Unmasked by Ingrid Weaver Read Free Book Online

yes,” he replied. “I’m still needed there.”
    She tugged the hem of her jacket to straighten it and moved around her desk. “Then since your visit here is only temporary, there’s no reason for you to get involved in my problems.”
    “Charlotte—”
    “I realize there was a time when I asked you to stay, but believe it or not, I’ve managed fine without you.”
    “I can see you have. I’m only trying to help.”
    “Running one small family hotel wasn’t noble or exciting enough for you twenty years ago. You had no trouble keeping out of my life then, so I’m sure it won’t be that difficult to stay out of it now.”
    There were countless things Jackson could say in return. He had plenty of accusations he could toss out, as well as pain of his own to remember. He’d kept out of her life because she’d pushed him out. There wouldn’t have been room for both him and her new husband.
    Yet this was ancient history, he reminded himself, and he hadn’t come here to change the past. Charlotte’s reaction was out of proportion to the circumstances. Combined with the exhaustion he had noticed earlier, she was exhibiting the symptoms of someone under extreme stress. His concern for her deepened. “What’s going on here, Charlotte?”
    She brushed past him and jerked the door open. “Goodbye, Jackson.”
    He reached around her and shoved the door closed with his palm.
    She held herself motionless for a good ten seconds, her mouth compressed into a tight line. Then she tipped back her head and glared at him. Her eyes shone with a confused mix of emotions, and anger was the least of them.
    Charlotte’s calm wasn’t merely cracked, Jackson thought, it had shattered and fallen away like the mangled Mardi Gras mask.
    Damn, he wanted to hold her again. But if he touched her now, it wouldn’t be as a friend or as a potential cousin-in-law. He would be responding to a reflexive male urge to hold an attractive woman. Neither of them needed a complication like that. He took a steadying breath and kept his arms at his sides. “All this passion isn’t really about us, is it?”
    “What?”
    “As much as it would stroke my ego to think you’ve been pining for me for the last twenty years, I don’t believe that’s true.”
    “Of course it isn’t true.”
    “Well, then, if the passion isn’t about us, it has to be the hotel, right?”
    Tears brimmed in her eyes. “I was doing fine until you showed up.”
    “No, you weren’t or you wouldn’t be this close to the edge. But I get the feeling that I’m the last straw.”
    “Yes, damn you!”
    “Why?”
    “How dare you act concerned about my difficulties when the truth is you’d be happy to see the hotel fail?”
    “That’s ridiculous.”
    “No, it isn’t.” She pressed her index finger to his chest. “You hate this place. That’s what you said the last time I saw you.”
    She was right; he had said that. “I was angry. You know I didn’t mean it.”
    “No? You certainly were in a hurry to go on your one-man crusade to save the world.” She tapped him with her nail. “How lucky for you that you came back now. You’re just in time to gloat.”
    He tried to restrain himself from responding in kind, but it was tough. The argument was an old one, and they’d never really finished it. “Charlie—”
    “Don’t call me that!” She walked back to her desk, her normally graceful strides hard and choppy.
    He rubbed his jaw. “Are things really that bad? Could the hotel fail?”
    “We have no more financial reserves. We’re mortgaged to the limit. If we don’t turn a profit by next week—” She halted suddenly and stooped to pick up something from the floor. It was a tiny, white feather.
    Her shoulders trembled, as if the sight of that feather crumbled the final layer of her control. She closed it in her fist and turned to face him. “I’ve made this hotel my life, Jackson. It’s all I have. The possibility of losing it…” Her voice