Billionaire Unmasked(28)

Hope landed on his lap, but she scrambled off him and seated herself on the other end of the sofa. She couldn’t be close to him right now. She needed to out herself about some of her life and take her chances with Jason, even if she was still ticked about his highhanded tactics in trying to get her to stay. She swiped at the tears on her face. “You know about my photography career?”

“Obviously,” Jason said acerbically. “It’s hard to miss a portfolio full of pictures. It’s also clear that you didn’t want anybody to associate you with the billionaire Sinclair family, which is why you used your initials. What I don’t understand is why you never told anyone.”

Hope saw a flash of hurt in Jason’s eyes. “Do you think my brothers would have been supportive?” She snorted. “I love them with all my heart, but they would have done everything they could to stop me from doing something I wanted to do. You know they would. For God’s sake, they wanted me to have security even when I was in college. The only way I talked them out of that was by telling them that nobody associated me with the Boston Sinclairs, and I’d never tell anybody. After college, I had to let them think that I was living a very quiet, very anonymous life. Otherwise, they would have had security all over me, whether I wanted it or not. “

“Why does it have to be extreme weather?” Jason grumbled. He couldn’t disagree with her point about her brothers.

Hope shrugged. “It started out as a fluke. I’ve always loved storms: the thunder, the lightning, and the unstoppable power of Mother Nature. Thunderstorms are brutally beautiful and fascinating because there’s still so much we don’t understand about extreme weather. Maybe it’s the mystery that first intrigued me. I started right after school as a freelancer, most of my photos of lightning strikes and thunderstorms. Newspapers and other companies began to buy them, wanting more. I moved into it gradually, noticing that what I was photographing was what was most in demand. Eventually, I didn’t wait for the storms to come to me. I went to them.”

“So when most sane people were running away, you were running toward the storms?” Jason rumbled, still sounding upset.

Hope nodded. “Yes. I’m always as careful as I can be. Tornados are unpredictable, but David and I tried to be as cautious as we could be. Sometimes I wasn’t so careful when I started. I was too naïve and intoxicated with being free to care. When you grow up beneath the iron fist of a raging alcoholic, and then are left to a mother who blames you because she can’t move away somewhere else to forget the past, you learn to appreciate freedom. “

“Your mother blamed you?” Jason said angrily.

“Every single day. I was constantly reminded that if I didn’t exist, she’d have her freedom. The day I graduated from high school was the happiest day of my life. I could finally stop feeling guilty for just existing.” She cuddled Daisy on her lap as the feline leapt onto the couch.

Jason nodded his head toward her cat. “The same day that you got a deaf cat as a graduation present.”

“I never regretted having her,” Hope told him honestly. “She gives me unconditional love. She’s been a great companion, Jason. She goes with me when I can take her, and she adapts to any environment, which is very strange for a cat.” Hope wasn’t about to tell him that she cherished Daisy just that much more because she’d gotten her from Jason.

“How did none of us ever figure this out for ourselves? Why did none of us know you were a photographer? How did your brothers never discover it?” Jason said, disgruntled.

“Because I didn’t want anyone to know. I wanted my freedom. They believed I was living an idle, anonymous life in Aspen, traveling occasionally with friends. It’s what I wanted them to believe.”

“You know what you’re doing is crazy, right? You’re risking your life for pictures.”

“It’s my life to risk,” Hope threw back at him. “And I don’t think it’s crazy. It’s my job.”

“I saw the pictures, Hope. The destruction and loss of life has to take its toll on you.” He gave her a sharp glance.

That was the hardest part, the area of her job that ate at her soul. “It’s horrible,” she admitted. “I help when I can. I took first responder training. But yes, it’s…difficult.” She swallowed a lump in her throat at the truth. “Extreme weather is going to happen whether I’m there or not, and the victims are going to suffer horribly. I had to suck it up and try to help.”

“What were you doing in Vegas? It’s apparent to me now that you weren’t there for a bachelorette party like you told me you were when we ran into each other. You would have been worried about contacting whoever you were with. There was nothing and nobody else in your room except your stuff.” Jason looked at her, as though he mentally willed her to tell him the truth.