evening. And her husband, Anthony, who loved to play golf as much as Charles did. They were a thoroughly enjoyable couple. Becky was a dentist, too, and Anthony a chiropractor. They had two teenage children and a lovely home in Chicago and invited Heather and Charles to visit them the following summer—promising to take them out on their boat, which was docked at their property on Lake Michigan. And they insisted on getting an invitation to the wedding, too.

The bottle of wine, and the next one, disappeared quickly, but they ate inside, in Charles’s formal dining room, not out on the deck. No view of the ocean. And Heather helped with the cooking, preparing the salad and side dishes, while Charles entertained his friends and grilled the steaks on the grill out on the deck. She was at home in his kitchen, enjoyed her time there, which was why she offered to take care of the dishes while Charles and Becky and Tony continued to chat. They were talking about a couple of bands they all used to like, music she’d heard of, but to which she’d never really related. Turned out that Tony and Charles, who hadn’t known each other before that evening, had both been to more than a few of the same bands’ concerts during their college years. Heather had barely been born.

She tried to follow the conversation as she rinsed dishes and loaded the dishwasher, cleaned the pans she knew Charles always did by hand and wiped down all the counters. It was a struggle, though. Her mind kept wandering, just as it had all night long, even when the conversation going on around her had been engaging.

Before she went home that night—and she definitely planned to go home, which would be another issue, since Charles was expecting her to stay—she had to tell the man she loved that she couldn’t be engaged to him. Yet. He was going to think she was some kind of kook. Or worse, that she still had a thing for Cedar.

Which she didn’t. She scrubbed hard at a spot on the frying pan—until she noticed that she was leaving slight scars on the bottom of the pan. The only true feelings Cedar raised in her were negative ones. Left over from the trauma he’d put her through.

The trauma she’d allowed herself to fall into.

But even if Charles didn’t worry about Cedar, even if he took her conversation for what it was, it was going to be difficult for him. Including on the most surface level—they’d just announced their engagement in a big, celebratory way to everyone he considered a friend.

He wouldn’t be wrong to feel upset with her for not realizing, a couple of days sooner, that she wasn’t ready to marry anyone.

Yet.

That yet kept surfacing. Maybe if she led with that part, her news wouldn’t be so horrible.

“Are you sure I can’t help you with anything?” Becky was back from the restroom, where Heather had directed her minutes before. It was the third time Becky had offered assistance.

“Nope, all done here,” Heather smiled, hung the cloth she’d just used to wipe out the sink and turned back toward the dining room.

The last thing she needed was girl talk. Unless it was with one of her girls, and she wasn’t even up for that at the moment.

* * *

DEAN DISALVO, his father’s friend, had a lot of money. He offered a sizable chunk to Cedar, who wasn’t taking it. He’d promised himself he was done working as a lawyer, at least for a while. Maybe forever. He was done selling his soul. Done taking money for a job that had controlled him to the point that he’d sacrificed his conscience to succeed. He was helping his father. Period.

About five minutes into their conversation Monday night, DiSalvo finally got that Cedar meant what he said—that he wasn’t in it for the money.

His father never came up. Whether Cedar-Jones had mentioned anything to DiSalvo, other than the name of a lawyer, Cedar didn’t know. If DiSalvo wondered about the name likeness he didn’t say. DiSalvo could think what he liked about why a seemingly high-powered attorney would work for free. Cedar really wasn’t interested in what the man thought.

The case interested him, though. Cedar-Jones was right. An intricate trail of money-making deals had veered off course, and DiSalvo was being framed. Or he said he was. They always said they were. Usually they weren’t as innocent as they claimed, but there were ways to make them look as though they were. Cedar knew that firsthand. And knew, too, about the people whose palms could be greased, by a lawyer or the accused, to make things disappear. And people who’d roll over to keep themselves out of hotter water. It was exactly the kind of case that used to make Cedar salivate. After a quick shower and a ham-and-mustard sandwich, he sat out on his deck, with the ocean in the distance, a glass of milk in hand, his laptop on the table in front of him and his body alive in a way it hadn’t been in too many months.

DiSalvo had sent a shitload of files. Cedar wasn’t going to bed until he’d perused every single one of them.

And maybe not even then.

His father had called on him.

He had work to do.

And a job site to be at in the morning.

Good thing he was used to getting by on minimal sleep.

* * *

HEATHER STOOD AT Charles’s side, a slight step behind him, as they waved goodbye to his friends. Could anyone tell her palms were wet?

Cedar would have known from the arm across her midsection that she was holding back. Holding in. That something was bothering her.

She dropped her arm. Kept waving. Concentrated on the smile on her face. And was caught unawares as Charles turned around and kissed her deeply, his tongue in her mouth.

“Thank you,” he said, as soon as he lifted his head. “I know this wasn’t the evening we planned, but it was perfect in a different kind of way.”

Perfect wasn’t even close to a word she’d have used, but then she’d known what was coming and was sure that had clouded what might otherwise have been a wonderful time.

All except for the conversation about bands, maybe.

“They’re nice people,” she said, stepping away from Charles—wanting another glass of wine, which would require opening a third bottle. Which they had.

Was it too late for him to go along with their original plan of wine on the deck?

“Becky’s a sweetheart,” Charles was saying, following her into the kitchen. “You really liked her?”

Hovering near the wine cooler, Heather smiled at him. “I did. Truly.”

“So you’d be up for going to Chicago to see them?”

She imagined Charles and her together, but not engaged, and smiled again. “Of course.”

It was awkward, just standing there in the kitchen. He might be ready to go to bed. She wasn’t joining him.

She needed some time to figure out the total impact of the feelings assailing her because of her contact with Cedar. She should’ve realized there’d be an initial backlash. She hadn’t seen it coming. And she had to deal with that first.

“Shall we have another glass of wine?” she asked, feeling like a kid asking for permission to stay out past curfew. Which was ridiculous. Charles was the late-night one. “We could sit out on the deck.”

“Sure!” He shrugged, looked happy as he pulled out a bottle of her favorite unoaked chardonnay, while she slid a couple of fresh glasses off the rack mounted above the cooler.

She loved him in this mood, so easy, so supportive. Would it hurt to put off the conversation until later?

Following Charles through the house toward the deck, she considered her options. Her appointment with Carin Landry wasn’t until Wednesday, and she wouldn’t be seeing or speaking with Cedar again until she’d had more than one appointment with the woman. She needed preliminary conversation with her before she could form a list of questions. She could have Charles over to her house for dinner on Tuesday night. After his golf game. Unless he had dinner with the others in his foursome, all doctors.

She’d been thinking about stopping by Lianna’s after work the next day. Her friend hadn’t said no to the weekend in wine country, but she hadn’t said yes, either. She’d sounded decidedly unlike herself. Maybe it was time for Heather to be a friend, rather than just have one...

Charles pulled open the sliding glass door that led to the upper deck at the back of the house. She followed him out. She took a deep breath of air, convinced she could taste a hint of the ocean’s salt in the breeze. Growing up in Santa Raquel had given her what seemed like a biological need for that very special air.

She handed a glass to Charles, exchanged the other empty for the one he’d filled, and stood by the rail waiting for their traditional toast.

“To us,” he said, clinking his now-full glass to hers.

She nodded, mouthed the words and hoped he didn’t notice that they didn’t actually pass her lips. Hoped they’d still be an “us.”

CHAPTER SIX

CHARLES SAT ON his usual side of the padded wicker love seat they normally shared. He lifted one leg and rested his ankle on the opposite knee. He seemed ready to sit for hours.

She wasn’t sitting.

“Out with it...” His words were soft. Infused with the caring that had touched her from the moment he’d said hello the summer before.

“What?”

“I’m just wondering when you’re going to tell me whatever it is that’s bothering you.”

Her genuine surprise bothered her. She really hadn’t expected Charles to notice. Shouldn’t she have? Considering that he was the man she intended to spend the rest of her life with?

Current necessary conversation aside, if Charles would wait for her, she’d marry him.

“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” she admitted, turning to face him, but not joining him on the love seat.

He couldn’t avoid seeing the difference. She always sat next to him.

“Seems like now’s the time.” He was holding his wine in one hand, letting it rest against the arm of the love seat.

She took a sip of hers, and then set it on the railing beside her. Her situation was clear to her—how to express it in a way that would hurt him least was not.

“I’m struggling,” she started. And stopped.

“Obviously.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. Nor did he seem angry. “I’m here to help.”

Oh, God. She wanted his help. So badly.

And yet...she didn’t. Something about leaning on Charles just then seemed wrong.

“I want you to know that my feelings for you haven’t changed.”

His nod was reassuring. “Good,” he said. “That’s one hurdle passed.”

“I still very much want to marry you.”

He took a sip of wine. “I have to admit, I’m relieved to hear that.”

“But I can’t be engaged to you right now.”

He looked out at the ocean, and then back at her. He studied her. She studied him, too, willing him to see inside her. To know how sincerely she wanted to marry him.

“I’m feeling all kinds of negative things, Charles. I’m doubting myself. Not my feelings for you, or my desire to marry you, but things that go...deeper than that.”

“You still have feelings for Cedar.” He sounded as though he’d been expecting as much.

“No!” Why did everyone keep accusing her of that? “At least, not in the way you mean. I shudder—with fear—at the very idea of being with him again.” She took a deep breath, stilling those shudders. “But seeing him again, it was like an episode of what I’d call a very mild and temporary case of the past coming back to haunt me. I’m not myself.”

He waited.

She had to finish.

Or begin.

“Saturday night, as I was telling Cedar goodbye, I agreed to see him.”

Charles’s chin dropped to his chest.

“Not like that!” she quickly reassured him, waiting until he looked back up. “I swear to you, it wasn’t like that at all.” She could look him straight in the eye on that one. “He said he had a business situation to discuss with me. He was certain I’d want to know about it...”

“Of course he did. He wants you back.”

No. No, he didn’t. And even if he did...just, no.

She shook her head. “I felt he was being completely straightforward.” When he’d made the request. Not earlier, in the kitchen, when he’d been about to kiss her.

And she’d been about to let him.

A reflexive response, due in part to the shock of seeing him. Since she’d already labeled him a no-show and was no longer expecting that he’d be there.

“As it turns out, he was—being straightforward, that is.”

Charles’s gaze narrowed. “You met with him, then?”

She and Charles had been together most of the day on Sunday, roaming around at an art fair, stopping at a local wine-tasting. Having dinner...

She nodded. “Today. For lunch. Or rather, during my lunch break. I didn’t actually eat lunch with him.”

That detail seemed to matter to her a lot. She’d mentioned it to Raine, too.

Although she’d eaten the salad he’d brought. Like he’d said, it was her favorite. He’d paid good money for it. And she’d needed to eat.

Sitting forward, his elbows on his knees, Charles pursed his lips and glanced toward the ocean again. His hands weren’t clasped, leaving his body language open. He wasn’t completely writing her off yet.

“I should’ve told you Saturday night when he asked, or Sunday, even.”

He looked back at her. Nodded.

She’d disappointed him. She hated that. He didn’t deserve it.

“And that’s part of the problem,” she said, standing straighter. When she’d promised to marry him, she hadn’t realized she couldn’t. And she’d allowed a party to celebrate their engagement, with no idea that she wouldn’t be able to go through with it. But she’d purposely withheld information from him...and that was inexcusable.

“I was afraid of your reaction, afraid you’d think what you seem to be thinking—that I’d still have feelings for Cedar. I wanted to find out what he wanted before I told you about it...”

“And now that you know, you’re telling me.” He sat back, lifted his ankle to his knee again and drank some wine, watching her.

“Yes.” Sort of.

“I want to hear about it, of course, about whatever business he had that still interests you, but I have a more pertinent question first.”

A feeling of dread ran through her. “What?”

“How could you possibly be afraid of my reaction? Have I ever...ever...given you cause to fear me? Or reacted in such a way that made you feel unsafe coming to me?” He seemed honestly perplexed.

“No, you haven’t,” she told him, feeling stronger in her purpose by the second. This was why Raine had been so concerned. She knew Heather wasn’t acting in a healthy manner. Or reacting in one.

“It’s me, Charles. I’m not emotionally healthy enough right now for a committed relationship. I overreacted totally. My fear of telling you about Cedar was irrational. And I was over-the-top with him, too. I was far ruder to him than I should’ve been, considering that I not only opened the door that he’d kept shut between us—out of respect—by inviting him to our party. And then by agreeing to meet with him.”

“Maybe you need to consider why you did either of those things.”

“I know why I did them.” She didn’t waver, although she was getting frustrated with having to continue trying to get anyone to understand her on this. “I did them because I know I’m over him. Because I also know that if he’s still in town, we’re bound to run into each other. Our fields tend to cross. It’s kind of surprising that they haven’t already over the past year.”

“Maybe he purposely stayed out of your way.”

“Maybe.” But the past year didn’t matter right now. “The point is, I was certain I’d be able to see him and that our encounter would be...empty...at best. I was hoping for a distant friendliness between acquaintances.”

Or some such thing. She and Cedar had a ton of shared memories. He was bound to creep into her mind now and then through the years. She’d like to know he was okay.

As long as it was from a distance.

“You said you were hoping as though that’s not what happened.”

There he was again, implying she had feelings for Cedar. Anger shot up within her, and just as quickly died.

“Seeing him brought up all kinds of self-doubt,” she told him. “Before Cedar’s betrayal, I didn’t question my own mind. I trusted my thoughts and feelings—and then, when I’d realized how easily he’d duped me, I didn’t trust my own mind. I started to question what I really knew and what I only thought I saw. My mind was playing tricks on me. I doubted my ability to see things as they really were. Feared that I couldn’t discern. It was horrible at first. I went through counseling, as you know, and haven’t had a problem for months. Now, though, it’s back. Maybe worse than ever because there’s no grief to overtake everything else like there was then...”

“You had an important client this afternoon.”

“Yes.” She’d told him what she could the day before—that a child’s life was involved. Nothing else.

“Did you struggle to do your job?”

“No. It’s not affecting my work. Strangely enough, it never really did. Probably because I’m tuned outward when I’m working, and my struggle is inward. I’m acting weird around Raine and Lianna, though, being defensive around them. And you... I need some time, Charles.”

“I’d like to ask how much time, but clearly you wouldn’t have any way of knowing that.”

He was going to dump her. She could feel it coming.

And part of her was relieved. She wouldn’t have to worry about hurting him any more than she already had.

But another part of her, the part that had been happy to have her future mapped out and rosy, the part that thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with him...

“I understand your time concerns,” she told him. That had been the only true source of discord between them. The one time she’d stood up to him. She wouldn’t marry him until they’d been engaged at least a year. “I really do understand them. They’re real and important.”

He seemed to be watching something on the horizon—as though he wasn’t just staring off into the ocean, but was focused. She didn’t turn around to see what might be out there. She was too concerned about him.

Looking for a way to make things better for him.

Charles turned back to her, his gaze so serious, her stomach felt like lead.

“They aren’t as important as you are.” His words were soft. And yet solid. Blessedly solid. Tears sprang to her eyes. She wanted to run to him. To hold him. To thank him.

But...she wanted to stand her ground, too. “I have to break our engagement.”

He didn’t speak.

“I need time to get myself back before I can promise myself to anyone else.”

“Do you intend to date other people?”

Cedar, he meant.

“Absolutely not.” But then...they were back where they’d started—her being pledged to him, without the formality, without the ring. “But...until I sort this out, I need to be free to feel, to not feel guilty for feeling, whatever I feel. I need to be able to know what’s real for me without feeling obligated to consider how what I feel affects someone else. I need to be single, Charles. I can’t be in a committed relationship right now.”

“But you can date...say, me?”

“Of course!” She wanted that. “As long as you understand that I’m promising nothing for now, that it’s only a date. And...” She hated this part, but knew it had to work both ways. “If you meet someone you want to, say, have dinner with, then you’re free to do so. And not tell me about it unless you want to.”

It couldn’t possibly work. A couple couldn’t go from being engaged to completely single, and then get married. Could they?

“When you determine you’re ready to commit, do you see yourself being happy with me for the rest of your life?”

She couldn’t lead him on. It wasn’t fair. But she couldn’t lie to him, either. “At this point, I do.”

He nodded and held out an arm to her, and she couldn’t resist. She needed to feel his warmth as much as he seemed to need hers. Snuggled beneath his arm, she sipped her wine, her stomach cramped with tension.

“I hate not being able to trust my own mind,” she said. “I hate doing this to you.”

“I’d rather it happened now than after we’re married.”

As though they were still getting married. And maybe they were. A dangled carrot, but one she was glad to see hanging out there.

“I’m so paranoid all of a sudden.”

“It’s only been a couple of days.”

He was right, of course. Her melodrama was proof. Sitting up, she put her glass of wine on the table. Saw the ring on her finger, and her stomach took another nosedive. She reached to pull it off, but Charles’s hand on hers stopped her.

“Might I suggest you keep that on? At least for a little while?”

She shook her head. There was no way... He didn’t get it... She couldn’t be engaged...

“For a couple of reasons,” he said, when she met his eyes.

She listened.

“First, selfishly, I’d like a little more time to pass between our engagement party and any kind of official breakup,” he said. “Just to spare me discomfort with my friends. Since, at my insistence, we made the engagement so public.”

His request was fair. More than fair. She nodded.

“And secondly, maybe the ring will help you as you work through whatever business venture you have with Cedar. You and I know we aren’t engaged—that you’re single and free. But while you sort things out, while you figure out what parts of yourself are real, what you can trust, you’ll have that small bit of protection.”

A ring wouldn’t stop the Cedar she knew from pursuing anything with her if he wanted to. The almost-kiss on Saturday night proved that. Unless she’d imagined he’d been about to kiss her...

Still, Charles had a point. “He might draw the wrong conclusion if he knows we broke up right after his return to my life.” He might think he was the reason. That she still harbored feelings for him. He could hardly be blamed, considering that everyone who was close to her worried about the same thing. Which brought up another problem...

“My parents,” she said. She hadn’t even thought about them. About the conclusions they’d draw. They’d been so worried about her. So thrilled when she’d started seeing Charles.

“We don’t have to tell anyone, Heather. At least, not yet. Let’s find our own way on this, give it some time—and then decide about announcing a breakup.”

He was offering her the best of both worlds. And that wasn’t fair to him. Unless...

“As long as you know, in your heart, that I’m not yours. We are broken up, Charles. I can’t worry about every move I make affecting you. I need you to think single. If you meet someone else, someone who wants to get married right away and start a family with you...”

His finger over her lips stopped the completion of her sentence, but the important words had already been said.

“I understand,” he told her. “And, in truth, if I meet someone who interests me, I will most definitely ask her out. If nothing else, it’ll show me that you’re the one I want—even if it means being a father in my old age. Or...”

He could fall in love, and she’d lose him forever.

The idea, while hard, wasn’t nearly as awful as the way she’d felt meeting with Cedar behind Charles’s back.

She laid her head against his shoulder. She wanted some more wine, but knew she should leave what was left in her glass. She had to drive.

“I’d better be going,” she told him—the first mention either of them had made about the fact that she wasn’t going to be sleeping with him that night as he’d been expecting.

“It’s getting late,” he agreed, gathering both glasses and the bottle of wine as he stood. He followed her to the door, the glass stems between the fingers of one hand, the bottle in the other. He waited while she collected her purse and opened the door.

She didn’t want to kiss him good-night. But didn’t want to just walk out on him, either. Glancing over at him, she struggled for something to say. Besides the “I really do love you” that was entirely inappropriate.

“Drive carefully,” he said, raising the two glasses to her.

“I will.”

She left, tears streaming down her face as she closed his door behind her and climbed into her car.

She’d done the right thing.

And it hurt like hell.

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