That’s where you’re dead wrong. Katie is nothing like Arianna and you know it.
In fact, Katie was unlike any woman he’d ever met.
She was sweet and lively, imaginative and generous. She threw herself headlong into everything she attempted. She was unusual, intense, complex and gorgeous as all get out. There were so many things he liked about Katie. Her upbeat attitude and how he instantly felt better whenever he was near her. He loved how she surprised and delighted him with her sense of wonder and adventure. He admired her fearlessness in going after what she wanted.
After he’d met her, he’d put his issues with Finn Delancy on hold. For the first time since he’d found out Delancy was his father, his grudge had taken a backseat to something else. Being with Katie had him letting go of his secret shame and embracing life. And for these past few weeks, he’d felt free.
And he’d walked out on her. All because of an idiotic dare.
What in the hell was the matter with him?
“Would you care for something to drink, sir?” asked the flight attendant as she came around the first-class cabin.
“Whiskey,” he ordered, hoping the alcohol would take his mind off his mistakes.
He remembered the last time he’d drank whiskey. It had been at Finn Delancy’s dinner party. He recalled what had happened later in the park, after he’d confessed his secret to Katie. She’d never judged, just offered her body up to him as solace.
His heart ached and his body tightened with need. Yet he’d never make love to Katie again. Random images of her flashed in his mind-strutting her stuff in that provocative French-maid costume, kicking his butt in bowling, holding his hand as they walked along the beach.
Each freeze-frame tugged at his desire, mocked his stupidity. It was as if his whole life were looped on instant replay, a poignant déjà vu of how he’d flubbed up.
To distract himself from the pain, he tugged the in-flight magazine from the pocket on the back of the seat in front of him and listlessly leafed through the pages, but it didn’t hold his attention.
Liam noticed a man get up and walk down the aisle to the lavatory. A few minutes later, a sexy, long-legged blonde woman followed, squeezing into the same lavatory the man had entered ahead of her.
Clearly, they were angling to become members of the mile-high club. He grinned. It looked like they were in for a fun ride to the States.
Great. He sounded just like Katie. Everything’s a lark, even when it’s inappropriate or probably illegal.
That’s right. Hold on to the negative aspects of her personality. That way you don’t have to remember what her lips feel like on yours, or the adorable sounds she makes during sex, or how good it felt to hold her in your arms.
Determined to lose himself in the printed word, Liam purposely forced his attention onto the in-flight magazine. He turned the page.
The headline of the article grabbed hold of his stomach with a vicious twist. TEN BEST U.S. CITY MAYORS. Quickly, his gaze ran down the list. Boston, he perused. Mayor Finn Delancy.
Bitter disgust rose up his throat. Gritting his teeth, he read the article. It was a glowing review of what Delancy had done for the city. But what really chafed Liam was the section on what a fine father Delancy was. There was a picture showing Finn tossing around a football with his teenage sons on the lawn of his Beacon Hill home.
Liam’s half brothers.
Emotions he’d been suppressing for three decades fell in on him. He felt cheated, wronged, jealous and unloved. But most of all he felt betrayed. He crumpled the magazine in his fist and closed his eyes. Luckily the seat next to him was empty so he didn’t have to defend himself against a prying seatmate.
He reached down deep inside himself, fighting for self-control, trying to tamp down the emotions that until now, he managed to hide under the umbrella of vengeance. He’d wanted to get even with Delancy for betraying him and for hurting his mother.
And then the realization struck him.
He knew why he’d overreacted to Katie’s confession that she’d seduced him on a dare. Why he’d felt so deceived. Why he’d always had a difficult time tolerating deception of any kind.
It was because he’d been hiding from the truth. He’d been deceiving himself. He’d projected his fears and shortcomings onto Katie.
All these years he’d kept his identity a secret, telling no one who his father was until the night he’d confessed to Katie. Even to himself, he’d denied he was part blue blood, had eschewed that gene of his DNA.
There’s only one way around this. Only one way he would find his way back to Katie.
He was going to have to face the man he had become, and to do that he had to confront Delancy.
THE RIBBON-CUTTING ceremony for the Habitat for Humanity project was about to commence as Liam walked up to the site of the new-home construction. A grandstand had been built in front of the buildings, and the media gathered, setting up to film Delancy getting an award.
The irony didn’t escape Liam. Thirty-one years ago, his mother had been pregnant, jobless and homeless because Delancy had discarded her like an old shoe after he’d had his way with her. Now here was Delancy, lauded as a champion of the poor and downtrodden because he’d hammered a few nails in a wall.
“Liam.” Flanked by his bodyguards, Delancy stepped forward, hand outstretched to greet him. “Glad you could make it.”
Liam hesitated before taking Delancy’s hand. He didn’t want to touch the man, but he knew that he must. In order to move on, in order to heal his troubled soul, he had to forgive this man.
Soldiering past the resentment in his heart, Liam reached out and took Delancy’s hand. “Mayor.”
“Please, call me Finn. Anyone who donates a hundred thousand dollars to this project deserves to call me by my first name.”
“What about your son?” Liam asked. “What does he deserve to call you?”
“Excuse me?” Delancy looked confused.
“My mother is Jeanine James.”
Delancy’s blank face told Liam he didn’t even remember his mother.
Liam tensed against the rage running through him. He would not lose control. He would not give this man the satisfaction of knowing how much he affected him. “Thirty-one years ago you knew her very well.”
“Thirty-one years is a long time.” Delancy made a noise that sounded like a half laugh, half snort of derision. “I’ve met a lot of people since then.”
“You never told her you were married. You wined her, dined her. She was a poor, seventeen-year-old Irish immigrant, and she felt as if she’d won the lottery when you took an interest in her.”
“This is a fabrication.” Delancy bristled.
“You got her pregnant, then told her to have an abortion.”
“I never got any woman pregnant other than my wife, Sutton,” Delancy denied.
“When she refused,” Liam went on, making sure to keep his tone low and measured, “you ignored her. She had no money, no place to live and she was pregnant with your bastard son.”
Delancy’s throat worked silently and his face beat bright red. “Nonsense. Utter nonsense.”
“I’m your son and I’ve spent my entire life hating you. I hated you so much I was determined to make something of myself. Determined to convince myself I was better than you. I put myself through Harvard and became a successful businessman. I’m worth almost a billion dollars and I did it because of you.”
“Your mother is mistaken. I’m not your father, James,” Delancy said coldly.
“Your name is right here on my birth certificate.” Liam pulled the birth certificate from his pocket, slapped it in Delancy’s hand.
Delancy’s bodyguards shifted, moving in closer, getting ready to hustle him off. He shoved the certificate back at Liam. “I don’t care what name your mother put on that birth certificate. I’m not your father.”
“Prove it.” Liam lifted his chin, stared Delancy down. Liam’s palms were sweating and his heart was thumping but he’d never felt more like his true self. “Take a DNA test.”