A cell phone went off on the bedside table, and when he made no move to answer it, she asked, “Do you want to pick that up?”
When he didn’t reply, she leaned to the side and looked at the screen. Chantal Blair Stowe.
“I think it’s your girlfriend.”
He glanced over. “Who?” Lizzie reached around and picked up the phone, showing the screen to him. “No, I don’t want to talk to her. And she’s not my girlfriend.”
Is she aware of that, Lizzie wondered as she put the thing back.
Lane shook his head. “Edward’s the only one of us who’s worth a dime.”
“That’s not true.”
He laughed in a hard burst. “The hell it’s not. And that was your point last week, wasn’t it.”
Abruptly, Lane focused on her, and there was a strange silence, as if it were only then that he realized who was in the room with him.
Lizzie’s heart began to pound. There was something in those eyes of his that she hadn’t seen before—and God help her, she knew what it was.
Sex with a playboy was nothing she was interested in. Raw lust with a real man? That … was so much harder to walk away from.
“You need to go now,” he said in a tight voice.
Yes, she told herself. I do.
And yet for some crazy reason, she whispered, “Why?”
“Because if I wanted you when it was just a game”—that stare of his locked on her mouth—“in my current mood, I’m desperate for you.”
Lizzie recoiled, and this time when he laughed, it was deeper, lower. “Don’t you know that stress is like alcohol? It makes you reckless, stupid, and hungry. I should know … my family deals so well in—”
“It is taken care of, Miss King.”
Lizzie jumped out of her skin with a gasp. “What!”
Mr. Harris frowned. “The tent rental. It has been taken care of.”
“Oh, yes, great. Thanks.”
She stumbled as she turned away from the butler. Then she went the wrong way down the hall, heading toward the public rooms of the house. Before Mr. Harris called that to her attention, she doubled back, found a door to the outside, and broke out—
Right into the garden.
Right below Lane’s bedroom window.
Putting her hands to her face, she remembered how he had kissed her two nights after she had sat with him in his bedroom.
She had been the one to seek him out—and there hadn’t been any flower excuse that time: She had waited for as long as she’d been able to stand it, and then she’d deliberately gone to his room at the end of her work day to see how he was doing, what was going on, whether there had been any resolution.
Nothing had made it into the press at that point. All that coverage had come later, after Edward had finally come home.
That second time she’d gone to his bedrom, she had knocked more softly—and after a moment, he had opened the way in … and she could still picture how much he had aged. He’d been gaunt, unshaven, with black circles under his eyes. He had changed his clothes, although they were just different versions of what he had always worn: A monogrammed button-down—except it was untucked on one side. Expensive slacks—except they were creased at the bend of the pelvis and unpressed at the heads of the knees. Gucci loafers—no, he’d only had dark socks on.
And all that pretty much told her what she needed to know.
“Come with me,” she’d said to him. “You need to get out of this room.”
In a hoarse voice, he’d asked her what time it was, and she’d told him it was after eight. When he’d looked confused, she’d had to clarify that it was at night.
She had led him down the back stairs as if he were a child, taking him by the hand, talking about nonsense. The only thing he said was that he didn’t want anyone to see him—and she had made sure that happened, directing him away from the talk in the dining room, keeping him safe from prying eyes.
As she had drawn him out into the warm night, she had heard laughter from where dinner was being eaten in that grand formal room.
How could they do that? she’d wondered. Chatter on as if there were nothing wrong … as if one of them weren’t far, far away, in danergous hands.
At the time, she had had no idea what she was doing with Lane or why she cared so much that he was suffering. She only knew that the one-dimensional playboy she’d written off as a waste of privilege had become human, and his pain mattered to her.
They hadn’t gone far. Just down the brick walkway, in between the flowering shrubs and beds and over to the gazebo in the garden’s far corner.
They had sat together and not said much. But when she had reached for his hand, he had taken what she offered and held on tight.
And when he had turned to her, she had known what he wanted—and it wasn’t talking. There had been a moment of traffic jam in her head, all kinds of whoa, wait, stop, too far …
But then she had leaned in and their lips had touched.
The thoughts had been so complicated. The connection had been so simple.