Lead Me On (34 page)

The camera zoomed in on the screen as the taped interview began to play. Allison could barely breathe as she found herself back in the white den. Keshia sat in a chair before the windows with the swimming pool and beach behind her, while Scott sat on the very sofa where they'd made love. The memory of what they'd done on that sofa made her cheeks heat, but she brushed that aside as she took in Scott.

He'd trimmed his beard so it once again looked the way it had when she'd first met him, but his hair hung in loose waves nearly to his shoulders.

"Wow, talk about a stud muffin," Aunt Viv said. "Although I can't believe they let him wear solid black and sit on a white sofa. The cameraman must have had fits with the lighting."

"Scott always wears black," Allison muttered absently.

"Scott?" Aunt Viv asked. "As in your Scott?"

Allison didn't answer as Keshia finished thanking Scott for agreeing to the interview and asked him to talk about the book.

"
In Deep
is set on an imaginary island off the coast of South America," Scott said, his voice the same deep rumble that had soothed and seduced her at will. "But I drew heavily on some of the history here in Galveston. Mostly the story's about the sunken ship at Pearl Island." He gave a short summary of the legend of Pearl Island and how he'd incorporated bits of it into his fictional story.

"I had a chance to read an advance copy," Keshia said, "and I really like how you wove in the ghosts. They added a touch of romance not always found in your books. Well, tragic romance, since that part doesn't end happily."

"Most ghost stories don't." A corner of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile, and Allison's heart bumped in response.

"True. The book was excellent, by the way, sure to please your many fans."

"Thank you."

"On a more personal note, I wanted to ask you about the book's dedication." Keshia opened a copy of the book

she had in her lap. " 'To Allison, for teaching me the true treasures in life have nothing to do with sunken chests of pirate gold.' "

Alli covered her mouth as emotions swelled inside her: surprise, hope, fear. And longing. So much longing.

"If I'm not mistaken," Keshia continued, "isn't one of the owners of the Pearl Island Inn named Allison?"

"Yes." Scott shifted his weight, as if trying to sink back into the sofa.

"You stayed there while researching the book, correct?"

"Yes." Scott cleared his throat, and crossed an ankle over the opposite knee, creating a barrier between him and the camera.

Vivian laughed. "Talkative fellow, isn't he?"

Allison ached, watching him and feeling his discomfort.

Keshia smiled, but her eyes held impatience at his one-word answers. "When we first set up this interview, you said no personal questions, but before we started you changed your mind and said I could ask anything. I suppose my first question would have to be why the change of heart?"

"I, um—" He burrowed down a bit more and propped an elbow on the armrest so he could press a fist to his mouth, creating another barrier to hide behind. "Allison, the woman I dedicated the book to, claims I have a problem being open. So, I thought I'd give it a shot. Sort of a practice run."

"I take it you two became involved on a personal level then."

"Oh yeah." His laugh held no humor. "Until she, um—" He cleared his throat. "She dumped me."

Keshia blinked in surprise, but recovered quickly. "For not being open?"

He gave one curt nod.

"Why is that a problem for you?"

The cameraman zoomed in tighter on Scott's face and Alli could see the lines of strain about his eyes. "A lot of reasons. Mostly because Lawrence hasn't always been my name. I was born Scott LeRoche."

"LeRoche? As in LeRoche Enterprises?"

Scott nodded. "John LeRoche is my father, which is one of the reasons I never answer personal questions. The few people who know assume my success is somehow due to family money or connections, especially since I was only twenty-four when I sold my first novel. But nothing could be further from the truth. John tried to pressure me into going to work for him. I told him to stuff it and he cut me off, which was fine by me. I was still pretty hostile toward him for the way he treated my mother during the divorce. He had his own reasons for finally wanting to wash his hands of me."

"And what reasons were those?"

"Look, I ..." He sat forward abruptly and scrubbed his face with both hands. The cameraman adjusted the angle, creating a feeling of intimacy. Alli felt as if Scott were sitting right before her, talking straight to her. "I practically worshiped my dad when I was a kid. That might surprise most people, because he can be a dictatorial tyrant, but with me, he was different. I think he really got off on having a son. My sister's older, and he never had time for her, but with me, he always made time."

He smiled sadly. "I can remember going with him to his office, a big intimidating place that looks down on New Orleans and the Mississippi River. He'd sit behind his massive desk, giving orders to men who basically groveled before him, and I thought he was God."

"So, you and your father are close."

"Were," Scott stressed. "Past tense."

"What happened?"

Scott blew out a breath. "As I got older, I realized that while he doted on me, he treated my mother and sister with impatience and neglect. He and my mom fought constantly, and if I got upset on her behalf, he'd tell me women were just whiny and demanding by nature. I bought that at first, because the mighty John LeRoche knew everything. But it bothered me, too, because, well ... she was my mom and I hated to see her hurting."

"What is your relationship with your mother?"

"Strained." He raised a brow, as if the word were an understatement. "When I was young, she resented me because of my closeness to my dad. Even after that closeness was severed, she still blamed me for everything that wasn't right with her world, but she started relying on me more and more to fix whatever was making her unhappy. She and my sister still do that, but I don't blame them. The older I got, the less John was around, so they didn't have anyone else they could count on."

"What severed your closeness with your father?"

"The day I realized why my mother cried so much. He'd been cheating on her. Repeatedly. For years." Scott looked at Keshia with incredulous eyes. "She wasn't being whiny. She was betrayed. Here was this man I thought was perfect, and he was a lying cheating bastard."

He rubbed his temple as if to forestall a headache. "I left the house while they were in the middle of a screaming fight, and started walking through the neighborhood, wandering down the streets until I wound up at a house that was under construction. It happened to be the home of a senator, but I didn't know or care at the time. I was in a rage. And I ..."

He scrubbed a hand over his face. "I trashed the place. Someone called the cops, and I was arrested. I remember thinking, 'Oh man, my dad is going to be so pissed.' But he wasn't mad. He was embarrassed. He made a sizable contribution to the senator's campaign to get the whole thing swept under the rug, but never said a word to me.

"I don't know why, but his lack of reaction ticked me off." Scott frowned as if thinking it through for the first time. "I guess because I realized he didn't really give a flip about me. I worshiped him, but to him, I was just an object to show off, proof that he was man enough to produce a son. He didn't, and still doesn't, care about anyone but himself.

"When I realized that, I wanted to get back at him for ... I don't know, everything. Neglecting my sister, cheating on my mother, but mostly for not being the man I thought he was. I had counted on him, and he let me down. So I ... very stupidly started getting into trouble on a regular basis."

"What sort of trouble?"

"God, you name it." He laughed. "Car theft, possession of marijuana, skipping school, going to bars when I was underage. The thing is, I kept wanting him to do something about it. At that point, he wasn't even living with us. He and Mom were getting a divorce, and the only time I saw him was when he had to bail me out of trouble. I just wanted ... I don't know, for him to get mad, try to stop me, something. Instead, he paid people off and pretended the problem didn't exist.

"By the time I graduated high school, I had no respect left for him. He, however, was so delusional, he actually expected me to go to college and follow in his footsteps as CEO of LeRoche Enterprises. When he came by the house for one of his rare visits, I told him I wanted to be a writer, which is the only thing I've ever wanted to be. And that was what finally pissed him off. We had a huge scene with Mom bawling in the background where he threatened to disown me, clearly thinking it would bring me to heel.

"Instead, it freed me in a way I can't explain." He looked amazed. "I quit living my life just to tick him off, and started living for myself. I even changed my name as a way of beating him to the punch of who was disowning who—and because I wanted to leave all that mess behind. Scott LeRoche was an angry, screwed-up kid, and I'm not proud of that. In fact, the only thing in my life I am proud of is my writing. Which is why I don't generally talk about anything else in interviews." He looked at Keshia. "Surely you can understand that."

"Actually," Keshia said out of camera range, "I think a lot of people would find it admirable that you walked away from that much wealth and became your own person."

"My own person?" He raised a brow. "Or an imaginary person. Allison fell for Scott Lawrence. Not Scott LeRoche. I'm not sure she'd care much for the person I used to be."

"If she's watching the show, is there anything you'd like to say to her?"

"Not on camera." He laughed, sitting back. "I think I've had all the public soul-baring I can handle for one day."

Allison sat stunned as the interview turned back to writing and his books, then wrapped up and cut to commercial. When she turned to Adrian and Vivian, she found them both staring at her.

"You dumped that man?" Aunt Viv demanded. "Are you crazy!"

"It wasn't quite that cut-and-dried." Her heart pounding, she glanced down at the scrap of paper in her hand, on which she'd written his phone number. "I need to call him."

"Not so fast." Adrian stood and blocked her path when she started for the phone. "What are you going to say?"

"I don't know." Her mind whirled with too many thoughts. "That I'd like to meet with him, see if we can work things out."
Tell him that I love him, and his past doesn't matter.

"Then you'll go running over to see him on his turf where he has all the advantages." Adrian shook his head. "No way am I going to let him off the hook that easy after what he's put you through. If he wants to work things out, he can damn well come here."

"Adrian ..." She gaped at him, then gestured toward the TV. "You call that easy?"

"Like he said, practice run. He didn't have to face you while he said any of that, and he didn't have to face your family."

"What are you talking about?" Fear crept inside her chest.

"You two don't have a chance in hell of making things work long term until he realizes that in this family you're accountable for your actions. If you make some jackass mistake, we don't act like nothing happened. His family might not work that way, but this one does." He grabbed the piece of paper from her hand and headed for the phone.

"Adrian, no." She ran after him. "Please don't interfere. Let me handle this."

"Like I let you handle things when he first checked in? I've been kicking myself ever since for not interfering the night he took you to the Hotel Galvez."

"I'm an adult I can make my own decisions."

"And I'm your oldest male relative. If he wants to marry you, which he damned well better, he has to go through me."