The Rival

by Joanne Rock

  Five

  Panic bubbled up in her throat.

  Not that she feared for her physical safety out here in the Montana wilderness, tucked into the back of the huge horse-drawn sleigh. Devon Salazar wasn’t the kind of man to intimidate a woman; his demeanor was calm, his body language relaxed as he sat on the bench beside her. Plus, the sleigh driver from the ranch was right there, sitting high on his perch above the horses, a neutral party under his earmuffs and cowboy hat. He was far enough away from them not to hear their conversation, but close enough to remind Regina she wasn’t alone with Devon.

  So while she was safe, she was also well and truly cornered. There was zero doubt in Devon’s eyes as he watched her every reaction to his accusation. And who knew how much she’d already given away in her shock? Her best option now was to tell him the truth.

  Or at least enough truth to ease his suspicions.

  “I have an excellent reason for hiding behind a fake identity.” She retrieved the carafe of hot chocolate again, if only to soothe her dry throat—and to give her time to think her way through this. “I’m surprised you haven’t guessed.”

  She twisted open the top and sipped the cocoa while the sleigh looped around an open field and turned back toward the ranch. A thin veil of snow kissed her cheeks as a cross breeze caught the flakes stirred by the runners. She welcomed the cooling touch against the knot of confusing emotions she had about this man. Resentment, anxiety and, yes, more than a little desire. She wished she didn’t feel quite so much of the latter for a man whose father had been her worst enemy.

  “I have ideas, certainly,” he acknowledged as calmly as if they were discussing holiday decorations instead of her most closely guarded secrets. “And since you rifled through the papers in my jacket last night, you must know that I’m working with a private investigator, so I’ll uncover the whole story for myself eventually.” His level gaze revealed nothing. “But considering the draw between you and me, I’d prefer to hear the truth from you first.”

  Her stomach tightened. She could deny the sexual chemistry all she wanted, but at least he sensed it as much as she did. Why did she have to feel this way about the man she was spying on? Her relationships before now had been predicated on mutual interests. They’d been simple, sensible connections. They hadn’t lasted long, but then again, they never stirred this level of heat and confusion.

  Steeling herself for the conversation, she lowered her drink and closed the top again. “I couldn’t risk having you shut me out if you knew my real name,” she admitted. “But I needed to meet you in person.”

  “Why?” he pressed. “What do you want from me?”

  So many things now that she’d met him. She wanted his touch. His kiss. His eyes on her because he wanted her, not out of suspicion. But she was foolish to think about that when there was something so much more complex between them. Something painful.

  “I want answers about your father, Devon. About the book he wrote that destroyed my life.”

  For a moment the only sound was the rhythmic clomp of the horses’ hooves, the soft rattle of their dress tack against their bodies and the swish of the runners through powdery snow.

  In the quiet, Devon looked at her with the same stunned expression that she suspected she’d worn just moments before.

  “Your life?” He leaned forward, his knee brushing hers, the warmth of his body stirring her in spite of everything. “Who are you really?”

  She wondered how he would react. Would he have her fired? Or would he leave Mesa Falls Ranch altogether and find someone else to oversee the launch event for his powerful client?

  Those questions didn’t begin to address the other fears and insecurities that came with revealing her identity. How many times had she been rejected because of her surname? Or turned into an object of scandal, ridicule or curiosity?

  “I was born Georgiana. My original birth certificate had my name as Georgiana Cameron.” She notched her chin higher, defensive of the girl she’d once been. “But in some ways, that name is far more deceptive than the one I’m using now.”

  Recognition flicked in his eyes. Something else flitted through his expression, too. Something dangerously close to pity.

  “You’re the daughter in that book?” He shook his head, eyes wide. “She was little more than a child—”

  “I was sixteen when your father’s book was released—almost seventeen by the time it was exposed that my parents were the key figures the novel was based on. And your father used a fake identity, too, I might add, for far more nefarious purposes than me. I need the anonymity to protect myself from the tabloids’ relentless interest in me. But your dad? He used a pen name to hide behind. Plain and simple.” She didn’t have a prayer of disguising the bitterness in her voice. “I was twenty-one when I hired someone to investigate the pseudonym A. J. Sorensen, and it took two years to learn it was Alonzo Salazar.”

  “At which point, you learned he’d died.” Devon put the pieces together quickly, but then, he was a sharp man to have taken his company from a start-up founded by two brothers to a globally recognized firm. “But why do you say your birth name is more deceptive than the one you’re using now?”

  The question tore at an old wound, one that had never healed. The anger it raised was never far from the surface, even in this beautiful, still Montana night.

  “Because while I was born Georgiana Cameron, it was based on a lie.” That was her mother’s fault more than his father’s. But there was plenty of blame to go around. “Have you read the book?”

  A gust of wind whirled off the mountains and lifted the edge of the blanket, causing the fringe to dance across her lap.

  “No.” Devon smoothed the wool back into place as he shook his head. “I read a few reviews of it to get up to speed once I discovered Dad’s...connection. So I know the gist, but not all the particulars.”

  “Lucky you,” she said tightly, her fingers fisting in her gloves. “In a nutshell, the book depicts a sordid love triangle between a powerful Hollywood producer, an LA singer and a Brazilian soccer star, where the singer passes off her lover’s child as her husband’s.” How many breathless reviews had she read that said the world it painted was so vivid and real, capturing the seedy side of fame? Tension knotted her shoulders. “But a few details were so particular—like the singer being twice divorced and signing an ironclad prenup that gave her nothing if she cheated—that eventually a gossip columnist connected it to my parents. They were Hollywood actors and my mother’s lover was an Argentinian polo player, but everything else lined up.”

  Her parents had met while her mother was in South America for her honeymoon, of all things, which was a tidbit of truth Regina wished she’d never learned. She’d loved the man she’d believed to be her father.

  “It seems like a flimsy parallel—” Devon began, his expression thoughtful as the sleigh bumped from a field onto a path near the tree line.

  His easy dismissal of that time in her life stirred a fresh wave of hurt.

  “It became a national pastime to find other connections over the next six months. One of the tabloids offered a game with a huge cash prize for whoever found the most real-life similarities.” It hadn’t mattered for her by then, since her father believed the scandalmongers instantly. Her gut knotted. “But the most telling proof was the way my father—the man I’d believed to be my dad up until then—began divorce proceedings as soon as the story broke. I came home from dance practice one day to find a locksmith at work on the security system to ensure my mother and I weren’t allowed back on his property.”

  She shouldn’t feel tears burn at the back of her eyes about that anymore. But she rarely spoke about that day, and, yes, it still hurt.

  Beside her, she heard Devon shift closer, his voice gentler. Kind.

  “I’m sorry you had to endure that.” He placed a steadying hand between her shoulders
. “And sorry that you weren’t ever able to confront my dad about his actions. Hell, I wish I could ask him why he wrote that damned book, and I’ve only known about it for a few days. I can’t imagine how deeply it’s hurt you to have no answers.”

  His empathy touched her, even though she told herself she shouldn’t let it. Because she couldn’t afford to lose focus on her mission in Montana—to find out where the proceeds from the book had gone. And taking comfort from Devon’s kindness would only make her feel worse later if she discovered his business was built on the income from her heartache.

  “Thank you for your sympathy.” She gave a clipped nod to acknowledge words that didn’t heal the hurt of having her past ripped away. “And to your original point about Georgiana Cameron, my mother’s husband won a court order to change my birth certificate so that it no longer bore his name.”

  There’d been a time when she’d had grand visions for what she would say to the man who’d raised her when she saw him in court—for the impassioned plea she would make about how a family wasn’t bound by blood ties but by love. In her girlish dreams, she’d thought that could change his mind and make him accept her again. But he’d sent his attorney to argue for him, robbing her of the chance to gain closure by speaking directly to him.

  “So Flores is your birth father’s last name?” Devon asked.

  “No. It’s Fuentes. When I came up with a name for myself, I used your father’s trick of changing names just a little. In his book, my mother, Tabitha, was called Tempest. The man I believed to be my father, Davis, was called David.” She shrugged, not owing him any more explanation than she’d already given. Yet now that she’d started talking about the past—about all the reasons she felt angry—she found it hard to stop. “Even as Georgiana Fuentes, the tabloids hounded me. It was so bad that I got into a car accident trying to elude a photographer. The surprise blessing of reconstructive surgery on my face was that at least I didn’t bear as much resemblance to the woman I was before.”

  The surgeries had been painful. Recovery had been slow. But she’d used the time to formulate her plan for revenge. One that she couldn’t abandon just because she was attracted to Alonzo Salazar’s older son.

  “Georgiana.” He covered her hand with his where it rested on the blanket.

  Even through her gloves she could feel the warmth of his palm. The sound of her name on his lips was oddly soothing. She hadn’t heard it in so long. She’d isolated herself in so many ways, unhappy with the shreds of family she had left after the wreckage caused by that damned book.

  “Please.” Her throat burned with emotions as the sleigh hurtled faster toward the ranch. “Don’t call me that.”

  She couldn’t afford to let her feelings toward him soften. Part of her wanted to call an end to this conversation, but they were still too far from the ranch for her to get out and walk. She would have to sit tight, see how the conversation—and the attraction—played out.

  “Regina, then,” he corrected himself, the gentleness in his voice and his touch unnerving her. “I wish I could take back what he did. Or even help you to understand it, because I don’t understand myself.”

  She willed herself to pull away from him but couldn’t quite do it. Her emotions were ragged, and she feared one false move would dissolve all her boundaries and send her hurtling into his arms to seek what warmth she could in his embrace, to forget herself in the seductive power of his kiss.

  She wanted the heat of their attraction to burn away everything else, if only for a few hours. And that was a dangerous desire when she should be focused on her end goal—finding out where the proceeds of that book had gone.

  A goal she wasn’t ready to admit to him. Because what if he thwarted her efforts to unravel the truth?

  “So find the answers now,” she challenged. “You said you hired a private investigator.” She knew his budget would be far bigger than the measly amount she’d been able to pay someone to track the mystery author in the first place. “Why not ask the PI to find out your father’s reasons for writing it?”

  * * *

  Devon studied the myriad emotions on Regina’s face, visible even in the dim Christmas lights strewn around the outside of the sleigh. Her confession had rocked him, though he’d gone into the evening knowing that she wasn’t who she claimed to be. Yet he hadn’t expected anything like this—a revelation that she was a woman who’d been personally devastated by his father’s book.

  Even after all the ways she’d come clean tonight, Devon couldn’t help the lingering sense that she’d held some piece back from him. Some part of the bigger picture he wasn’t seeing yet.

  Soon enough, he would. He just needed to bring himself up to speed on her and her family. Learn all he could about the Camerons, the Fuenteses, and about how his father’s life had intersected with theirs. It seemed that the biggest mystery remained; Devon hadn’t known his father at all.

  For now, his need to stay close to Regina was stronger than ever. And not just because the air between them sizzled every time they looked at one another. But because he had to know what she was really up to in Montana this week. He didn’t believe for a second that she’d come all this way, taking a job as a trail guide, just to learn more about his father’s motives. Was she hoping to sue his family? Or look into his father’s past for skeletons as some sort of payback scheme? She could certainly cause a scandal for him if she hoped to get even with the Salazars. There was more at play here, and Devon intended to uncover it.

  More important, he planned to keep a lid on it until after his mother’s wedding.

  “Good idea about the investigator,” he told her, still holding her hand. Still wanting her in spite of everything. “I’ll ask her to explore my father’s past and see what she can come up with. I wasn’t aware he had ties to the show business community, so I’m not sure where he would have unearthed information about your parents’ private lives.”

  For that matter if Regina was considering a lawsuit against his father’s estate, it might be beneficial to have the investigator’s findings ready to shore up a defense. But Devon hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  Regina slid her hand out of his and hugged herself. He mourned the loss of her touch.

  “When I came to work here, I thought you might have those answers for me.” Her restless gaze roamed the lights of the guest ranch buildings in the distance, momentarily visible from a high hill. “Knowing the author’s reasons for exploiting my family might help me finally gain some closure, so I can put the past to rest for good.”

  Her words sparked a feeling of defensiveness for his dad, but not strongly enough to outweigh the empathy he felt for what she’d been through. Besides, whatever wrongs had been committed didn’t detract from the simple fact that Devon wanted her with a hunger unlike anything he’d ever experienced.

  “I wish I had answers, but all I have right now are more questions.” He shifted closer to her, resting his fingertips lightly on her cheek to encourage her to meet his gaze. A thrill shot through him to touch her this way; her skin was cool and soft. “And right now the most important of those questions is this. Will you have dinner with me?” he asked, looking deep into her gray eyes.

  Her gaze lowered to his mouth and lingered.

  “Dinner?” she asked after a long pause, pulling in a breath that huffed lightly along his palm.

  Desire for her sharpened. Tightened. Crowded his chest.

  “At my cabin,” he clarified, wanting her to be very aware they would be alone. “I ordered catering for our return, but I don’t want to be presumptuous. We can go out if you prefer.”

  Her tongue darted along her bottom lip.

  “You still want this to be a date?” she asked, her voice wary. “Even now that you know who I am?”

  “Knowing your identity doesn’t change the attraction.” If anything, the outing had only reinforced it. The memory o
f that kiss had never been far from his mind.

  He stroked a light touch along her jaw, feathered a caress over her lush mouth.

  Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t close. “But my name...complicates things.”

  The sleigh skidded to the left down a hill and her body collided against his. He caught her, held her steady just long enough to feel the rapid-fire beat of her heart, the soft swell of her breasts. He wanted to feel her naked against him just this way.

  He burned for her, his skin on fire. He breathed in the slightest hint of her jasmine fragrance, different from the cedar and balsam all around them.

  “I think the rewards will make the complications well worth it.” It took a superhuman effort not to pull her closer. To slide his hands away. “But it’s your call to make.”

  “You want me to decide.” She worried her lower lip with her teeth in a movement as erotic as any touch.

  He steeled himself, wondering how any woman could have this kind of power over him. Particularly a woman he shouldn’t trust.

  “I already know that I don’t want tonight to end. But are you ready for more, Regina?” He kept his hands at his sides.

  He knew his touch could sway her answer. That wasn’t egotistical. It was a simple fact that they combusted when they touched each other.

  And he refused to tip the scales unfairly. He needed her to be sure. To want this as much as he did.

  The sleigh slowed down, and Devon knew they must be approaching the remote lodge where he was staying. The scent of wood smoke from a chimney fire teased his nose, reminding him he’d left a blaze burning in the river stone fireplace while the catering company set up service for the meal.

  Fragrant cooking spices drifted on the breeze as the sleigh came to a stop. The driver remained in his seat, though he did turn around expectantly.

  And still, Regina hadn’t replied.

  “Should we return to the ranch?” Devon didn’t want to part company, but if that was her preference, he would wait.