Make Me

by BETH KERY

  Did that mean he felt as exposed as she did?

  “I’ll never forgive my parents for lying to me about it,” she said after the dinner tray had been delivered and sat on the coffee table in front of them. She hadn’t touched either the poured chamomile tea or the salad and fresh-baked bread. She stood and began to pace in front of the fireplace. Jacob remained seated, watching her soberly as he held a cup of steaming tea in his large hand. “All that grief I felt. All that guilt for feeling like I contributed to your death—”

  Jacob set down his cup loudly.

  “They did it because they loved you so much. Surely you can understand that they’d want to completely cut away that experience from your life.”

  “How can you defend them?” Harper asked, spinning to face him.

  “I’m not saying what they did was right. But I understand why they did it. If I was a parent, and I had your father’s particular skills, I might have done the same thing.”

  His somber defense of her parents’ actions only frothed her fury.

  “You’re defending what they did because you’re like them.” He gave her a startled glance, and she realized she was shouting. She couldn’t seem to stop herself, though. The lid had just popped off her emotions. “You tried to cut Jake Tharp out of your life, just like my parents tried to slice him out of mine. You killed off that little boy and buried him like he was some kind of shameful secret.”

  “Harper—”

  “No, I’m telling the truth and you know it! You say you didn’t tell me that you were Jake Tharp because you worried it’d re-traumatize me, erase all the good work my dad did in treating me,” she said sarcastically. “But the truth is, you didn’t want me to remember Jake Tharp because you’re ashamed of him.”

  “What if I am?” Jacob bellowed suddenly, flying to his feet. She started back in surprise. “I was helpless and weak. I was Emmitt’s whipping boy. Do you think I want to remember that? I spent my life trying to be the opposite of Jake Tharp. You have no right to criticize me for wanting that. Not privileged, rich, adored little Harper McFadden.”

  “You jerk. Privileged, adored little Harper McFadden thought Jake Tharp was the bravest, smartest, nicest person she’d ever met in her life,” Harper yelled, stepping toward him aggressively. She checked herself when she saw his face stiffen, as if she’d slapped him or something. She wanted to rage at him, and she wanted to cry, and she wanted to never stop hugging him . . . and she didn’t know what she wanted. “Why are you looking at me like you’re surprised?” she demanded, clamping her eyelids shut to get ahold of herself. “I loved you, don’t you get that? I asked my parents if they’d become foster parents and let you come live with us! I had your room all planned out. I couldn’t wait to show you the museums in DC and give you my copy of The Lord of the Rings to read and so many other things.” Tears gushed out of her eyes as the poignant memories rushed her. “And you have the nerve to stand there and tell me that both you and my parents were right to stage Jake Tharp’s death? Well, fuck you, Jacob Latimer.”

  She started toward the door of his suite but he halted her with his hands on her shoulders. He spun her to face him. He towered over her—so tall and strong, so commanding, so pivotal in her awareness . . . so different from Jake Tharp . . .

  So like him.

  “I was worried about you, Harper. How can you think that either me or your parents were only being selfish in wishing you could forget Emmitt and the kidnapping?”

  “You can’t just cut away the bad,” she seethed. “You take the good with it. That’s what you and my parents tried to do to me. They stole Jake Tharp from me. You did.” She shoved his hands off her shoulders. Jacob’s furious, bewildered expression convinced her that he thought she was babbling nonsense.

  Well, too bad.

  “Just leave me alone, Jacob.”

  She turned and walked out of the room.

  • • •

  Three days later, Harper glanced up from her work and saw Ruth Dannen passing her office, purposefully avoiding Harper’s stare. She was clearly still pissed at the dressing-down Harper had given her for calling adoption services in West Virginia and pretending she was Harper. Their ensuing argument had been loud enough that Sangar had heard, and demanded they both go to his office. After he’d listened to both of them, he’d called Burt in to give his input.

  Afterward, Sangar had fully backed Harper in the idea that there was no story in regard to Burt’s lead. He’d forbidden Burt and Ruth to pursue it any further. Harper and Burt had left Sangar’s office, while Ruth remained. Whatever Sangar had said to Ruth afterward had silenced Ruth, all right. It’d also turned her into a frigid, silent bitch every time Harper was around.

  Harper couldn’t find any energy to care one way or another.

  She’d been having difficulty concentrating for days. It’d been that way ever since she’d left the Lattice compound last Tuesday. She was a walking zombie. Her chaotic thoughts wouldn’t allow her to rest. She couldn’t eat. If it weren’t for the rote quality of some of her work, she would have been completely dysfunctional in the newsroom, as well.

  When she’d stormed out of the compound Tuesday evening, Jacob had immediately tried to contact her. He’d called her cell repeatedly. When she’d refused to answer, he’d even shown up at her town house. Harper had laid huddled in her bed, sleepless and miserable, listening to him pound on her front door and once—horribly—calling her name in a wild, angry, worried tone. At the sound of his voice, Harper had finally sat up and thrown off the covers. She’d raced down the stairs and flung open the front door.

  But by that time, he’d gone.

  A black mood had descended on her and not left her since then.

  She glanced up distractedly when she heard a knock. Burt hovered in her open doorway like he wasn’t sure he wanted to cross the threshold.

  “Come on in, Burt,” she said, pushing back her keyboard. “What can I do for you?”

  Things had been a little awkward between them since Sangar intervened in his story idea the other day, but nowhere near as strained as things were with Ruth.

  “Look. I know Sangar has quashed the Latimer story, so I’m not trying to say we should do anything with this . . .”

  She arched her eyebrows when he reluctantly faded off. “What, exactly?” Harper asked.

  He inhaled slowly and stared at a piece of paper he was holding. “It might not be too pleasant for you to know, but I thought you’d want to, anyway. I wouldn’t have felt right, not telling you.”

  “Know what?” Harper prodded, growing impatient with his hesitance.

  He tossed the piece of paper on the desk. “I’d done some digging before Sangar shut us down, and this just came through. It’s about that girl, Gina Morrow. She goes by Regina Morrow now. She lives in Napa. And apparently . . . she lives with Jacob Latimer.”

  Harper froze before she snatched up the paper. “Lives with him?”

  “Maybe not lives with him,” Burt said, shifting on his feet restlessly. “But the address of her residence is right there. She lives on his property in Napa. I just thought you’d want to know.”

  She glanced up, dazed. Burt looked extremely uncomfortable.

  “I do want to know. Thanks, Burt.”

  forty-one

  Jacob stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows onto a brilliant early fall day. An unusually strong wind had made Tahoe choppy today, making the deep blue water sparkle and flash in his eyes.

  He’d reached a breaking point.

  He’d had enough of Harper avoiding him. Her anger at discovering that he had been Jake Tharp stunned him to the core. He’d expected shock. He’d expected disbelief and anxiety. But her fury had completely taken him off guard. What she’d said before she stormed off had altered him, somehow. Transformed him. He still could hear her voice as clearly as if she stood next to
him, three days after the fact.

  “Harper McFadden thought Jake Tharp was the bravest, smartest, nicest person she’d ever met in her life.” And then, “I loved you, don’t you get that?”

  His feeling of shock and amazement remained as well, as fresh as the moment she’d uttered those words. He would have questioned her veracity in saying it if he hadn’t witnessed firsthand her fierce anger.

  He recalled how in awe he’d been when they were kids in that police station, huddled together on that cot, when she’d spoken out loud about their invisible connection. But his amazement on hearing her say three days ago that she’d thought Jake Tharp was the bravest person she’d ever known had been far greater. The simple reason for his shock was that while they shared so much, and felt so much in common . . . Jacob held the opposite opinion of Jake Tharp.

  And Harper was pissed off at him for that.

  At first, he’d been just as furious at her for her stubbornness. What right did she have to be mad at him for wanting to transform himself into something that was the opposite of what he’d been as a boy? But then as the hours turned into days, and she continued to avoid him, he’d had time to think. Slowly, it began to dawn on him. Her anger at him was the official stamp of truth. Harper honestly felt like she’d been robbed of Jake Tharp. Not only by her parents. But by him—Jacob Latimer.

  It was a jaw-dropping revelation to him. It was her anger at her loss that made him first start to reconsider that scared, weak little boy that he’d been. If Harper had loved Jake that much . . . didn’t that mean Jake had been somehow worthy?

  He didn’t have all the answers. He only knew he wasn’t going to figure any of it out, without Harper at his side. The ability for deep, restful sleep had abandoned him. How could he possibly rest enough to puzzle out his life, with Harper gone? It’d become an acknowledged fact in his mind during the past several days. He loved her. He’d never stopped loving her, even though the type of love he felt as a man was more complex than it’d ever been when he was a kid. It was deeper. Exponentially more compelling.

  Another thing he knew? He was worried sick about her. He knew better than most how stubborn she could be.

  But so was he.

  He knew precisely where she was at that very moment. He knew plenty of people in town who had been willing to report back to him whether or not her car was in the Gazette parking lot and if she appeared reasonably healthy over the past few days. Harper was no Regina, of course. She wouldn’t fall to bits just because they’d argued. Apparently, she wasn’t going to disintegrate even at the discovery that he was Jake Tharp.

  Did that mean she wouldn’t flee or freak out if she discovered his other shameful secret?

  One thing was certain: He was never going to find out standing in his office. He’d go over to the Gazette. He’d demand that she talk to him. When they were little, Harper had told him nothing could sever their bond. If that was true, not even her anger at him could cut it.

  That was all there was to it.

  He jerked around and stalked rapidly toward his office door. Before he could touch the knob, however, there was a knock on it. He opened it impatiently.

  Elizabeth stood on the other side.

  “Jacob,” Elizabeth said. She looked startled.

  “What’s wrong?” Jacob asked, recognizing his assistant’s atypical discomposure.

  “It’s Regina,” she said under her breath, nodding subtly behind her to her office. “She’s . . . not well.”

  “Jacob,” Regina Morrow called loudly. “Jacob, I have to see you. Now.”

  Jacob saw Regina striding toward him. She wore a pink trench coat belted at the waist, four-inch brown leather heels, and a matching purse. Her breasts swelled at the opening of the coat. Her lush, long hair was mussed and her lipstick was smeared. He immediately knew she was either intoxicated or in the midst of a manic episode by the shiny brilliance of her eyes, her plastered smile, and the way she put her hands all over his chest and abdomen. She leaned in to kiss him. He caught her wrists and frowned down at her. Her scent entered his nose.

  Sex. She smelled like perfume, sex, and semen.

  “What the hell are you doing, Regina? You didn’t drive to Tahoe Shores, did you?” he asked, going cold at the thought.

  “Why shouldn’t I visit you? You act as if we’re not old friends. Haven’t we known each other for twenty-two years?” She gave Elizabeth a sly, sideways look. “Did you know Jacob and I have known each other that long? He was the skinniest little thing you ever saw back then, but sweet. So sweet,” she said, breaking her hands free of Jacob’s hold and rubbing his lower abdomen suggestively, her fingers stretching downward. “It’s hard to believe that this big, gorgeous man ever could have been so tiny, but he was. Little Jake Tharp. Of course he’d started to come into his own by the next time I ran into him,” she crooned, staring fixedly at Jacob’s face and sliding her hand down onto his crotch.

  Jacob snapped up both of her wrists again and pulled her into his office. She staggered after him, laughing outrageously.

  She’s a loose cannon.

  He urged her over to a chair. “Sit, Regina,” he ordered.

  “But Jacob, I came all this way—”

  “I’ll be right back,” he insisted, pressing on her shoulders to keep her in place in the chair when she tried to stand again. She turned her chin, planting a kiss on his inner wrist.

  “Regina,” he warned. She smiled up at him innocently. “I know. I’m a bad girl,” she whispered. “I mentioned Jake Tharp in front of Elizabeth. I know you hate it when I say that name.” She motioned locking her lips and throwing away the key.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said again sternly. When she appeared to be willing to stay put for the moment, he walked over to Elizabeth where she hovered in the doorway.

  “Security let her through, but I can’t figure out how or why,” Elizabeth said in a tensed, hushed voice. “She’s on your list for allowed guests, but they have instructions to always call me first in her case.”

  “Does that new hire, McDougal, have guard duty?” he asked distractedly.

  Elizabeth blinked. “Yes, I think he does.”

  “Regina had him for lunch, and she was his dinner. That’s how she got through.”

  Elizabeth looked startled at his blunt assessment of events, but his assistant didn’t know Regina like Jacob did. McDougal may have been a decorated army captain and possessed six years of top-notch corporate security experience, but he was relatively young and virile, and would be no match for Regina . . . especially a manic, hypersexual Regina. She’d known how to wind men around her finger since she was a girl.

  She’d been forced to learn how to get what she could from men.

  “Jim was just here,” Elizabeth whispered. “He’d gone out to park her car when she pulled up to the house earlier. She just bulldozed past him, but Jim got a look in her car. He came up to tell me that there’s several bottles of prescription medication empty in the passenger seat . . . along with a dress and some underclothing.”

  “Go down and get the bottles, please. Bring them up. I’m going to call 9-1-1, and then Dr. Fielding. I think she’s manic . . . and high.”

  Elizabeth nodded and hurried out of her office. Jacob went over to his desk, moving aside some papers and locating his phone. The phone thumped on his desk when Regina grabbed his arm roughly and jerked it.

  “Jesus,” he muttered incredulously. She was completely naked, save her heels.

  “Surprise,” Regina said, her red lips curving. She stepped into him, pressing her breasts against his ribs, her hands making a manic tour of his body.

  • • •

  Apparently neither Jacob nor Elizabeth had altered her security clearance since she’d stormed out of the Lattice compound three days ago. Harper entered Jacob’s mansion without incident and jogged up the grand st
aircase.

  What Burt had revealed in her office just minutes ago kept pulsing in her brain. The inflammatory information certainly confirmed the many fears she’d long held about men of Jacob Latimer’s caliber.

  But now she knew that Jacob was in a class all his own. What’s more, Jake Tharp would never be so callous or cold-blooded. And she very much wanted to believe that Jake Tharp hadn’t completely been killed off by Jacob.

  When she approached Elizabeth’s office door, she was surprised to see that it was open. She stepped over the threshold. Elizabeth didn’t appear to be anywhere around. Jacob’s door was ajar, though.

  “Hello?” she called. She looked around the door and froze.

  Jacob stood next to his desk in profile to her. Regina Morrow was pressed tightly against him. She was completely naked. Harper stared, her stunned brain absorbing a myriad of details in one stomach-dropping moment: Jacob’s hand on Regina’s hip, her naked, large breasts smashed against his lower chest, her upturned, pouting lips . . . the fact that her buttock looked reddened, as though it’d been spanked.

  Suddenly, Jacob was staring directly at her, his face rigid.

  “Harper.”

  She stood there, speechless, the graphic image of the pair of them pummeling at her unprepared consciousness. It was as if her worst fear had sprung out of her brain and taken shape. Regina turned, her gaze landing on Harper. Her full lips opened. She started to laugh hysterically, pushing on Jacob’s chest and stumbling in her high heels. Jacob caught her by grasping at her elbows. Her bare breasts swayed. They looked liked they’d been manhandled. They were reddened. Harper realized numbly she could see the outline of fingerprints on the flesh.