Love Me Sweet (Bell Harbor, #3)

More nausea. That whole panic attack thing—she’d kind of been kidding about that before, but now she was damn certain this was what one felt like. Either that or she had food poisoning. And coronary artery disease. And tuberculosis. Or maybe it was just that her life had completely fallen apart in the space of a few hours.

She tried to breathe, deep and slow, and stared back at Reggie. If she kept her eyes in one place, maybe the room would hold still.

“Grant is back at his aunt’s house,” she said through the breathing. “He’s really upset with me. He knows everything.” Numbness was slowly replacing the panic, and that was preferable because otherwise she was going to start crying, and crying never did anybody any good. Plus if she was about to face the press, she didn’t want her eyes to be all puffy and red. That was just the kind of thing a girl like Delaney Masterson had to worry about.

Finch flipped the damp washcloth over and put it on her forehead again so it felt nice and cool.

“Don’t worry about Captain America,” Reggie said. “He’ll get over it.”

She struggled up to a sitting position on the lemon-yellow sofa and let the washcloth fall. “I don’t think so. He thinks I did all this as a publicity stunt, and the press being here is just going to convince him he’s right. He’ll think I called them myself. I need to get out of here.”

She put her hand on Finch’s shoulder to stabilize herself as she stood, and Clark reached over and took her elbow, steadying her. My God. When had she gotten so fragile? This was not who she was. Or . . . at least it wasn’t who she intended to be.

“You want me to walk you back to your own room?” Humphrey asked.

“No, I don’t just mean get out of this room. I mean out of this hotel. Out of Memphis.”

“Oh, well now you’re just talking silly talk, darlin’,” Sissy said. “You sit back down and let me get you some soda pop. You’re white as Clark’s buns, and you still need to catch your breath.”

Delaney wanted to argue, but she couldn’t, because gravity had dragged her down and she found herself sitting on the lemon-yellow sofa again.

“I’ll get you something to drink,” Humphrey said, turning and walking into the mini version of Elvis’s glass-and-mirror bar.

“Maybe you should just go have a nice little chat with those reporters, and tell them your story. And we’ll all get our picture taken,” Sissy said, patting her stiff helmet of hair.

Delaney shook her head. “No. No story. No pictures. Those reporters aren’t looking for the truth, they’re just looking for something they can twist into sensationalized headlines. You heard them, didn’t you, Finch? A love triangle? Where the hell did that idea come from?”

Humphrey handed her a glass of something fizzy. “Here. Drink this.”

Delaney gulped it down. Apparently fainting made her thirsty. Then she looked around at all of them. All the men had sat back down but Sissy was standing up. Even so, all of them were staring at her as if she was about to sprout moose antlers or turn into a pillar of salt.

“Listen,” Delaney said. “I owe each one of you an apology. I’m sorry I lied about who I was. I was just trying to keep things simpler.”

Clark pushed his hat back on his head. “Aw, shucks, don’t you go give no nevermind about that. We understand. Sissy told me yesterday about all your troubles.”

Sissy tapped him, none too gently, with the back of her hand against his shoulder.

“Yesterday?” Delaney looked up at the other woman. “You knew who I was yesterday?”

Sissy’s already rouged cheeks deepened to a bright cherry red. “Well of course I knew. I’m not a simpleton. I knew who you was just as soon as we came back here and you tried on some of my shirts. You got that little hummingbird tattoo right there.” Sissy tapped her own shoulder. “If I wasn’t certain already, that pretty much gave it away.”

The tattoo. Great. That meant Sissy had probably seen the video too. Not that any of that mattered at this point. What was done was done.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Delaney asked.

Sissy shrugged, making her enviable breasts jiggle. “I don’t know. I guess I figured you was keeping it a secret for a reason, and if I went and blabbed, you’d just run away again. But . . .” she paused and her face rose to a whole new level of red.

“Aw, Sissy.” Clark shook his head. “You didn’t keep this a secret, did you.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. Sissy started to cross her arms but that was physically impossible so she just harrumphed and her hands landed on her hips. “Well, I’m sorry, but it’s not as if Reggie didn’t know too. And her picture was on Facebook for goodness’ sake. Maybe I’m not the reason the press found her here.”

“Who’d you tell, baby?” Clark asked. “Please don’t say your momma, ’cause we all know your momma couldn’t keep a secret if the dear Lord Hisself had a hand over her mouth.”

Sissy’s gaze skittered around the room, not making eye contact with anyone.

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