Page 96 of Masquerade

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Kate slid off his laponto the sofa, her heart in her throat.

“So, how did your father take the news you’ve been published?” he asked.

Confusion slowed her reaction time. She’d thought they’d dealt with her father. “How did you know?”

“George told me you told him, and you wouldn’t tell George unless you told your parents. You love them.”

“I rang them.” She sighed. “A video call. I told them about the contract, the publishing schedule and my extreme efforts to make sure no one connected us,” she summarised the stressful half-hour when they’d gone from shock to disbelief to annoyance then shock all over again. A tree branch dragged across the roof in an echo of her loneliness. “I was so nervous I could barely move afterwards. I’d frozen in front of the computer.”

“What do they think of the book?” Bone-deep kindness drove him to exorcise all her anxieties about her parents.

“I offered to send it to them.” Kate recalled the awkward silence after her question. “They called later to say they’d received the copy I sent.”

“Ouch.”

“I think they were truly shocked that I believed they’d disown me. Maybe shocked enough to actually read it.” She gave a half-laugh. “But you know what? I can live with them not reading it. I was finding it hard to live with them not knowing about it.”

“Bravo.” He sipped coffee which must be colder than the wind slapping at the cottage.

“Dad liked the pseudonym and disguise.” She stared into the fire.

“It’s a huge achievement. To write books, to win competitions and to be published. You should be proud of yourself.” He was offeringfriendlycompliments.

“For a long time, the secret of my writing defined me.” She shed the weight of silence. “I am proud to be a romance writer.” For the first time, she was fully, freely proud of her writing. She also needed to call out the half-truths in her relationship with Liam.

Lust wasn’t enough but wishy-washy, kind,friendlyaffection would be worse.

“Galena and Co.—you know I dismissed it as a mining company when I saw the name on the Futureproof building directory.” He nudged her shoulder. “Galena is a lead ore.”

“A logical mistake given they occupy the same floor.” Dissecting Ms. Sexy’s arrival at the Futureproof building, as if that’s all they had to say to each other, made her physically ill. If he was mopping up the final misunderstandings of their relationship before leaving, she’d have to learn to live with this ache. “The company’s owner only promotes its crystal symbolism—something to do with overcoming self-limiting beliefs.” She pressed a hand to her belly, her body’s anxiety barometer. “How did you know the blonde outside Futureproof was me?”

“You could say my unconscious mind recognised you. Even from the back, the woman was familiar.” Wood crackled, a log falling out of position. He slid off the sofa to squat in front of the fire. Grabbing the poker, he prodded the log back into place. Muscles rippled across his shoulders under the worn cotton. Her mouth dried. He stayed on the thick rug, stretching his legs in front of him. “But the profiles matched, the curves matched.”

“You thought I was another Selina.” She scraped at the wound, convinced that day held the clue to this awkward seesawing between them.

“My only excuse is that I saw you.” He leaned back on his hands. “My past came tumbling back to haunt me. Like a wrecking ball tearing through a building. I had to be in the Minister’s office. I’d barely returned to my office, and you appeared.”

“Ms. Dowdy Researcher appeared,” she reminded him.

“You, Kate,” he insisted softly, resting his hand on her knee. His hand was gone before she could absorb its comfort. “You’re beautiful, in all your incarnations.”

“But it changed things between us?” She swallowed her frustration at his deliberate distance from her.

“I reminded you of Andrew.” He was castigating himself; both of them held hostage for too long by other people’s actions. “I frightened you.”

“For a split-second, maybe,” she acknowledged his regret. “You’re nothing like him.” She willed him to believe her. “Dad and Andrew never saw me. You do. I refuse to live their version of me anymore.”

“When I was a teenager, there was an oil executive who outed himself as a romance reader. He held up a book at some conference and said, ‘not only do I read romance, but I was a consultant in the writing of this one.’ Mum cheered. She doesn’t have much patience for intolerance.”

“Maybe your mum should meet my dad.”

“I came to tell you I love my dad. I’m not angry anymore. Talking to Niall has helped; figuring out it was unfair to exclude you has helped.”

“Are you proud of your dad?” She sucked in a breath and took another risk. “More importantly, are you proud of yourself?”

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