Page 64 of Postmarked December

With daggers in her gaze, reluctantly, and still bundled up in her coat and scarf, she sat, but only because her knees were knocking from confronting him.

Ophelia jumped off the sofa and came over, sniffing her hand. The dog looked up at her with big brown eyes. It wasn’t the dog’s fault her owner was a con man. Heather reached down and stroked her head.

“I was trying to avoid this very issue,” he said.

“You lied to me?”

“I didn’t lie. I was only supposed to make sure you were okay. I was late getting on the plane because I was organizing things for once we arrived in Greenville. I debated on whether to talk to you or not, but you seemed so flustered when you dropped your book that I wanted to put you at ease. After many hours spent kicking myself, I realized I probably should have stayed quiet and not talked at all, but I was overcompensating because I don’t play things off well.” He got up and kneeled in front of her. “But you were so adorably a mess. I just wanted to see you smile… Everything I ever said to you was the absolute truth.”

Emotion welled up, despite her attempt to push it down. She wasn’t going to let him continue to lie to her. She was onto him now. “So all the notes were your handiwork?”

His gaze shifted to the floor. “I coordinated everything, yes.”

“The notes weren’t Toby’s handwriting?”

He shook his head. “I wrote the notes.”

She sucked in a sob. “Why did you do that? Why did you make a grieving widow believe she was getting gifts from her deceased husband? That’s the cruelest thing anyone could ever do.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “And all for money? Was the book so important that you could wreck someone over it? How could you?”

Nick attempted to wipe her tears, but she batted him away and stood up, folding her arms.

Ophelia barked again.

Nick righted himself and faced her. “I was asked to send you the notes. And there’s no money involved. The reporter was wrong. The donor offered, but he didn’t pay out.”

She looked up. “Why?”

“Because I wouldn’t take it. I only took the money I needed to get the job done.”

Did he really think that having some sort of moment of moral thought, feeling bad, and not taking the full payment would somehow make this all okay? She didn’t understand, but she didn’t care to know the details of payment anyway.

“Who’s the anonymous donor? Tell me.”

He locked eyes with her and gritted his teeth. “I can’t tell you.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Things weren’t meant to happen this way, and I want to get this right. I’m trying to do what’s best for everyone.”

“Everyone?” she snapped. “The only one who matters in this situation is me. It’s my husband’s story!” She wanted to grab his shirt in her fists. “At the very least, you can’t publish this with no real facts.”

“I have all the facts I need. Heather, please don’t get upset. I promise, everything will be okay.”

She let go of him. “No. It won’t.”

He paced the room, went over to the window, and looked out at the view. Ophelia followed him, sitting next to his feet. “What if I told you that I think Toby would be okay with this?”

“I’d tell you you’re wrong. You don’t know Toby, and you don’t have a clue what he’d want.”

“After writing this book, I know a lot more than you think.”

Her forehead ached with grief. He didn’t know anything. “You’re a liar if you think you know enough about Toby’s life to write an entire book. At the end of it all, that part seems to stick. You’re a liar,” she said again.

He came over to her. “I’m not lying.”

He might have been able to deceive her before, but when it came to who knew Toby better, she had that one in the bag. There was no way Nick could convince her that Toby wanted this. Toby had told her himself that she’d be the one to decide when and if his story was told. And Toby would never have been okay with a fifty-thousand-dollar offer that didn’t go straight to Heather. And the last thing she wanted to do was spend the foreseeable future doing damage control for Toby’s legacy because of some book full of fabrications.

“What can I do to stop this project?” she asked.

“You don’t need to stop it. You can’t anyway.”

“I’ll sue if I have to.”