The Best Man's Plan

ding he’d better leave before he dug himself any deeper, he turned toward the door. “Lock the door behind me.”

“Locking the door didn’t keep you out.”

He only looked at her over his shoulder, waiting until she sighed and joined him at the door. He opened the door, then paused in the doorway. Studying her closely, he saw signs of her weariness—a smudge of purple beneath her eyes, a slight droop to her shoulders. His voice softened when he spoke again, “I really was worried about you, Grace.”

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue before murmuring, “Um…I appreciate the concern. It just wasn’t necessary.”

He would have liked to kiss her then, just to reassure himself that she was all right. But since he’d spent the past several minutes chewing her out, he doubted that she would be receptive to a kiss from him. He cheered himself with the reminder that he would be spending the next day with her. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning at ten.”

There was little expression on her face when she nodded. “Good night, Bryan.”

He heard the locks click into place after she closed the door between them. It gave him the depressing feeling that she was locking him out of her life.

Squaring his shoulders, he turned toward the elevator, reminding himself that even Grace had acknowledged that he wasn’t an easy man to lock out.

Even though she was exhausted by the time she crawled into bed, Grace didn’t rest well. Her emotions were still in turmoil from her confrontation with Bryan. She was still angry with him for challenging her right to go out without his assigned escort, yet she couldn’t help remembering that there had been genuine concern for her in his eyes.

She told herself not to read too much into that. Bryan was the overly responsible type; he’d promised that no harm would come to her because of her association with him, and he would go overboard in his efforts to keep that promise. He would do the same for anyone.

As for the other overtures he’d been making to her lately—the kisses, the long looks, the unexpected offer to join her in bed, which may or may not have been made in jest—she would have to keep those in perspective, as well. Flirting came as naturally as breathing to Bryan; she’d seen him work that same natural charm on blushing senior citizens.

What really concerned her was the possibility that he was beginning to see her as a substitute for her sister. He’d been attracted to Chloe, and so impressed by her that he’d actually considered marrying her. Was it really so farfetched that he could be transferring those abruptly derailed feelings to Chloe’s identical twin?

Bryan had been drawn to Chloe’s gentle, peaceful, competent and dependable nature, seeing in her the ideal potential mate for a wealthy, powerful, socially prominent man, and future mother of his children. Except for appearance, Grace was nothing like her sister. Nor was she willing to change to suit anyone’s image of what she should be like. Not again.

The best plan of action, therefore, was to continue to demonstrate to Bryan that she wasn’t the type of woman he’d been searching for. If he was making the mistake of seeing her as a convenient substitute, he had to be shown the error of that thinking. And there was no better way to show him than to be herself around him.

The problem was, she had to keep reminding herself, as well as Bryan, that they were all wrong for each other. There were times when it was a bit too easy to pretend that the charade was real.

The telephone woke her at just after 8:30 a.m. She felt as though she’d only managed a couple hours sleep, and she answered the phone with a yawn. “H’lo?”

“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Chloe asked.

Grace wriggled to an upright position, pushing her tumbled hair out of her eyes with her free hand. “It’s okay. I have to get up, anyway.”

“I take it you’re uninjured?”

“I’m fine. Sorry Bryan worried you last night with his tantrum.”

“Maybe you should have told him you planned to go out last night?”

Grace sighed. “I’ve already gotten this lecture from Bryan. Don’t you start.”

“He was pretty mad, huh?”

Grace remembered the moment she had first spotted Bryan standing in the center of her living room, his expression forbidding, his posture letting her know he was poised for battle. “You could say that.”

“It hasn’t been that long since Donovan and I were kidnapped. The nightmare is still fresh to Bryan. I figured you’d just slipped off with some of your friends, but Bryan doesn’t know you as well as I do. He was half convinced that Wallace Childers had resurfaced and snatched you for ransom—or revenge.”

“He overreacted, obviously. But I’ll try not to set him off again.”

“You’ll cooperate with his security measures?”

“Within reasonable bounds.”

“That sounds like another argument waiting to happen—but I’ll leave it to you and Bryan to work out between you. You’re still seeing him today?”

“He’s picking me up at ten.”