“For ransom?”
“Possibly, though I would have thought Hamilton Lending would have received some kind of demands by now if that were the case. Besides, there’s the million dollars that’s already been taken from Cecilia’s account.”
Following him in to get rooms for the night, Laurel shivered. William, Cecilia, Leslie. Were they together?
“Scott?” she asked as they crossed the lobby. She knew if she waited any longer—until she had a room to run to and hide—she’d chicken out.
“Yeah?”
He was the stranger still—that pleasant but distant man who’d looked at her infrequently that day. The one who was freezing her out of the most valuable friendship of her life.
“After we get settled in our rooms, I need to talk to you, okay?”
He surprised her by agreeing at once. “Sure I need to talk to you, too.”
That didn’t sound good.
* * *
THE EVENING WAS COOL, pleasant. They decided to walk around the corner where they’d seen a deli and pick up sandwiches for dinner. They ate them under a tree in a field across the street from the motel. It felt good to Laurel to be outside, and now that it was getting dark, the night surrounded them in a cocoon of anonymity.
She took a deep breath, knowing she couldn’t continue to avoid the difficult conversation ahead of her. She’d done Scott a horrible disservice the night before. Somehow she had to make that right.
She loved Paul.
But wanted Scott.
Even now, after an entire day of being shut out, an entire day of knowing that what she’d done was wrong, she wanted him.
Just thinking about the night before when Scott had allowed her to touch him so intimately, her belly curled with desire. And when she thought of Paul, her heart filled with love.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with me.” They were through eating, leaning back against the tree, shoulders touching.
He was engrossed with a blade of grass, smoothing it between thumb and forefinger, watching it curl. “What makes you think something’s wrong with you?”
She took a deep breath. “Last night.”
“You don’t...”
“Let me finish.” She hadn’t meant the words to be so loud. “I’m in love with Paul,” she admitted flatly, almost wishing that when she looked, she’d find her fiancé missing from her heart so she would be free.
She’d never expected to think that, to want that, but she did. Fresh shame engulfed her.
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“But for some reason, I want you so desperately I’m thinking about...being with you...all the time.”
She was glad for the falling night, the fact that they weren’t facing each other. Speaking out to the open field made the humiliating confession possible.
He raised one knee, and rested a forearm across it, but said nothing.
“If it were just sex, I’d understand,” she said, thinking things through as she talked. “It’s been three and a half years, we’ve been in close proximity the last few days, there’s the fact that you’re an almost perfect specimen of manhood...”
“Almost perfect?”
Laurel heard the grin in his voice and the constriction in her chest loosened a little.
“There is that ego of yours,” she teased. He was perfect. But he didn’t need her to tell him that. In high school and college he’d had every girl he’d ever wanted—and many he didn’t—swarming after him.