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Remaining in his chair, she crossed her arms and waited until he sat in his own guest chair. “Who are you?”
Sean’s eyes rounded. “What do you mean?”
Natalie’s heart dropped to her knees and she closed her eyes. A large part of her was hoping against logic that it wasn’t true. That it had all been one crazy mistake. But it hadn’t. She knew that now.
The static sounded in her ears, the white noise precursor to an uptick in her anxiety levels. Using all the powers of concentration she’d learned from Dr. Kenning and years of practicing yoga, she slowed her breathing and regained her equilibrium. If the situation hadn’t been so damn depressing, she’d be celebrating the victory over her anxiety instead of wanting to cry.
Pushing all of the emotions she couldn’t deal with at the moment into individualized compartments, she opened her eyes. “I had a visitor today named Rupert Crowley.”
“Fuck.” Sean swiped his baseball cap off his head and rammed his hands through his hair, revealing that telltale scar above his eyebrow.
“So it’s true.” An ache, deep and dark, twisted inside her.
He jumped up from the chair and paced from one end of the small office to the other. “What did he say?”
“Does it matter?” Needing something to do to keep her hands busy, she straightened the few items left out on his desk.
“Try to understand…” The plea in his voice reverberated across her most vulnerable places.
To fight it, she grabbed ahold of her anger with both hands, letting it lead her. “Who are you?”
A neutral mask, totally devoid of any expression had settled on his face and he stared at some spot over her left shoulder. “Sean Duvin.”
Turning to face him, she asked the one question that thundered louder than all the others. “Why?”
“It’s a long story. But I’ve been running for years and he found me anyway.” He swept back his hair with one hand and shoved his hat back on, replacing his disguise.
But now that she’d seen the truth, she couldn’t unsee the man behind the beard and the baseball hat. She noticed more too—like the pinched V between his eyes, the vein sticking out from his temple and the air of determined energy pulsing off him.
“Rupert Crowley is a sleazeball celebrity biographer and reporter.” Sean practically growled the name. “He’s made a small fortune writing stories speculating about whatever happened to Sean Duvin.”
“I read one a few years ago. Not the biography, an article. Olivia was on the cover of Chantal magazine and there was an article about him—you—inside.”
It hadn’t been very flattering. Stories of Sean going missing for a day or two and then showing back up with mysterious bruises. Rumors about more women than one twenty–one–year–old man could handle. Grumblings about problems and drama with his family—lots of drama. None of which jived with the Sean she knew.
“I found out yesterday that he was in town and I almost ran again.” He spoke quietly, but the underlying disappointment came through loud and clear. “But I couldn’t.”
The idea of him leaving shook her more than it should, especially considering what she had to do next. “Why didn’t you?”
“This.” Sean tapped a framed photo of the brewery hanging on the wall, his love for the place plain to see on his face. “I couldn’t. I love this place. Your Uncle Julian, he saved me by taking a chance on me. I’d probably still be running if it wasn’t for him. And you. There’s a reason why I couldn’t come up with the perfect stout recipe for the Southeast Brewers Invitational. I didn’t understand the importance of mixing sweet in with the sour until I met you. I don’t want to be anyone but the Sean O’Dell that I am around you.”
Her shock evaporated under an angry blazing heat. He’d been lying to them. To her. For months. No wonder he kept his mouth shut so much. It was easier to keep track of the falsehoods that way.
What an idiot she’d been. She’d come back to Salvation to learn how to stop compartmentalizing her love life and had fallen for a guy who’d been doing it for his whole life. Wasn’t that just her luck?
He reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, resting his palm against her cheek as if he couldn’t stand to not touch her. “I could have run the minute Rupert Crowley called the brewery trying to find me. But I couldn’t—still can’t—leave you.”
Anger. Confusion. Hurt. They all combined into the vicious brew swirling through her and she slapped his hand away.
“Of course not. How could you leave the boss you banged in the back of the brewery?” She shot up out of the chair. “You’re working here with a fake social security number; that alone could get the brewery in major trouble. For claiming to care about it, you sure have a funny way of showing it.”
“Your Uncle Julian and I worked out a deal,” Sean confessed.
“Uncle Julian knew?” She wanted to pull her hair out in frustration. Of course Uncle Julian knew. The old coot had probably had a good laugh about screwing over Uncle Sam right good, never bothering to think about how much trouble the brewery could get into for knowingly working with someone using a fake identity.
That was it. Not a thing about the situation could be salvaged. It was over. Sean whatever–his–name–was had to get out. Natalie gave him wide berth and marched to the door.
“Please.” He reached out and took her hands between his, the now familiar zing of attraction buzzing across her skin at his touch. “I hate to ask, but I need to be Sean O’Dell. Here. With you.”
