Audrey’s Inn

by Aycart, Elle

  “You’ll make me come again,” she whispered, lifting her hands to his shoulders and raking her nails over him.

  He ignored her and continued his ministrations until she was shivering and pressing her legs together, literally riding his poor cock. She turned her head and nibbled at his jaw. “Con?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Fuck me.”

  “My pleasure.”

  He might not leave the shower alive, but he’d die a happy man.

  * * *

  Connor woke up disoriented. He was in a bed, Audrey in his arms. Fuck, he’d dozed off. After the fuckfest in the shower, they’d made it to the bed. He’d planned to lie with her until she fell asleep and then sneak out, but it felt so nice and warm with her wrapped around him, he’d zonked out. Thank God he hadn’t had any nightmares. He’d count this as a huge win and quit while he was ahead. She was going to purse her lips and give him an earful for walking out on her in the middle of the night, but whatever. He wasn’t going to risk her well-being.

  He tucked her in, and with a kiss, he forced himself to leave her side. Fuck, he wanted to stay with her. Wake up with her snuggling against him, like normal people did. But he wasn’t normal, and if he woke up startled from one of his vivid dreams, disoriented and jacked up, he could hurt her before he realized it. No fucking way was he risking it. He couldn’t live with himself if that happened.

  He got dressed and stepped outside. It was five o’clock and he didn’t feel like going back to sleep, so he checked around the garden. Not much to do. He saw the light in the kitchen was on. Red, probably, getting the breakfast going. As he approached, he noticed the wonderful smell. Before he could plan a proper retreat, Red waved at him through the window.

  “Good morning,” he said. “Do you need anything?”

  She had that damn grin on her face again. She gave him a plate of freshly baked croissants that smelled spectacular. “Eat. You deserve it.”

  Uh. Whatever. Since hooking up with Audrey, he’d started enjoying food again. “Thanks.”

  He was wolfing them down when he remembered Audrey and he had left the building supplies in the car yesterday. He headed for the parking lot, unloaded them, and brought them into the cottage. Mike had had quite a lot of stuff left over from the remodeling he’d done on Kyra’s house, so between the materials Audrey had bought and the ones Mike had promised to drop off, the cottage would be ready in no time.

  It was almost six o’clock, so he decided to pay a visit on Greta. He hadn’t slept at home for two nights in a row, and he wanted to check in.

  Greta was already on the couch, dressed and wearing full makeup, but the TV was off. She was holding something that looked like a tablet in one hand, and in the other she had a phone.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph. My husband would have fainted,” she was saying.

  “We missed out. Totally missed out.” That was Wilma’s voice coming from the cell. “I was so cheated. ‘Four inches is the standard size,’ he used to say. Standard, my ass.”

  Greta was laughing. “And this… what do they call it… dirty talk? I never heard more than a grunt from mine.”

  “Grandma, I’m home.” Connor wasn’t sure what they were talking about, but he had a strong feeling he shouldn’t be hearing this unless he wanted to be scarred for life, as Mike always used to write in Messenger.

  “Connor? Good morning, my boy.”

  “What are you doing?” From up close, Con could see that it was an e-reader she held on her lap.

  “We’re face-talking and reading at the same time.”

  Face-talking? “You mean FaceTiming?”

  “Yes! That one. Rachel taught us. She said it would be faster than writing messages. This way we can bypass Wilma’s dirty man too. You know, the one in the keyboard on her phone.”

  “Good idea.” Con heard a toilet flushing. “And that?”

  “Rebecca coming out of the bathroom. Rachel hasn’t taught us how to mute yet.”

  “You’re lucky you weren’t here five minutes ago when Rebecca’s morning coffee did its thing,” came Wilma’s voice. “You would have gotten an earful.”

  “Now, now,” Rebecca admonished them. “Yesterday you fell asleep on Greta and me, Wilma. We had to listen to your snoring for an hour.”

  “That’s true,” Greta explained to his grandson. “We tried yelling at her, but it didn’t work. Finally she was startled awake by one of her own snores. She’s the only one with wheels; otherwise, I would have driven to her place to wake her up.”

  Of course, hanging up and calling back hadn’t occurred to them.

  “I do not snore,” Wilma insisted. “That was interference on the line.”

  “Sure,” Rebecca said, laughing. “And the head bobbing?”

  “Pilates,” Wilma concluded.

  Oh God.

  Con showed his grandma how to mute the phone. She was ecstatic—until she discovered she couldn’t mute somebody else’s.

  Man, he had to take his hat off to Rachel. How she’d had the patience to teach them how to group FaceTime, he didn’t know. “You got yourself an e-reader,” he said.

  “Yes. Rachel gave Wilma her old one, and after checking it out, Rebecca and I decided to get our own.”

  So they were FaceTiming and reading smut at five o clock in the morning. His dad was wrong; they were not mentally incompetent. They were just having fun.

  “Do you want breakfast?” she offered. “I can whip up something fast.”

  “No need. I just ate a bunch of croissants. I’m full.”

  “Did you come from Audrey’s?” At his nod, a smile spread across her wrinkled face. “How’s it going with her?”

  “Great,” he said, realizing he was probably smiling like a dumb fuck himself and not giving a shit about it. He was… happy. And totally head over ass in love with Audrey.

  “I’m glad. I can see things are better with you. I was worried.”

  He kissed his grandma. “I know you were. But everything’s okay. You don’t have to worry.”

  “I hear you’ve been fixing up the cottage and taking care of the garden. I’m glad you’re helping Audrey. You grew up with Mike and the Bowens, but she’s an only child. I’m sure she appreciates having people around, helping her.”

  Connor frowned. “Audrey is an only child? Are you sure?”

  Greta nodded. “Audrey’s daughter only had the one daughter.”

  So who the fuck was the man she always referred to as her brother? The one with the PTSD?

  * * *

  Audrey woke up to an empty bed. Again. God, she was going to put mouse traps around so she would hear Con sneaking out and could stop him. Worst of all? She knew the reason why he didn’t want to sleep in the same room with her, and it broke her heart.

  She checked her watch. It was ten o’clock. She’d overslept again. After making herself presentable, she went to check in with her staff. The breakfast rush was over, but Red was busy in the kitchen, taking in produce from local suppliers.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead,” Red called out to Audrey. “If you’re looking for your man, I saw him five hours ago, moving building supplies to the cottage. You’re overworking the poor guy. Day and night. I fed him breakfast. He polished off all the pastries he could get his hands on.”

  Audrey cleared her throat, red as a traffic light if the way her face was burning was anything to go by. “Thanks. Do you need any help?”

  Red shook her head, laughing.

  O-kay. It looked like everything was under control in the kitchen. She went to check the reservations for the week. Bookings had been steadily increasing. If they continued like this, she would have to hire more help; otherwise, they were going to be seriously short-staffed. For today, though, her focus was on the Amantis event. The band’s security team would be arriving in a couple of hours.

  First things first. She needed to find Connor.

  The terrace was empty at this early hour. He wasn’t in the garden, so she h
eaded for the cottage. There were no sounds coming from inside, but she checked anyway. To her surprise, Con was sitting on the couch, a closed laptop by his side.

  “Here you are,” she said. Her smile faltered when she saw his face. His expression was harsh. His jaw was bunched. “What’s wrong, Con?”

  “You tell me, sweetheart.”

  “I don’t understand. What—”

  “What’s your brother’s name?”

  That question startled her. “Why?”

  Connor got up. “My grandmother said you’re an only child. So I was just wondering, who’s the guy you always refer to as your brother? Yesterday I asked you if your brother had PTSD, and you answered, ‘Something like that.’ What did that mean?”

  Shit. She desperately searched for a reply. One that wouldn’t land her in hot water. “She’s right. I’m an only child. He’s not really my brother. He—”

  “Don’t sweat it. I imagined he was someone close to you. He had to be for you to go to such lengths as learning how to deal with PTSD, so, jealous asshole with stalker tendencies that I am, I went online and tried to find him through you. Social media is handy that way. I thought maybe he was a friend or a relative or even an ex. It took me quite a while because there are no photos anywhere of you. Not even official ones. But I’m good and persistent. Imagine my surprise when I found one pic. It’s quite old, from over ten years ago.” He handed her a printed-out picture. “Here’s the real Audrey Fleming. So please explain who the fuck you are, because you sure as hell aren’t her.”

  Chapter Ten

  Con stood up. “Start talking. Fast. Who the fuck are you and where is the real Audrey Fleming?”

  She’d thought Con had a severe demeanor, but that had been nothing compared to his expression now. His face was harsh, his stance intimidating. This was Connor the military man.

  She took a deep breath and offered him an apologetic smile. “My name is Nicky Rubin, and Audrey Fleming was my roommate.”

  He narrowed his eyes on her, studying her. Probably assessing whether or not she was telling the truth. “You mean the Audrey you’re impersonating is the roommate who died?”

  She nodded. It was time to come clean and let the chips fall wherever. “Audrey and I had been close friends since we met in college. For the last five or six years, we were also roommates. She was a sweetheart—a bit of a recluse and not too good with people. Although she did say something was off with Andy. I should have listened to her.”

  “Andy who?” he asked impatiently.

  “Andy is the guy I was going out with when the shit hit the fan. We’d just started dating. He seemed nice and attentive.” And stupid Nicky had fallen for it. As always, falling head over heels for the wrong man—her trademark. “Around eight months ago, while picking me up for a date, he got a call. He said it would only be five minutes, that he had to check on something. We took a detour to an industrial area on the outskirts of Houston. He told me to wait in the car, but as you know, I don’t take orders well.” She tried smiling at him, but it didn’t help. Con was in hostile-interrogator mode. “The place was creeping me out and I didn’t want to be alone, so I went after Andy. I saw a bunch of men moving young girls into a warehouse. They were dirty and scared and they didn’t seem to understand English. I figured it was human trafficking. I freaked out. I hid and called the cops.

  “But while I was trying to sneak out, Andy saw me. He didn’t take kindly to being disobeyed.” He hadn’t been the Andy she thought she knew. He’d been the real Andy. “I tried to play dumb, but he didn’t believe I saw nothing. He pushed me in with the rest of the women, saying I should have stayed in the car. Then told his colleagues that their shipment had just gone up one pussy—and laughed.” He’d kindly explained that although the pussy was an old one, it was decent enough and he hadn’t been half-disappointed with it. Such a charmer.

  The uneasy feeling she’d had in her stomach since driving to that industrial park had transformed into a lump of lead the size of a basketball.

  “Fuck. Tell me you got out of there in time,” Con almost growled.

  She nodded. She’d been lucky. After a fashion. “The cops came. It’s all a bit confusing. Scrambled in my head. I was terrified, and there was so much yelling and shooting. I saw Andy get shot in the leg and go down. In the mayhem, I got separated from the other girls, and I ran to the car. I drove home, trembling all the way. There was a duffel bag in the car, and when I grabbed my purse, I took it too.” She hadn’t been thinking. She’d arrived crying and shaking, and it had taken the better part of an hour before Audrey got her to calm down enough to make sense of her words. How she’d made it home without crashing the car, she still didn’t know.

  “Why on earth did you run away from the cops?” Con asked. “Why not stay put?”

  Good question. She’d asked herself the same thing many times. “I don’t know. I panicked. In my defense, it didn’t look like the cops were winning. Although they did, because we saw it as breaking news on TV. When Audrey asked me about the duffel bag, I realized I had it. We opened it and it was full of cash. Blood money. I was going to call the cops then, but she said if we came forward, we’d have to testify. She said we could use the cash to do some good. Buy the B&B that had belonged to her family and reopen it. So we didn’t call the cops.”

  Con cursed loudly and viciously. “What the fuck were you thinking, stealing money from human traffickers? Those guys don’t let shit like that fly. They’ll do anything to get their money back.”

  “I know,” she whispered. If she could go back in time, she would have called the cops. Heck, she would never have gone out with Andy. “I was in shock. I really didn’t know what to do. I knew we had to get rid of Andy’s car, which I had parked right in front of our place, and we had to disappear. According to the news, most of the traffickers on the scene had been arrested. Two were in the hospital, but I knew sooner or later they’d figure out I took the money, and they would come for me. I told Audrey I was going to get us a car and park Andy’s on the other side of town. I left her packing.”

  By now Con was pacing and cursing between clenched teeth. She couldn’t understand what he was saying, but by the sound of it, he didn’t think much of her intelligence. Well, at this point, neither did she.

  “When I came back, two guys were leaving the building with the duffel bag, and our apartment was in flames. I tried to get Audrey out, but when I reached her, I saw she was dead. Shot. Kudos to the gangsters; they discovered their money was missing faster than we’d imagined. Or maybe they found out I was the one who called the cops, and when they came to settle that score, the money was just a nice surprise. Either way, Andy must have given my address to his associates, and they came to collect. He didn’t know I had a roommate, so neither did they. My guess is they mistook her for me.” And Audrey hadn’t given her away. Blinking back tears and forcing her throat to work, she continued, “There was nothing I could do for Audrey. The fire was getting out of control. I had to get out of there. So I left my wallet and took hers. Nicky Rubin died in that fire, which the fire investigators ruled accidental later on.”

  Con’s forbidding stare was intimidating.

  “Yes, we fucked up. I. I fucked up. I know. At that point, I didn’t know what to do. Audrey was gone. Nothing would have brought her back. Andy is in prison—I don’t know for how long, but he doesn’t have a reason to go searching for me as long as he believes it was me who died that day.” She probably was lucky he hadn’t come to fetch the money himself and his goons didn’t get to see her too well at the warehouse. Otherwise they would have waited for her, and both Audrey and she would have died that night. One thing was clear: Audrey had paid the price that only Nicky should have. Nicky had been the one associating with and falling for a criminal, not Audrey. “I had to disappear and needed a place to hide. Alden seemed perfect.”

  “Why did you take Audrey’s identity?”

  “When I found her dead in my place, I realized t
he only way I could survive was if ‘Nicky’ stayed dead. Audrey always spoke of Alden. She thought she could start over here, that her issues would get better. I promised I’d help her run the B&B. She died because of me, so I decided to use the money she had saved up, along with what I myself had, to buy this place and make her dream a reality. I owed her.” Nicky hadn’t had specific dreams of her own. She could disappear without much loss to the world. Audrey had had plans.

  “She always talked about how much I looked like her grandmother.” That first day in college, during orientation, Audrey had been staring at her so fixedly, Nicky had finally asked her if they knew each other. Then Audrey had shown her an old picture of her grandmother, and they had hit it off. “We did resemble each other. So when I had to become Audrey, I tried copying the hairstyle from the old pictures. The colors Grandma Audrey preferred. The makeup. I figured looking like Audrey’s grandma would help me…”

  “Bullshit the OGs,” he finished for her.

  She nodded, embarrassed. “She must have taken after her dad—the real Audrey, I mean—because she didn’t look like her grandmother. I loved Audrey, but she had a lot of issues. She was pretty much a recluse. She was very shy and had social phobias. She hated pictures or any kind of situation where she felt exposed. Didn’t do social media. Didn’t have a driver’s license. Never applied for a passport. Aside from me, she didn’t have friends. No family. She was homeschooled for many years, except for that first semester when we met. After that, she dropped out and finished her degree online. She barely ever left the apartment and worked from home on a computer. I knew all her passwords and card PINs, so it was easy to steal her identity after she died. But she thought going back to Alden would help her turn her life around. She followed your grandmas on FB. Her dream was to buy this B&B back and come to live in Alden. So here I am, pretending to be her and trying to make her dreams come true,” she finished with a smile.