His eyes narrowed. ‘But you’re not here in a journalistic capacity?’
‘I’m not a journalist.’
‘Or a stripper, apparently.’ He glanced over her from foot to head. ‘Though that seems wasted.’
She forced herself not to react. She’d chosen this particular outfit carefully—knee-high boots, black scoop-neck dress cinched at the waist and falling to her knees—but she’d been going more for I am woman and less for I am pole dancer.
‘You used to say sarcasm was the lowest form of wit,’ she murmured.
One eye narrowed, but he gave no other sign of being surprised that she already knew him. ‘Actually, someone else did. I just borrowed it. I’ve come to be quite fond of sarcasm in the years since …?’ He left it open for her to finish the sentence.
He didn’t recognise her.
Not entirely surprising, given how different she must have looked when he last saw her. Fourteen, stick-insect-thin, mousy, uninspired hair. A kid. She hadn’t discovered fashion—and her particular brand of fashion—until she was sixteen and her curves had busted out.
‘You knew my mother,’ she offered carefully.
The eyes narrowed again and he pushed himself to his feet. Now it was his turn to tower over her. It gave him a great view down her scoop neck and he took full advantage. His eyes eventually came back to hers.
‘I may have been an early starter but I think it’s a stretch to suggest I could be your father, don’t you?’
Hilarious.
‘Carol-Anne Marr,’ she persisted, the name itself an accusation.
Was it wrong that she took pleasure from the flash of pain he wasn’t quite fast enough to disguise? That she grasped so gratefully at any hint of a sign that he hadn’t forgotten her mother the moment she was in the ground. That he wasn’t quite as faithless as she feared.
‘Shirley?’ he whispered.
And it had to be wrong how deeply satisfied she felt that he even knew her name. Hayden Tennant wasn’t a god; if he ever had been he was well and truly fallen now. But still her skin tingled.
She lifted her chin. ‘Shiloh.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Shiloh?’
‘It’s what I go by now.’
The blue in his eyes greyed over with disdain. ‘I’m not calling you Shiloh. What’s wrong with Shirley—not hip enough for you?’
It killed her that he was still astute enough to immediately put himself in the vicinity of the secret truth. And that she was still foolish enough to admire that. ‘I preferred something that was more … me.’
‘Shirley means “bright meadow”.’
Exactly. And she, with her raven hair and kohl-smudged eyes, was neither bright nor meadowlike. ‘Shiloh means “gift”. Why can’t it be a gift to myself?’
‘Because your mother already gifted you a name. Changing it dishonours her.’
Tendrils of unexpected hurt twisted in her gut and rolled into a tight, cold ball and pushed up through her ribcage. But she swallowed it back and chose her words super-carefully. ‘You’re criticising me for not honouring her?’
Surprise and something else flooded his expression. Was that regret? Guilt? Confusion? None of those things looked right on a face normally filled with arrogant confidence. But it didn’t stay long; he replaced it with a careless disinterest. ‘Something you want to say, Shirley?’
Suddenly presented with the perfect opportunity to close that chapter on her life, she found herself speechless. She glared at him instead.
He shook his head. ‘For someone who doesn’t know me, you don’t like me very much.’
‘I know you. Very well.’
He narrowed one eye. ‘We’ve never met.’
Actually they had, but clearly it wasn’t memorable. Plus, she’d participated secretly in every gathering her mother had hosted in their home. Saturday extra credit for enthusiastic students. Hayden Tennant had been at every one.
‘I know you through my mother.’
His lush lips tightened. She’d always wondered if her own fixation with Lord Byron had something to do with the fact that in her mind he shared Hayden’s features. Full lips, broad forehead, intense eyes under a serious brow … Byron may have preceded him in history but Hayden came first in her history.
‘If you’re suggesting your mother didn’t like me I’m going to have to respectfully disagree.’
‘She adored you.’ So did her daughter, but that’s beside the point. She took a deep breath. ‘That makes what you’ve done doubly awful.’
His brows drew down. ‘What I’ve done?’
‘Or what you haven’t done.’ She stared, waiting for the penny-drop that never came. For such a bright man, he’d become very obtuse. ‘Does remembermrsmarr.com ring any bells?’
His face hardened. ‘The list.’
‘The list.’
‘You’re 172.16.254.1’
‘What?’
‘Your IP address. I get statistics from that website. I wondered who was visiting it so often.’
‘I …’ How had this suddenly become about her? And why was he monitoring visitation on a website he’d lost interest in almost immediately after he had set it up? It didn’t fit with the man she visualised who had forgotten the list by the time the funeral bill came in.
‘I visit often,’ she said.
‘I know. At least three times a week. What are you waiting for?’
She sucked in a huge breath and ignored the flick of his eyes down to her rising cleavage. ‘I’m waiting for you to tick something.’
An eternity passed as he stared at her, the sharp curiosity he’d always had for everything in life dulling down to a careful nothing. ‘Is that why you’re here? To find out why I haven’t ticked some box?’
Pressing her lips together flared her nostrils. ‘Not just some box. Her box. My mother’s dying wishes. The things you were supposed to finish for her.’
His eyes dropped away for a moment and when they lifted again they were softer. Kinder. So much worse. ‘Shirley, look—’
‘Shiloh.’
‘Shirley. There’s a whole bunch of reasons I haven’t been able to progress your mother’s list.’
‘“Progress” suggests you’ve actually started.’ Okay, now she was being as rude as he’d been on her arrival. Her high moral ground was crumbling. She lifted her chin. ‘I came because I wanted to know what happened. You were so gutted at the funeral, how could you have followed through on none of them?’
He shrugged. ‘Real life got in the way.’
Funny. Losing your mother at fourteen had felt pretty real to her. ‘For ten years?’
His eyes darkened. ‘I don’t owe you any explanation, Shirley.’
‘You owe her. And I’m here in her place.’
‘The teacher I knew never would have asked anyone to justify themselves.’
He pushed past her and headed for his house.