The frown cleared from his brow as his tension eased a little. “I will.”

  She shook her head. “How could a mother do that to her child?” She glanced over to where Lilybeth slept in her basket. “Lilybeth is still only hours old, and I don’t want to let her out of my sight, even for a moment. I now totally understand your utter devastation when you thought I had died in the car crash with Mama,” she added, tears glistening in her eyes.

  Rufus swallowed before giving a shaky smile. “And the total joy when I found you again.”

  “Yes.” She gave a watery smile. “I can’t even begin to imagine what could have prompted Sarah Harper to leave her ten-year-old daughter alone in their apartment. Especially when she knew she had no intention of ever coming back.”

  Neither could Rufus.

  But he intended to find out.

  After he had told Molly the devastating news that her mother was in London.

  Molly hadn’t been back from her early lunch break for longer than ten minutes, and was once again seated behind the reception desk with Angus lying beside her, when she looked out the window and saw Rufus parking his SUV in front of the building.

  Tears instantly stung her eyes, and she quickly blinked them away to instead put a politely questioning expression on her face as she looked toward the door. She couldn’t, she simply dare not, show an ounce of weakness to the man she had no doubt she was in love with, but whom she now knew she had to push out of her life.

  Last night had been the most wonderful of Molly’s life. Rufus had been so focused on her and her pleasure, and she had never felt so wanted and cared for. Maybe even loved, just a little?

  However little or big the emotion Rufus felt toward her, it was destined to die a tragic death the instant he knew the truth about her.

  The conversation with her mother, after Molly took that early lunch so they could go up to her apartment and talk privately, certainly hadn’t been a joyful reunion between mother and daughter. Instead, it had consisted of threats on her mother’s side, and reluctant acceptance of the validity of the outcome of those threats on Molly’s.

  That conversation was the reason Molly now knew she had to bring forward her plans to leave London. The sooner, the better, like as soon as she had locked up the shelter later this evening.

  She also believed she should deliberately distance herself from Rufus in the letter she was going to leave for him and Mia. And in such a way she made sure he no longer wished to see her again, let alone make any effort to come looking for her.

  It was the only acceptable outcome for both of them.

  Even if it was the most heartbreaking for Molly.

  She’d always known she would have to leave, but after her mother’s visit, she had no other choice but to accept her time here was at an end.

  The moment she saw the wariness in Rufus’s expression as he entered the building, she knew that perhaps he had guessed at some of what she was going to say. Even if he didn’t know the real reason she was going to say it.

  Her emotions felt far too fragile to deal with this situation face-to-face.

  But, it seemed, with Rufus’s arrival, she had no choice but to do exactly that.

  Angus, the traitor, immediately went to Rufus’s side to be stroked and petted.

  Molly wished she could do the same!

  Instead, she forced herself to chuckle as she rose to her feet. “He definitely wants to be your dog,” she said affectionately. “Don’t look so worried, Rufus,” she mocked when she saw his expression was still guarded. “This isn’t the Regency era, and I don’t have any family to insist you have to marry me because they think you’ve compromised my innocence.”

  He looked startled for a moment before that puzzlement was quickly replaced by a frown. “You didn’t call me when you woke up.”

  Molly forced herself not to look surprised by the accusation in his tone. “I’m sure you had more important things to do this morning than talk to me. Just as I did,” she added firmly when he would have spoken. “The shelter doesn’t open itself, you know, and we’re especially busy with Mia not being here.”

  Rufus studied her for several long seconds from between narrowed lids before slowly nodding. “I see how it’s going to be.”

  “Do you?” she challenged.

  “Oh yes,” he confirmed irritably. “Unfortunately for you, I’m not so easily dismissed. Especially when there’s something I urgently need to discuss with you in private,” he added when she would have spoken.

  She gave an exasperated snort. “I’ve just given you a way out of any awkwardness between us⁠—”

  “And I heard you, loud and clear,” he rasped.

  “Then why don’t you take the hint and leave me alone?” she snapped, inwardly hating herself, but knowing she had no choice. She had to push Rufus away. She had to.

  He sighed. “This isn’t about us, Molly.”

  “Because there is no us,” she scorned in a hard voice. “I’m going to be leaving here soon, and with that in mind, I now think it best if we don’t start something we can’t finish.”

  “A little late for that, isn’t it?”

  “Better late than never,” she replied chirpily.

  “You’re leaving soon, hm?” he repeated dryly. “A sudden decision, was it?”

  “Not at all.” She kept her chin high. “If you know my work record, and I know you do, then you’ll realize that it’s simply time for me to move on.”

  “Hm,” he murmured, his eyes narrowed. “Have you had any interesting visitors this morning?”

  Molly turned away from that piercing gaze. “We’ve had lots of visitors. I think most of the dogs will have new owners, the hamster too, and the cats and kittens have multiple people wanting them.” She knew she was rambling, but there was something odd about the way Rufus continued looking at her. As if he knew… “I kept Angus back for you as you said you might want to take him,” she added with feigned brightness.

  “Thank you. I’ve decided I will be adopting him.” He touched the top of the dog’s head as Angus still sat beside him, doggy tongue hanging out as he gazed up at Rufus adoringly.

  Molly wished she could do the same.

  Maybe not so much with her tongue hanging out, but she certainly wished she didn’t have to wrap this armor of coldness about her emotions in order to successfully push Rufus away.

  “When I said interesting visitors,” Rufus continued. “I wasn’t referring to people wanting to adopt the animals,” he encouraged.

  Molly’s heart started pounding so loudly against her rib cage, she was sure Rufus must be able to hear it. “What other visitors could there be?”

  He stepped closer to the desk, still keeping her pinned in place with the intensity of his gaze. “I can detect the scent of a heavy and very expensive perfume in the room. One that should be worn by an older woman, and one I know you wouldn’t wear even if someone gave you a bottle of it.”

  “Are you calling me cheap?” she teased.

  “Drop the mask, Molly.” His tone had softened to gentle reproval. “And tell me who else visited here this morning.”

  “I—”

  “More precisely,” he cut in. “Who visited you specifically this morning?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Rufus knew from the way Molly’s gaze shifted from meeting his and the forced smile that now curved her lips, while the expression in her eyes remained guarded, that she was about to lie to him.

  Just as he had guessed the cloying perfume he’d smelled the moment he entered the building to be one that the sophisticated Serena Jenkins would wear.

  Telling him that he was too late to break the news gently to Molly regarding her mother still being alive and currently in London.

  Serena Jenkins had already been here and announced her own presence.

  Why she should have done so now, when it seemed she’d had no interest in contacting her daughter during the past seventeen years, he had no idea.

  Rufus only knew, without a doubt, that seeing her mother again was now the reason for the pallor of Molly’s cheeks.

  The fact she appeared to be reluctant to share that meeting with him, or its reason, but was instead doing everything she could to push him away, was what puzzled him. Yes, they were still new together, but surely last night meant they could talk to each other⁠—

  “Last night was a mistake,” Molly bit out as if reading some of his thoughts. “I agree with you now. You’re far too old for me.”

  “Really?” Rufus wasn’t going to lie to himself, that hurt.

  It also alerted him to the fact Molly was being deliberately cruel in what seemed to be an effort to put a distance between them.

  Again, he had no idea why.

  She gave an abrupt nod. “I need someone who is at the same stage in their life as me and wants the same things I do. To travel, perhaps.” She shrugged. “Also, someone who isn’t afraid of romance, something you’ve already told me you aren’t interested in.”

  “I don’t recall saying I was afraid of romance…”

  She glared at him. “I’m trying to be kind about this.”

  “Is that so?” he debated skeptically. “Because you sound as if you’re being deliberately fucking insulting to me.”

  “You see?” She threw up her hands in exasperation. “No matter how I broach this, you’re going to be difficult.”

  He huffed a derisive laugh. “Deliberately inciting an argument with me isn’t going to work either.”

  “I’m not⁠—”

  “Yes, you most certainly are.” Rufus now stood only inches away from Molly. Close enough he could breathe in her much more delicate perfume and see the shadows in her eyes. “Your mother came to the shelter this morning.” He made it a statement, not a question.

  Molly recoiled as if he had struck her, even more color draining from her cheeks. “How did you— How could you possibly know that?”

  “Because… Ah, Megan,” Rufus greeted the dark-haired young woman as she came through the doorway from the kennels. “Could you possibly take over here for a while, and keep Angus with you too, so that Molly and I can go up to her apartment and talk privately for a few minutes?”

  “No problem.” Megan grinned as she made herself comfortable behind the desk. “Today has been just awesome. Busy, but awesome.”

  “I’ll tell Mia,” Rufus promised. “Molly?” He held her gaze as he opened the door for her to precede him.

  He could clearly see the indecision as to whether she should go with him warring inside her.

  Because she had to know that if she refused, Rufus was capable of causing a scene in front of her coworker.

  Just as she also had to know, from the things Rufus had already said, that he was going to ask her questions she obviously didn’t want to answer.

  Molly had no idea what to do.

  She had intended to leave behind a note to explain her sudden disappearance. In it, she had intended to explain at least some of what she knew about the past.

  Then, when Rufus arrived at the shelter so unexpectedly a few minutes ago, she’d felt as if she had no choice but to verbally alienate him instead.

  But from the determination in Rufus’s expression as he patiently waited for her to accompany him, she could see that her efforts so far hadn’t been successful.

  Then she would have to try harder!

  Except…

  How did Rufus know that her mother was not only in England, but that she had also come to the animal shelter earlier to talk to Molly?

  Talk?

  Her mother hadn’t talked. She’d threatened.

  “If you don’t do as I ask and leave here immediately—or worse, try to claim you know nothing about the situation that necessitated me coming here at all—I’ll make sure no one believes a word you have to say in your defense. Especially when it’s obvious to me that you deliberately chose to come here and work for Mia Kingston. That’s going to look very suspicious, don’t you think? Better for you if you cut your losses and simply leave. The sooner, the better. Otherwise, I swear I’ll make it so that Rufus Wynter and his daughter both have reason to hate you. Do you understand me?”

  Of course, Molly understood. She wasn’t stupid.

  It had been totally surreal to recognize the red-haired woman, dressed so impeccably and who had greeted her so confidently, as the same blonde-haired one who had been her mother for ten years.

  One glance at the other woman’s expensive clothing and her obvious lack of apology for that or abandoning her own child, and Molly had refused, either mentally or verbally, to think of or address the other woman as anything at all during the conversation that followed.

  Conversation?

  Molly wouldn’t exactly call Serena Jenkins’s—as she now insisted on being called—demands as being any more of a conversation than her previous threats. No, they had been more of a monologue. The older woman certainly hadn’t wanted an answer from Molly, just her compliance.

  In truth, once Molly’s initial shock had worn off, she hadn’t been able to think of a single thing she wanted to say to the other woman.

  Except one.

  She had asked to know Ronan’s whereabouts.

  A question Serena had dismissed as being unnecessary, stating an adult Molly must know what had happened to him.

  That was the problem. Molly didn’t know for certain what had happened to Ronan, which was the reason she had asked Rufus to see if he could find him.

  It seemed Serena Jenkins wasn’t about to confirm or deny Molly’s suspicions as she continued.

  “I’ve taken an interest in and received a monthly report on Mia Kingston’s life since her much-publicized reunion with her birth father two years ago,” she had said dismissively with a curl of her glossy top lip. “I could hardly believe my eyes when the report from a month ago included an article and photographs from a magazine featuring the animal shelter Mia Kingston owns. Because there, in full color, was a grown-up you, standing in the background of one of those photographs. I suppose they ran the article because Mia became something of a celebrity in her own right when the news broke that she’s actually Emily Wynter, the daughter of the millionaire Rufus Wynter and his deceased wife, Elizabeth,” she added disinterestedly.

  Molly had wanted to hit her mother then, to scream and shout at her obvious callousness in regard to a situation that had caused Rufus and Mia so much suffering.

  Instead, she’d remained quiet and allowed her mother to continue confirming things that Molly hadn’t known as a child and had only been able to guess at as an adult, but never had any way of confirming.

  Until now.

  “It was just too good an opportunity to resist that day when the two of us returned to the car park where I’d left the car while we went shopping, and I saw the woman I later learned was Elizabeth Wynter. She hadn’t as yet strapped her baby’s seat into the back of her car. I started a conversation with her, asked if she needed any help, which she refused. But you always were such a cute little thing. So tiny, almost doll-like, with those bright blue eyes and glossy black hair. You always succeeded in distracting the mothers.”

  No! Molly had inwardly protested in horror.

  “While the mother was cooing over how cute you were in your pretty blue dress that matched the color of your eyes, it took me mere seconds to remove the baby in the seat from her vehicle and strap it into the back of my own. Unfortunately, once the mother had watched to make sure you made the walk safely back to our car, she then realized her baby was missing. She immediately tried to stop our car from leaving, but when she realized that wasn’t happening, she then gave chase in her own car. I hadn’t had time to strap you in, so you bounced around in the back seat for a while until you managed to secure the seat belt yourself. Such a pity the mother was then killed in the terrible fiery pile-up of vehicles on the motorway. I was just ahead of her and missed it, thank God. But photographs of both her and her baby appeared in the newspapers for days, weeks, after the tragedy, along with ones of the poor, devastated widower.”

  Serena had given a disgusted tusk.

  “That amount of publicity meant I was stuck with the baby until the heat died down on the tragic story, because there was always the possibility of Emily being recognized. I know you did your bit to look after her, but you were only five, and there were limits to how much you could do. Three months of tolerating the demands of a stinky crying baby and I couldn’t take it anymore. I drove down to Cornwall, far away from London, and abandoned her in a church there.”

  She gave a triumphant smile, as if it hadn’t broken Molly’s heart that day to realize the baby she had been caring for—who she now knew to have been Mia Kingston—was no longer living with them and wouldn’t be coming back.

  “Ironically, no one made the connection between the Wynter baby and the abandoned one, so I could have sold her on after all,” Serena dismissed. “I’ve since learned she remained in an orphanage until she aged out of the system at eighteen. As you did. It would have been the height of fucking irony if the two of you had ended up in the same orphanage five years later,” she had added callously.

  By this time, the tears were cascading unchecked down Molly’s cheeks.

  The other woman had confirmed what Molly had long suspected. Primarily that her mother was a monster, one who felt no remorse for the fact Beth Wynter had died while trying to rescue her baby. Her comment about Molly’s cuteness “always distracting the mothers” implied Sarah Harper had taken more babies than Emily and Ronan.

  Worse, it seemed Serena had deliberately used Molly to help her in that endeavor.

  “I had to give the money back on that occasion. No baby, no sale. It was always wealthy couples requesting babies, of course, ones who didn’t meet the adoption criteria or simply weren’t willing to wait for a baby to become available. All the same to me, as long as they paid me generously for the privilege.”

  Molly doubted that her mother had ever cared to find out specifically why those couples didn’t meet the adoption agency’s high standards.