She jumped up as if her pants had caught fire and walked to the chair by the window. She chewed on her bottom lip and gazed somewhere over the top of his head. “You’re not flattered?”
“Hell, no! I feel like some total stranger has been watching me. Us. Sneaking around, hiding in the shadows.”
“We would have noticed someone following us.”
“You’re probably right, but I don’t know how else to explain the things in that magazine. I know how crazy it sounds.” And it did sound crazy. Even to him, and he’d read it. “Maybe one of the guys…” He shook his head as he thought out loud. “I don’t like to think that one of the guys had something to do with this, but who else?” He shrugged. “Maybe I’ve lost my mind.”
She looked at him for several long moments, then said in a rush, “I wrote it.”
“What?”
“I write the Honey Pie serial.”
“What?”
She took a deep breath and said, “I’m Honey Pie.”
“Right.”
“I am,” she said through her tears.
“Why are you saying this?”
“Damn it! I can’t believe I’m going to have to prove it to you. I never even wanted you to find out about it.” She wiped her cheeks and folded her arms across her chest. “Who else would know that you asked me if I was cold or turned on? We were alone in my apartment.”
And then, one by one, the pieces of the puzzle slid into place. The things that only he and Jane knew. The note he’d seen stuck in her day planner reminding her of some “Honey Pie” decision she had to make. Jane was Honey Pie. She couldn’t be. “No.”
“Yes.”
He stood and looked across the room at Jane. At the dark curls he loved to touch. Her smooth white skin and pink mouth he loved to kiss. This woman looked like Jane, but if she was really Honey Pie, she was not the woman he thought he knew.
“Now you don’t have to hire someone,” she said as if that were some damn consolation. “And you don’t have to suspect one of the guys.”
He stared into her eyes as if he could see the unbelievable truth written there. What he saw was guilt. His chest felt suddenly hollow. He’d trusted her enough to let her into his home and his life. His sister’s life too. He felt like such an ass.
“I wrote it the night after you kissed me the first time. You could say I was inspired by you.” She dropped her hands to her sides. “I wrote it a long time before we became involved.”
“Not that long.” Even to himself, his voice sounded strange. Like his chest, hollow, waiting for his anger to rise up and fill it. It would, but not yet. “You’ve always known how I feel about that made-up bullshit being written about me. I told you.”
“I know, but please don’t be angry. Or rather, be angry, because you have every right. It’s just that…” Her tears filled her eyes again and she wiped at them with her fingers. “It’s just that I was so attracted to you, and you kissed me and I wrote it.”
“And sent it in to be published in a porno magazine.”
“I was hoping you’d be flattered.”
“You knew I wouldn’t be.” The anger he’d been holding swelled in his chest. He had to get out of there. He had to get away from Jane. The woman he’d thought he was falling in love with. “You must have had a real good laugh when I thought you were a prude. When I thought my fantasies would shock you.”
She shook her head. “No.”
Not only had she betrayed his trust in her, she’d made a raging fool of him. “What else am I going to read about myself?”
“Nothing.”
“Right.” He walked to the door and reached for the handle.
“Luc, wait! Don’t go.” He paused. Her voice came to him, filled with tears and the same stabbing pain that twisted in his gut. “Please,” she cried. “We can work this out. I can make this up to you.”
He didn’t turn around. He didn’t want to see her. “I don’t think so, Jane.”
“I love you.”
Her words were one more knife to his back, and the anger he’d been holding back finally broke free. He thought he would come apart with it. “Then I would hate to see what you do to people you don’t love.” He opened the door. “Stay the hell away from me, and stay away from my sister.”
He moved down the hall. The busy pattern of the carpet was a blur. Jane was Honey Pie. His Jane. Even though he knew it was true, he was having a real hard time swallowing it all at once.
He walked into his room and leaned back against the closed door. The whole time he’d thought she was a prude, she wrote porn. The whole time he’d thought she was uptight, she knew more about sex than he did. The whole time they’d been together, he’d trusted her and she was taking notes.
She’d said she loved him. He didn’t believe her for a second. He’d trusted her and she’d stabbed him in the back. She’d used him to write her porn article. She’d known how he’d feel about it, and she’d done it anyway.
The whole time he’d been careful not to make her feel like a groupie, she was actually… What was Honey Pie? A nymphomaniac?
Was Jane a nymphomaniac? No. Was she? He didn’t know. He didn’t know a thing about her.
The only thing he knew for certain was that he was a damn fool.
Chapter 17
On the Limp: Injured
She’d been a fool. Several times over. First for falling in love with Luc, even as she’d known he’d break her heart. Then for looking him in the face and telling him that she was Honey Pie. He hadn’t known. Chances were that he never would have known.
She knew, and it had burned like a charcoal briquet right beneath her sternum. In the end she’d told him to relieve his mind. He’d been so freaked out thinking that someone was lurking in the shadows… and she supposed someone was. Her. And she’d told him to relieve her own conscience. So why didn’t she feel better?
Jane tossed her suitcase on the floor and burst into tears. She’d spent roughly seven hours in taxis or airports or on planes trying to get home. Trying to keep it together. She couldn’t anymore. The pain of losing Luc racked her body and huge sobs tore at her lungs. She’d known losing him would hurt, but she’d never imagined so much pain was even possible.
Moonlight poured through the window of the small bedroom in her apartment, and she shut the curtain. Shutting herself up in darkness. She’d taken the first available flight out of Phoenix that afternoon. She’d had a two-hour layover in San Francisco before continuing on to Seattle. She was a physical and emotional wreck. She’d had to leave. She hadn’t had a choice. She could not have walked into the locker room the next night and seen Luc’s face. She would have fallen apart. Right there in front of everyone.
Before she left, she’d called Darby and told him she had a family emergency. She was needed at home, and she would catch up with the team once they returned to Seattle. Even though there was nothing in it for Darby, he’d helped arrange her flight, and she realized that he was more than just a cocky wheeler-dealer. There was a heart beneath those thousand-dollar suits and bad ties. And just maybe he would be good for Caroline.
She’d called Kirk Thornton, too. He hadn’t been as understanding as Darby. He’d asked the nature of the emergency and she’d been forced to lie. She’d told him that her father had a heart attack. When it was actually her whose heart was breaking.