“No, I—”
The other partners clucked and shook their heads. “Can’t you do anything right, Ms. McBride?” Dillon asked critically.
“But this wasn’t my fault,” she protested, feeling the tears streaming down her face. “Please, I don’t know—”
“You really are a failure, aren’t you, Ms. McBride?” Delacroix asked sadly.
Tara looked from the disgusted partners to the dead man on the floor. “But it wasn’t my fault,” she whispered, feeling so desperately alone. So terribly afraid. “I tried my best.”
“Failure.” The word reverberated around her. “You’re a failure, Tara McBride.”
Failure.
4
“TARA. Tara, sweetheart, wake up.”
Tara’s frown deepened as Blake’s voice invaded her dreams, but she didn’t immediately awaken. She murmured something else he couldn’t quite understand, sounding so distressed he wanted only to hold her and make the pain go away.
He touched her face, his hand not as steady as he would have liked. “Tara. Come on, honey, open your eyes.”
She opened her eyes, saw Blake leaning over her, and frowned. “Did you just call me honey?” she asked, her voice still hoarse from sleep.
His mouth tilted into a smile. “You were having a bad dream.”
She winced. “Did I say anything?” she asked, looking prepared to be mortified.
“Nothing coherent,” he assured her. “You just seemed restless.”
She ran a hand through her tousled hair and made a serious effort to wake up. “What time is it?”
He glanced at his watch. “Almost five.”
“Have you had any sleep?”
“Enough.” He studied her face, noting the lingering signs of strain. “Are you all right?”
She didn’t meet his eyes. “Yes, I’m fine. It was just a stupid dream.”
“Certainly understandable, after everything that has happened tonight. Would you like to talk about it?”
“No.” She answered a bit too quickly.
He nodded. “Fine.”
“I told you, it was stupid.”
“It’s okay, Tara. You don’t have to tell me if you’d rather not.”
She struggled to sit upright. Blake gave her a hand, scooting over to give her room to sit on the edge of the bed beside him.
“Have you come up with any theories about why this is happening to us?” she asked, her tone more brusque now. He could almost see her concealing her insecurities behind that tough-lawyer mask she’d perfected.
“Actually, I’ve been sitting here sort of recapping the evening,” he admitted. “From the beginning.”
“Sounds like a good idea. Maybe you could recap your recap for me.”
He hadn’t released her hand after helping her sit upright. He found himself unwilling to do so now. He laced his fingers with hers, letting their linked hands rest on the bed between them. And then he tried to concentrate on their conversation, rather than the feel of her soft palm pressed against his roughened one.