Bombshell For The Black Sheep. Janice Maynard

pertinent details. Why would you need a PI?”

      Hartley hunched his shoulders, his expression bleak. “Two days before the wedding, I received a blackmail note.”

      “Seriously?” Her skepticism was warranted, surely.

      “The letter threatened to go public with a painful Tarleton family secret if I didn’t give the blackmailer a million dollars.”

      “Hartley. This sounds like a spy novel.”

      “What you don’t know is that my mother has been living in an inpatient mental health facility in Vermont since my siblings and I were preteens. A few people in Charleston know the truth, but not many.”

      “So you decided to do what?”

      “My father’s health was failing. Jonathan had been working his ass off at Tarleton Shipping, trying to keep the business afloat. My sister spent her adolescence without a mother. Our family has suffered more than our share of hard times. I didn’t want the gossip.”