The High Price of Secrets

“I guess most people feel that you took your time trying to find her.” The words sounded lame, even to his ears.

“But you know I only found out this year that she was even still alive. She walked away from us, Finn. She left her two children in the hospital—injured in an accident she caused—and never looked back. Abandoned us, for what? So she could be with her lover?” Tamsyn stabbed her finger now at a picture of Lorenzo. “I didn’t know where she was, Finn, you know that and I know that. Ellen, however, knew exactly where Ethan and I were and she never tried to contact us. I want to know why. Don’t I deserve to know why she left us and why she never came back? Why was she happy to be dead to us?”

Finn put out a hand to touch her but she flinched away from him. It cut him to his core to know he’d irreparably damaged the relationship they’d begun to develop. Damaged? Hell, he’d destroyed it, crushed it like a bug, pure and simple. He’d done it for Lorenzo, for Ellen—people he’d do anything for. But, God, how he wished he’d never had to do this.

“I can’t tell you that, but I’ll do what I can to see you find out.”

She looked at him from eyes bruised with disappointment and grief. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to do? You’re not going to tell me where she is?”

“I can’t promise any more than that, Tamsyn. I’m sorry, but they’re not my secrets to tell.”

“So, at least you admit that you’ve been keeping secrets from me.”

“I have, and I regret it. If I could—ah, what’s the point?” He cursed under his breath. “I’ll do what I can, and I’ll get someone on to that window, too.”

He turned and walked down the hall, painfully aware of her gaze drilling steadily into his back as he left.

* * *

Tamsyn watched him go—a stranger to her now. She’d thought Trent’s betrayal had cut her deep, but this was something else. She stalked down the hall and slammed the front door shut, then slid down the wall into a heap on the floor. Shock and anger had rendered her numb for the time being, but even through the numbness she could feel waves of pain building.

She daren’t open her mouth for fear of the scream she knew would come out. Instead, she clenched her teeth, wrapped her arms around her body and rocked in silent agony.

Her mother left her. Check. Her mother didn’t try to stay in touch. Check. She’d been let down by her mother. Check. She’d been lied to and let down by—oh, let’s see—her father, her extended family, her ex-fiancé, her personal assistant, Finn. Check, check, check, check and double check.

At the last she began to feel her tentative control break. What did it matter to her that Finn had added his name to the illustrious list? It wasn’t as if they’d known each other long or as if they’d promised undying love for one another. It wasn’t as if she even should have thought she could trust him. Hadn’t there been that tiny niggle in the back of her mind for some time that he was hiding something?

Instead of listening to her instincts, she’d allowed him to play her for a fool. She’d been so pathetically desperate to be spontaneous, to be carefree, to be happy that she’d let herself be blinded to the truth. A man like Finn, he was no better than the rest. Worse, even, for having used her pathetic need for acceptance against her like that. For having inveigled his way into her day-to-day existence so that she’d come to rely upon him, need him. Love him.

No! Not that, never that. Tamsyn squashed down so hard on the thought that her head began to throb with pain. It had been attraction. Pure and physical. Okay, very physical, she amended as she burrowed her face into her hands. She didn’t love Finn, she couldn’t. Her senses had been seduced by his attention, that was all it was. She’d have to have been both blind and stupid not to find his attentiveness appealing. It had been a salve to her wounded pride like nothing else could be. And look where that had left her, she thought bitterly.

Tamsyn pushed off the wall and went to the door to the previously locked room. She ought to pick up the broken glass, set the boxes back to rights, but she couldn’t summon the care or the interest required to do so. Instead, she went back to her bedroom, kicked off her shoes and pulled the covers up over her. She felt as if she’d been hit by a freight train—physically and mentally. She craved oblivion, even if only for a couple of hours. Then she’d be able to cope, to figure out what she had to do next, because right now it all seemed far too hard.

The sun was low in the sky when the constant chirp of her mobile phone woke her. Tamsyn groggily reached out to the bedside table for the device.