Chapter Twelve

 

 

 

She awoke with a start, a fine mist of sweat covering her body. The bed sheets were a damp, tangled mess wound around her ankles. The nightmare had seemed so real. It had been weeks since she’d had a bad dream. They’d stopped around the time she’d started seeing Royce and when she’d stopped searching the Internet for stories about herself. Now with the threat of a possible news story of her true identity being revealed and where she was hiding, it appeared the night terrors had returned.

Kicking the bed clothes off and rolling onto her side, she pondered what might become of her now. She’d come to Seattle in the hopes of starting fresh and finding out who she really was, without all the baggage of being a celebrity. That had blown up in her face. The first relationship she’d formed had imploded. Had she really thought it would happen any other way?

She angrily threw her legs over the side of the bed and began pacing around her tiny apartment.

What should she do now? Maybe she should tuck her tail between her legs, pack up her crap and drive back to New York. She still had her penthouse in Manhattan. She could become who she wanted to be there…maybe.

While she believed she could tell her mother to take a long walk off a short pier where her career was concerned, she knew she would only be able to say it once. Her mother was so persistent. She’d wear her down. No, if she headed back to the East Coast and her old life, she could forget all about having any sort of freedom. What she’d have instead would be her old life. A gaggle of paparazzi following her everywhere. Her mother calling all the shots. The superficial relationships. The pressure to look perfect, to be perfect and to always be ‘on’ regardless of the situation or the event.

She needed someone to talk to, but she didn’t want to talk to Marie. Not again. She didn’t want to hear her tell her to open up to Royce. How could she? He’d already hurt her once. How could she trust him again, not only with her feelings, but with her secrets?

If she told him the truth, if he only knew why she’d really left New York, could she trust him with that kind of information? He’d resisted spilling her story once, and that was when he’d only had the same knowledge about her that the general public had. When all he’d known was that she, Katherine Dawson, heiress to an apparel dynasty, reality TV star and ex-fiancé to accused felon Nathan Taylor was here in the Seattle area, he’d resisted exposing her. What if she told him the truth and the hunger for journalistic fame in the form of an exclusive article was too much for him to resist this time?

Not only would her cover be blown and her secret be public knowledge, but her trust in Royce would be completely, irrevocably shattered. She might not even be able to trust another man again, period. Because not only would it mean that Royce had betrayed her, but he would just be another in a line of people who had screwed her over, starting with Nathan and her mother.

She peered out of the big picture window in the living room of her apartment. The sky was made up of soft shades of pale gray and lavender hues. She threw a lightweight jacket over the T-shirt she’d slept in, shoved her feet into a pair of sandals and grabbed her art supply bag. She’d head up to her rooftop deck to do some painting.

 

* * * *

 

“Yo, Picasso! I brought you some fuel.”

Katie looked down to see Barb standing on the lawn behind her apartment. Her friend held up a white paper sack with a fast-food restaurant’s logo on it along with a cardboard carrier containing two large Styrofoam coffee cups.

“Thanks. Come on up. I’ll meet you inside.”

She climbed down the ladder and met Barb at the door to her apartment. “How did you know I was here and that I hadn’t had breakfast yet?”

Barb put the bag of food on her table, and the unmistakable scent of French fries filled her kitchen.

“Newsflash, breakfast has been over for at least an hour now. I brought you lunch and coffee. I came by about an hour ago because I was worried that you weren’t answering your phone or my texts. That’s when I remembered your rooftop patio. On a long shot I decided to see if you were up there. Sure enough there you were, deep, deep in the creative zone. You didn’t even know I was here. I figured you hadn’t bothered to eat.”

“Thanks, Barb.” She was suddenly ravenous and took a massive bite from the double cheeseburger her friend had brought.

“So, what’s going on with you, Katie? I know you and Royce broke up, but please don’t tell me you’re going this batshit crazy over a man. I mean, damn… You only dated the guy for a few weeks.”

“A month. We were together for nearly a month.”

“Damn, you do have it bad. I know you liked him and things seemed so perfect between you two. I’m sorry the bastard broke your heart. Want me to kick his ass for you?”

Katie chuckled at her offer and shook her head. It wouldn’t make her heart any less broken to have Barb rip into Royce. Plus, if she was being truly honest with herself, he hadn’t really done anything so terrible. Now that she’d had some time to cool off she was able to place herself in his shoes. How must it look to him?

Here she was, a celebrity in hiding and she’d acted so uptight about his questions. Of course he felt like he didn’t really know her, because she hadn’t let him. He still thought she suffered from claustrophobia, for goodness’ sake. She’d let him believe that because ultimately it had been easier than telling him her anxiety stemmed from living a life being Katherine Dawson, or more to the point, living a life in the public eye—and from having a pit bull in a Chanel suit as a mother and manager of her career.

Everything she’d ever done had been under a microscope, but it was because she’d allowed it. She’d no longer let her mother call the shots on her life. If she had to pretend to be someone else in order for that to happen, so be it. Whether she stayed in the Pacific Northwest or another part of the world was up to her and it was something she was still deciding. At this time she didn’t see any way to go back to being Katherine Dawson, nor did she have any desire to.

Who would understand that but her? She didn’t know how to articulate to Royce what she was feeling or what had happened to make her become this way. Chewing a fry, she thought about their fight two days ago, and for the first time realized how almost blameless he was in all of this. How was Royce supposed to react to her news? How would she have reacted if their roles were reversed? If she’d found out that he’d been pretending to be someone else, wouldn’t that have hurt her? Made her angry? Or distrustful?

She knew that it would have, because in a way she had already experienced that with him. That’s why she’d pulled away when she’d learned he was a reporter. Maybe it made her a hypocrite, but she wished he would have mentioned being a journalist sooner.

“Um, you want to fill me in on what you’re thinking about there, space cadet? I’m a great listener, you know.”

Barb’s words brought her out of her reverie. Her cheeks burned. She hadn’t meant to get so lost in her thoughts. She knew it was rude to be so self-absorbed, especially since her friend had been sweet enough to bring her food and drink. Katie shook her head and tried to shake off the mental funk that was slowly building inside her. She thought about all the struggles Barb had confessed to her. She’d been through a hell of a lot and she’d come out a stronger person. Why couldn’t the outcome be the same for her?

“I’m sorry. I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

“You’re scaring me.” Barb reached across the small table and put her hand on Katie’s forearm. “Whatever this is, it’s not just about Royce, is it? There’s a lot more going on here, I can sense it. I wish you felt comfortable enough to confide in me, but I understand and respect your decision not to. I think you need to talk to someone. What about your grandmother’s friend?”

Katie shook her head. “I kind of already have. She…gave me some advice.”

“Which you’re not taking, I guess? Have you considered talking to a counselor?”

“Oh, my gosh. It’s nothing that serious… It’s just complicated. My old life before I moved here was very different than the life I lead now, and Royce kind of found out about that. He didn’t take it well. He couldn’t understand why I didn’t confide in him and tell him all about my past.”

“Wow, well, did you tell him that maybe you would’ve confided in him in time? Damn, like I said earlier you guys hadn’t even been together that long. It’s not like you were engaged or something.”

Katie choked and nearly dropped her burger at the word engaged.

“Holy shit, that was what he found out and he couldn’t deal with? You were married or almost married before and Royce found out about that. He couldn’t stand that you hadn’t told him that yet?”

“Something like that.”

“Look, I won’t even pretend to have all the answers, but maybe he has a point. It’s obvious by the way you’re acting about this breakup that he means more to you than just someone you were dating to pass the time with. I haven’t talked to Royce, but it sounds like from the way he reacted to finding out about your past, the relationship means a lot to him as well. Maybe you should call him up, invite him over and tell him everything.”

“I don’t know.” She picked at her fries, her appetite gone.

“Well, what’s the worst that could happen? You’ve already broken up. If you spill everything about your past and he still doesn’t want to be with you, at least you know you’ve tried. Then you can get it all out of your system and move on. True?”

“I see your point. I’ll think it over. I can’t make any promises, but I understand where you’re coming from. Your advice makes sense.”

“Of course it makes sense. It came from me, and I’d never steer you wrong.”

Katie laughed. She was glad to see that Barb’s sassy side had emerged once again. Deep down she knew that what her friend had told her was true and she should follow her advice. Unfortunately, doing so would require the kind of moxie that she wasn’t sure she had at this point.

 

* * * *

 

“Can I come in?”

Katie was taken aback by the sight of Royce on her doorstep. He held a bundle of wildflowers in his hand. She nodded her acceptance and let him inside.

“Thank you for these. They’re beautiful. You can have a seat.” Taking the flowers from him, she filled a vase with water and arranged them. She couldn’t help but to be reminded of the first time he’d brought her flowers. The single rose he’d brought her the night of the Starfish concert. The first night they’d made love.

“Thanks for letting me in, especially after the way things turned out a couple weeks ago.”

“It’s okay. I think I get where you were coming from, at least partially. It’s not like I was rational or understanding when I found out you were a reporter. I freaked out, and now you know why. I worried that maybe you already knew who I was. I thought that maybe you’d figured out my true identity and you were just pretending to care about me in order to get a story. How stupid is that?”

She gave a nervous laugh and joined him on the other end of the couch.

“It’s not stupid. I get it. You couldn’t be too careful of who you let in. I’m sure you’ve had to learn to be that way because you’re so famous. Not everyone in your life is there for the right reasons.”

She shrugged. For someone who’d never had to deal with her level of fame or celebrity, he seemed to understand things well. She thought back to Barb’s advice. Maybe she should let him in. Maybe she should just tell him everything. Fearing chickening out, she decided to feel him out first before baring her soul.

“What brought you here? I honestly wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again. The last time I saw you, you seemed pretty determined to get as far away from me as possible.”

“Your friend Barb talked to me after I modeled for a class last night. She had some wise words for me.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“She told me to get my head out of my ass.”

Katie chuckled. She was glad that Barb had said something. She was a true friend. She’d known that Katie wouldn’t have reached out to Royce on her own or if she had, it wouldn’t have happened this soon.

“So, this is me, with my head out of my ass. I want to put that fight behind us, but Katie—Katherine—what do you want to be called? Do you even want me to call you anything?”

“I’m Katie to you. To be honest, Royce, I’ve been trying to figure out what I want to do, and who I want to be since before I even met you. That’s a big part of why I came here. There’s a lot about my old life that no one knows.”

“Like why you left your life of fame and splendor?”

“Oh, yeah. My old life was so perfect.” She shook her head and smirked.

“Well, can I ask you something? It might seem a little rude.”

“It’s okay. That way we’ll be even. The way I kicked you out of my house the last time I saw you was pretty rude.”

He smiled at her and waved his hands as if to tell her it was no big deal. “Did you run out on your fiancé because you didn’t love him or because you didn’t know who you were?”

“Both. It’s true that I needed to know who I was outside of my very public relationship with Nathan, but there’s so much more to it than that. I don’t love Nathan. I can answer that part of the question with certainty. I don’t know if I ever truly loved him or not because I was such a different person when we first started dating.”

“Are you sad about these charges? Do you believe them? I have to know, not as a reporter, but as a boyfriend, do you have anything to do with the trouble that Nathan is in? The stories circulating the Internet say that his company skimmed money from the budgets of several of the TV shows he produced. The news articles haven’t said so outright, but they have hinted that the list of shows he’s stolen from includes A Cut Above.”

She bit her lip and looked down at her lap. She’d been unaware that she was wringing her hands. Such a tricky question to answer.

“I wasn’t involved with his criminal activity. I wasn’t an accomplice.”

Royce grabbed her hands. “But you were affected. Did someone threaten to go public with this story and that’s why you left? God, was the whole leaving Nathan at the altar thing just a publicity stunt to keep the press off of him and his dirty deeds?”

“No. I’ll tell you because you deserve to know. And because maybe what you’re imagining is worse than the truth. This won’t be an easy, quick story. To really understand everything, I’ll have to go back and fill you in on things.”

“Hey, I have nowhere to be and your couch is quite comfortable.”

She chuckled. Thinking about what she was going to tell him, though, erased any hint of humor from her mind. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, as though willing herself to not break out into a full-blown panic attack at just the thought of telling Royce her secret.

“I don’t know how much you know about me and my old life, but I guess that doesn’t really matter. Whatever you think you know is nowhere even close to the truth. My mom has been my manager since I was thirteen, when she started grooming me for the limelight.

“She wanted me to become the next big thing, not just a socialite and not just a clothing designer—not just another reality TV celebrity. She wanted me to be a hybrid of Vera Wang, Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian all rolled into one. The thing is, she wanted that way before most of those people were even famous.

“I remember when it started, at my fourteenth birthday party. She’d promised this big story to a hungry reporter and had invited them to the shindig. The journalist and a photographer were there, asking me questions and snapping pictures. As soon as I’d posed with an obligatory slice of cake, my mother took the plate out of my hand and lectured me about my weight. I wasn’t even allowed a serving of my own birthday cake. It looked beautiful and the one bite I had was delicious.” She gave a wistful sigh before continuing.

“From then on, the remainder of my childhood wasn’t about me discovering who I was or what talents I had. I was my mother’s puppet. She pulled the strings and I was expected to perform. I’d always had a talent for art. When my mother saw me sketching a bird that was in a nest right outside my bedroom window, she told me I should stop goofing off and use that skill to build our family business.

“So, at a young age I not only became the face of my family clothing line Ivy and Plaid, but I also became the head designer. By fourteen I was modeling and at fifteen I was drawing the clothing. I have sketched every collection for over ten years. There’s four collections a year, sometimes there’s an extra collection if we did something special, like one year we had a patriotic collection. Everything was red, white and blue. I’m sure you can do the math on that.”

“What an amazing responsibility to put on an adolescent. I’ve seen your clothes. They’re comfortable. I own a few items.”

“I know. I’ve spotted some of our pieces on you. I knew exactly what collection and what year they were from. How pathetic is that?”

“It’s not pathetic.”

She shrugged off his words and took a deep breath, determined to get the rest of her story out. “Anyway, around the time my mom caught me sketching, my grandmother was in town visiting me. She took me took the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I fell in love. A feeling overtook me that I didn’t understand at the time but now I believe it was destiny, divine intuition or whatever you want to call it. As I got lost in the beauty of the paintings and sculptures, I knew that was what I wanted to do with my life.

“I was so excited I couldn’t hold it back. When I got home, I told my mother that I was going to become an artist. As you can imagine that went over like a lead balloon. It wasn’t just that she disapproved. It was the way she did it. She ridiculed me. She told me that basically I was a fool for wanting to be something that was so clearly beneath me. She couldn’t understand why I’d want to be a starving artist, some hippie type living in Greenwich Village barely scraping by when I had a family business to help run and eventually take over. She made sure I understood that my first and only choice in who I was or what I could become as an adult revolved around what I could do for Ivy and Plaid.

“She told me I could draw and design all the clothes for the company. Fashion design was real art and as far as she was concerned, anything I could draw, sculpt or put on a canvas was kid stuff akin to finger painting and coloring with crayons. I was young, impressionable and eager to please, eager for her to love me, so I went along with what she wanted.

“I won’t bore you with year by year examples, but you’re smart. I’m sure you can extrapolate and see that the only thing that changed was that I was no longer a fourteen-year-old girl doing what her mommy told her, but a twenty-six-year-old woman who felt trapped in a life she didn’t know how to escape.

“When she set me and Nathan up… What?” Katie stopped when she saw the look on Royce’s face. She didn’t see him as the jealous type, but maybe he didn’t want to hear anything about her ex-fiancé.

“Your mom set the two of you up? I guess that answers the question of whether or not you loved the guy.”

“I guess it is weird to think about being set up by one of your parents, but my mother controlling things in my life was so much the norm that when she looked right at me and suggested that Nathan and I should date, I didn’t think anything of it. She’d made the suggestion at the wrap party for season one of A Cut Above. I guess once the first season was a verifiable success she considered Nathan vetted.”

She tossed her head and got back to her story.

“We dated. It was okay. We got along. He was quickly becoming a big name producer. When he asked me to marry him, I said yes because I thought it was time. We’d dated a while and everyone had seen us around town. All the gossip blogs and tabloids had speculated for months before he’d proposed. Every article claimed to have the inside scoop from a ‘trusted source’ inside the Dawson camp. Want to know something sad? I later found out that my mother had been the one feeding the stories to the press about our engagement. Want to know something sadder? My mother convinced Nathan to propose. He didn’t do it because he wanted to marry me or because he loved me. My mom told him that it would be an amazing match. She had all these ideas for reality TV spin offs. In fact she was in the middle of cooking one up that would follow Nathan and I around on our honeymoon and once we arrived home in Manhattan. She said viewers would just eat up the whole newlywed thing, plus she said it would be something Nathan could help produce in between seasons of A Cut Above.”

She dropped her head into her hands. She wouldn’t get emotional and she absolutely would not allow herself to have a panic attack. Her body felt like it was going through a detox just from spitting out the truth. Sweat beaded on her upper lip and every muscle in her body was coiled tight beneath her skin. She blew air out of her mouth in a long, loud stream.

“It’s okay. I think I’m starting to get the picture. I understand if you don’t want to continue.” Royce had moved down the couch to be near her and placed a hand on her head. He stroked her hair. “Hey, I mean it. I don’t want you to do this if it’s going to upset you this much.”

“No, I want to. I have to keep going. I have to get all this shit out of me.” She raised her head and looked him in the eye.

“I’ll just skip ahead to the most important part. About three days before my wedding to Nathan was to take place, my father called me into his office. He sat me down and said he had something difficult to tell me. He put a few printed files on his desk and proceeded to show me, right there in black and white, how Nathan had misappropriated funds for A Cut Above.

“My father didn’t want to believe it at first. He thought there had to be some sort of mistake, so rather than going off half-cocked and accusing Nathan, he looked further back. He pulled the records for the previous three years and saw more of the same. Nathan had been stealing from me and my family almost from the get-go.

“As you may know, he owns his own production company—Taylor Made. Nathan executive produced A Cut Above and as such he controlled certain things, like the show’s budget. The numbers just didn’t add up. There had been hundreds of thousands of dollars misappropriated over the course of four years. When I saw it, I felt sick to my stomach. How could I have been so blind? I mean, I didn’t handle the money for Ivy and Plaid or the TV show, but still, why couldn’t I see what kind of person Nathan truly was?

“My father and I called my mother right then and had her meet us at my father’s office. She grumbled. I think she was on her way to a salon appointment or something as equally ridiculous. When she finally showed up, my father presented her with the evidence and calmly explained the situation to her, just as he did to me.”

Katie stopped and shook her head. Lifting her gaze to the ceiling, she dabbed at the corner of her eyes and fanned herself. She was determined not to cry through this.

“She just looked at us as though we had three heads each. Then of course, she became her usual critical self.”

She paused and stared off into space, becoming almost trance-like as she relived the details of that day.

“So what? I fail to see the relevance here,” her mother said, glancing over the documents. “In a matter of days Nathan and Katherine will be married, end of story, because then she’ll have shared possession of whatever money he has anyway. So, what difference does it make?”

“Evangeline, please. You don’t think that this turn of events might change things just a bit for Katherine?”

Her mother’s gaze turned toward her. She looked at her as though she couldn’t quite figure her out.

“Daddy’s right, Mother. It does change things. It changes everything. I’m not marrying Nathan now. I don’t want anything to do with him. He’s a liar and a thief.”

“Oh, please.” Her mother waved her comments off as if they were insignificant.

“Mother, I can’t start a life with someone who has kept such a huge secret from me. I won’t be with someone who has taken so much from me and my family. Come on… Don’t you see?”

“No, I see. You don’t see!” She jabbed her index finger in the air toward Katherine and her father. “I can’t believe the two of you and all your idealistic bullshit. ‘He’s a liar and a thief’,” she whined in a high-pitched tone. “Just what do you think you are, darling? Were you born with your hair that beautiful hue of blonde? Do you just roll out of bed looking like that? Hell no. Even when we do the photo shoots for the collections you spend three hours in hair and makeup just to look as though you’re not wearing any cosmetics.

“Are any of us what we portray in public? Of course we’re not, so don’t sit there and spout sanctimonious crap to me about Nathan’s character. He skimmed some money from the budget. Big fucking deal. We’ll take care of it in private—as a family—after you’re married.”

“Mother, I’m not marrying him. That’s final.” Katherine stood from her chair and grabbed her belongs, prepared to storm out.

“Oh, yes you will.”

“No, I won’t. Not only will I not marry Nathan, but I’m not even going to continue to see him. I’m severing all ties with that asshole. I want nothing to do with him. I can’t believe you’re acting like this, but I don’t know why I’m surprised. For just a minute I thought that maybe your daughter might be more important to you than your company and A Cut Above. Just because I’m breaking it off with Nathan doesn’t mean the show has to end. I’m sure we can find someone else to produce our TV show, Mother.” She tried to push past her, but Evangeline blocked her path.

“You will marry him,” her mother told her in an odd, quiet tone. “You’re going to marry Nathan and we’re all just going to bury this little unpleasant episode. You’ll marry him because as a Dawson, you have a certain image to uphold, not to mention an empire to protect. What do you think is going to happen to you, to the company, to all of us if you break things off with Nathan suddenly?” She folded her arms over her chest. Katherine had seen the move enough times over her life to recognize that her mother was preparing to go in for the kill.

“I’ll tell you what would happen. It would tarnish everything the Dawson family has worked so hard to build. Think about it. Our clothing line and our TV show, our name and our brand, all of that would be compromised. You will go through with this wedding, Katherine. It’s going to be one of the biggest social and entertainment events of the year. The damn thing is being taped and will be televised as a trial run for the reality TV show spin off you and Nathan could have.

“So you see this issue needs to stay private and be dealt with inside the family. As a matter of fact, let me handle it. I’ll talk to Nathan and straighten him out. Nothing changes. You will walk down that aisle. You will smile and glow like a goddamn blushing bride. You will go on your honeymoon and canoodle with your new husband and act like a happy fucking newlywed.”

Evangeline leaned down into Katherine’s face.

“That is what is happening. No ifs, ands or buts about it.”

“Now wait a minute, Evie,” her father started.

When she turned her gaze to him, Katherine watched as his bravado faded. His expression no longer looked confident or even angry. Instead he looked defeated. Katherine had seen the look on her father’s face too many times over her life and she knew that she didn’t want to end up like him. She didn’t want to resign herself to a sense of honor or duty and live a life that was devoid of happiness or real love. If she married Nathan, that reality was more than likely what she was signing on for.

“Maybe she’s right, Kitty Kat. It would raise a hell of a lot of hubbub and stink right now if you broke things off with Nathan.”

“So what? I’m supposed to just get married to some lying, cheating dickhead because it might hurt the family business if the truth came out? I can’t live the rest of my life that way.”

“The rest of your life? I’m not telling you that you have to stay married to Nathan. I’m just telling you to go through with the wedding. Give it six months, a year tops. If need be, you can always get a quickie divorce later and cite irreconcilable differences as the reason for it.” Her mother paused, her eyes wide, and a smile spread across her face. “Maybe we could get a spin off show once you’re divorced. You know, play up the newly single, but determined to find true love angle. You could be the star of a new reality TV dating show!”

Her mother’s words caused her to go into a state of semi-shock. She didn’t so much as sit down in the chair behind her, as she did fall into it. She stared into her father’s pleading eyes and thought about what the negative press to Ivy and Plaid would do to him. His grandfather had started the clothing company nearly eighty years before. Although it was her mother’s ambition and marketing savvy that had made the clothing brand into what it was at present, Ivy and Plaid would always be a Dawson company.

She wanted to tell her mother to go straight to hell, but she knew she couldn’t do that without hurting her father, too. The paparazzi were relentless. They’d always been interested in her and Nathan’s relationship. Many gossip blogs and entertainment news shows touted their courtship as a ‘fairytale for the modern age’.

She’d lost count of the times she’d seen the two of them referenced as the beautiful, fashion ingénue and her handsome television producer beau. She shook her head and thought about all the headlines if she called off the wedding. She could just imagine the hokey article titles to come—‘Trouble in Fashion Paradise’, ‘Apparel Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘Happily Never After’.

With a sense of duty and the burden of guilt like only her mother could place upon her, she softened her features and resigned herself to the marriage.

“Okay, I’ll go through with it. I’ll marry Nathan on Saturday.”

“You’re making a very wise choice, Katherine.” Her mother patted her shoulder, placed a perfunctory kiss on her father’s lips then whisked herself out of the office.

Pulling herself out of the memory, she stopped talking and glanced at Royce sitting next to her. She gave him a small, sad smile and hoped he could understand where she’d been coming from in sharing her past with him.

“That’s completely fucked up. No wonder you left that douchebag at the altar. I’m so proud of you for standing up for yourself and not going through with it. That was so brave.”

Royce’s words of encouragement drew her out of her remorseful attitude. She still felt in a funk and a chill washed over her from thinking about that day. She gave a soft laugh to his words.

“Thank you. I don’t know if brave is the word I’d use to describe how I feel.”

“I just want to apologize. I feel like I owe you a million apologies. First, let me say I’m sorry for not trusting you to begin with. Second, I’m sorry for being a member of the press. God, the one thing I hate about the media—at least the entertainment side of it—is the constant speculation. The way people get built-up just so we can tear them down for sport later. It’s really disgusting.

“When I think about all the things the press has said about you, everything they’ve speculated on and the way you were painted as an irresponsible, flaky bitch for leaving poor Nathan at the altar. It’s just so ridiculous and unfair. It makes me wonder how often that happens. How many times do we just get it completely wrong when a celebrity’s life is painted a certain way?”

She shook her head. “It’s okay. It’s understandable. No one knows what it’s like until you’ve been on my side. I mean, when I was in it, when I was in the thick of being a celebrity and all that bullshit about me was constantly buzzing about in my head, an odd thing happened. I started to buy into it all. Every bad thing and every good thing that was ever said about me, I could convince myself that it was true. I honestly believed that the media’s version of Katherine Dawson was the correct one. That’s pretty stupid and ridiculous, huh?”

He shook his head and looked sheepish. “It’s not stupid at all. Now that I know why you left, tell me more. How did you get away from your mother’s hold? I mean, I understand the need for a new identity now. I can’t imagine you trying to get some peace and quiet with the paparazzi swarming around you like piranhas.”

“Well, as you probably already know, I flew down the church stairs and into the limo that was waiting outside the building. I had Franklin, my mother’s driver, deliver me to my penthouse, I had to get out of that cursed gown. Do you know how difficult it is to take off a wedding dress by yourself? It’s basically impossible. I cut the damn thing off of me. I just left it in shreds in the middle of my living room floor. I suppose my assistant has been back to my place and cleaned things up for me.”

She shrugged and grew silent, noting the look that had formed on Royce’s face. For the first time since she’d begun talking his expression had changed to one of discomfort.

“I’m sorry. Have I said something that made you angry or hurt you?”

He shook his head but remained silent. She was sure something was wrong.

“Come on. If I can spill my guts to you, can’t you at least tell me what’s on your mind? I promise not to be judgmental.”

“It’s the way you can just spit out those words and phrases like penthouse and limo driver. I can see how different our worlds are. It’s second nature to you. That’s what you grew up with. I’ve never been inside a limo. I don’t own a penthouse. What do I have to offer you?”

Katie looked at him, completely taken aback by his words. She’d never thought about it that way. The whole time she’d been sharing her experiences with him, she’d never dreamed he would take that away from it—that he would somehow take it negatively or feel inferior. To her, the idea of a penthouse or a driver or the limelight was something to disdain. She’d had that. She’d experienced all that and knew it wasn’t what she wanted. It seemed as though Royce didn’t seem to get that sense of her disdain from her sharing the secrets of her past with him. What he had taken away was strictly material. All he was focusing on was what she’d had and what material things he couldn’t give her. She knew what he could provide her with and to her, it meant more than any penthouse or flashy lifestyle.

“Royce, don’t go there. Please. I know you’ve had problems with women wanting material things from you in the past, but they mean nothing to me. What you can give me can’t be bought.

“You can give me normalcy. You can give me a real relationship. You can give me yourself. Those are all things I’ve never had before and to me they hold much more value than any expensive piece of real estate or glitz and glamour ever could.”

“Are you sure about that? Are you sure you don’t just feel that way because this is new? I don’t want to be just some novelty, Katie. I want something real. I thought that was what we had before, but I don’t know now that all of this has been brought up.”

“All of what? My past? You mean who I was before I met you? I can’t help that, Royce, just as you can’t help or change who you were and what you did before you met me. My past is what’s shaped me into the woman you see today. Either you want her or you don’t. I think it should be as simple as that.”

She held her breath as she waited for Royce to respond. She’d never put it all out there like that for someone before. Instead, she’d always done what other people had asked, demanded and expected of her. That was the old her. That was what Katherine Dawson did. Katie Kline made no such concessions. She was a woman who was true to herself. The sooner Royce understood and accepted that, the better hope she had for their relationship to have a future.

“You’re right. I’m a complete idiot. I had a whole other life and experiences before I met you so I can’t get angry or expect you not to have the same thing. I accept you for who you are. Actually, I more than accept you.” He stopped to clear his throat. “I have fallen in love with you, Katie. I love you. So, please, I am asking you again. What are you going to do with your life now? Who are you going to continue to be? Will you go back to New York? Because I will follow you there or anywhere else you want me to. I just want to know so I can try to figure out how to fit into your life and into your world.”

She savored his words and his profession of love.

“I like who I am now. I like who I have become and who I can be here in the Pacific Northwest. Most of all I like who I am with you by my side. I like Katie Kline. That is who I am now. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to New York. I can’t see myself turning my back on my father forever. Ivy and Plaid is a Dawson family company and as you know, I am an only child. That means—like it or not—I will inherit the business one way or another.

“Yet, I don’t truly see myself going back to being Katherine Dawson, nor do I want to be her. I have no desire to get sucked back into the media circus, to star in a reality TV show. I don’t want to have a high-profile, much publicized relationship. But could I see myself letting the business my great-grandfather started just go down the tubes because it’s not something I’m passionate about? Hell no.

“I suppose I could rebrand it and move the company out here to the West Coast, although Ivy and Plaid just doesn’t seem like it would be the same anywhere but in New York. So, to answer your question in three words— I don’t know. All I am certain about is that I will not and cannot go back to the way things used to be. My life will probably never be uncomplicated. As the sole heir to this clothing company, I’ll never be free of that responsibility, but I have the power now to make decisions and control my own life.” She smiled as the weight of her words and her freedom hit home with her.

“That’s what being Katie Kline has done for me. I realize it doesn’t really matter what name I call myself—Katie Kline or Katherine Dawson or something totally different. What matters is the change, confidence and freedom that that name has given me. I am not the same person anymore and I am glad for it.

“I don’t know if I answered your question or just talked in circles and made things worse, but it all makes sense to me. I know who I am now. I’m not some confused woman who people can push around anymore. It’s funny that it took running away to make me realize how strong I truly am and what I could become.”

“I don’t see what you did as running away. You left New York, but you weren’t running away. You were running toward something. It just took you a while to figure it out.” Royce was silent a moment. He put his hands under her chin and brought her gaze directly to his own. “You still didn’t answer my question. I still don’t know what you want in regard to you and me. Do you want me? Do you see me fitting into your world?”

“Royce, yes. I thought you would understand that. I’m sorry. What I was getting at by that speech was that you are at the center of this new me. I don’t know if I could’ve overcome my anxiety without your help. Without your calming presence.”

She reached up to cup his chin, clasped one of his hands then held their joined hands over her heart. “You are my world. There is no fitting in, you’re already there. You are it.”

He smiled before he leaned in and kissed her. When they broke apart she wound her fingers through his hair. She wondered how she could have gotten so lucky to have found this man. He was so understanding, so kind, so gentle, and he was all hers. He loved her—the real her. It made her feel terrible for not telling him how she felt in a more direct way as soon as he’d confessed his feelings for her. Looking into his gaze, she could see he was a bit disappointed. She knew him well enough to know he was waiting, hoping she’d say the words in return and help him breathe easier. She decided she might as well alleviate any lingering doubts he might have about her.

“There’s one more thing.”

“Oh, what’s that?” he asked her wearily.

She had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. He’d been so patient, he was probably sick of hearing her go on and on about her secrets and her past.

He’d want to hear what she had to say next though.

“I love you.”

He didn’t have to say the words in return. He’d already said them. Instead he pulled her into his arms and headed for her bedroom.