Saving His Blackmailed Lover

The woman he watched stomping back and forth through the lobby of his hotel in high heels and a tight hair bun was not the Cecelia he remembered. She was driven, focused, almost to the point of being emotionless. What happened to her? When they had shared their dreams for the future as teenagers, being a hard-nosed CEO had not been on Cecelia’s list of ambitions.

If he looked closely, every now and then Deacon could see a flicker of the girl he used to know. It was usually near the end of the day, when the stress and the worries started to wear her down. That was when her facade would start to crumble and he could see the real Cecelia underneath.

He was watching her like that when Shane approached him. “She’s quite a piece of work, isn’t she?”

Deacon turned to him, startled out of his thoughts. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve always thought that Cecelia was a victim of a contradictory modern society. If she were a man, everyone would applaud her for her success and uncompromising attitude in the boardroom. Since she’s a woman, she’s seen as cold and bitchy. Heck, I see her that way after the way she treated Brandee. But there’s no way she could’ve gotten this far in business if she wasn’t hard.”

“You make it sound like nobody likes her.” That surprised Deacon, since she’d been the most popular, outgoing person in high school. Everyone had loved her.

“Well, she has earned quite the reputation in Royal over the years. Aside from her few close friends, I’m not sure that anybody really likes her, especially inside the Texas Cattleman’s Club. Tell you what, though, it’s not for their lack of trying. She’s just not interested in being friends with most people. She and the rest of the mean girl trio tried to sabotage my relationship with Brandee. They thought it was a big joke. I don’t know if folks are just not good enough to be her friends or what.”

Deacon flinched. “That doesn’t sound like her at all. What the hell happened after I left town?”

“I don’t know, man.” Shane shrugged. “Maybe you broke her heart.”

Deacon swallowed a bitter chuckle. “Don’t you mean the other way around? She’s the one who broke up with me.”

“Yeah, well, maybe she regrets it. I certainly would rather date you over Chip Ashford any day.”

“Aw, that’s sweet of you, Shane.”

“You know what I mean,” Shane snapped. “I’d be a bitter, miserable woman if I were dating him, too. I’m curious as to what will happen to her socially, now that she’s broken it off with Chip, though. A lot of people in town tolerated her and her attitude just because she was his fiancée.”

The discussion of her broken engagement caught Deacon’s attention. “So do you know exactly what happened between her and Chip?”

Shane just shook his head. “I haven’t heard anything about it, aside from the fact that it’s over. It seems both of them are keeping fairly tight-lipped about the whole thing, which is unusual. I have heard that her parents are beside themselves about the breakup. They’ve been kissing the Ashfords’ asses for years to get in their good graces, and I’m sure they think Cecelia has ruined it for them.”

It grated on Deacon’s nerves that Cecelia’s parents were always more worried about appearances than they were about their own daughter. Couldn’t they see that she was miserable with Chip? Probably so. They just didn’t care. Deacon had never thought much of their family. They acted like they were better than everyone else. “Who cares about the Ashfords?” he asked.

“Everybody,” Shane said before turning and wandering off, disappearing as suddenly as he had arrived.

Deacon watched him go, and then he turned back to where Cecelia had been standing a moment before. She was barking orders at a crew of men hauling in rolls of carpeting. When she was finished, she turned and headed in his direction with her tablet clutched in her arms. He braced himself for a potentially tense conversation, but she didn’t even make eye contact. She breezed past him as though he were invisible and disappeared down the hallway.

A cold and indifferent bitch, indeed.

Looking down at his watch, Deacon realized he couldn’t spend all of his time staring at Cecelia. The hotel opening was in a little more than three weeks, and they had a ton of work ahead of them. That was why he had returned to Royal after all—well, the official reason anyway. He turned on his heel and headed back toward his office to get some work done before the end of the day arrived.

When he looked up from his computer next it was after seven. It was amazing how time could get away from him while he was working. He couldn’t imagine doing this job and having a family to go home to every night. He imagined he would have a very angry wife and very cold dinners. He stood up, stretched and reached over to turn off his laptop.

He switched off the light as he stepped out of his office, noticing the business suite was dark except for one other space. Cecelia’s office. As quietly as he could, he crept down the hallway to peer in and see what she was doing here this late.

Cecelia was sitting in her chair with her back to him, but she wasn’t working. She was looking at something in her hand. Deacon took a few steps closer so he could make out what it was. Finally, he could tell it was an old, worn photograph. One that he recognized.

She’d shown him the photo the night she confessed her biggest secret: that she was adopted. It was of a young woman, weary and worn but happy, holding a new baby. It was a picture of Cecelia’s birth mother on the day she brought her daughter home from the hospital. Deacon hadn’t given much thought to the photo back then. He had been more interested in Cecelia and the way she talked about it. She had always seemed conflicted about her birth mother. It was as though she wanted to know her, wanted to learn more about who she had been and why she had gotten so lost, and yet she was embarrassed by where she had come from. Deacon had no doubt that she had the Morgans to thank for that.

There was a lot going on with Cecelia. More than just regret over their one-night stand. More than just missing her mother. More than just being upset over her broken engagement. There was something else going on that she wasn’t telling him. The whole town was convinced she was just a stuck-up mean girl, but he’d bet not one of them had looked hard enough to see that she was hurting. Of course, she had no reason to confide in him. While he’d proved himself trustworthy in the past, they weren’t exactly close anymore. In that moment it bothered him more than in the thirteen years they’d been apart.

He wanted to go into her office and scoop her up into his arms. Not to kiss her. Not to carry her away and ravish her somewhere, but just to hold her. He got the feeling that it was a luxury Cecelia could barely afford. Chip didn’t seem like a supportive, hold-his-woman kind of guy, and that was exactly what she needed right now.

But did he dare?

She had done nothing but avoid him since their night together. She’d made it crystal clear that she didn’t want any sort of relationship with Deacon, sexual or otherwise. She just wanted to do her job, and so he would let her. The last thing he needed was to leave Royal for the second time with a broken heart and a bruised ego.

As quietly as he could, Deacon took a few steps back and disappeared down the hallway so he didn’t disturb her. As he stepped out into the parking lot, there were only two cars remaining—his Corvette and her BMW. He stopped beside her car and stared down at it for a moment, thinking. Finally, he fished a blank piece of scrap paper out of his pocket and scribbled a note on it before placing it under her windshield wiper.

“I’m here if you need to talk—Deacon,” it read.

Whether or not she would take him up on it, he had no idea. But he hoped so.

* * *

Things had been hard for Cecelia the past couple of weeks. She tried to lose herself in her work and forget about everything that was going wrong in her life, but in the evenings at the hotel, when it was calm and quiet, she had nothing to distract her from the mess of her own making.

Earlier that night, she’d gotten another message from Maverick. As she’d expected, the original payment was just that, and not nearly enough to keep him quiet. Another twenty-five thousand had to be wired by the end of the week, or her secret would be out and her family would be humiliated. Staring at the photo of her mother, she’d quietly decided that she wasn’t giving him any more money. She felt a pang of guilt where her parents were concerned—surely they would face an uphill battle in restoring the trust of those they lied to—but it was time for her to take control of her life. Come what may.

Now, sitting in her car in the long-empty parking lot of the hotel, she clutched what might be her only lifeline. Finding the note on her windshield from Deacon had been a surprise. They hadn’t really spoken since the morning she ran out on him, aside from the occasional discussion about the hotel. She thought she was doing a good job at keeping her worries inside, but Deacon had seen through it somehow. He’d always had that ability. In some ways, that made him someone she needed to avoid more than ever. In other ways, he was just the person she needed to talk to. The only person she could talk to.

But could she take him up on his offer?

At this point, she didn’t have much to lose. Before she could second-guess herself, she put her car in Drive and found herself back on the highway that led to Deacon’s place. Her heart was pounding in her chest with anxiety as she drove up the gravel path through the trees. His car was there, and the lights were on inside. Hopefully he was there alone.

She bit anxiously at her lip as she rang the doorbell and waited. This time, when Deacon answered the door, he was fully dressed in the suit he’d worn to the hotel that day, and she was able to control herself. Barely. “Hi,” she said. It seemed a simple, silly way to start such a heavy conversation, but she didn’t know what else to say.

Deacon seemed to sense how hard it was for her to accept his olive branch. Instead of gloating, he just took a step back and opened the door wider to let her inside.

“You said you were here if I needed to talk. Is this a good time?”

Deacon shut the door and turned to her with a serious expression lining his face. His green-gold eyes reflected nothing but sincerity as he looked at her and said, “Whenever you need to talk to me, I will make the time.”

Cecelia was taken aback by the intensity of his words and their impact on her. She never felt like she was anybody’s priority, especially Chip’s. He always had an important meeting, a campaign to run, a fund-raiser to plan, hands to shake and babies to kiss. Cecelia had been an accessory to him, like a nice suit or pair of cuff links. “Thank you,” was all she could say.

Deacon led her through the foyer and into his sunken great room. The space was two stories high with a fireplace on the far end that went all the way to the ceiling with stacked gray-and-brown flagstone. He gestured for her to sit in the comfortable-looking brown leather sectional that was arranged around a coffee table made of reclaimed wood and glass. It was very much a cowboy’s living room, reminding her of the clubhouse.

“Are you renting this place?” she asked.

“No, I actually went ahead and bought it. It was a good deal, and it came furnished. That made it easier for me to settle in and gave me a real home to come to each night. Despite the fact that I build hotels for a living, I don’t exactly relish living in one. When the hotel is finished, I’ll return to France, but I’ll probably keep this place. Shane will be overseeing the business operations, but I’ll also need to come back from time to time.”

Deacon walked to a wet bar in the corner. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Yes, please. I don’t really care what it is, but make it a double.”

She watched as Deacon poured them both a drink over ice and carried them over to the coffee table. Cecelia immediately picked up her glass and took a large sip. The amber liquid burned on the way down, distracting her from her nerves and eventually warming her blood. “I want to start by apologizing for that morning I ran out on you. I panicked and handled it poorly, and I haven’t done any better since then.”

Deacon didn’t respond. He just sat patiently listening and taking the occasional sip of his own drink. She wasn’t used to having someone’s undivided attention, so she knew she needed to make the most of it.

“Everything in my life is falling apart,” she said. “I don’t know if you’ve been in town long enough to hear about Maverick, but he’s been targeting members of the club since the beginning of the year. No one is sure who he is, or how he got the information, but he’s been blackmailing people and spilling their secrets. I’m his latest victim.”

That finally compelled Deacon to break his silence. “What could you have possibly done to be blackmailed for? Your parents always kept such a tight leash on you, I can’t imagine you got into too much trouble over the years.”

“He’s not blackmailing me about something that I did. He’s blackmailing me because of who I really am. Somehow Maverick has gotten a hold of my original birth certificate. He’s threatening to tell everyone about my mother and her deadly drug habit. Up until now, no one has known the truth except for me, you and my parents.”

Deacon frowned. “I don’t see how anybody could hold something like that against you. Why don’t you just tell people the truth and take his power away?”

Cecelia sighed. “I thought about doing that, but my parents were very strongly against it. They don’t want to ruin the image of the picture-perfect family they’ve created over the years. I paid the blackmailer, but he still went ahead and started sending out messages to club members that alluded to me. I got another one from him today demanding another payment. There’s no way out of this trap. I tried to confide in Chip, thinking that he could help me somehow, but he accused me of living a lie and broke off our engagement instead.”

When Cecelia turned to look at Deacon, his jaw was tight and his skin was flushed with anger. “What a bastard! I can’t believe you were going to marry a man who could be so careless with your heart. You deserve better than him, Cecelia, not the other way around. By the time he figures that out, I hope it’s too late for him to win you back.”

Once again, she was stunned by his words. She just couldn’t understand how he could say things like that to her after everything that she had done to him. “Why are you being so nice to me, Deacon? I don’t deserve it.”

Deacon reached out and took her hand in his. His warm touch sent a surge of awareness through her whole body, bringing back to mind memories of their recent night together. She pushed all of that aside and tried to focus on the here and now.

“What are you talking about? You’ve already apologized twice for the other night, unnecessarily I might add.”

Cecelia met his gaze with her own. “I’m talking about high school. We were in love, we had made plans to run away and live this amazing life together, and I threw it all away. Don’t you hate me for that?”

“I was angry for a while, but I have to admit that it fueled me to make more of myself. I couldn’t hate you, Cecelia. I tried to, but I just couldn’t. The girl I loved wasn’t the one who broke up with me that day.”

Cecelia felt a sense of relief wash over her. At least that was one thing she hadn’t completely ruined. “I’ve never been strong enough, despite all my successes, to stand up to my parents. I made the mistake of telling them that after graduation, I was leaving with you. They had a fit and laid down the law. I wasn’t going anywhere, they insisted. It broke my heart to break up with you, but I didn’t know what else to do. And now, when they told me to keep my mouth shut and pay the blackmailer, I did it even though I didn’t want to. I dated Chip for years because that’s what they wanted. I probably would’ve married him to make them happy if he hadn’t broken up with me. They’ve never really allowed me to be myself. I’ve always had to be this perfect daughter, striving to prove to them that I’m better than my mother was.

“I’ve only ever done two things in my life just because it made me happy. One was starting my business. Marriage and family didn’t come as quickly as I’d hoped, so designing and decorating nurseries for a living was the next best thing.”

Deacon stroked his thumb gently across the back of her hand as she spoke. “What was the other thing?”

She looked at him, a soft smile curling her lips. “Falling in love with you. You made me happy. You never asked me to be anybody other than who I was. You knew the truth about my mother, and it never seemed to bother you.”

“That’s because you were perfect just the way you were, Cecelia. Why would I ask you to change?”

No one had ever spoken to her the way Deacon did. His sincere words easily melted her defenses, cracking the cold businesswoman facade that she worked so hard to maintain. She’d always felt so alone, and she didn’t want to be alone anymore.

Unwelcome tears started to well up in her eyes. Cecelia hated to cry, especially in front of other people. She wasn’t raised to show that kind of vulnerability to anybody. In the Morgan household, she learned at a very young age that emotions made one appear weak, and that wasn’t tolerated. Her birth mother had been weak, they’d told her, and look where she had ended up.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling away from him to wipe her tears away.

“Stop apologizing,” he said. He reached for her and pulled her into the protective cocoon of his strong embrace. Cecelia gave in to it, collapsing against him and letting her tears flow freely at last. He held her for what felt like an hour, although it was probably just a few minutes. When she was all out of tears, she sat up and looked at him.

Deacon’s face was so familiar and yet so different after all these years. He still had the same kind eyes and charming smile she’d fallen in love with, there was just more maturity behind his gaze now. She found that wisdom made him more handsome than ever before.

In that moment, she didn’t want him to just hold her. She wanted to surrender to him and offer him anything she had to give. Slowly, she leaned in and pressed her lips against his. This kiss was different from the one they’d shared before. There was no desperation or anger fueling it this time, just a swelling of emotion and her slow-burning desire for him.

Deacon didn’t push her away, nor did he press the kiss any further. It was firm and sweet, soft and tender, reminding her of warm summer nights spent lying in the back of his pickup truck. It was a kiss of potential, of promise.

Cecelia wanted more, but as she leaned farther into Deacon, she felt his hands press softly but insistently against her shoulders. When their lips parted, they sat together inches apart for a moment without speaking.

Finally Deacon said, “That’s probably where we should end tonight. I don’t want you to have any more regrets where I’m concerned. Or expectations.”

Cecelia didn’t regret a thing about what had happened between them, but she understood what he meant. What future could they possibly have together? She was still picking up the pieces from her broken engagement, and he’d be back in France in mere weeks. She nodded and sat back, feeling the chill rush in as the warmth of his body left her.

Setting her drink on the coffee table, Cecelia stood up. “I’d probably better get going, then. Thank you for listening and being so supportive. You don’t know how rare that is in my life.”

Deacon walked her to the door, giving her a firm but chaste hug before she left. It felt good just to be in his arms. She felt safe there, as though Maverick—and Chip and her parents and the gossipmongers of Royal—couldn’t hurt her while Deacon was around.

“I’ll see you at work tomorrow,” he said.

Cecelia waved at him over her shoulder, feeling an unusual surge of optimism run through her as she climbed into her car. For the first time in a long time, she couldn’t wait to see what life had in store for her.

Six

“The chef has put together the tasting menu for the grand opening celebration. I didn’t realize it was happening today, and I promised Brandee that I would go with her to shop for some things for the ranch. Can you handle it without me?”

Deacon looked up from his desk and frowned at his business partner. “I may have lived in Europe for the last few years, but I don’t exactly have the most refined tastes. I am a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy. Are you sure you want to leave the menu up to me? That’s a pretty important element of the party, considering we’re trying to lure customers into the new tapas restaurant.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. We hired the best Spanish chef in all of Texas to run the restaurant. I’m pretty sure that anything Chef Eduardo makes is going to be amazing. If you’re worried about it,” Shane said with a wicked grin, “you could always ask Cecelia to join you. She’s known for having excellent taste, in design and event planning.”

Deacon sat back in his chair and considered Shane’s suggestion. Since their kiss a few days ago, he had been considering his next move where she was concerned. He knew that he should back off before they both ended up in over their heads. The past had proven that his and Cecelia’s relationship was doomed. They weren’t the same people they were back in high school. Even so, he found his thoughts circling back to her again and again.

So what now? He wanted to spend some time with her. A date seemed too formal, especially since she might not want to be seen out with another man so soon after her engagement was called off. But this would be an interesting alternative if she had the time. “Okay, fine. You’re off the hook. Get out of here and go buy some barbed wire or a horse or something.”

Shane waved and disappeared down the hall. Deacon got up from his desk and went in search of Cecelia. He found her in the lobby directing the hanging of a large oil painting. It was a Western landscape, one of the few nods to Texas in her otherwise modern design.

“Perfect!” she declared after the level showed the frame was aligned just right.

“Well, thank you, I try,” Deacon said from over her shoulder.

Cecelia spun on her heel and turned to look at him. “Very funny. Can I help you with something, Mr. Chase?”

Even now, always business first. Thankfully, he truly had a business proposition for her, even if his motivation was less than pure. “Actually, I was wondering if I could borrow you for an hour to help me with something.”

“An hour? It’s almost lunchtime.”

“Which means...all your guys will be out in search of a taco truck and you will have nothing better to do than to join me for a private tasting at the new restaurant here in the hotel.”

She arched an eyebrow at him, but she didn’t say no. “Is the chef still working on the menu?”

“No, that’s already set for both restaurants. What Chef Eduardo has put together for today is the menu for the grand opening gala. It features some of the items that will be on the restaurant’s menu, but also some more finger-food-type selections that can be passed around by waiters. Shane was supposed to do this with me, but he’s gotten roped into a shopping excursion with Brandee. That just leaves me, and I’m afraid I don’t have the palate for this. I could use a second opinion.”

Cecelia’s gaze flicked over him for a moment, and then she nodded. She turned back to her crew. “Why don’t you guys go ahead and take lunch? We’ll finish up the rest of the paintings this afternoon.”

She didn’t have to tell them twice. The men immediately put down their tools and slipped out of the back of the hotel. Once they were gone, Cecelia turned back to Deacon with a smile. “Lead the way, Mr. Chase.”

Technically, it wasn’t a date, but Deacon felt inclined to offer her his arm and escort her down the hallway anyway. The Bellamy was designed with two dining options. The Silver Saddle was the more casual of the two, offering an upscale bar environment and featuring a selection of Spanish tapas in lieu of the typical appetizer selection. The other restaurant was the Glass House, a high-end farm-to-table restaurant, featuring all the freshest organic produce and responsibly sourced game available. The executive chef was even working on a rooftop garden where he intended to grow his own herbs and a selection of seasonable vegetables.