Authors: Tori Carrington
H
E WAS TOO LATE.
Drew knew that the moment he entered the hotel and the assistant manager, Philippe, considered him with barely concealed contempt.
He’d had a bad inkling all morning. Actually, since last night he’d had the strange suspicion that somehow, some way, Josie had learned the truth about him. And that had bothered him beyond his capacity to deal with it just then.
He looked around the lobby and courtyard and didn’t spot the person he was looking for, the only one who mattered in this entire situation.
“Where’s Josie?”
Philippe crossed his arms. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“That’s why I asked.”
“She doesn’t want to see you.”
There it was. What Drew had been dreading: she knew.
He turned toward the stairs.
Philippe moved faster than Drew would have thought possible, blocking his progress. “Whoa. Where do you think you’re going?”
“To find her.”
“I told you she doesn’t want to see you.”
Drew stared down the younger man, suppressing the urge to remove him physically from his path. He was surprised by the primal desire. For the past decade he’d used words to make his point, to wage his business war. He hadn’t resorted to physical confrontation since his stint in the military.
It didn’t help that his adversary seemed to be egging him on, as if he wanted Drew to take a swing at him. Which gave him considerable cause for pause.
“That’s all right, Philippe.”
They both turned to see Josie standing at the top of the stairs.
For an all too brief moment, the world stopped turning. Or rather, it began revolving again, propelling life in the right direction.
Drew’s breath froze in his lungs. While Josie was wearing a summery dress similar to the others he’d seen her in, she could have been wearing a slinky evening gown, the way the sight of her stopped his heart. Just looking at her made him
feel not himself somehow. As if the moment she entered a room, a part of him fused with her, as if they were two parts of one whole instead of separate entities.
The sensation was unfamiliar to him. And left him feeling unprotected. As if he were in the middle of a clearing with twenty sniper rifles aimed at him.
The expression on her face told him she was experiencing some similar emotions that she didn’t quite know how to handle either.
Her expression also told him that he’d lost something he’d never be able to regain: her trust.
“Can I talk to you?” he asked.
Philippe spoke, “Haven’t you already said and done enough?”
Josie started down the stairs. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything, Philippe.”
The other man appeared prepared to object.
But thankfully he thought better and moved out of Drew’s way as he followed Josie to the kitchen. Drew didn’t miss Philippe’s lethal look though, that conveyed all that Philippe would have said and done if Josie hadn’t appeared.
As he walked behind her, Drew couldn’t keep from taking in the gentle, unconscious sway of Josie’s hips and the sexy curve of her neck. But he had no place appreciating her pure grace when
inside he felt so impure, as though a tar-like stain spread under his skin. A dread that all they’d begun to build between them was forever lost.
As much as he wished otherwise, Drew knew that this meeting in the kitchen wouldn’t have anything to do with food and Josie being enjoyed on top of the island.
He expected her to turn toward him when they entered, but instead she busied herself making coffee.
“Talk,” she said.
Josie’s heart was beating so hard she thought for sure he could see it through her chest.
When Detective Chevalier had spilled what he knew, she hadn’t wanted to believe he was telling her the truth. It didn’t fit in with anything she knew about Drew or with what had happened between them.
But as the homicide detective had continued talking, verifying that the tip had been phoned into his office by an anonymous source who had nothing to gain, and that some checking had proven that Drew wasn’t a car-parts salesman but rather an independent contractor who’d been dubbed “The Closer” by those he worked with, she’d had the sinking sensation that Chevalier was right.
Drew had always seemed a step above the
salesmen she usually crossed paths with. A little too well groomed. A little too edgy.
And now…
Well, the instant she’d glanced into his eyes, she’d known the information was right. And that he knew that she knew.
She quirked a brow at him over her shoulder only to find his gaze lingering on her backside.
Her blood heated, but not in anger. Instead, desire ignited in her stomach and rushed through her veins. A reaction she was sorely unprepared for.
How could she still crave him sexually when he’d hit her with such a crushing emotional blow?
“Josie, I…you have to believe me when I say that the last thing I want to do is hurt you.”
He surely couldn’t be saying what he was.
She turned fully and leaned against the counter while the coffee brewed. The only sounds were the spitting of the machine and the uneven cadence of her own heartbeat in her ears.
Her voice was quieter than she meant it to be. “Is this where you try to convince me that you only had my best interests in mind?” She swallowed past the emotion clogging her throat. “Drew, you…you wanted to take away the Josephine. My hotel.”
Pain rippled across his handsome face. “I used the present tense, not the past.”
She tried to follow him but her brain seemed oversaturated, incapable of making sense out of even the simplest of statements, and his had been anything but.
He looked suddenly agitated, as if understanding that he stood on a sinking boat that was taking on more water than he could bail out. And stunningly, she felt a need to make things easier for him.
How could that be? This man had come to her place under false pretenses, had lied to her from the word go. Had schemed to take away the thing that meant the most to her.
Hot tears flooded her eyes.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she whispered, starting for the door so she could go up to her rooms and lock herself in where no one could bother her. No one could touch her. Lie to her.
She hadn’t expected him to grasp her wrist as she passed. In a knee-jerk reaction, she slapped him soundly across the face with her free hand.
He blinked at her, and she got the impression that his wince was as much due to the physical blow as to the crack to his ego.
“I suppose I deserved that.”
“You deserve much worse.”
He averted his gaze. “You’re right, I do.”
Josie didn’t know how she knew, but she sensed
that he meant what he was saying. And hope lit anew in her stomach.
A hope she didn’t want. Not when what they’d shared had been temporary anyway. She’d always known it would end.
For some reason, she didn’t want it to end badly.
He looked up into her eyes again, his gaze intense. “I know all this—what you’ve learned about me—is a shock. And that right now you’re reacting on an emotional level…and that you’re hurting.” He lifted his hand to her face and stroked her cheek with his thumb. When she moved so he couldn’t touch her, he dropped his hand back to his side, his eyes beseeching. “Think about it, Josie. Try to look beyond how you’re feeling right now.” She heard the click of his deep swallow. “Not once did I ever mention a word to you about selling the hotel. Not ever.”
She couldn’t fully absorb his words.
“What do you think that means, Josie? Here I am, a guy whose only intention, supposedly, is to get you to sell, yet I never mentioned the hotel and the many problems you’re having. Not once.”
From a place outside herself, she realized he was right. He’d never made the hotel or her ownership or possible sale of it the focus of any conversation they’d had.
Of course, most of their time together had been spent having sex.
Still…
She reached beyond the cloud of betrayal and hurt and tried to grasp something that was just outside her ability to get hold of just then.
“‘The Closer,’” she whispered. “I get the impression you’re very good at your job, Drew. At whatever you decide that job to be.”
He shifted on his feet and she noticed the way he held his hands tightly still, as if barely able to contain his longing to touch her. And suddenly, irrationally, she wanted that touch more than her next breath, despite her knowledge that he could be working her still, even at this moment.
His voice lowered to a rasping murmur that made her shiver. “If you can’t answer the question of why I never mentioned the hotel, Josie, then answer this one—what am I doing here? Why am I standing before you right now, out of my mind with the thought that I’ll never again be able to touch you? Kiss you? Taste your sweetness on my tongue? Hold you in my arms?”
She searched his eyes, her brain stalling, her body longing to surge forward, longing for him. But she had more to say. “You could be here because you didn’t finish what you came here to do.”
She watched his eyes close briefly. Then he lifted his right hand, put it down again, then raised it again so that he could trail his fingertips over the inside of her arm at her elbow. Goose bumps ran over her skin at the subtle yet powerful touch. Over her wrist, her palm, then he was lacing his fingers with hers. He lifted her hand so that the back of it rested against his chest.
“You’re right,” he said. “I didn’t finish what I started.” His pupils dilated, taking over the blue of his eyes. “Only my objective did a complete one-eighty the instant I kissed you. The moment you invited me into your body…and into your heart.”
The aforementioned organ had contracted to the point where it clutched painfully in her chest.
“And I am there, aren’t I, Josie?” He moved their hands so that they rested between her breasts. “Just as you’re in mine.”
A part of her didn’t want to hear what he was saying. Wanted words that would feed the ache in her stomach and help her shore up her crumbling defenses.
“Yes, I’m an independent contractor. Yes, I worked for a client that wants your hotel. Yes, I came here with the sole intention of getting it for him.”
She narrowed her eyes. Where was he going
with this? Every word seemed to aim for and hit her where she was most vulnerable.
“But all that’s changed, Josie. None of that makes sense to me anymore. My job seems so unimportant.”
She licked her lips, unable to speak, unable to move, mesmerized by what he appeared to be saying.
“What is important is the fact that I’m falling in love with you.”
An almost unbearable pain mixed with hope inside her.
“Correction—I’m not falling in love with you. I’m in love with you. And falling deeper every moment I gaze into your eyes and touch your soft skin.”
His thumb was stroking her hand, sending sensations rushing up her arm and over her sleep-deprived body.
“I can’t…” she began, towing her gaze from his face and searching for something, anything, with which to pull herself free from the overwhelming emotions enveloping her. “I can’t deal with this right now, Drew.” She found a piece of strength within to draw from. Strength that had been in the Villefranche family for longer, much longer, than she’d been a part of it. “Maybe what you’re telling
me is the truth. Maybe not. Maybe this is all just some sort of ruse to try to salvage a situation beyond repair.”
On a level she was loath to recognize, she sensed that this wasn’t the case, but her doubts needed to be addressed.
She smiled sadly, giving in to her own overpowering need to touch him and lifting her free hand to his face. She ran her fingertips over his strong cheekbone, over his jaw, the rasp of his stubble rough against her palm.
“Look,” she whispered, focusing her attention on his mouth rather than his eyes. “We both knew that this, whatever it is that exists between us, was temporary. That it would end almost as quickly as it began.” The prospect of not seeing him again hurt her more than what had transpired in the past few hours. What did that mean?
“Yes, but I’m not gone yet,” he murmured.
Then he leaned in and did what she wanted most in the world in that one moment.
He kissed her.
D
REW KNEW AN ALL-CONSUMING
relief as he softly kissed Josie’s sweet lips. She didn’t resist. Moreover, she appeared to want the contact as much as he did.
Dear God, he didn’t know what he’d done to deserve this chance, but he wasn’t about to screw it up now.
He ran his thumb along her cheek then entwined his fingers in her dark, silky curls, pressing her nearer to him. She smelled like heaven and tasted even better.
Finally, she turned her head slightly, crushing her nose against the side of his neck, her breathing rapid and shallow.
“I need…time,” she whispered.
Time was something neither one of them had, judging by everything he’d learned during his research.
But time was what he had to give her. He owed it to her. Even though he knew that with a few
expert touches she’d writhe, needing and wanting, under his power.
“Okay.”
He stepped away from her. Not far. A mere few inches. But she blinked at him as if he’d moved across the room.
“How long…”
She looked away, as if the beginning of the question she’d been about to ask wasn’t one she wanted to hear the answer to.
“How much longer am I staying?”
She nodded, although she still avoided his gaze.
“I leave tomorrow.”
Her eyes flooded with pain as she stared at him.
“Not for good. I have some things I have to see to. Some business matters.”
She bit her bottom lip, her hand going to the side of her neck. “Related to the Josephine?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
She didn’t say anything for long moments.
“No more secrets, Drew. Please.”
He groaned inwardly, wishing he could erase the hurt from her lovely face.
“Just one more.”
Because in the past few minutes with her, witnessing her generous spirit and heart, realizing she was forgiving him even though she hadn’t said the
words, he decided not to tell her what he was doing. He didn’t want her to refuse what she would certainly see as an act of charity. Instead, he felt that incredible desire to take care of her again. To move heaven and earth to get her what she wanted. And she wanted this hotel. No matter how battered. No matter the ghosts that walked the halls. No matter the darkness that lurked in the shadows.
He realized that he could just as easily have been describing Josie herself and his own need for her.
He took the card from the Marriott from his shirt pocket on which he’d scribbled his cell phone number. “My flight leaves in the morning.” He took her hand, turned it palm up, then placed the card there before putting his fingers over them both.
He didn’t say anything more. Didn’t have to. They both knew that the act of his giving her the card meant it was up to her if she wanted to see him. All she had to do was call.
Drew leaned forward and pressed his lips to her temple, breathing in the fresh, sexy scent of her. Then he turned and walked away, even though it killed him to think that it might be for the last time.
J
OSIE STAYED IN THE KITCHEN
by herself for a long time after Drew had left her. She’d drifted to a
stool at the island where their love affair had begun a few short days before. She wanted to believe what Drew had told her. Wanted it with every cell in her body, every breath she took in.
She was so preoccupied with her thoughts, trying to work everything out, she didn’t hear someone come in.
“Uh-huh. You got it bad, girl.”
Josie blinked Anne-Marie into focus, an exasperated Philippe standing next to her.
“What…”
She was going to ask what Anne-Marie was doing there, but didn’t get the words out before deciding Philippe had probably contacted her.
Josie got up from the stool and continued making coffee for herself, including cups for her two friends. By the time she was done, they were both sitting at the cutting board.
“Is it true?” Anne-Marie asked. “Was Morrison here to get you to sell the Josephine?”
Josie nodded as she took a deep sip from her coffee.
“I knew it. I knew there was something about him. Something that kept coming up in the cards. Mystery. Deception.”
“So what did he say?” Philippe asked. “Did he come here to finish the job?”
She remembered what Drew had said about his intentions having changed and smiled softly. “No.”
“But he tried.”
“Yes. But not in the way you think.” She put her cup down. “It had nothing to do with the hotel.”
“Maybe it should have.” Anne-Marie drank from her own cup, causing her bracelets to clank.
“How so?”
Her friend shook her dark head, which was covered with the usual African head wrap. “Josie, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but this place, the Josephine, is packed full of bad karma.” She looked around as if half-afraid an entity might materialize from out of thin air and go for her throat. “It’s all I can do to sit here with you.”
Josie absorbed her words. “Are you telling me I should sell?”
Anne-Marie’s eyes were sober. “I’m saying that maybe you should consider it.”
Josie felt as if the ceiling had just fallen in on her.
The one person she’d expected to try to talk her into giving up the Josephine—Drew—hadn’t, while her best friend, a woman she’d known for countless years, who knew how much the hotel was a part of her, was.
The day was beginning to emerge as one of the most unpredictable of her life.
She looked at Philippe, who was considering his coffee.
“Maybe she’s right, Jos.”
She couldn’t believe she was hearing this. She moved to get up from the table.
Anne-Marie placed a stilling hand on her arm. “We’re just concerned about you, girl. We see how much you have on your shoulders. You’ve been carrying quite a burden since your
granme
passed to the other side and it’s only gotten heavier since the murders.” She shook her head. “I say maybe you should take what they’re offering and run. Start up a new life someplace else. Somewhere that isn’t as haunted by the past as this place is.”
A part of her recognized that what they were saying was right. Another felt betrayed for the second time that day.
She met Anne-Marie’s pitying gaze. “I want you to help me rid the hotel of that bad karma,” she said point-blank.
Her comment appeared to be the last thing either of them had expected her to say.
She’d surprised even herself.
“If it’s true that this place is cursed, then you’re just the person to help me, right?”
Anne-Marie didn’t appear to know what to say. “I thought you didn’t buy into any of that.”
“At this point, I’m just about willing to try anything.”
Philippe made a tsk-tsking sound and got up to refresh his coffee, topping off Josie’s cup as well, while Anne-Marie appeared to ponder what Josie was asking.
“You can’t just try, chérie. You must believe.”
“Believe in the ritual?”
“Believe that good can conquer evil. That love triumphs over all.”
Love…
Anne-Marie’s gaze narrowed on her. Then she appeared to come to some sort of understanding, while Josie felt like the other woman had just gazed straight down into the very chamber of her heart.
Anne-Marie nodded. “Yes, yes. This just might work.”
D
REW PACED THE LENGTH
of his room then back again. His suitcase was packed, as was his laptop.
He looked at his watch. Three hours had passed since he’d left Josie standing alone in the kitchen. Walking away from her had been, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the hardest thing he’d ever done. Harder than facing a battalion of heavily armed Iraqi soldiers on the border of Kuwait.
More difficult than his divorce. Tougher than his demotion when his divorce had delivered a blow he hadn’t expected.
She wasn’t going to call.
Shit.
But he hadn’t been called “The Closer” for nothing. He’d be damned if he’d give in that easily.
Leaving his suitcase and briefcase sitting near the door, he went out into the hall, his intention to head over to the Josephine and do what he probably should have earlier. Kiss Josie until she remembered none of the bad and wanted nothing more than to enjoy more of the good.
His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He slowed his purposeful stride down the hall and fished it out of his pants.
“Hello?”
“Drew?”
Josie.
He stopped and closed his eyes.
“If you’re free, I’d like you to come over tonight. Say around ten?”
Ten. A good four hours away. He didn’t think he could survive it.
But he would have to.
“I’ll be there.”