lot of ways. It’s hard for me to trust people, Nikki.”
“I know. It’s hard for me, and I’m not rich,” she said gently. Her soft eyes searched his. “Did you really think I was after you because of who you were that first day?”
“Yes,” he admitted. He looked up through the leafy, sun-patterned branches of the oak. “It’s an old ploy with women to pretend indifference to get a man’s attention. You caught mine that first day, with that bathing suit tantalizingly visible under that next-to-nothing cover-up. You have gorgeous legs, Miss Blake.”
She laughed disbelievingly. “But you were horrible...!”
“Self-defense,” he said softly. “I wanted you on sight. I thought if I made you mad enough to stay away, I’d forget about you. Then you started running, and that old hunting instinct took over, in spite of my misgivings. When I found out you were a reporter, it all blew up in my mind.”
“You don’t trust reporters, I gather.”
He met her eyes. “Nikki, I’ve been harassed to death by the press.” His dark face seemed to stiffen. “You’ve heard about what happened, I gather? That my daughter was killed in an automobile accident and that my...wife died a few months later? The media had a field day with it. And every time I read another story speculating on Penny’s death, I had to relive it all again.”
“Penny was your wife, wasn’t she?” she asked quietly.
He nodded. “A beautiful woman. Blonde, blue-eyed, utterly gorgeous. But it was only skin-deep. She hated me, she hated the idea of a child, she hated anything that took her away from her mirror and her admirers. She had two lovers the first year we were married.” His jaw tautened. “I didn’t love her. The marriage was more of a merger than anything else. But after Genene was born, I told her if I ever caught her with another man, if there was a breath of scandal, I’d cut her off without a cent and she’d never see Genene again. It was very effective, in one sense. She gave up men. But she substituted drugs for them.”
“Didn’t she care for you?” she asked, incredulous.
“No, honey. She gave what little affection she was capable of to Genene. There wasn’t anything left over for anyone else. The night of the accident I was away at a conference. Penny decided to leave Genene with her grandmother so that she could go on to a party. She was high when she left the house.” He took a slow breath. “She never made it. I’ll never forget how I felt when the call came. It was just as well that it took me four hours to get home. I wanted to wring Penny’s neck.”
She could imagine how it must have been for him. Under those layers of reserve he seemed to be a deeply emotional man; the kind who’d love completely, not holding anything back.
He flexed his broad shoulders, shifting. She started to get up, but his grip was formidable. “Penny sobered up pretty quickly after that, but she couldn’t live with the guilt, not without some anesthetic. It kept taking more and more, and every time I’d send her off to be dried out, she’d start again. It reached the point where I couldn’t even reason with her anymore. One night she took a few pills too many. It was already too late when the maid found her.”
She searched his dark eyes. “And ever since, you’ve been asking yourself, ‘What if...?’” she murmured.
He looked faintly shocked. “You don’t miss much, do you?”
“I know how it is,” she replied. “My mother died of a brain tumor—there was no help to be had. But my father and I had just had an argument the night he was killed.” She dropped her eyes to the pattern of his shirt. “You know how kids can be. He and my mother were devoted to each other. They never had time for me. After she died, it was even worse. I’d gotten the lead in our school play, and it was the night we were putting it on. Dad refused to go, or even to drive me there. I ranted and raved about it until he slapped me.” Her eyes closed on the memory. “I didn’t say another word, and neither did he. He walked out the door. Thirty minutes later Uncle Mike came to get me.” She sighed. “They said he was driving too fast for conditions. But it was suicide. He didn’t want to live