“Are you going to be okay?” he asked quietly. “Harper?” he prompted when she didn’t immediately respond.
Bitterness sliced through her unexpectedly like a knife at his quiet, cautious tone.
“How could you not have told me?”
His mouth pressed into a hard line.
“How could you not have told me?” she repeated wildly.
He flinched slightly at her shout. “I thought maybe it was best for you not to remember. Your father had cured you of your anxiety about what had happened . . . about Emmitt—”
She started forward, stumbled, and started to go down to the floor. Jacob leapt forward, catching her. Her cheek bumped against his solid chest. She gasped for air. It’d been hearing him say that name from her past . . . Emmitt. She hadn’t realized it until then, but part of her had remained unconvinced until that very moment. But the truth had just slammed into her consciousness with one word, smashing any chance of denial to bits. She wasn’t deluding herself. She wasn’t going mad. He’d just said Emmitt’s name.
“Oh my God. Oh my God, I thought you were dead.”
“What?” His hands tightened on her upper arms. “Harper? What did you say?”
She looked up at his handsome, hovering face incredulously. A man’s face. Jake’s face.
“I thought you were dead.”
“Who told you that?”
“My parents. After we went back to Georgetown, my parents told me you were dead,” she stated numbly.
• • •
“Harper, come over here and sit down,” Jacob insisted when he took in the paleness of her face and the glazed quality of her blue-green eyes. Was she about to have a reoccurrence of the panic attacks she had as a girl?
He put his hands on her shoulders and drew her over to a couch in the seating area of his suite. He urged her to sit. She had the strangest expression on her face as she stared up at him. He came down next to her on the couch. She never took her eyes off his face.
“You’re really Jake Tharp?” she asked weakly.
He frowned. “Harper, are you okay?”
“What? Yes.”
“You don’t feel like you’re going to have a panic attack or faint or anything?” he asked concernedly, brushing some strands of copper-colored hair off her face. She caught his hand with her own, halting him against her cheek.
“Answer me. Are you Jake Tharp?”
He studied her closely. She looked distressed and shocked, but not to any degree out of proportion to the situation. Certainly, she didn’t appear to be any more shocked than he felt at hearing that she’d believed hi
m to be dead all these years . . . and that it was her parents who had told her that bald-faced lie.
“I was Jake Tharp.” He felt a shudder go through her. He cupped her face. “I haven’t been him for a long, long time, though, Harper.”
“And you knew it was me, didn’t you? From the beginning?” she asked incredulously.
His thumb brushed across her scar. Again, he absorbed her trembling.
“I knew it was you,” he said. “I’ve followed your career. I knew where you lived.”
A tear skipped off her cheek and wet his forefinger when she shook her head. “How could you not have told me? Why didn’t you come and see me, if you . . . if you knew where I was?” she asked brokenly. Her disbelief and hurt sliced through him.
“I thought you wouldn’t want to see me. When we did run into each other here in Tahoe Shores, it seemed pretty clear you didn’t remember me. There was no recognition on your face. You never mentioned being kidnapped as a kid. You didn’t recognize me, did you? When we first met?”
“No. How could I? The Jake I knew was barely five foot two and skinnier than I’d been. You’re six feet plus and as strong as a giant. Why would I think of Jake after first seeing you?”