The Arrangement. Suzanne Forster

and ripped the envelope into shreds, letting it fall to the floor like blue snow. “I’m not ready to deal with this yet, and you know it.”

      He could hear the force in her low, shaking voice. She was putting on a good show, lots of bravado, but underneath it all she was afraid. He’d counted on that.

      He set down his pencil, unscrewed the juice bottle top and took a drink. “Don’t be dramatic. No one’s forcing you to go back to Mirage Bay.”

      “Your note said we had to go. We couldn’t put it off any longer.” Her stare accused him, and that was no small thing from this woman. Her eyes were a deceptive baby-blue that turned into blazing fire opals when she got upset.

      “Alison, don’t be ridiculous.” He rose from the stool. “It’s your family.”

      “Exactly. It’s my family. They eat their young.” Her bracelet jingled as she caught the battered copper charm in her fingers. “I’m not ready.”

      “We’re never ready for some things—marriage, children, major surgery. But we screw up our courage and get them done. And afterward, we’re glad we did.”

      “Andrew, please, you know them. They’ll crucify me.”

      “It’s your mother, your brother.”

      “And they both hate me. My mother’s been furious with me since I walked away from the trust fund my grandmother left me—and married you. What she can control she hates. What she can’t control she hates more.”

      “And your brother?”

      “Bret’s had it in for me since birth. I was the oldest and the favorite, and he was desperate to dethrone me.”

      He gave her an encouraging nod. “Congratulations. That’s you and Bret to a tee. You remembered it perfectly.”

      Her headshake was suddenly weary. “I can’t remember anything, especially when I’m frightened. My mind goes blank. I may not know what silverware to use. What if I make mistakes at the dinner table? I’ll be humiliated.”

      She was still rubbing the copper loop between her fingers. It was a dead giveaway of her nerves, and as she brought the loop to her lips, he spoke up. “I’ve asked you to take that thing off the bracelet. It isn’t one of the charms I gave you, and it’s sure to be noticed.”

      Her head came up, defiant. “So what if it’s noticed? I added it myself, and it’s brought me luck. I’m not removing it.”

      The desire to exert his will was strong, but he told himself to let it go for now. He had bigger battles to fight. “No one in Mirage Bay is going to humiliate you,” he said. “I’ll handle that.”

      “Really?” Sarcasm invaded her tone. “How?”

      “Leave it to me. I’ve held your family off until now. You’ll be fine. I’ll be there with you.”

      He’d blocked Julia’s attempts to see Alison when she was in the hospital, explaining that her presence would be too much for her fragile, recovering daughter. Julia had backed off, seeming to understand, but she’d also become more insistent with every passing month, and she wasn’t going to be put off any longer.

      Andrew made it a point not to look at the cabinets behind Alison, specifically at the locked drawer where he’d put the missive he’d received earlier that week. “I accepted your mother’s invitation,” he said, his tone harsh. “It’s been six months. It’s time.”

      “You shouldn’t have done that.” Tears welled, glittering like fire. “You had no right.”

      He turned away from her, not wanting to be swayed by the agony swimming in her gaze. Her eyes got to him when nothing else could. Except for the dark hair, she looked uncannily like the Alison he’d known before the accident. But that woman he could resist. This one was different. Her fears were real, persuasive. Hell, they were heartrending. And somehow, on rare occasions like this when she broke down, she managed to get to him, no matter how expertly he steeled himself against her.

      That was why he stayed the hell away from her.

      As he waited for her to compose herself, he realized that she was up to something else. The plate with the breakfast he hadn’t eaten sat on the counter just behind her. In his peripheral vision, he could see her pilfering pieces of the fruit and stuffing them in her mouth like a starving child. He wasn’t sure she even realized what she was doing.

      He turned, catching her as she crammed three of the orange sections into her mouth at once. She froze at the sight of him. Her knees seemed to buckle. Heat flushed her cheeks and she gulped hard, apparently swallowing the entire mouthful.

      “Alison? If you’re hungry—”

      “No, it’s not that. Sometimes I panic and forget myself.” Her eyes took on that anguish again. “Do you see?” she said. “Do you see now? I’m not ready.”

      He did see, but there wasn’t much he could do. They had to go. Julia was extending an olive branch after four years of silence. Alison’s accident had been the catalyst for Julia’s change of heart. She’d wanted to see her only daughter, the child she nearly lost, but this was much more. She’d invited them to stay at Sea Clouds, the Fairmonts’ compound on the cliffs near Mirage Bay.

      The three-story Mediterranean mansion had been in the family for generations, but had been used primarily as a vacation home to escape the harsh East Coast winters. When Julia’s husband, Grant, died, she’d begun spending more of her time at Sea Clouds, and now it was her permanent residence.

      Andrew needed this opportunity. If Julia rescinded the invitation, he might not get another chance to enter that house, up close and personal with the Fairmonts—one of whom he suspected had set him up for a fall.

      Andrew used the smallest key on his chain to unlock the drawer. Inside was the six-month-old edition of the Mirage Bay newspaper he’d found in his P.O. box yesterday, rolled up and bagged in plastic. He’d been having the Mirage Bay paper mailed to him since Alison’s accident, but this edition wasn’t courtesy of the newspaper’s subscription service. This was personal. Someone was calling him out.

      He unrolled the paper and laid it on the counter. Alison had just left in a huff and he didn’t expect her back, but he’d locked his office door all the same. If she saw this, he would never get her on the plane to southern California. The paper’s date was February third, and the lead story was about her disappearance from Bladerunner. But the article had been marked up by whoever sent it. Words had been circled with a permanent marker to create an ominous message, clearly intended for him.

      I know what you did. Soon the police will, too.

      You won’t get away with it this time.

       How much are your secrets worth?

      It smacked of a blackmail attempt, but the sender hadn’t given him any contact information. Andrew couldn’t risk dismissing it as a bluff. He had plenty to hide and too much at stake, and the sender seemed to know that.

      He picked up the plastic casing the paper had come in and examined the mailing label. It didn’t have the newspaper’s logo, which added to his theory that a private party had sent the paper, and if not for the blackmail aspect, Andrew would have said it was Julia Fairmont. He didn’t think it a coincidence that her invitation had arrived within days of the newspaper message, and she had more reasons than most to want him out of the way.

      He’d come between her and her only daughter, and even if Julia didn’t buy the media hype about the Villard curse, she undoubtedly had some concerns about Alison’s safety. She might also think he was trying to use Alison to get his hands on the fifty-milliion dollar trust fund.

      How much are your secrets worth? The clumsy attempt at blackmail brought Bret Fairmont to mind. There’d be no other reason for Bret to expose him, certainly not to protect his sister. There was no love lost there. Unfortunately, the