Family Man

for me,” Luke said. “Maybe it will be the last time she does anything for me.”
    “Now, Luke,” Katy murmured.
    “I need a secretary who can keep her mouth shut.”
    Katy gave him an exasperated look and turned to Hayden. “Was there something you wanted to talk to Luke about?”
    Hayden looked at Luke. “Yes, as a matter of fact, there was.”
    “Can't this wait?” Luke asked impatiently.
    “No. Darren came to see me yesterday. He told me you had helped him out of a rather unpleasant situation.”
    Luke shrugged. “He got himself out.”
    “Under your guidance,” Maureen said. She flicked a quick glance at Katy and then looked back at Luke. “I also understand from my daughter that you had a long talk with her ex-husband.”
    “It was a short talk, not a long one, and I really don't want to discuss any of this tonight,” Luke said.
    Maureen did not even flinch. “You did her a great favor, Luke. I knew that terrible man was pestering her again. I was afraid he wouldn't go away quietly after Justine's lawyers got through with him. Eden said he was demanding money from her.”
    “Blackmail,” Hayden said in sepulchral tones. “Outright blackmail.”
    Luke glanced at Katy, who was looking surprised. Then he frowned at Hayden. “Eden told you?”
    “Yes.” Hayden shook his head sadly. “The whole story came out when Maureen confronted her about the fact that she was seeing Nate Atwood again. I think Eden was so relieved that he was off her back, she broke down and told her everything.”
    “My poor, brave daughter had been keeping that awful secret to herself all these months.” Maureen shuddered. “When I think of what she must have been going through I could just weep. Her growing fear, her sense of desperation, her anxiety must have been nearly unbearable.”
    “It wasn't doing much good for the bottom line of either of the two restaurants involved, either,” Luke said dryly.
    Katy frowned at him. “Eden was desperate, Luke. You know that.”
    Maureen sighed. “She had no choice. She did what she thought she had to do to protect me. If only she had come to me in the beginning, I could have helped her.”
    “Yeah?” Luke gave her a skeptical glance. “How?”
    “For one thing, Hayden and I could have assured her that those clippings about my conviction were extremely misleading.”
    Hayden patted Maureen's hand. “Maureen was the victim of another unscrupulous gallery owner who took advantage of her trusting nature.”
    “I lived in New York at the time,” Maureen explained. “I was young and naïve and new in the business. It was Hayden who helped me get myself out of that terrible mess.”
    “I had just met her,” Hayden said. “I'd gone to New York to find myself as an artist, and I found Maureen instead. We were both wildly in love. I knew she wasn't guilty of deliberately selling the forged works. She had been set up.”
    Maureen's eyes glittered briefly with tears. “Hayden believed in me. Unfortunately, no one else did. My career was in shreds. Hayden suggested I come out west with him. The rest is history.”
    “Couldn't possibly explain all that to Justine, of course,” Hayden muttered. “She would never have understood. She was already furious because I wasn't showing any signs of business acumen, and she hated the whole notion of my having a career in the art world.”
    “The idea that Hayden was marrying someone who had once been embroiled in criminal charges would have sent her through the roof,” Maureen said grimly.
    “You know Justine,” Hayden continued with a rueful shake of his distinguished head. “Later, after Thornton ran off with Cleo, I knew we had to keep quiet forever about Maureen's past. I saw what Justine did to Cleo. I couldn't allow her to treat my wife like that. I thought everything was safely buried.” He frowned. “I wonder how Atwood discovered those old press clippings.”
    “Probably just went looking through some newspaper indexes,” Luke said. “Atwood is no fool. He knows the value of information, and like me, he survives by being able to gather it. He knew enough family history to figure out where to start digging.”
    “So he went looking for some old scandal material that might be useful,” Hayden concluded.
    “And found me,” Maureen said tightly. “While he was married to Eden he learned a lot about us. He knew what Justine was like. He knew it wouldn't take much to upset her.”
    Bill the waiter appeared at