Page 3 of The Mood Board

Chapter 2

Bailey

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“HEY, COULD YOU GRABthat drawer pull?”

I heard the request, but only distantly. Even when I wasn’t holding it physically in my hands, I could see the letter, read the words without having to read them—that’s how many times I had gone over that folded piece of paper since that morning.

Had it only been eight hours since I had found that plain, white envelope there among the pile of mail I had knocked onto the floor? It seemed like days since I had run my finger under the envelope flap and pulled out that terrible, horrible, tri-folded atrocity, the one that threatened to blow apart everything I had built and knew about my relationship and the man I wanted to marry.

The lines hadn’t stopped swirling in my head since I had read them:

You got what you wanted—you got the ring and the money that goes along with it. Are you happy? I didn’t realize you were a gold digger, but I should have known. But you’re making your bed, and if you don’t wake up, you’re going to have to lie in it. Are you sure you know who you’re marrying? Maybe you should look into where the money from his company came from. Does he know?

Do you know?

I still had no idea who the letter was from or why they sent it. Why now? Why me? What were they trying to prove or bring to light?

It was all such a mystery. I had tried to put it from my mind, intent on waiting until Liam got home. But even the knowledge of it refused to be set aside until it was all I could think about.

“Bailey?”

My name jerked me out of my tumbling thoughts to Bianca. From the way she was poised with one hand on the dresser we were supposed to be putting together, I had missed a request. Well, supposed to be we. I’d been so distracted she’d been the one doing most of the work.

“Sorry, what?”

“The drawer pull—could you hand it to me?” The woman’s finger indicated the piece of hardware beside me, which I put into her hand.

“Thanks.”

I watched her put the pull into the slots on the big, sturdy dresser and screw it in place, checking to make sure it was secure by pulling the drawer in and out a few times.

Bianca and I were in the final stages of decorating the latest of the Hope’s House Foundation’s houses, homes renovated and decorated to give families and individuals using the cancer center at the local hospital a warm, comfortable place to stay. As Liam had put it at the formation of the Foundation, named for his mother, who had passed from cancer when he was in high school, it was bad enough to have a loved one in treatment for the disease or be there yourself. It was worse when you were far from home with no place to stay.

But Hope’s House gave families and individuals a chance to have a place to call home, even if it was temporary, with soft beds, a place to relax, and a kitchen to cook in. And it was all low- to no-cost.

Someone who had not only conceived that idea and seen it through to thriving completion could never have taken illegal money to begin his company.

Right?

“Hey, are you okay?”

I looked up, realizing I had drifted away again, to find Bianca watching me, eyebrows drawn in with concern.

“I’m fine,” I replied, knowing my answer was too quick and too high-pitched to be the truth.

“In the time I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you nearly this distracted. Something is up,” Bianca said, calling my bluff.

The woman across from me hadn’t known me for that long. We had been working together since the founding of Hope’s House. She was the one who oversaw everything from guest intakes to changeovers to cleanings and everything in between. She was a powerhouse, and Liam couldn’t have found anyone better to do the job and get things done.

Which was why we had become such fast friends. A miracle, really, when I had very little time to make new ones, and I had lost most of mine when I had left my ex-fiancé, Russ. In fact, before Liam, my only friends had been my assistant Kristen and the guys who did the hard lifting for my interior design business.

I was grateful for Bianca’s friendship and her help running and designing the homes, and so was Liam. Even better, she had become friends with Liam’s chief technology officer. The two spent a lot of time together, talking nerdy, watching movies, and playing video games, which I thought was adorable.

Despite what her name might suggest, Bianca had dark hair and olive skin, a nod to her Mediterranean heritage. She was shorter than I was, too, which rarely happened. I wasn’t the shortest person I knew, but I wasn’t tall by any standard. Next to Liam, I looked tiny, even with heels. The top of my head only came up to the middle of his chest—there were times I wasn’t sure how we made it work, but we did.

Besides, I wouldn’t have given up his swimmer’s body and all the muscles it came with for anything.