No Rules(23)

Sensing success, Avery tilted her head, assessing Jess on some scale only she could read. “Maybe she was even hospitalized. Psych ward.”

Wrong. Jess wanted to scream her denial, but the truth was more embarrassing, so she held the words back, trembling with the effort.

“Shut up, Avery.” Donovan’s voice was soft but carried an ominous note. Jess silently thanked him for the unexpected help.

Avery wasn’t listening. “Maybe she even attempted suicide.”

Unable to let that one go by, Jess blurted, “I did not.”

“No?”

Too late, Jess saw her mistake. She shouldn’t have said anything. By denying that outrageous accusation, Avery’s innocent response challenged her to correct it. To tell the real reason for her years of therapy. Tell them, or leave the horrible allegation of attempted suicide hanging over her head.

Anger, hot and jagged, ripped through her. They had no right to put her in this position, to question her about the most embarrassing and private parts of her life.

“That’s enough,” Donovan ordered. Surprised and relieved, she gave him a grateful look.

“I agree.” Evan’s low voice carried authority. Avery closed her mouth over what she’d been about to say, but it didn’t wipe away her satisfaction.

The director’s eyes were kind. “Wally felt he’d been the cause of your—problems, didn’t he?”

She gave him a tight nod, hoping he hadn’t guessed the extent of it. It was so simple, so Freudian, she hated it.

She risked a glance at Donovan, a man so confident and secure in his identity he couldn’t possibly understand her problem, knowing she’d crumple into a tiny ball if she saw pity in his eyes. She didn’t. He stared with open curiosity as if he had a dozen follow-up questions. Questions that would expose every humiliating detail of her personal life and prove she had no right being attracted to a man like him. Questions he might put off for now, but would not forget to ask later.





If he had any respect for her at all, it was about to disappear forever.





Chapter Five

Donovan flipped to a new page in his notebook, as if the topic of her therapy might require extensive note-taking. He could just forget it.

Jess tensed, prepared to smack down his inappropriate, obtrusive questions, but he merely said, “Skip the details for now. Just summarize. Did he ask how you were doing now? What did he want to know?”

That was it? When he didn’t blink at her suspicious look, she took a few deep breaths to steady herself. “He apologized for his part in it, that’s all.”

And thank God for that. If her father had asked if therapy had helped her problem, she’d have died on the spot.

“Okay,” Donovan said. He made a note on the tablet.

She sat up a little straighter, straining to read his writing upside down. He’d written one word: Therapy?

She didn’t like that question mark. If he didn’t get the information they needed, she knew he’d come back to that, wanting details, and she had no intention of discussing it with him. Not with anyone, but especially not with the man whose arrogant manner and barely civilized appearance stirred something primitive inside her. Primitive and loaded with alarm bells. Exactly the kind of man who should never know the reason for her therapy.

“Then?”

It took her a moment to realize he was asking what Wally had talked about next. She shrugged. “His story idea again, and my early ones that he’d contributed to. He acted like he’d be absolutely tickled to see his idea made into a book.”

“Tickled?” Donovan winced at the word.

“Yes. He laughed.”

It was such a simple thing. But for a moment it had twisted her heart, taking her back to the days they’d spent at the small kitchen table, her father inventing a character and Jess drawing it, bringing it to life. Both of them giggling with delight. It was a memory as warm as sunshine, overflowing with affection and happiness.

The next moment the bubble had burst, revealing the man she’d spent fifteen years hating, the one who had broken his promise to always be there for her. The man who returned as the stranger who sat across the table spinning stupid stories about a rabbit and a wolf. A man whose once razor-sharp mind was now excited about a simple story idea.

“Could the story itself mean something?” Donovan mused aloud. “He kept going back to it.”

Avery gave a derisive huff. “A story about a rabbit and a wolf going to a housewarming party? Even our code phrases don’t involve animals or fairy tales. For something this important, you’d think he’d use a code we know. Or just say it in plain English, for God’s sake.”