“I’d just started my first company. Lydia worked for a competitor, but it was never a problem.” His expression grew colder. “I never thought it was a problem. Not until Lydia sold me out.”
Gulp. Lydia had to be very brave to cross him. Or stupid. I knew
I
never wanted to be on his bad side. I was scared shitless watching him, and none of his anger was directed at me. “What did she do?”
“She gave her boss crucial information about my company—information they used to crush my business.” He sat back, appearing to be calm. I knew better. “It was quite brilliant on her part. It got her a promotion. It was the first step toward starting her own company. I just should have realized she would have gone to any means to secure her position there.”
Ouch. I winced. Sounded kind of familiar. I reheard everything Luc had yelled at me earlier.
“It’s funny,” Drake said, his thoughts distant. “Now I can’t decide if I admire her for it more than I resent her.”
Swallowing, I pushed up my glasses. “So I guess you broke up.”
His grin was wry. “Yes, we did. I swore I’d rebuild my company and that I’d give her a taste of her own medicine. I swore I’d crush her just like she crushed me. Retribution.” He smirked and shook his head. “Only she has more sway over me than I realized, because I can’t do it. I still love her.”
That had to suck. But I still didn’t get it. “Taking over her company isn’t the best way to get into a woman’s good graces.”
He chuckled. “True. You’re very wise, Katherine. That’s why I’m having second thoughts about the takeover. In fact, I think I have a better idea—a merger. Both in business and in life.”
“I’m not sure Lydia will go for that.” If there was one thing I knew about my boss, it was that her independence and need for control ran deep. I mean, look at this whole sperm-donor mess. There was no way she was going to surrender not only her company but also herself to a man as strong as Drake.
“I can convince her.” He said it so confidently I was inclined to believe him. “But I need your help.”
I bit my lip. “I don’t know. If she finds out—”
“Katherine, don’t you want your man back?”
“My man?”
“The one Lydia was with.”
Luc
. I opened my mouth to automatically protest that he was just my best friend.
But then I remembered the way he had kissed me that one night and the feel of his strong hands on me and the tone of his voice when he said he loved me after he chewed me out.
I flushed. Did he mean it in
that
way ?
What if he did?
Closing my eyes, I pictured being with him. I would have thought it’d be weird to think of Luc in
that
way—he was my best friend, after all. But it wasn’t. It felt right, like a missing piece of a puzzle I’d been working on for years had suddenly fallen into place.
I imagined waking up with him. Laughing with him in the mornings with my head resting on his chest. Helping him make dinner at night and curling up on the couch watching a movie together afterward. His hand in mine for the rest of our lives.
My heart sank. I’d blown it big-time. Luc was going away with Lydia
right now
.
I gazed at Drake. Did he mean everything he was saying? “How can I trust you?”
He leaned forward, his eyes never leaving mine. “I give you my word.”
Call me an idiot, but I believed him. “Okay. What do we do?”
Chapter Fourteen
“I don’t know if this is a good idea.”
“It’s a brilliant idea.” Drake pushed me ahead of him.
“No—really. We should reconsider.” I dug my heels in, but on the slick floor of the hallway I slid ahead. “Did you know burglary has dropped thirty-eight percent over the past five years in San Francisco?”
“Don’t you want to find out where they went?”
I pushed my glasses and sighed. There was that.
“Great.” He took my sigh as a capitulation, I guess. “We’re going to use your key to get into the apartment—”
“Loft,” I corrected.
He didn’t pay attention to me. “—and then we’re going to sleuth out where Lydia and your friend might have gone.”
By
sleuth out
he meant snoop around. The thought of invading Luc’s privacy didn’t settle well with me.
Drake prodded my back again.
Okay, let’s think about this logically.
Did I really want Luc and Lydia to end up together? No. What if they got together (in every euphemistic sense of the phrase) and it resulted in a little Luc—or worse, a little Lydia? (Shudder!)
Right. I took out my key. We were going in.
I wasn’t really breaking in—I
was
using a key, after all. And I was doing this for him—to stop him from making the biggest mistake of his life.
The way the key slipped in and opened the door gave me a twinge of guilt. It seemed like a metaphor for Luc’s trust, that it would let me in so easily.
Drake walked in before me. “He doesn’t have an alarm system, does he?”
“Luc?” I wrinkled my nose. “No way.”
He shook his head as he looked around. “He should. His art collection alone is worth a small fortune.”
Gary’s squiggles of paint? Right. Because I doubted Drake would take well to being corrected, I didn’t bother to tell him he was mistaken about the worth of the paintings.
“Does he have an office?”
“Oh—right.” Our mission. “This way.” I led him to the partitioned workstation.
He flipped through some of the papers littering the top of the desk. “Do you know the password on his computer?”
I did, but I wasn’t ready to admit that. “Let’s look around a little first.”
Drake leveled a look at me. “You aren’t getting cold feet again, are you?”
“No.” I really did want to stop Luc from ruining his life on my account. But looking at someone’s computer files seemed so intimate. “I just doubt he would have input it on his computer. He hates typing.”
We did a thorough search of his office space, including the trash can (I never knew he ate so many Snickers bars—I thought Milky Way was his candy of choice).
We divided up the rest of the loft. Drake took the living room and kitchen, I took Luc’s bedroom.
Big mistake. It smelled like Luc, even from where I stood on the top step of the circular stairs that led up there. A pang of sadness shot through my heart and I felt the futility of this. Even if we found them, I had the feeling my relationship with him would never be the same.
That made me depressed. More so than losing my promotion. I think.
Still, I had to try. I steeled my spine and stepped into his bower.
And froze.
Over his bed was a colorful painting I’d never seen before. I searched the bottom, looking for a signature even though in my heart I knew.
Yes—Gary’s.
I looked at the painting again. It took my breath away. Swirls of dark red and hot pink paint around the hazy portrait of a woman with sultry eyes.
Me.
Only I didn’t have sultry eyes. Did I?
Frowning, I raced to the mirror on the wardrobe door. I took my glasses off, leaned close (so I could actually see), and squinted at my reflection.
Nope. But I could see the beginning of crow’s feet.
“My life as I know it is ending,” I muttered, “and on top of it all I’m getting wrinkles.”
“Find anything?”
I started at Drake’s voice calling up from the bottom of the stairs. “Not yet.”
“Need help?”
“
No.
” I gulped. “I’m fine, thank you.”
Okay, Katherine—look around quickly and then get out.
Right. I got to business because, frankly, Drake seeing the painting made me uncomfortable. It wasn’t me. Gary must have been smoking illegal substances when he created it. (I’d have to tell him how he was killing his brain cells each time he polluted his body with narcotics.)
I picked up a pad of paper by the phone of the nightstand, not expecting to find anything of value on it. But there it was—the location of Luc and Lydia’s rendezvous.
I blinked. Wow. I didn’t think we were actually going to find anything. I hurried down to show Drake.
He wasn’t as pleased with my discovery as I thought he was going to be. In fact, my ears burned as he swore.
I did learn some excellent curses, though.
“You aren’t happy?” I asked cautiously.
He glared at me. “I’m thrilled you found it.”
If he were any more thrilled, I had a feeling I’d be a bloody mass on the floor. “Are you sure?”
He grunted. “Let’s go.”
I made sure to lock the door before following him to the waiting car. I had to jog to keep up with him. Ferragamos are
not
made for running.
“Um, Drake?”
He glanced over his shoulder at me.
“Have you ever tried yoga? I’ve read that the meditative aspects are excellent for calming one’s system.”
He yanked open the car door before his driver could get out. “Get in.”
Gulp. Bad idea, but given the look on his face I decided it’d be more stupid to argue. I stumbled in, keeping a wary eye on him.
I relaxed when I heard him order his driver to my apartment. I smiled in genuine relief. Good that we weren’t rushing off after the errant couple—not while Drake was in this homicidal-maniac state.
“How fast do you think you can be ready to go?”
“Ready to go where?” I asked, keeping an eye on the road to make sure the driver didn’t miss my building. Not that it was easy to miss—it was the tallest penitentiary-looking structure on the block.
“To Harmony by the Sea Bed and Breakfast.”
I almost fell off the seat. I’m sure it was the sudden way the car came to a halt, though. “Excuse me?”
He frowned at me. “What did you think we were going to do?”
Well, I hadn’t thought that far. The plan had been to find out where they were going and then to play it by ear. “I hadn’t expected—”
“Katherine, do you know how long they’ve been gone and what they could be doing
right now
?”
An image of Luc and Lydia playing pop goes the weasel materialized in my mind.
Eew.
“Just give me a minute,” I said, jumping out of the car and running toward the building.
I ran up the stairs and got a couple of changes of clothes together in record time. I was locking up my apartment when Rainbow poked her head out of her door.
“Hey, Kath!”
“Hi, Rainbow.” I frowned, jimmying my key so it’d click into place.
“Going somewhere?”
There—it locked. I faced her. “Yes, actually.” I felt like I should ask her to watch my cat or something, only I didn’t have one.
She smiled. “Want to come over when you get back?”
“Sure.” I nodded. “I’d really like that.”
She beamed at me, and I felt good. Then she surprised me by grabbing me in a bear hug. “Take care,” she whispered. “Good luck.”
I pushed my glasses up and blinked away moisture. She was so sweet to be so nice to me.
She smiled as she drew away. “Be happy.”
I resolved then and there when I got back I was going to do something nice for her. Something special. Not because I expected anything in return but because I wanted
her
to be happy.
What was happening to me?
I decided as I flew back down the flights of stairs that whatever it was, I liked it.
Milton was waiting outside the car to let me in when I burst out from the front door. He relieved me of my little bag and opened the door for me.
I thanked him and tumbled headlong into Drake’s lap.
With a grimace, I looked up at him. “Sorry.”
He didn’t smile, but I think I saw amusement light his eyes. A little. Either that or he had gas. “I’ve never had a woman throw herself at me quite like that.”
“I find that hard to believe,” I murmured as I righted myself and sat next to him.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” I strapped myself in with the seat belt.
Fortunately, the inn was outside of Half Moon Bay—only about a half-hour drive—so the fact that we spent most of the trip in silence wasn’t that big a deal.
But the closer we got, the stiller Drake became. It was unnerving.
So I did the only thing I could. I recited facts.
“Did you know last year the largest pumpkin at the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Weigh-off was one thousand two hundred twenty-nine pounds?”
He barely glanced at me.
I looked out the window and saw a distant boat on the ocean. “Did you know ocean water has to reach eighty-two degrees for a hurricane to form?”
He blinked.
“Did you know the human eye blinks an average of 4.2 million times a year?”
“Katherine.”
Right. I gulped and shut up.
Five minutes later he finally turned to me. “We need to go over our plan.”
“Okay.” I was greatly relieved to find out we had one.
“Our objective is to drive Lydia and your friend apart this weekend. Based on what I saw the other night at the club—”
I winced. I remembered just enough of that night to be mortified.
“—I think we should use jealousy to pull them apart.”
“Jealousy?” My laugh sounded strangled even to my ears. “Lydia is never going to be jealous of me.”
Drake frowned at me. “What do you mean? You’re very attractive, Katherine.”
I wasn’t chopped liver, but I didn’t delude myself to believe I was in the same class as Lydia. Not yet. Her shoes were better.
“We’ll work on that,” he said. “But mostly I was talking about your friend being jealous of me.”
I shook my head. “There’s only one problem with that.”
“What?”
“Luc has to want
me
in order to be jealous of
you
.”
He grinned. “Oh, he wants you. Trust me.”
I was really beginning to hate it when people said that.
“We just have to turn up the heat under him.” Drake rubbed his hands together. In that moment, he looked so much like what I’d always imagined Satan to look like I had to rub my eyes.
But maybe he was right. I flashed back on Gary’s painting hanging over Luc’s bed. He wouldn’t have hung it there if he didn’t like me, right? I’d just have to figure out how much he liked me.
Though even if he didn’t want me in that way, getting him away from Lydia would be enough.
It would, I repeated mentally, dismissing the sad pang from my heart at the thought that he might not want me.
Drake told me to let him do the talking when we got to the inn. I was happy to let him do it too, being uncertain as to how he was going to get us rooms at this late time. Didn’t inns require advance notice?
Somehow he got hold of the innkeeper. I listened halfheartedly to their conversation as I looked up the stairs wondering which room Luc and Lydia were staying in.
Then I heard him tell the innkeeper we just needed one room.
“Drake.” I knocked on his back.
He glanced at me and kept charming the woman.
“
Drake
.” I tugged on his sleeve.
He scowled. “Yes, Katherine?”
I lowered my voice and pulled his face down so the woman wouldn’t hear us. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“What?” he whispered back.
“One room.”
He nodded and his stubble rasped against my cheek. “It won’t be believable otherwise. Trust me.”
Grr.
But then something amazing happened. Luc and Lydia walked in from a side door (one that went outside to the gardens and the beach, I assumed).