True Lies by Ingrid Weaver

He leaned his forehead against hers and lowered her hands to her lap.
    She didn’t move away, and she didn’t try to lean closer. She stayed where she was, her entire body quaking with reaction. “Oh, my God,” she said, her voice breaking.
    “I'm sorry, Emma.” He stroked the backs of her hands with his thumbs. “I'm sorry, I took unfair advantage of the situation.”
    Her forehead rolled against his as she shook her head. “Don’t be sorry, Bruce.”
    “I acted unforgivably. You were upset, and I—”
    “I asked you to kiss me. Please, don’t be sorry.”
    It wasn’t the kiss that he regretted. It was who they were, and all the reasons why they had to stop. Clenching his jaw, he released her hands and swiveled away from her. He stretched his arm to pick up his sunglasses, then pushed himself awkwardly to his feet. His hat was nowhere in sight.
    “It blew into the lake,” she said.
    “What?”
    “Your baseball cap.” She sat back on her heels and rubbed a hand over her face.
    He fitted his sunglasses over the bump on his nose and raked his fingers through his hair distractedly, trying to salvage what was left of his Prendergast persona. He dipped his head, slouched his shoulders and shuffled to the end of the dock. A dark crescent bobbed on the ripples twenty feet from the back of the plane. His hat was sinking beneath the water.
    “It was Simon who put the scratch on the pontoon,” she said. “And we did have a terrible argument before he left.”
    The freely volunteered information hit him like a blow to the gut. She hadn’t wanted to tell him before. But now that he’d held her, and kissed her, she was willing to take him into her confidence. Rather than being the disaster he’d feared, his slip out of character might work to his advantage. He’d be able to use her.
    He should have been pleased.
    Instead, he felt as if the splendor of their spontaneous embrace had just been irrevocably sullied.
    And for the first time in his life, Bruce wished that he wasn’t a cop.

Chapter 5
    “M y full name is Emmaline Cassidy Duprey.” Emma propped her elbows on the edge of the table and sighed shakily before dropping her chin into her hands. She had thought this would be difficult, but it wasn’t. It felt wonderful to be able to share this with someone. No, not just someone, with Bruce.
    He sat at the opposite end of the small table where they’d looked at her maps three days ago—was it only three days ago? He leaned his forehead on his hand in a way that partly shielded his face, but he could no longer hide himself from her. She had kissed him. She had tasted the man, not the outward appearance, and she had felt something precious begin to grow.
    “I head an investment group and occasionally act as a management consultant, but I changed my name three years ago and moved here to escape what I decided was an intolerable situation,” she continued. “I still have an embarrassing amount of wealth, so I apologize for taking your money for that fishing trip the other day.”
    “You don’t have to tell me this,” he said quietly. “We all have good reasons for the masquerades we choose to employ.”
    The sunlight sparkled through the window, casting a pattern of bars on the table between them. She knew she didn’t have to tell him anything, but she wanted to. It was the same instinctive urge to reach out to him that she’d felt when she’d sat on the dock and let her tears fall on the skin of his throat. So she told him about her childhood, how alone she’d felt when her father had been sent to prison, and how she had found herself responsible for raising her brother. Throughout it all, he sat motionless and listened without saying a word.
    “The damage Simon did to my plane hurts more than it should,” she said. “I brought that Cessna with me when I moved here, outfitted it with pontoons and amended my pilot’s license. It’s my own form of escape therapy, I suppose, just like those books