From Riches to Redemption Page 12

  “I always believe in leading by example.” River reached out a hand to escort her onto the mostly empty dance floor. He knew it was a dangerous offer and judging by the wary look in her eye, so did she. They’d spent the last few weeks keeping their relationship in the shadows. To take a step out onto the dance floor together would be to shine a bright light on the two of them. Sure, it might just seem like a polite dance to anyone watching, but they would know better. And so would her father.

  He was pleased and a little surprised when she placed her soft hand into his. He gave her a smile of encouragement as they stepped out onto the dance floor. He put one hand gently on her waist and kept a polite distance as they started to sway slowly to the music being played by the string quartet nearby. It seemed to do the trick. Within a few minutes, there were half a dozen other couples out there with them, including the Nolans.

  “See?” he said. “Now people are dancing.”

  “Thank you,” she said, although she seemed a little nervous. She kept glancing around as they danced, only making eye contact for a split second before anxiously glancing around again.

  “You look beautiful tonight,” he said. “That color on you is stunning. Reminds me of that lacy little thing you wore at the beach house.”

  That seemed to finally bring a genuine smile to her face and a little color to her cheeks. “Thank you, River. I can get used to you in that tuxedo as well. You’ve come a long way from the jeans and T-shirt you were wearing when I hit on you in Five Points.”

  River chuckled at the mention of the downtown bar district near USC where he’d first met Morgan. Even that first time, he was able to pick out her light in the crowd like a neon sign. “I’m pretty sure I hit on you.”

  “You’re probably right. I remember thinking it was pretty cocky of you to approach a group of girls and ask to buy me a drink. We were an intimidating crew.”

  “It didn’t matter. You could’ve been surrounded by a pack of angry dogs and I would’ve gone straight to you. I couldn’t help myself.”

  His gaze fell on the long elegant line of her neck exposed by her hairstyle and the cut of her gown. The thick dark waves were twisted on top of her head with a few soft tendrils kissing her skin the way he longed to. He spoke up to keep his lips occupied with another task. “Morgan, I need to tell you something.”

  She looked up at him with wide green-gold eyes. “What is it? Is something wrong?”

  “Well, yes and no. I just needed to say...to tell you...that I lied.”

  She frowned as she looked up at him. “You lied? About what?”

  “I didn’t realize I was lying at the time, but when I said that I would be okay with this ending tonight... I’m not okay with it. I want more than just a casual fling with you, Morgan. I want to be with you. Publicly. For the long term.”

  “River, I—”

  He held up his hand to stop her protest before returning it to her hip. “I want you to look your father in the eye and tell him that we’re together. And that it’s serious. Because it is, despite our best intentions. At least, this is serious for me.” He considered saying more. To tell her that maybe he was falling in love with her again, but the conflicted look in her eyes held his tongue for now. “It is serious for you?”

  She glanced around the room again before she looked up at him. “Yes, but...can we talk about this after the party? This is a little heavy for the dance floor.”

  He swallowed his disappointment and nodded stiffly. “Sure.” He was certain she felt more for him than she was letting on, but she was afraid. Afraid of telling Daddy that she’d fallen into the same trap a second time with an unacceptable boy. Afraid of causing a scene at one of the family events and being the subject of cruel whispers. “Just, uh, forget I said anything. It was stupid of me to even bring it up tonight with everything else going on.”

  “No, River. I don’t want to forget about it. I just want to—”

  Her words were cut off by a sudden blast from the far side of the room that rocked the entire house.

  * * *

  It was absolute chaos after the explosion. After a large boom, the left side of the ballroom exploded into a fireball. Chairs flew across the room as the sound of shattering glass and horrified screams followed it. People started yelling and scattering around the house.

  Morgan hardly knew what to do as the thick clouds of black smoke filled the room. All she could think about was who was in the ballroom. Who had been closest to the blast? Had it been one of her brothers? Her parents? The Nolans? Did she just lose the chance to get to know her birth parents? Was it one of the families who had come to get the keys to their new home? Her heart was breaking in her chest as she struggled to see if anyone was hurt.

  River was more focused. He took Morgan’s hand and led her from the room as quickly as they could make it. They went the opposite direction of the crowds, heading for the back door and the gardens beyond it. They ran a safe distance across the lawn, collapsing together on a stone bench on the far side of the gardens.

  Morgan’s lungs burned and her eyes stung from the soot, but she wanted to go back inside. She wanted to help. But River kept his firm grip on her. She finally gave up, dropping her face into her free hand with a choking sob. “What happened? I didn’t see it. Was it a gas leak?”

  “I doubt that. It seemed more deliberate to me.”

  “Who would do such a thing?” she asked. To set off a bomb at a party where needy families were celebrating—that was despicable.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But they’ll be caught and brought to justice. If I know anything about Trevor Steele, it’s not to cross him. He will take care of it.”

  “If he can. What if he...?” She lost the words as she thought about what could’ve happened to the people in her life. They could be hurt. Or dead.

  He pulled her to his chest and she rested her wet cheeks there against the lapel of his tuxedo. When she opened her eyes again, her gaze fell to the tiny marble grave marker that sat just beyond the bench to their left. To escape the danger, River had managed to lead her someplace far, far more treacherous than the burning house. She was frozen for a moment, wondering if perhaps the darkness would hide what she plainly recognized on sight.

  “Everything will be okay,” he assured her. Then she felt him stiffen against her and she knew that something had changed.

  Morgan was afraid to breathe. Afraid to move. Perhaps he hadn’t seen it. Or if he had, didn’t understand the significance of what he was looking at. It was just a name and a date after all. A date that was far too soon for a child of theirs to be born.

  “Morgan?” he asked.

  She could feel his fingers start to press more insistently into her upper arms. “Yes?”

  “What am I looking at?”

  She squeezed her eyes tightly shut for a moment and then forced herself to sit up. This was it—the moment she’d been avoiding for ten years. That explosion had driven them straight to the heart of her darkest secret.

  “Dawn,” he read aloud when she didn’t immediately answer him. “I remember that you said you liked that name back when we’d fantasized about our future children. Wasn’t it your grandmother’s name?”

  “My great-grandmother,” was all she could say.

  When she looked at River, she could see the change in him. Every muscle in his body was tensed, his jaw set like stone as he looked down at Dawn’s tombstone. A million different things started running through her mind. Reasons. Explanations. And yet, she couldn’t even think of where to start.

  His hands left her body then, leaving cold spots on her skin. She sat up, longing for his support now when she needed it the most. He still didn’t look at her. She was certain nothing—not even the screaming and sirens in the distance—could tear his attention away from the tiny marble plaque.

  “Tell me.”

 
Morgan sat up straight, the tears starting to roll down her face as she began the story that was so long overdue. “That is where my father buried the urn that holds the ashes of my daughter. Our daughter.”

  “We had a daughter.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes. I found out I was pregnant a few weeks after our wedding when I’d returned to campus. I was in denial for so long I didn’t tell anyone. I was so hurt, so confused by everything that had happened. I thought I still had time to figure things out, and then I started having complications. It was too soon for the baby to come, but the doctors didn’t have much of a choice.”

  She didn’t want to lose him in the details about how sick she’d gotten and how she’d been at risk herself. Not now. Maybe later, once the shock of it all settled and he could understand everything she’d been through. “The doctors tried so hard, but I lost her only a few hours after she was born. They took her directly to the NICU after she was delivered, and I never even got to hold her.”

  “That makes two of us,” he said with a cold edge to his voice.

  This was the response she’d been so afraid of. The words were like sandpaper across her already raw wounds. They’d really never healed, but having River back in her life had just ripped it all open again.

  “How could you keep this from me, Morgan?”

  “After everything that happened between us? I didn’t even know where to start. I was so angry with you then. I thought you’d extorted money from my father and abandoned me. Even though you didn’t know about the baby, I think I blamed you for walking away while I dealt with everything by myself.”

  “I didn’t walk away.”

  “I know that now, but back then I was reeling from everything going wrong in my life. I was scared and hurt and I didn’t know what to do. And then once I lost Dawn, I thought maybe it was best that I not tell you. What good would come of telling you we had a daughter when she was already gone? I know I made the wrong choice, and I’m sorry.”

  “And now?” River asked, finally turning to look at her with a cold, impassionate stare. “I understand that back then things between us were complicated. But what about now? When you knew the truth about the money and what your father did? After we made love? All the times we were alone and talking about our lives? You’ve had a million chances to tell me over the last few months.”

  “I know. Believe me when I tell you how much I’ve wrestled with this knowledge. It lingered on the tip of my tongue every time we were together, but how could I say the words? The longer I waited, the harder it became. She was already gone. And when I realized how I felt about you, I... I didn’t know how to... I thought you’d hate me for it.”

  Morgan stopped short of telling River that she loved him. It was true, but she didn’t want to taint that moment with this. It would fall on deaf ears, and she didn’t want to be accused of manipulating his emotions.

  “And if the baby hadn’t come early and everything had worked out okay...would you have told me about her then? Would you have given her up for adoption without ever giving me the chance to have a say in it? Or would I have run into a child with my eyes as she played here in the backyard?”

  “Of course, I would’ve told you,” she said, although she wasn’t truly certain as she spoke the words aloud. She’d never gotten that far in the decision-making process, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “Dawn Steele,” he repeated their daughter’s name from the marble slab. “You didn’t even give her my name. You hid her away in this dark corner of the yard like all the other family secrets. It’s like she and I never existed in your lives.”

  “River, I—”

  “Just don’t.” River turned away from her and looked out at the chaos unfolding around them. There were police and firemen all over the property with red lights and flames lighting up the sky. He watched it all dispassionately, as though it were not the scene of a terrorist act so much as a welcome distraction from the drama of his own life.

  He wouldn’t look at her and in that moment, that was all Morgan wanted. She was desperate to connect with him and explain everything she’d been through, but he wasn’t going to listen to anything else she had to say.

  “It looks like they have someone in custody,” he said at last.

  Morgan looked in the direction of his gaze, seeing a wiry older man facedown in the grass with Harley Dalton sitting on his back. The police were in the process of cuffing the man she didn’t recognize, although he appeared to be wearing the same uniform as the caterers her office had hired for the party.

  River stood up. “It looks like they’ve got everything under control here. You should be safe, now.”

  “You’re leaving?” Morgan asked. She felt like her heart was slowly being ripped from her chest the farther he moved away from her.

  He nodded. “I think it’s for the best,” he said.

  Morgan sat helpless, watching as the man she loved, the man she’d hurt, walked across the lawn and out of her life. She feared that it might be for good.

  Now she knew how he had felt.

  Eleven

  Morgan had all her clothing laid out across the bed. Normally, she would stay around for a few weeks after the key ceremony to visit friends and actually enjoy some time back in Charleston instead of just working. She should spend more time with the Nolans, thankful they were unharmed in the explosion and she had the chance. But this year, for obvious reasons, she was ready to go back to DC. Some might call it running away. She preferred to think of it as getting her life back to normal.

  If it ever had been normal.

  Normal people didn’t have a weirdo try to blow them up at a party. The cops were long gone now, but the plastic tarps still covered the gaping hole in the side of the ballroom and the police tape blocked the room off from the rest of the house. Thankfully, the fire had been contained there and the rest of the house was still livable, but it was a reminder of the explosion and everything that had followed it.

  She wanted to head back to her Georgetown town house. It wasn’t tainted with the good and bad memories of River and everything else that had happened. It was a clean slate; her whole life there was. And after the last few months, she was desperate for that kind of refuge.

  Morgan walked over to her closet and grabbed a handful of shoes to carry back to the bed. When she looked up, she saw her father lurking in the doorway to her room. She was startled by his sudden appearance. He normally didn’t stray into the children’s wing of the mansion, especially now that they were no longer children.

  “Did you need something?” she asked as she dumped the armful of shoes onto the duvet.

  Trevor narrowed his gaze at her for a moment and then shook his head. “I was just watching you. I’m surprised you’re packing already. Is this about the explosion? They have the man who did it in custody. It’s perfectly safe to stay.”

  “No, it’s not about that.” Morgan shrugged and picked up a pile of folded clothes to put in her suitcase. “It’s just time to go. There’s no reason to hang around. I don’t live here, after all.”

  “I forget sometimes,” Trevor said with a rueful smile. “I think it’s easier to let myself believe that you’re still my little girl with your pigtails and baby dolls.”

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve sported pigtails, Daddy. I’ll be thirty in less than a week.”

  Trevor crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. “I know. And if I hadn’t already realized you were grown-up, seeing you at the key ceremony the other night would’ve made it indisputable.”

  She wasn’t sure what he meant by that. “I was dressed up the same as I have been at any of those parties you’ve thrown.”

  “It was different this time. Maybe it was seeing you with River.”

  She cast a quick glance at her father before reaching for a pair of Jimmy Choo heels to slip i
nto a protective bag for safekeeping. “I didn’t think you’d noticed. There wasn’t any yelling about it, at least. In fact, you’ve hardly mentioned River’s presence all summer.”

  “After I ran into him in the lobby and realized why he was here, I decided that maybe this time I needed to stay out of it. Things seemed to be going well for the charity project, and you made it clear to me that my help only hurt the last time. It was the right choice. The project was amazingly successful this year, and you two seemed pretty cozy together at the key ceremony. Watching you dance, I’d dare say something serious had sparked up again.”

  “Well, you don’t need to worry about that,” Morgan snapped. She focused on her packing, placing things into her bag at an accelerated pace to avoid thinking anymore about River.

  “I wasn’t worried. I’ve actually been giving it a lot of thought. You two seem like you’re in a better place to try a relationship. You’re older, more established. I’m not going to interfere this time, is what I’m trying to say.”

  Morgan couldn’t help a bitter chuckle. Of course, her father would finally approve of River once it was over between them. “That’s good to know, but it’s a little too late. That—whatever it was between us—is over and done.”

  She heard her father’s tentative footsteps across the wood floor, followed by a gentle hand on her shoulder. “What happened?”

  With a sigh, Morgan flipped the lid of her suitcase closed and flopped down onto the bed next to it. “He found out about Dawn.” She dropped her face into her hands and felt the tears she’d been fighting back all day finally breaking free.

  “Oh, sunshine.” She felt the bed sink beside her as her father sat down and wrapped his arm around her.

  “He was so angry that I’d kept it from him. He said that even if I had believed he extorted money from you to let the annulment go through, it hadn’t been right to keep the pregnancy from him. Especially when I lost her. And he was right. River had a right to know. But this family is so damn worried about appearances. All the secrets and the lies...your lies...just weave a web so complex we can’t help but get caught up in it.”