Page 27 of Ardently Yours

They say curiosity killed the cat, but burying my head in the sand keeps leaving me with an exposed backside ready and waiting for someone to take a bite.

If he told his wife he was coming after me, he probably also told his friend.

Fighting back the surge of nausea I feel anytime I think of Polford, I drop my backpack to the asphalt and pull out a notebook and pen, scribbling my name and number on a piece of paper. I hold it out to her. “My lawyer will know what to do about the sheriff. You’re an innocent woman. If you’re afraid, he’ll help you.”

She darts a belated glance around us to confirm we’re alone and speaks quietly. “You have a lawyer who follows the rules. Calvin doesn’t, and he has too much power in this town. Do you honestly believe someone like Arden McRae is going to believe us? He’s not a defense attorney. He and Calvin are on the same side.”

Lifting her hand, I press the paper onto her palm. “Marsh is a bully. If he causes problems, call me. You’re wrong about my lawyer. He’s a stickler for the rules, but he’d do anything he could to help someone he thought was a victim.”

“If we made him angry enough, Calvin could manufacture evidence against us. If the so-called facts say we’re lying, Arden McRae wouldn’t think we werevictims. He’d throw the book at us. Why would he believe you and me over law enforcement?”

“We could warn”—I nearly forget not to use his first name—“Mr. McRae that it could happen.”

“Don’t. He’s the reason Jeremy took off in the first place. He’ll make things worse.”

“I could tell him you needed advice but ask him not to do anything.”

Her expression melts into bemusement. “Where did someone like you find the nerve to ask Arden McRae III for anything at all?”

“He’s a person, not some mythical god,” I say, frustrated on his behalf.

Her eyebrows lift, then she snorts. “Bless your heart.”

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Charlotte

Ten minutes later, Itype Arden’s name in the search bar in the university library computer. The first hits give me information about a rich, old shipping tycoon.

The older guy must have been his grandfather. I change the search parameters and add the “III” after his name. Then I shift on the wooden chair, leaning closer and closer to the small monitor, trying to catch my breath as the results populate.

This can’t be real.

But it is.

Elbow on the desk, I hold my temples with the fingertips of that hand as I scroll with the other.

Apparently, Arden has a reputation for being unstoppable in the courtroom. He isn’t known for plea deals or light sentences. An article quotes him as saying, “There’s never an excuse, only a motive.”

Nauseous at the thought of how he’d view me if he knew my secret, I click to another page. I find links to articles about his family. Unauthorized biographies written about him.A photograph of Arden looking disheveled and pissed, following anassassinationattempt.

The article says Arden “cleaned up New York.” The assassination attempt was retaliation for prosecuting a mob boss. They make it sound like he single-handedly dismantled a crime syndicate, but that can’t be true. It doesn’t work that way.

The men with earpieces at the theater weren’t chauffeurs. They were armed bodyguards.

I was freaked out when my sister asked me to take coffee orders from people. Arden gives press conferences. He said his late wife hated the attention, and I get it. There are so many photographs of both Arden and his late wife with microphones shoved in their faces.

Without thinking, I lift my fingers to touch the image of Ariana McRae on the computer monitor. Arden’s wife was stunningly beautiful, with long dark hair, cheekbones cut from glass, a wide mouth, and large dark eyes framed by long lashes. But in every photo she looks fragile and so sad. I don’t click on any articles about her, specifically, but there are plenty of photos of the two of them together, regardless.

In most, Arden appears to be attempting to protect her from the press, positioning his body in front of hers or covering her with his arm as she cowers beside him. I scroll away from anything that seems to include Ariana. I can’t explain it, even to myself, but something about seeing them together feels like snooping.

The next article is fromBusinessWeek. The one after that comes fromThe Wall Street Journal. Arden belongs to a family with generational wealth so vast that normal people can’t comprehend it. For someone like me, it’s like trying to measure the size of the ocean by the teaspoonful. His family owns one of the largest shipping companies in the world, along with reams of other corporations and investments.

It’s clear his work as an attorney is something he does—not forfun, exactly—but as a calling. He’s driven to see justice served. He doesn’t need whatever salary he earns from doing it.

Time passes as I read and read and read.

I snicker at an adorable photo of Arden as a child wearing a white sailor suit on a yacht with his mother. I read the caption and stop laughing. Rose McRae is the closest thing we have to American royalty. Her father and grandfather were both US presidents.

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