“Have you forgotten already?” Her voice packed just the right amount of sultry amusement to stir his lust.
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel to keep his hands from wandering across the space between them and slipping beneath the hem of her dress to find her bare knee. It drove him crazy that ever since she’d been married his brother she’d started dressing to repress her sensuality. A beautiful woman shouldn’t hide the way Savannah did.
“Hardly.” But after glancing in her direction, he wasn’t sure if they were referring to the same thing after all. “You are talking about what happened in my office, aren’t you?”
“You sound worried that I’m not.”
“I don’t sound worried.” What was going on that he wanted last night’s encounter to have changed her somehow?
It had been an interlude between ex-lovers. Nothing more. It certainly hadn’t changed anything going on with him. So why did he expect her to be any different? Trent ground his teeth together, disliking his uncertainty. To his relief, Savannah chose to elaborate without his prompting.
“Being around you reminded me of the girl I used to be. You taught me how to take care of myself. I’d forgotten how to do that in the last year and a half.”
As long as he could remember, he’d lectured her on the need to question people’s motives before agreeing to something. She’d lost much of her naïveté while living in New York, but obviously she sometimes forgot to be wary of people eager to take advantage of her.
“Why didn’t you take care of yourself while married to my brother?”
“In a lot of ways, your brother was like your father. He wanted a particular kind of wife. One who did as he asked and never argued. I didn’t realize our marriage wasn’t going to be a partnership until too late.”
For the first time, it occurred to Trent that she hadn’t been happy. Again came that urge to comfort her. Again he resisted. She wasn’t his to worry about. Helping her sort through what was going on with the label was about getting back at his father. She’d hit the nail on the head last night when she’d encouraged him to demonstrate to Siggy that he was a better businessman.
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out the way you’d hoped.”
“I’m not sure I had an idea what I was hoping for.”
Again her remark prompted questions, but Trent refrained from diving in. Last night she’d said she didn’t want to talk about her marriage. He sure as hell didn’t want to hear about it today.
He parked the car in the hotel parking lot and they went in the front entrance together. She’d chosen a budget chain, with none of the bells and whistles she might have enjoyed if his brother hadn’t left her in debt. Whatever else had changed with her, she remained fiscally responsible.
Trent had booked himself into the Wilshire for the night. Although he could very easily have dropped Savannah off and headed to his hotel, he felt as if he owed her some idea of what he had planned.
Her standard hotel room was empty when they arrived. A crib had been set up by the window, but Dylan wasn’t in it and the babysitter was nowhere to be seen.
“Shouldn’t they be here?” For some reason the sight of the empty hotel room alarmed him. Maybe it was the way Savannah had tensed.
“I told Lori not to go anywhere until I got back.” Savannah fumbled in her purse for her phone and scrolled through her contacts. “She didn’t send me a text and she’s not answering her phone. Where could they be?” The pitch of her voice registered anxiety.
“How long have you known this girl?”
“I first hired her to babysit Dylan right after Rafe’s death. I knew there would be a lot to do and that it would disrupt Dylan’s routines too much if I brought him everywhere I needed to go.”
“And you checked her out?”
Savannah shot him a dark look. “I hired her through a reputable agency that had her thoroughly vetted.”
“And she hasn’t done anything like this before?”
“If by like this you mean taken Dylan somewhere without telling me, not to my knowledge.”
Trent could tell his interrogation of Savannah wasn’t helping the situation, and she was looking more upset by the minute.
“What is it you aren’t telling me?” Trent demanded.
“Nothing really.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s just that your father...”