The Tempted. Amanda Stevens

Cross. There’s nothing they can do. I don’t have enough equity in my house to use as collateral, and there’s nothing in the business worth liquidating.” Tess’s cleaning service had been built primarily on her own blood, sweat and tears, commodities not necessarily valued by a loan institution. “Mr. Cobb was very nice, but as he pointed out, he isn’t running a charity organization.”

      Melanie gasped. Her lovely features contorted in anger. She’d always reminded Tess of a classical painting with her large, lost eyes and brooding mouth. “He didn’t say that!”

      “Not in so many words, but that was the implication.” Tess rubbed her forehead. “I understand their decision. I do. It’s business. They can’t afford to take on hard-luck cases, but my daughter’s life is at stake. You would think—” She broke off, shoving back her chair as she began stacking plates.

      “Leave the dishes,” her mother scolded. “I’ll take care of them later.”

      “No, Mama, let me do them. I need to keep busy.”

      When her mother started to get up, Melanie said quickly, “Keep your seat, Joelle. I’ll help Tess.” Grabbing the plates, she balanced them in her lap as she deftly guided her wheelchair toward the kitchen.

      “You girls don’t have to do that,” Joelle protested. “I’m perfectly capable of washing my own dishes.”

      “You’ve done more than your share of dishes,” Melanie insisted, referring to Joelle’s long tenure as the Spencers’ housekeeper. “You deserve a little pampering.”

      But even though both Joelle and Tess had installed ramps and made their homes as wheelchair accessible as possible after the accident, Joelle’s cramped kitchen was still hard for Melanie to navigate. She unloaded the dishes in the sink, then moved back to give Tess room to work.

      “I’m just in the way,” she muttered.

      Tess glanced over her shoulder as she started the dish water. “Stop that. You’re never in the way, and you know it. I don’t know what I would have done without you these last weeks.”

      Melanie bit her lip. “I just wish I could have done more. I wish I could have prevented this. Oh, Tess, when I think about the way she looked that afternoon—” She broke off, her blue eyes filling with tears. “If I’d just waited with her a little longer…”

      Melanie was the librarian at Fairhaven Academy, and she always stopped by every afternoon to see Emily before Tess picked her up from school. On that particular day, she’d been one of the last people to see Emily before she disappeared.

      Tess sighed. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known. And besides, there were other teachers on the playground that day. They didn’t see anything, either.”

      “I know, but—”

      “But nothing. I meant what I said earlier. I don’t know how I would have gotten through this without you.”

      Melanie’s eyes softened. “We’ve always been there for each other, haven’t we?” Melanie’s rehabilitation after the accident six years ago had been a long and painful ordeal, but contrary to what she’d said, Tess hadn’t been there for her. Not for a long time. And for that, she’d never quite been able to forgive herself.

      She forced a smile. “We’ve been through a lot together, that’s for sure.”

      “Too much,” Melanie said with a grimace, tucking her silky blond hair behind one ear.

      Tess turned back to the sink, squirted soap into the hot water and began washing the dishes. As she worked, her mind drifted back in time, to the summer her and Melanie’s lives had been linked—and changed—forever…

      Friends since childhood, Tess had always been the more practical of the two, the more studious, the one who never got into trouble while the impetuous Melanie seemed to hover on the brink of one disaster after another.

      So it had come as a surprise to both of them when, in the summer after their junior year in college, Tess had been the one to fall in love, and with a man totally unsuited for her.

      Jared Spencer was older, for one thing. More sophisticated. More worldly. Tess sometimes wondered how she had ever let him get under her skin the way he had. He wasn’t her type at all. She’d always held nothing but contempt for the southern aristocracy with their customs and attitudes and machinations.

      But in spite of her disdain and no small amount of resistance, Jared had finally gotten to her. He’d pursued her arduously and won her over, and sometimes still, in looking back, Tess wondered why he’d been so persistent. Was it a simple case of the forbidden fruit? Had she, the housekeeper’s daughter, been an irresistible temptation to rebel against a lifetime of expectations?

      Melanie, perhaps not to be outdone, or perhaps because the Spencer charisma had enthralled her, too, had promptly gotten involved with Jared’s younger brother, Royce, although she’d kept the relationship a secret. Tess hadn’t suspected a thing until she’d opened the door one night, and Melanie had collapsed, hysterical, into her arms.

      It wasn’t until Tess had finally gotten Melanie to calm down that she noticed the marks on her friend’s arms, the telltale discoloration where someone had grabbed her roughly.

      Tess stared at the bruises in shock. “Melanie, who did this to you?”

      Melanie didn’t want to tell her at first, but then finally she whispered, “Royce.”

      Tess gasped. “Royce Spencer? But you don’t even know him!”

      Melanie glanced away, unable to meet her friend’s gaze. “We’ve been seeing each other.”

      “Melanie! He’s married!” Tess blurted in horror. In fact, he was practically a newlywed. His sudden marriage had created quite a clamor within the family, Joelle said, coming as it had after his announcement that he would not pursue an MBA at Harvard, as his brother had done before him, but would instead go directly to work for the Spencer Hotels Corporation.

      “I didn’t know he was married,” Melanie defended. “Not at first. And then when I found out, I was already in love with him. I tried to break it off. I swear I did. I know now what a mistake it was. Tess—” She clutched Tess’s arm. “You should have seen the look in his eyes tonight when he grabbed me. I thought he was going to kill me. He was completely out of control.”

      Tess could hardly comprehend what her friend was telling her. Melanie, involved with a married man? Royce Spencer, capable not only of infidelity, but violence?

      In truth, Tess had never cared much for Royce Spencer. He’d always been on the wild side, and just a little too sure that he could get whatever, and whomever, he wanted. He and Tess had had an altercation once at the lake house when he’d made a pass at her. Tess hadn’t told her mother about it because she’d handled things herself. She’d slapped Royce’s face, he’d laughed and apologized, and for a while, he’d pursued her even harder. But then he’d finally given up, and that had been the end of it.

      But this!

      “What happened?” she asked.

      “I gave him an ultimatum,” Melanie said almost defiantly. “I told him if he didn’t leave his wife, I’d tell her about us.”

      “Oh, Mel.”

      “You hate me,” Melanie whispered. “I can see it in your eyes.”

      “I don’t hate you.” What Tess felt at the moment was shock. Disbelief. And, yes, more than a little disappointed. Dating a married man—that just wasn’t done in her book.

      “But you’ve lost respect for me,” Melanie said. “I don’t blame you. I don’t respect myself much at the moment.”

      “We’ll sort all that out later,” Tess murmured, her mind still reeling. “What we have to do now is make sure you’re okay. Do you need to see a doctor?”

      “He