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“Okay, but you never answered my question. Where did you meet her?” Paul persisted, making no attempt to rein in his skepticism. Ethan’s persistent caginess was a red flag. “What do you know about her?”
When meeting people for the first time, Paul tended to assess them like it was an investigation and often struggled to give them the benefit of the doubt. Did that mean he was suspicious by nature? Probably. But if that’s what it took to keep his family safe, then so be it.
“Can you stop thinking like a cop for two seconds?” Ethan complained.
Paul bristled. It wasn’t only Grady who hadn’t supported his decision to join the Charleston PD after college and several years later start his cybersecurity business.
“What’s her angle?”
“She doesn’t have one. She’s exactly like she seems.”
Paul snorted. A cosplay fanatic? “What else do you know about her?”
“I don’t know,” Ethan complained, growing impatient. “She’s really nice and a great listener.”
“A great listener,” Paul echoed, guessing that Lia Marsh had taken advantage of Ethan’s distress over their grandfather’s illness. “I suppose you told her all about Grady and our family?”
“It’s not as if any of it is a huge secret.”
“Regardless. You brought a complete stranger, someone you know almost nothing about, to meet our dying grandfather.” Paul made no effort to temper his irritation. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking Grady might enjoy a visit from a sweet, caring person who has a beautiful singing voice.” Ethan gave him such a sad look. “Why do you always go to the worst-case scenario?”
Paul stared at his brother. Ethan behaved as if this explanation made all the sense in the world. Meanwhile, Paul’s relentless, logical convictions prevented him from grasping what sort of eccentricities drove Lia Marsh to parade around as a storybook character.
“She was dressed up. I just don’t understand...”
Ethan shrugged. “It’s what she does.”
“For a living?”
“Of course not,” Ethan countered, showing no defensiveness at all in the face of his brother’s sarcasm. In fact, he looked fairly smug as he said, “She dresses up and visits sick children. They love her.”
Paul cursed. Actually, that was a damned nice thing to do.
“How did you meet her?”
Ethan frowned. “I’m a client.”
“What sort of a client?”
“None of this matters.” Ethan exhaled. “Lia is great and your trust issues are getting old.”
A heavy silence fell between the brothers as Paul brushed aside the criticism and brooded over Ethan’s caginess. He hated being at odds with his brother and wasn’t sure how to fix the disconnect. With less than a year between them in age, he and Ethan had been tight as kids despite their differing interests and passions. Paul was fascinated by technology and could spend hours alone, turning electronic components into useful devices, while Ethan was more social and preferred sports over schoolwork.
Both had excelled through high school and into college. And while they’d never directly competed over anything, once Paul decided against joining the family business, a subtle tension started growing between the siblings.
“You might as well tell me what’s going on because you know I’ll investigate and find out exactly who Lia Marsh is.”
Lia Marsh blew out a sharp breath as she cleared the hospital room and fled down the empty hallway, noting her thudding heart and clammy palms. While Ethan hadn’t glossed over his brother’s suspicious nature, she hadn’t been prepared for Paul’s hostility or the way his annoyance heightened his already imposing charisma. Unaccustomed to letting any man get under her skin, Lia studied the phenomenon like she would a fresh scratch on her beloved camper trailer, Misty. Unexpected and undesirable.
Usually her emotions were like dandelion fluff on the wind, lighter than air and streaked with sunshine. She embraced all the joy life had to offer and vanquished negativity through meditation, crystal work and aromatherapy, often employing these same spiritual healing tools with her massage clients. Not all of them bought into new age practices, but some surprised her with their interest. For instance, she never imagined a businessman like Ethan Watts opening his mind to ancient spiritual practices, but his curiosity demonstrated that it was never wise to prejudge people.
Someone should share that warning with Paul Watts. He’d obviously jumped to several conclusions from the instant he’d spotted her in his grandfather’s hospital room. The unsettling encounter left her emotions swirling in a troubling combination of excitement and dread, brought on by a rush of physical attraction and her aversion to conflict.
Distracted by her inner turmoil, Lia found it impossible to sink back into her role of Rapunzel as she stole along the corridor lit by harsh fluorescent lights. Her gaze skimmed past gray walls and bland landscapes. Recycled air pressed against her skin, smelling of disinfectant. She longed to throw open a window and invite in sunshine and breezes laden with newly cut grass and bird song. Instead, she dressed up and visited sick children, offering a much-needed diversion.
Heading down the stairs to the third-floor pediatric wing, Lia collected her tote bag from the nurses’ station. Since signing up to volunteer at the hospital these last few months, she’d been a frequent visitor and the children’s care staff had grown accustomed to her appearances. They appreciated anything that boosted their patients’ spirits and gave them a break from the endless rounds of tests or treatments.
The elevator doors opened and Lia stepped into the car. She barely noticed the mixed reactions of her fellow passengers to her outfit. Minutes later Lia emerged into the late afternoon sunshine. She sucked in a large breath and let it out, wishing she could shake her lingering preoccupation with her encounter with Paul Watts. Lia picked up her pace as if she could outrun her heightened emotions.
The traffic accident that had totaled her truck and damaged her beloved camper had compelled her to move into a one-bedroom rental on King Street until she could afford to replace her vehicle. Her temporary living arrangement was a twenty-minute walk from the hospital through Charleston’s historic district. She focused on the pleasant ambience of the antebellum homes she passed, the glimpses of private gardens through wrought iron fencing, and savored the sunshine warming her shoulders.
Caught up in her thoughts, Lia barely noticed the man leaning against the SUV parked in front of her apartment until he pushed off and stepped into her path. Finding her way blocked, her pulse jumped. Lia had traveled the country alone since she was eighteen and had good instincts when it came to strangers. Only this was someone she’d already met.
Paul Watts had the sort of green eyes that reminded her of a tranquil pine forest, but the skepticism radiating from him warned Lia to be wary. Despite that, his nearness awakened the same buzz of chemistry that she’d noticed in the hospital room.
He wasn’t at all her type. He was too obstinate. Too grounded. Merciless. Resolute. Maybe that was the attraction.
“You were hard to find,” Paul declared.
Ethan had told her Paul was a former cop who now ran his own cybersecurity business. She suspected his single-minded focus had stopped a high number of cybercriminals. Her skin prickled at the idea that he’d do a deep dive into her background where things lurked that she’d prefer remained buried.
“And yet here you are,” she retorted, dismayed that he’d run her down in the time it had taken her to walk home.
She wasn’t used to being on anyone’s radar. To most of her massage clients she was a pair of hands and a soothing voice. The kids at the hospital saw only their favorite princess character. She relished her anonymity.
“Is everything all right with Grady?”
“He’s fine.” Paul’s lips tightened momentarily as a flash of pain crossed his granite features. “At least he isn’t any worse.”
“I didn’t know him before his stroke, but Ethan said he was strong and resilient. He could still pull through.”
“He could,” Paul agreed, “except it’s as if he’s given up.”
“Ethan mentioned he’d become obsessed with reuniting with his granddaughter these last few years,” Lia said. “Maybe if you found her—”
“Look,” Paul snapped. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but you need to stay away from my grandfather.”
“I’m not up to anything,” Lia insisted, pulling her key out of her bag as she angled toward the building’s front door. “All I want to do is help.”
“He doesn’t need your help.”
“Sure. Okay.” At least he hadn’t barred her from connecting with Ethan. “Is that it?”
She’d unlocked the door and pushed it open, intending to escape through it when Paul spoke again.
“Aren’t you the least bit curious how I found you?” he asked, his vanity showing. Given her minimal electronic footprint, tracking her down left him puffed up with pride. No doubt he wanted to brag about his prowess.
Despite the agitation making her heart thump, Lia paused in the doorway and shot him a sidewise glance. While Paul exuded an overabundance of confidence and power, she wasn’t without strengths of her own. She would just have to combat his relentlessness with freewheeling flirtation.
While teasing Paul was a danger similar to stepping too near a lion’s cage, Lia discovered having his full attention was exhilarating.
“Actually.” Pivoting to face him, Lia summoned her cheekiest smile. Everything she’d heard from Ethan indicated that Paul was ruled by logic rather than his emotions. Challenging the cybersecurity expert to confront his feelings was bound to blow up in her face. “I’m more intrigued that you wanted to.”
Two (#u61571a50-cb1b-5bbd-bfac-c9fa122d0554)
King Street melted away around him as Paul processed his response to Lia’s challenging grin. Her expression wasn’t sexual in nature, but that didn’t lessen the surge of attraction that rocked him, demanding that he act. He clenched his hands behind his back to stifle the impulse to snatch her into his arms and send his lips stalking down her neck in search of that delectable fragrance. Frustrating. Intolerable. This woman was trouble. In more ways than he had time to count.
What was her endgame? Money, obviously.
Based on the fact that she’d chosen to live in one of downtown Charleston’s priciest neighborhoods, she obviously had expensive taste. After meeting Ethan, she’d obviously targeted him, using their grandfather’s illness to ingratiate herself. Was she planning on getting Ethan to pay off her debt or to invest in some sort of business?
“Ophelia Marsh, born March first—” he began, determined to unnerve her with a quick rundown of her vital statistics.
“Fun fact,” she interrupted. “I was almost a leap-day baby. My mom went into labor late on February twenty-eighth and everyone thought for sure I would be born the next day, which that year was February twenty-ninth. But I didn’t want to have a birthday every four years. I mean, who would, right?”
Her rambling speech, sparkling with energetic good humor, soured his mood even more. “Right.” He had no idea why he was agreeing. “Born March first in Occidental, California...”
“A Pisces.”
He shook his head. “A what?”
“A Pisces,” she repeated. “You know, the astrological sign. Two fish swimming in opposite directions. Like you’re a goat,” she concluded.
Paul exhaled harshly. Horoscopes were nothing but a bunch of nonsense. Yet that didn’t stop him from asking, “I’m a goat?”
“A Capricorn. You just had a birthday.”
He felt her words like a hit to his solar plexus. “How did you know that?”
Her knowing his birthday filled him with equal parts annoyance and dismay. He was the security expert, the brilliant investigator who hunted down cybercriminals and kept his clients’ data safe. To have this stranger know something as personal as his birth date sent alarm jolting through him.
“Ethan told me.”
“Why would he do that?” Paul demanded, directing the question to the universe rather than Lia.
“Why wouldn’t he?” She cocked her head and regarded him as if that was obvious. “He likes to talk about his family and it helps me to picture all of you if I know your signs. You’re a Capricorn. Your mother is a Libra. She’s the peacekeeper of the family. Your father is a Sagittarius. He’s a talker and tends to chase impossible dreams. Ethan is a Taurus. Stubborn, reliable, with a sensual side that loves good food.”
This quick summary of his family was so spot-on that Paul’s suspicions reached even higher levels. Obviously, this woman had been researching the Wattses for some nefarious purpose. What was she up to? Time to turn up the volume on his questioning.
“You don’t stay in one place for very long,” he said, remembering what he’d managed to dig up on her. “New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, now South Carolina, all visited in the last twelve months. Why is that?”
In his experience grifters liked to work an area and move on when things became too hot. Her pattern fit with someone up to no good. She might be beautiful and seem to possess a sweet, generous nature, but in his mind her obvious appeal worked against her. He knew firsthand how easily people were taken in by appearances. He was more interested in substance.
“I’m a nomad.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I like life on the road. It’s how I grew up.” She paused to assess his expression and whatever she glimpsed there made her smile slightly. “I was born in the back of a VW camper van and traveled nearly five thousand miles in the first year of my life. My mother has a hard time staying put for any long period of time.”
Paul was having a difficult time wrapping his head around what she was saying. For someone who belonged to a family that had lived within ten square miles of Charleston for generations, he couldn’t fathom the sort of lifestyle she was talking about.
“Was your mother on the run from someone? Your father? Or a boyfriend?”
“No.” Her casual shrug left plenty of room for Paul to speculate. “She was just restless.”
“And you? Are you restless, too?”
“I guess.” Something passed over her features, but it was gone too fast for him to read. “Although I tend to stay longer in places than she did.”
Follow-up questions sprang to Paul’s mind, but he wasn’t here to dig into her family dynamic. He needed to figure out what she was up to so he could determine how much danger she represented to his family. He changed subjects. “Where did you and Ethan meet?”
“He’s been a client of mine for about a month now.”
“A client?” Paul digested this piece of information.
“I work for Springside Wellness,” she said, confirming what Paul had already unearthed about her. The company was a wellness spa on Meeting Street that operated as both a yoga studio and alternative treatment space. A lot of mind, body, soul nonsense. “Ethan is a client.”
This confirmed what Paul had gleaned from his brother’s explanation about how he knew Lia. Still, Paul had a hard time picturing his brother doing yoga and reflexology. “What sort of a client?”
“I’m a massage therapist. He comes in once a week. I told him he should probably come in more often than that. The man is stressed.”
Her answer took Paul’s thoughts down an unexpected path. “Well, that’s just perfect.”
Only it wasn’t perfect at all. A picture of Lia giving Ethan a massage leaped to mind but he immediately suppressed it.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” she said, frowning. “And I don’t have time to find out. I have to be at work in an hour and it takes a while for me to get out of costume. Nice to meet you, Paul Watts.”
He quite pointedly didn’t echo the sentiment. “Just remember what I said about staying away from my grandfather.”
“I already said I would.”
With a graceful flutter of her fingers, she zipped through the building’s front door, leaving him alone on the sidewalk. Despite her ready agreement to keep her distance, his nerves continued to sizzle and pop. Logic told him he’d seen the last of Lia Marsh, but his instincts weren’t convinced.
Paul shot his brother a text before sliding behind the wheel, urging him to reiterate to Lia that Grady was off-limits. Thanks to this detour he was going to have to hustle to keep from being late for his charter flight.
Ethan’s terse reply highlighted the tension between the brothers that seemed to be escalating. The growing distance between them frustrated Paul, but he couldn’t figure out how to fix what he couldn’t wrap his head around.
Pushing Ethan and the problem of Lia Marsh to the back of his mind, Paul focused his attention on something concrete and within his control: the upcoming conference and what he hoped to get out of it.
As much as Ethan had thoroughly enjoyed seeing his brother utterly flummoxed by Lia in a Rapunzel costume, as soon as Paul headed off to dig into her background, Ethan’s satisfaction faded. Leave it to his brother to chase a tangent rather than deal with the real problem of their grandfather’s condition. In the same way, Ethan’s brother had neatly avoided dealing with Grady’s disappointment after Paul chose a career in law enforcement over joining Watts Shipping and eventually taking his place at the helm of the family business. Nor had Paul understood Ethan’s conflicted emotions at being the second choice to take up the reins.
While Ethan recognized that he was the best brother to head the family company, he wanted to secure the job based on his skills, not because Paul refused the position. Also, it wasn’t just his pride at issue. Ethan was adopted and in a city as preoccupied with lineage as Charleston, not knowing who his people were became a toxic substance eating away at his peace of mind.
Although no one had ever made him feel as if he didn’t belong, in every Watts family photo, Ethan’s dark brown hair and eyes made him stand out like a goose among swans. Not wishing to cause any of his family undue pain, he kept his feelings buried, but more and more lately they’d bubbled up and tainted his relationship with Paul.
He’d shared some of his angst with Lia. She was a good listener. Attentive. Nonjudgmental. Empathetic. Sure, she was a little quirky. But Ethan found her eccentricities charming. That Paul viewed them as suspect made Ethan all the more determined to defend her.
