From Mistake To Millions

Two

The sight of Jade was breathtaking.

Damn it.

Harley hadn’t known what to expect when he walked up to her door. She had been a pretty teenager. Pretty enough to headline in every one of his high school fantasies, and a couple of his grown-up ones. A part of him had hoped that she wouldn’t be as attractive as he remembered. That perhaps she’d aged poorly or had taken up chain smoking. That would make it easier for him to do his job and walk away from the whole situation as planned.

But when she opened her front door today...he had to brace himself for the impact of how stunningly beautiful a woman she’d become. She still had the kind of naturally platinum blond hair that women spent a fortune on in the salon. It was just pulled back into a sleek ponytail, but the ringlets that fell down her neck were captivating. With her pale complexion and large eyes, she was like a flawless porcelain doll.

It was an incredibly frustrating sight for Harley, making the situation infinitely more complicated. Curiosity and boredom had brought him to Jade’s door. Her beauty could keep him around longer than was necessary to wrap up this case. He was painfully aware that the attraction between the two of them was just as intense as it ever was. The look in her eyes when she marched off into the kitchen told him that much.

To be honest, that was the last thing he wanted to know. Being attracted to Jade hadn’t ended well for him the first time. Not because it wasn’t reciprocal; he could’ve taken that. No, his heartburn came from the fact that even though she’d wanted Harley, she’d chosen Lance. That spoke volumes. Just because her ex wasn’t in the picture any longer didn’t mean anything had changed. She might still prefer a stuffed shirt over a guy like Harley. Fate had brought them back together, but it didn’t mean this time would be any different for the two of them.

And yet the way that Jade had looked at him when he said he was here to see her made him realize she had no clue how beautiful she truly was, or how he could still be attracted to her after all this time. That was a damned shame. What had happened to her since the last time he saw her that she could ever doubt it? What had her suitable, respectable husband done to break Jade’s spirit?

“You took the case just to see me?” she asked in obvious confusion and doubt. Jade seemed baffled by the whole situation. In fairness, he’d had several days to prepare to see her again, and she’d been thrown a curveball without warning.

“Let me rephrase that.” He backtracked, realizing the implications of his words. “I wanted to make sure your case was handled by the best guy at my company, and that means by me.”

Harley didn’t want Jade to think he’d come here just to profess his undying love and pick up where they’d left off. He hadn’t. He’d gotten over her a long time ago, whether he’d wanted to or not. Going through navy boot camp was enough to push anything other than survival out of his mind. The quiet moments were another matter. Those were harder to get through. That’s probably why he’d opted to spend most of his service overseas in the thick of things.

He couldn’t help but notice there was a slight flicker of disappointment in her eyes before she smiled and nodded. The attraction seemed to be mutual, even if fleeting. She still seemed conflicted by her attraction to him. “Of course. I appreciate your help with all of this.”

There was something in her tone that struck Harley as disingenuous. Did she not want him here, or was it about why he was here? He wasn’t sure, but since he wasn’t going anywhere, he decided to do what he could to quell her concerns. “The hospital hired me, but I want to assure you that I’ll be an impartial third party as I investigate what happened. I’m being paid to find the truth, whether that reflects favorably on the hospital or not.”

Jade let out a ragged breath and the tension seemed to ease from her shoulders. “I’m relieved to hear you say that. There’s no way I could afford to hire my own investigators. And any attorneys I might hire would be more interested in suing the pants off the hospital to get a cut for themselves. I just want to find out the truth.”

Harley was surprised. He looked around the house, which was okay, but nothing special. The furniture was worn, and he’d noticed when he pulled up that her car was an older model. Financial security had certainly seemed to be a priority when she’d left him for the more successful Lance, and yet her ex didn’t seem to be contributing much to her way of life now. As a young divorcée, wouldn’t some kind of settlement from the hospital be important to her? “You’re not interested in suing the hospital?”

Jade shrugged. “If they’re at fault, I wouldn’t turn it down. I can put it toward buying a home or stick it in my retirement account. But what I’m really after...” She hesitated and shook her head. “The truth is that the results of my DNA tests just confirmed what I’ve always felt deep down inside.”

Harley frowned. “And what’s that?”

“That I’ve never belonged.” Her dark gaze fixed on him and he felt her raw emotions like a vise squeezing his chest. “I’ve always felt like a puzzle piece that got tossed into the wrong box. I was never going to fit in and now I know why. So, I want to know where I do come from.”

“What about Arthur and Carolyn?” Her folks hadn’t been particularly fond of Harley—he wasn’t the kind of boy any parents wanted dating their teenage daughter—but they’d always seemed like good people. Jade loved them dearly and he’d never suspected that they treated her like anything other than their little princess.

“The parents that raised me will always be my parents, but I want to know who my biological family really is. Where I come from. What my life should’ve been like, so that something about it can start to make sense.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. Harley had always thought that Jade had her life together. She was smart and ambitious. She made the most of her every opportunity. The framed certificate on the wall declared that she had her PhD in pharmacology. He’d always thought she was someone who knew who she was and what she wanted. To hear otherwise was unsettling. It made him want to question everything he felt was a fact. It also made him desperately want to uncover the truth for her so she could have some closure.

“Have you always felt so lost, Jade?”

She avoided his gaze for a moment, perhaps knowing instinctively that she couldn’t lie to him. He’d spent many years in the navy learning interrogation techniques. Even if she could’ve lied to him back in high school, she couldn’t now. He’d know the truth.

“Not when I was with you,” she said at last. “That was probably the only time things felt right in my life.”

Harley knew exactly what she meant. He’d spent most of the past decade in a tailspin, trying to right his course after their breakup. He’d lost his True North when Jade left him for Lance, and he really hadn’t recovered. Sure, he’d been successful. He’d moved on with his life. But somehow he knew that there was a hole in his world where Jade belonged. He had yet to find someone or something else to fill it. None of the women he’d dated—and he used that term loosely—fit the bill. Sex was fine, but he never wanted more with any of them.

He’d never dreamed that Jade would feel lost, too.

“I will find out the truth. I intend to find out what happened to you and why. I’ll find your family.”

On reflex, he reached out and took her hand. It felt small and delicate in his large, rough ones, rousing a protective instinct he wasn’t expecting. He’d come here today thinking he would satisfy his curiosity, scratch his itch to work in the field again and perhaps finally be able to move on where Jade was concerned. As she clutched him tightly, he felt the heat of awareness travel up his arm, warming his chest. He remembered this feeling. A feeling that happened only when he touched her.

This was all wrong. His plan had started unraveling the moment she opened the door. This was the exact opposite of what he wanted to happen. He couldn’t be attracted to Jade and not end up in the same mess as last time.

Or could he? Maybe he could compartmentalize the attraction and keep it separate from any emotional attachment. It wasn’t like they were kids any longer. He’d had plenty of women in his bed without strings, and it had worked fine. If Jade was open to the idea of indulging for old time’s sake, it might be exactly what he needed to close the book on the two of them for good. It was a risky proposition—one she might be completely uninterested in—but he had to find a way to get through the next week or two with her constantly on his mind.

“Thank you,” she whispered softly.

“I promise you that, and I’m a man of my word.” Harley’s attention was drawn away from her by a ring tone coming from the kitchen.

“That’s my phone. Excuse me one second.” Jade got up and left the room, answering the phone after a moment.

Anxious, Harley got up from his seat. He paced around the living room to burn off some of the excess energy running through his veins. Touching her, even just that little bit, had set off a chain reaction in his nervous system. He was suddenly on edge, ready to leap out at the enemy or jump from a plane. There would be no adrenaline payoff in this situation, however. At least not right now or he’d frighten her off. He needed to keep his hands to himself and get through this interview.

He turned and focused on a row of photographs that lined the fireplace mantel. The biggest was a portrait of her and Lance on their wedding day. It made Harley’s chest ache to realize how beautiful she’d looked that day. The dress and flowers didn’t matter to him; he focused in on her face. She was beaming with excitement, so happy for the future she was going to have with Lance. A future he didn’t think she got.

Would things have been different if she had married him instead?

Harley shook away those thoughts because they weren’t helpful. In reality, the teenage Harley Dalton would never have been enough for someone like Jade. He had been spinning his wheels, unsure of what he wanted to do with his life. All he knew was that he wanted to spend every waking moment with Jade. That didn’t pay very well. His life took the path it had only because of the choice she’d made to be with someone else. He never would’ve joined the navy, built his own company or made a whole new life for himself if she hadn’t walked away from him. If he hadn’t felt like he needed to better himself and his situation to be worthy of a woman like her, he might never have worked so hard.

He supposed he should thank her for that, but he wouldn’t. Instead, he’d just do his best to crack the case and get her the answers she deserved.

And if he was a smart man, he’d stop there.

* * *

“So that’s it? He held your hand and asked you a few questions?” Sophie looked across the kitchen table at Jade and wrinkled her nose. “I was expecting more when you said your first love showed up on your doorstep to take on your case.”

“That was enough,” Jade said with a sigh. “I don’t think my heart could’ve taken much more than that.”

Sophie had shown up for their usual Tuesday gathering, eager for all the juicy details. She hadn’t lived in Charleston back then, so she didn’t know Harley, but she knew Jade had a love that predated Lance. She was eager to dig into that, even if Jade wasn’t interested. For the most part, Sophie’s life was wrapped up in her work. Being a lawyer took up long hours, leaving her little time for much else. As such, Sophie was always interested in exciting tales to live vicariously. She would also push Jade into situations from time to time. Like doing that news interview after the hospital sent her a letter that politely told her to get bent.

“Was he as cute as you remembered?”

Jade twisted her lips in thought as she pictured the solid wall of man standing in her doorway. “Cute isn’t the word I’d use for Harley. Cute is for puppies and babies. He was...hot. Ripped-guy-on-the-cover-of-a-romance-novel hot.”

Just thinking about him holding her hand was enough to make her face feel warm and her whole body languid. It was an innocent touch. A supportive gesture not meant to titillate or entice, but the impact on Jade had been massive. It had been a long time since a man had touched her. Even longer since a man had looked at her the way Harley had. Her body could recall the feeling instantly, making her want to turn on the fan despite it still being February.

Maybe it was the red wine on an empty stomach. Or a bad mix of alcohol and unfulfilled desires.

“I think you need to sleep with him.”

Jade shot to attention in her chair. “What? You’re joking, right?”

“Not at all. I think after everything, a hot tryst with some serious man candy is just what the doctor ordered.”

“Harley is not the kind of guy for me to start a relationship with.”

“Who said anything about a relationship? I was just thinking about a hot tumble. You don’t have to keep him.”

Jade could only roll her eyes. It was a tempting thought, but a silly one. Why would someone as successful and handsome as Harley want someone like her? Even short term. He could do better and avoid dealing with the past in the process. “I wouldn’t even know what to do with a man like that, to be honest. I’m out of practice and he’s not rookie material.”

“I need to see a picture of this guy. He doesn’t sound like he could be real.” Sophie picked up her phone and immediately set off to search for him on the internet. “Nothing is coming up when I hunt for Harley Dalton,” she said. “No Facebook. Not even his company website has a photo of him.”

“I’m not surprised. With the kind of work he does, I imagine he has a limited online presence. You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

“For now,” Sophie said, making Jade worry that her friend would nose in where she didn’t belong. “Next time I come over, I expect you to have hauled out your yearbook, if nothing else.”

“What’s more important is that the hospital isn’t blowing me off now,” she said, trying to switch the subject from her hunky ex. “Hiring an investigator is a big step.”

Sophie grinned and took a sip of wine. “I told you I knew what I was doing. There’s nothing quite like public shame. Now they’re going to get to the bottom of the case and you don’t have to pay a dime. No reason to worry.”

Jade wasn’t so sure about that. At this point, she almost wished that her parents had just been lying to her about being adopted. That certainly would’ve been easier to cope with. Instead, they’d been adamant that she was the baby they’d left the hospital with. She had a tiny birthmark on her hip that her mother had noticed before they went home. What her mom couldn’t be sure of was whether or not the baby she’d delivered had had that same birthmark beneath her swaddling blankets and diapers.

“How am I not supposed to worry? This scenario can only end badly. My parents insist I wasn’t adopted. The only time and place something could’ve happened to me was while they were still in the hospital and I was in the nursery. Someone made a huge mistake and two families have paid the price for it.”

“That’s not an impossible mistake to make. Especially during Hugo.”

Jade shook her head and sighed. How had she gotten caught up in something like this? Being switched at birth was the stuff of television movies, but Sophie was right about the storm. It had been a Category Four when it hit Charleston. The whole town was in chaos amid power outages, massive flooding and large numbers of casualties being rushed into the hospitals for treatment.

It sounded like the perfect storm for something to go wrong in, and if something would go wrong, it would happen to Jade. She was a magnet for that sort of thing. But being switched at birth? It was a crazy thought.

The hospital agreed, dismissing the claim as nonsense. And until she’d gone on the news, they would’ve gladly brushed her off. Instead, they’d hired Dalton Security, a company she now knew was famous for getting the job done no matter what it took. Harley had always been a rule breaker when he felt the cause justified it. Now that seemed to be the company motto. He would do what he was hired to do and find out the truth, although she worried about how many lives would be upended in the process.

Jade set her wineglass on the kitchen table and sat back in her chair. “Maybe this whole thing is a mistake.”

“What do you mean?” Sophie asked.

“I mean, maybe I’m digging into something that’s better left buried. It’s been almost thirty years since the switch happened. I’m looking for answers, but what...what if all I find is heartache? It’s going to destroy families.”

“Or unite them,” Sophie countered. “Your parents know that you love them, and they love you no matter what they find. That isn’t a risk. But I’m willing to bet a part of them would want to know what happened to their biological daughter, too. They have to wonder if she’s safe and happy. They wouldn’t trade you for the world, but this will bring them peace of mind, if nothing else. You’re going to gain family, not lose them.”

“You can’t be so sure. Maybe my parents will realize their real daughter is so much better than I am, and they’ll choose her over me.”

“That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Anyone would be happy to have you for their daughter. I have no idea who you were swapped with, but your parents did not get the short end of the stick with you, Jade.”

“I know,” she admitted reluctantly. That was her insecurity speaking. Her parents would be shocked to hear her even suggest such a thing. “I just don’t like not knowing how any of this will turn out.”

Sophie crossed her arms over her chest in exasperation. “Well, you’ll never know until you try. And even if you stopped the investigation now, it’s too late. The genie is out of the bottle and there’s no way you’d be able to pretend you don’t know the truth any longer. You might as well follow the trail to see where it leads, or you’re always going to wonder and harbor regrets.”

Jade frowned at her friend. That’s all she could do, because she knew Sophie was right. The minute she got that DNA test in the mail there was no turning back.

“Your biological parents are out there, somewhere. You’ve always wanted to have that connection to someone that you felt you lacked. You’ll have more family now. More people to depend on. More people to love you.”

“You make it sound like this is all going to end like a Disney movie. I’m not about to find out I’m a secret princess. Birds aren’t going to make my clothes and a prince isn’t going to sweep me off my feet. My real parents could be horrible people. And even if they aren’t, this is going to end in lawsuits and tears, and maybe even someone going to jail, if we were switched on purpose.”

“Maybe. But I’m an optimist. And I think this is going to be good for you. You need some good in your life after everything that happened with Lance.”

Jade groaned and pushed herself up from the table. “I don’t want to talk about all that tonight.”

“We’re not. And I didn’t mean to bring it up. I’m just saying that I think you deserve some happiness. I think there are good things on the horizon for you. Even if your real family doesn’t turn out to be everything you’ve hoped for, there can still be positives. Maybe you’ll get a huge settlement from the hospital and you can buy a nice house. That would be something good.”

Jade picked up the half-empty bottle of wine from the counter and carried it back to the table. She refilled both their glasses. “It would certainly help,” she admitted. “Lance’s addiction ate through all our savings. I’m making decent money now, but things like a house are just pipe dreams with the cost of living in Charleston.”

She set the bottle on the table and sat down in the chair. “Things weren’t supposed to end up like this, you know? Everyone said that Lance was the smart choice for me. He was older, established, educated... Marrying him was going to provide me with the stable, safe and loving home I wanted for myself and my future family. We wouldn’t struggle with money the way my parents did. Everything was supposed to end up perfectly.”

“No one could’ve expected what happened to Lance, honey,” Sophie said. “They call it the opioid epidemic for a reason. A lot of people get caught up in it without meaning to. He was never the same after that car accident.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

It had been the beginning of the end for their marriage, although Jade didn’t know it then. She was too busy fighting her way through her last year of pharmacy school to see the warning signs. He’d needed the pain pills after his back surgery, but the more he took, the harder it was for him to manage things at work. The more stress he was under, the more pills he needed. As he started to fail, Jade had graduated and thrived in her new career as a pharmacist. Lance couldn’t cope with the idea of her being more successful than he was, and it just fed into his existing drug problem.

The next thing she knew, the cops were at her door at 2:00 a.m. and she was being questioned about a break-in at the pharmacy where she worked. Apparently, Lance had taken her keys to steal pain pills. His doctors had recognized he had an issue, and refused to give him more pain medication, so he’d resorted to more desperate means to get it. Jade had filed for divorce before Lance could even get a public defender assigned to him. It was one thing to battle addiction, but to put her career at risk in the process seemed like a deliberate move on his part that she couldn’t overlook. He couldn’t stand her success and she was tired of propping up his ego.

“The irony of it all is that I broke things off with Harley because he was supposedly the bad boy who wouldn’t amount to anything. Lance was the good guy with a future. Harley was trouble with an angel’s smile that would lead me down the wrong path in life. I can’t help but wonder sometimes,” Jade said, as she fingered the rim of her wineglass, “what would have happened if I’d made a different choice. Did things work out the way they were meant to? Or did I go against my gut and make the worst mistake of my life by walking away from him all those years ago?”

And if it had been a mistake, Jade couldn’t help but wonder if Harley showing up on her porch was a second chance to make things right. Did she dare take the risk?