Sold to the Highest Bidder (14 page)

“Try the shrimp,” he suggested.

She dipped one of the shrimps in the sauce and nibbled, the flavor exploding on her tongue. Lordy, she was famished. And the steak smelled heavenly. There was something about red meat lately that was so appetizing. Hamburgers, steak, roast beef sandwiches. Normally she was a chicken or fish girl. But tonight when Devin had told her his order, it had sounded so good she’d ordered the same for herself.

“It’s delicious. Try one.”

For a few minutes, they enjoyed their meal, but after the first sampling bites were over with, they settled into conversation.

“You never did answer my question,” Dev prodded, cutting into his steak. “About the story. That is why I’m here, isn’t it?”

The alternative was that he was here about the divorce, and Ella didn’t want to think about that just yet. With Dev, the topic of the divorce just spun them in circles and it made her dizzy. “Yes, that’s why you’re here. And to answer your question, the article is about Betty. I already hit the HMO in my first installment. And yes, my assignment was to get to the bottom of why you would pay for her treatment.” She considered for a moment and decided the truth was the best approach at this point. For some reason she felt she owed him the truth, at least about this. “My boss wants to know why a successful Colorado entrepreneur would do such a thing. And why he’d keep quiet about it.”

Devin laid his knife along the rim of his plate. “And what do you want, Ella?”

“Professionally, I want to paint a picture of an ordinary, brave, compassionate woman caught in a horrible set of circumstances.”

“And personally?”

“On a personal level, I want to know why Dev McQuade, successful Colorado entrepreneur would be her knight in shining armor, paying out of his pocket and expecting nothing in return.” He started to open his mouth but she continued, meeting his gaze with her own, needing him to understand. She didn’t want him to walk away thinking she was hard and uncaring, inconsiderate of people’s privacy. “What I want to know and what I will write about are two very different things. I want to write about Betty. Not for my own gain. But to put a human face on her situation. To make people care. The way you seem to care.”

Nerves seemed to bubble and froth in her tummy as she finished. The article she’d just described was not the same article she’d been assigned, and yet she’d meant what she said. It was like Devin was testing her and she had no idea if she’d passed. Nor did she quite understand why it mattered so much for Dev to approve. She could have gone back to Betty for the information. She could have avoided Dev altogether if she’d wanted.

Sitting across from him now, she realized she’d wanted to hear it from him. Instinct told her there was a bigger story here than she could imagine. More than that, her life was changing. And although she could hardly admit it to herself, she had wanted to see him one more time. When she’d found out about DMQ, she had needed to see him for what he’d become. Not as the boy she’d left behind. But the man he’d grown into. To somehow reconcile the two sides into one person. She couldn’t shake the idea that somehow Betty Tucker played a part in it.

“I have no desire to expose you in print, Dev. I just know there is something more. A bigger explanation.” She was surprised to feel her lip quiver with emotion. “We never used to have secrets, you and me, and I can’t help but feel that this is a part of your life I didn’t share. I know it’s not fair of me to ask. But I want to know for me. Not for selling copies or job promotions. For me.”

Silence hummed for a few moments, until Dev replied quietly, “What do you want to know?”

Ella swallowed the bite of steak she’d been chewing. “I left twelve years ago. DMQ was registered as a company eight years ago. But there are four years missing. Four years that are a big blank. That’s what I want to know about. What happened in that time? What happened to you, Dev? What led up to DMQ being formed? And how does Betty fit into it? Because I’m fairly certain she does somehow.”

“You’re very astute.”

“It’s my job.”

“And you’re good at your job, aren’t you?”

“Better than I get credit for.” She smiled then, feeling a bit of the old confidence come back.

He studied her for a few moments. “And yet you didn’t know about DMQ until recently. Doesn’t it seem strange to you? It’s not like it was hidden information.”

“I never went looking.” She stared at her plate now, afraid of what Devin would see in her eyes. The truth. It wasn’t for lack of research skills or even curiosity. It was far more personal.

“You never once Googled me, researched Durango or the Gulch.”

Her cheeks heated and it became an effort to swallow even the smooth, sweet chutney that came with the steak. “No.”

He sat back in his chair, disbelieving. “Was leaving me that easy? Just turn your back and walk away, never looking over your shoulder?”

“No.” She braved a look up then, knowing she couldn’t lie anymore. Not to him, not to herself. “Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And the only way I could do it was to cut all ties. My heart couldn’t take checking up on you, clinging to things you’d done, what you might look like. I loved you too much and it would have been torture.”

His lips fell open then and she pushed the meal away, suddenly not hungry anymore. “How’s that for honesty?”

Devin ran a hand over his face, his eyes deep with surprise and she would swear with regret. “If it hurt so much, why do it?”

The words were there, waiting, but she thought again of the baby inside her, thought of the child she’d been and the mistakes she’d made, and her throat tightened. She shook her head, unable to say anything.

Devin too pushed away his half-eaten dinner.

Finally, Ella gathered the will to say something. “In many ways, Dev, I waited. I waited for you to come find me. To try to convince me. To…” For some reason emotion swamped her, drawing her back to those days when she’d lived in a dormitory, only change in her pocket and a huge student loan, waiting for Devin to come for her. Her voice broke as she finally admitted the truth. “I wanted you to fight for me. I wanted to know I was worth fighting for.”

“You tested me.”

“I didn’t know that was what I had done until I was older, smarter. At the time I was only full of myself and my dreams and seeing all the other girls around me having fun. I was different from them. I was married already and I felt like I’d missed out on something. I saw them with their clothes and boyfriends and fun and all I could see was my mother waiting tables after my dad walked out. She never gave up waiting for him to come back. She looked for him in every boyfriend she had after he left her. That’s what scared me. That I’d be caught and be too much like my mother to have my own life.”

She sniffled, lifted her napkin and dabbed her nose. “It wasn’t until later as I grew up that I could truly see. I did test you. I wanted you to fight for me the way my dad never did. I wanted the proof that I meant everything to you. The proof never came so I…I just had to put you out of my mind. My lack of curiosity was really just self-preservation.”

“Ella…” Dev got out of his chair and came to her side, squatting beside her chair and taking her hand. She looked down into his eyes, feeling her heart being ripped to shreds as his thumb moved over her wrist and the lips that so often smiled in that devilish way were stone cold sober.

“You broke my heart when you left.”

“So why didn’t you come after me?”

“Would I have had the power to change your mind?”

She sighed, feeling like crying but trying not to. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She thought about the nights in her dorm room, all alone, feeling like she was unsophisticated and socially inept. She imagined what it would have been like if Devin, her handsome, sexy husband, had knocked on her door, telling her it was all right, encouraging her on. She blinked rapidly. “Yes,” she admitted. “You probably could have changed my mind.”

Devin rose, went to the bed, sat on the edge and put his head in his hands.

“It’s too late for regrets. Please, just let it go.”

He lifted his head, but what Ella hadn’t expected to see was the abject torture in his eyes, the way his lips seemed to curve downwards in some sort of mental pain. He looked so incredibly unhappy Ella did not know what to say.

But Dev spoke instead.

“You ask why I didn’t go after you. The truth is I couldn’t.”

“What do you mean, couldn’t? And getting back on track for a moment, how does any of this tie into you feeling so obligated to Betty? Because it does, doesn’t it? I can feel it. What is it you’re not telling me?”

Resting his hands on his knees, she saw Devin take a breath while she held hers. The air in the room shimmered, as if waiting on the cusp of something.

His gaze locked with hers.

“I couldn’t come after you because I was where Betty is. I had cancer.”

Chapter Nine

“Cancer?” Ella stiffened, shock rippling through her body. Cancer? But they’d been married in August. She’d gone to school at the first of September. A few months later they were over. It seemed impossible. He’d been healthy, strong and tanned when she left. The very idea struck fear into her heart, leaving her cold.
Cancer
. Perhaps the most hated word in the English language. It was utterly wrong to pair it with
Devin
.

“Yes, cancer. A brain tumor.”

She stared at him, looking at his thick, dark hair, his golden skin, his clear, beautiful blue eyes. Instantly a vision passed through her brain, of Devin, pale, bald, in a hospital bed, tubes and monitors attached to his frail body. The picture seemed to take the life right out of her, sucking it away until she felt like an empty vessel. She couldn’t reconcile the two images. The young man he’d been then, the man before her now—he was so vital, so
alive
.

“A…A…”

She stammered as her lips refused to form the words. The floor felt odd beneath her feet. Devin had had cancer. And she’d been stuck in a dorm waiting for him to rescue her. Angry that he didn’t at least try. Oh God, if she’d only known, she’d have…

She’d have what? Gone back? Forgotten about the mistake they’d made?

But her heart protested. She would have simply been there to help him. To sit by his side and hold his hand, if nothing else. She squeezed her eyes shut. How could she have comforted him, wondering if he was going to die? Even now, when he was healthy and strong before her, the very idea drained the energy from her body.

“A brain tumor. You can say it, Ella. I’ve been cancer free since Christmas that year.”

Ella felt the floor moving, strangely getting closer as the room began to darken around the edges. She reached out for the side table but missed the edge as she crumpled out of her chair.

“Ell? Oh God, Ell, I never thought you’d faint.” The words seemed to come from far away.

She was dimly aware of being held in his arms as he knelt on the floor. How many seconds had elapsed? Surely not many. She vaguely remembered him saying the words “cancer free” before things started spinning.

Her Dev. So very ill, and she’d known nothing about it. She’d taken his silence for anger—or worse, apathy. Instead he’d been sick, and she felt guilty for even thinking those awful things about him back then.

His arms tightened around her as he held her against his thighs. She pushed up, but that meant her hands were on his chest. His very alive, strong, warm chest. Funny how suddenly she appreciated that fact.

“A brain tumor,” she repeated, knowing she sounded silly but unable to refrain. She lifted her hand and let her fingers touch the rich softness of his hair. She couldn’t imagine him having his head shaved, and she traced his hairline down his temple to his ear. Did he have scars on his scalp? He must. How long had he been in hospital? So many questions.

She closed her eyes as the guilt poured in. Had he read her “Dear Devin” letter while lying in a hospital bed? No wonder he had hated her. The simmering anger she’d felt bubbling beneath his charm that first weekend at the cabin made more sense now.

She opened her eyes and saw his brilliant blue ones watching her patiently. The veneer she’d seen in his gaze was gone, replaced by honesty. This was what he’d been hiding then. So many times she’d felt like he was the same Devin and yet different, like he was holding something back, more of a stranger. This was what he’d been holding on to, protecting.

She’d said goodbye to their marriage, to him, her best friend…and in return he’d fought his cancer all alone. How could she have been so self-absorbed? And why hadn’t he trusted her with it? He had to know she would have been there for him. Or had he thought so little of her that he had written her off as quickly as she had him?

“So now you know,” he said gently, and suddenly he was the boy she’d left behind again. The one who had always stood beside her as they’d grown, who’d refused to tease her like the other kids, who had taken her side more times than she could count. The boy who had taken her fishing and laughed at her when she refused to clean her own catch. It no longer mattered about his wealth, the cabin, wrong impressions. It all faded away until she saw the man she’d always known. Strong and loving.

And they had made a baby together.

Ella felt the magnitude of that fact envelop her soul. This pregnancy had the ability to nearly paralyze her with fear. Everything would change. She’d always been afraid of what having a child would mean to her life. But as she looked up into Devin’s face, she realized this baby, their baby, would be half of him.

Half of him, half of her. It was profound. Would he or she have blue eyes or brown? Dark hair or light? Be right handed or left? So many questions, so many possibilities…

She leaned forward, pressing a kiss to Devin’s cheek as she put her arms around his neck. He pulled her close until she was snuggled in on his lap. He wasn’t pushing her away. And this wasn’t about sex. At the cabin and yes, even this morning, it had felt like it was about their physical relationship and getting each other out of their systems—hot and fast and thorough.

One word—cancer—had changed all of that. Having some of the pieces come together had resurrected the bond they’d shared since they had been children.

“I have so many questions,” she whispered in his ear. “And yet, the one thing that I can’t stop thinking is that I should have been here.”

“Yes, you should have.”

The quietly spoken words stung, and a tiny bit of anger sparked. Maybe she should have, but if he didn’t tell her, how could she have known? Surely the blame wasn’t all hers.

“How did… When did you find out? Why didn’t you send for me? I would have come, I swear it.” She kept her voice even, not wanting to pick a fight but needing to know anyway.

Devin sighed, ran his hand down her arm. “Would you, Ella? Are you sure you wouldn’t have run farther away? I didn’t know what to do. I had been feeling off all fall. When I found out, I knew I couldn’t tell you over the phone. I thought it could wait until Thanksgiving when you came home. But before that your letter came. How could I go to you then? I didn’t want you here out of obligation when your letter explained your feelings so clearly.”

Her cheeks reddened because everything he was saying was true. She wanted to stir up some self-righteous defiance but she couldn’t because it made sense. He’d wanted to tell her in person, not give such news over the phone or in a letter. And what had she done? Written a letter, ending their marriage. She’d had her reasons, but right now she felt like the largest coward on the planet.

Just like she was a coward for keeping the baby from him. She lowered her lashes so he wouldn’t see the shame in her eyes. She would tell him. Not at this moment—there were too many other questions right now. But before she went back to Denver. Right now what he deserved was an apology for how she’d gone about things from the beginning.

“I didn’t know what to do. I was scared and…” She took a breath. “And I was wrong. I know that now. I can say I was young and afraid but those are just excuses. I should have come home and told you how I was feeling, and instead I panicked.”

“Would you have felt differently if you’d known I was sick? And how could I know if you were staying out of pity or love? I wanted to fight for you and I didn’t have the energy. Why else did you think I didn’t sign the papers when they first arrived? I wanted to be strong enough to fight. I was buying time.”

“I was waiting for you to come for me, and you never did. I thought you didn’t care—”

“Didn’t care?” Devin pushed her away from him gently so he could look at her square in the face. “God, woman. I loved you with everything I was. I loved you, and I wanted to go after you. But the headaches got worse…nearly every morning, and one day I was at the drugstore for something to help and I collapsed and had a seizure.”

A dark shadow seemed to pass over his eyes. “Betty was working that day and was the one who called 911.”

Tears pricked behind Ella’s eyelids. She was aware that they were still crouched on the floor and she offered a shaky smile. “I’m going to break your legs if you keep this up. Let’s go sit.”

She crawled off his lap, instantly feeling the lack of his warm body surrounding her. Her feet were steady now that the initial shock was over, and she held out her hand to him. Dev stood and they went to the bed. Devin sat, leaning back against the headboard and extending his legs, crossing his ankles. She watched him for a few moments, understanding how Betty fit into things now, knowing she had a story to write and feeling she had no right to tell it. She was good at not getting personally involved—she’d made a career of it. But this was beyond empathy, and she was sure being objective was impossible.

“Dev, I…” Ella stared at the plump mattress, wanting to go to him. Her head was shouting at her that the dining table would be a better, more neutral location. She hesitated, looked from the table and chairs back to Devin again.

He smiled his slow, slightly crooked smile. “I won’t bite, sweetheart.” His eyes shone at her, a little mischievous but utterly sincere. It was a combination Ella could not defend herself against. “Come sit with me, and I’ll tell you everything.”

She hesitated at the side of the bed, and then he patted the coverlet with his hand in invitation. Ella sat beside him, tucking her legs to the side on the mattress, resting her weight on her hand. She met his gaze. “Tell me everything. Make me understand.”

For several seconds his gaze held her prisoner. “I’m not sure you will. I was angry for a long time.”

“Are you still angry?”

Finally he broke eye contact, turning his head away. “Sometimes.”

Apology had never come easily to Ella. It had always made her feel weak. It was confessing you’d made a mistake, made a wrong decision, and she hated that feeling. But today she knew she owed Devin an apology. Should they have stayed married? She only knew she’d done what she thought was right at the time. But how she’d done it was wrong. She’d realized it the first weekend they’d spent together. To argue the point now would only be false pride and needing to be right. If nothing else, she got the feeling that tonight was a time for unvarnished truth.

“I’m sorry, Dev. I’m sorry I left our marriage through a letter. If I was old enough to say ‘I do’ I should have been mature enough to face you when I thought we’d made a mistake. It was the wrong way to go about it. Things should have been said.”

The silence spun out while Ella’s stomach twisted with nerves. She and Devin had shared their innermost secrets growing up. But when it truly mattered—when it was their relationship at stake—neither of them had found the words. Maybe that was why they’d never been able to completely let go. It had nothing to do with legal papers and starting over. It had to do with finishing things first.

Now it would never be truly finished, she realized. They’d be forever joined by their child. The shaft of panic was immediately followed by a warmth she didn’t quite understand.

“Before I explain any of this, I want your word it won’t appear in print.”

Ella hesitated, saw his jaw tighten as she said nothing for several seconds. She knew what her assignment had been. And she knew the story would make good copy. But she also knew this wasn’t an interview. This was Devin, confiding in her. “I promise.”

He seemed to accept her oath. “When I was first diagnosed, I was sure it was a mistake,” Devin began softly, still not looking at her. “My mother and father were there for the surgery. They knew about the letter you’d sent and I made them promise they wouldn’t contact you.” He looked at her then, raised an eyebrow the slightest bit while a sad smile played on his lips. “Parents tend to take those things seriously when they think their child might be dying.”

Ella remembered the one time in mid-November she’d tried calling the cabin, but there had been no answer. She’d wondered where Devin could be so late at night. She’d taken it as a sign their marriage was truly over and that he was already moving on—out for a night on the town. Now she realized he’d likely been in the hospital. Had he been in pain? Had he felt alone or had he been surrounded by those who loved him?

“They did my surgery right away. I was lucky. The tumor was removable and the after-effects were as good as we could have hoped for. But it was malignant and so once I was recovered enough, I had to have radiation.” He smiled a little, adding a humorless laugh. “They’d already shaved my head. At least I didn’t have to worry about my hair falling out, right? Although radiation is horribly hard on the skin.”

The matter-of-fact words were sprinkled with cynicism. Ella didn’t even realize she was crying until he finished speaking. Her cheeks felt wet and Devin sat up a bit, reached out and wiped away the moisture with his thumbs. “Don’t cry. It doesn’t matter now. Treatment was successful, obviously. And if it hadn’t happened, maybe I’d never have built DMQ. All it cost me was my marriage.”

The words were said with such bitterness that Ella had to turn away. She’d been afraid, sure. But it must have been so much worse for him. She should have been there. She should have come home to talk about it. At least then she would have known, and could have helped. The ache inside flashed once more with a little anger of her own. All he would have had to do was pick up the phone, drop her a note, send her an email. Yes, she’d been wrong. But so had he. He couldn’t blame her for not being there when she’d had no idea of the situation.