by Noelle Adams
She sat in silence for a moment, staring down at the table where Andrew’s hand still covered hers. She could feel him watching her. She knew he was hoping she was all right, that she wasn’t too hurt by this revelation.
But how could she not be hurt, when everything she’d worked for, everything that had given her security, was about to be ripped away from her.
“Can we…” She had to start over when her voice cracked. “Can we at least look to see if there’s any evidence that he paid off the debt. I know it’s not likely, but it seems like things were kind of a mess with the bank and the lawyers and everything. Maybe there was a mistake. Jerry really believed the inn was his. I didn’t know his grandfather, but Jerry wouldn’t have lied to me about that.”
“Okay. We can look. Do you have any sort of business records from your husband or anything passed down from his grandfather other than what you’ve showed me?” Andrew straightened up in his chair and looked relieved to have something to do.
Laurel was pretty sure he thought the attempt was hopeless, but it meant a lot that he was willing to try anyway.
“Jerry kept most of his stuff on computer. I’ve saved all his files. And then there are some boxes in storage of old papers and stuff. It all looked business-related but didn’t have to do with the inn, so I just boxed everything up and stored it after he died.”
“Okay. Let’s go get them and start looking through everything,” he said, standing up.
Laurel swallowed hard and stood up too. She smiled at him, trying to hide how upset she was.
She didn’t fool him. “Oh, Laurel,” Andrew murmured, pulling her into a tight hug. “I’m so sorry.”
His compassion almost undid her. She shook against his chest, clinging to his strong body, taking comfort in how secure it made her feel. She couldn’t believe that someone really cared about her the way he did.
She couldn’t believe she cared so much about him.
Andrew pulled away, just far enough to kiss her gently on the mouth. Her lips clung to him as much as her body had.
“We’ll figure this out,” he said, leaning his forehead against hers. “I promise.”
She took one more shaky sigh and then felt strong enough to pull away. They had work to do, after all.
She was about to suggest they head to the storage room when Andrew’s phone range.
“It’s my uncle,” he said, checking the display.
“You take it. I’ll get Hector to help me with the boxes.”
He was greeting his uncle as she walked away. Before she found Hector, she went to an empty guestroom and sat on the bed, needing to be alone to pull herself together.
She was going to be all right. Even if she lost the inn, maybe Andrew would be willing to let Hector and Agatha stay on. Maybe she could get a job as a maid—since the Damons would probably want a bigger housekeeping staff than Laurel had ever kept.
She wasn’t afraid of hard work. She actually liked cooking and cleaning. It wouldn’t be the same, but maybe she wouldn’t have to leave her home after all.
The only problem would be the dogs, but Andrew might let them stay, as long as they didn’t interfere with the guests. They could sleep in her room. They wouldn’t need a big yard, since she could walk them. They’d adapt.
It was a possible plan anyway, and it gave her enough reassurance to feel better.
Underlying all of the other emotions was something else—something small and quivering but undeniable. Something that felt like hope.
She might lose the inn, but maybe she wouldn’t have to lose Andrew. Whatever was going on between them was real—for him as much as for her. She’d never let herself hope for a relationship like that, one that offered and expected everything, but maybe it wasn’t impossible.
It was too early to tell, but she couldn’t help but wonder. She couldn’t help but hope. If they could get through the situation with the inn, then maybe…
She couldn’t stand the thought of Andrew slipping out of her life completely.
Suddenly, guilt sliced through her, so sharp it actually hurt. Everything she felt for Andrew was completely real, completely genuine. But she’d lied to him—gone to great lengths to play him the first time they’d met. She’d actually been planning to fuck him and then use the footage from the security camera to get the Damons to back off. While she hadn’t been anything but genuine after that first day, she’d lied to him from the beginning. He didn’t know any of that.
She hugged her stomach and leaned over slightly as the weight of it suddenly pressed down on her. So many things had distracted her over the last weeks that she hadn’t thought about how she’d tried to use him at first, but she couldn’t forget forever. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair to Andrew.
She had to tell him the truth.
He was such a sweet, generous man beneath the confident, charming persona. Maybe he could understand. Maybe he could forgive her.
With all those feelings jumbling around in her head, Laurel found Hector, and together they went to the storage room. They were starting to pick up the boxes when Andrew walked in.
“There you are. I thought maybe you’d gotten lost.” He grinned at her. He looked so adorable and so affectionate that she couldn’t bear to break the mood by telling him the truth right now. Besides, the idea terrified her—the possibility of losing everything she’d gained in the last two weeks.
“Sorry. These are the boxes with the old records. If we each take one, we can get them down in one trip.”
Andrew wouldn’t let Laurel carry one, since he thought it was too heavy for her back, so he carried two instead.
***
They brought the boxes to the office so they could go through Jerry’s files on the computer as well.
They spent six hours going through everything, looking at every sheet of paper and every computer document that had anything remotely to do with the inn, bankruptcy, debt, or collateral. They ate lunch as they worked, and Laurel had to lie on the floor a couple of times to rest her back when her chair got too uncomfortable.
They found nothing that could help them.
Finally, Andrew closed the last file. “I’m sorry, Laurel. It doesn’t look like there’s anything here. I’m not sure what else we can do. I’m just not any good at this. We need Harrison here.”
“You are good at it,” she objected automatically, not liking the slightly defeated note in his voice. “You’ve done everything you could. No one could have done better. If there’s not a way to figure this out, it’s not your fault.”
He gave her a fond half-smile. “Thank you for that. But what I said is unfortunately true. Harrison always had the mind for business. He can look at a complicated scenario and have it figured out in thirty seconds. Then he can envision the perfect plan to make it happen. If I have to, I’ll call him up and ask for help with this.”
She studied him, reading the conflict on this face. “Why don’t you want to do that? I thought you got along well with your brother.”
“I do, but he’s supposed to be taking a break from the business. I’m supposed to handle this situation.”
Laurel understood the self-deprecating irony in the tone immediately, and she understood why he was reluctant to ask his brother for help. Ridiculously, she wanted to hug him.
“Well, in all fairness, you did come up with one excellent plan for dealing with this situation—giving me money to make me go away. I’m the one who’s making it difficult.”
“You are making it difficult,” he murmured, a familiar smile warming his face and mingling with an affection that took her breath away. “I had a perfectly uncomplicated life before you came around. What am I going to do with you?”
They gazed at each other for a long time, until Laurel felt so soft and tender it made her nervous. She lowered her eyes.
“If this is all you have from your husband and his grandfather, I’m not sure there’s any evidence to find.” Andrew sounded overly matter-of-fact, as if h
e had to shake off similarly soft feelings.
“Oh,” she said, remembering. “There’s an old trunk that has some of his grandmother’s clothes and some books and things from his grandfather. I doubt anything would be in it, but I guess we should look.”
Andrew agreed, so they traipsed up to the storage room again and opened the trunk.
Most of it was old clothes and books, just as Laurel had remembered.
But in the old family Bible they found a number of folded documents from the family history—birth certificates, death certificates, marriage licenses, and a letter from a local bank notifying Jerry’s grandfather that his loan had been fully repaid.
They both stared at the letter speechlessly.
“This is it,” Laurel said, bringing a hand to her mouth in amazement. “This is the evidence we need.”
Andrew tugged at his hair, his expression reflecting an odd mingling of excitement and disbelief. “Maybe. Maybe. We’d have to get it verified, of course, but this might be the answer we need.”
“So what should we do? Will you recommend to your uncle that…” She trailed off, not wanting to be presumptuous but so relieved it was hard not to be.
“I don’t know. I can’t make a recommendation until it’s verified. I better call him and see what he thinks.”
Laurel tried to repress the surge of hope as Andrew called up Cyrus Damon. She didn’t want to be crushed if things fell apart. She could only hear one side of the conversation, and most of it was Andrew explaining what they’d found and what it might mean. His uncle must have suggested he run it by Harrison first because Andrew said, “I know he’s the one who handled the assets from the bank, but he’s in France and isn’t here to deal with it.”
There was a pause, during which Damon must have said something that frustrated Andrew. He made a face, just before he turned away from Laurel. Even then his posture looked too stiff. “Okay,” he said at last. “Okay. I’ll call him. Then I’ll fly out tomorrow and show him what we have.”
When he hung up, he took a deep breath before he turned around.
She smiled at him sympathetically. “Harrison?”
“He thinks Harrison might have a better handle on the situation, which is probably true. And he doesn’t want to commit to anything without covering all the bases.”
“Okay.” She twisted her hands nervously. It was one thing to trust Andrew. It was much harder to trust his uncle and brother, whom she didn’t even know. It put her in a vulnerable position she wasn’t used to, letting her whole future rest in the hands of men who cared nothing about her.
“It’ll be fine,” Andrew said, his voice growing softer as he sat beside her. “My brother’s a good guy. And my uncle is unyielding in some ways, but he’s always fair. If he believes the inn doesn’t belong to my family, he won’t pursue it. I promise. He would never take advantage of you.”
She nodded, looking up at him, feeling comforted and lot more secure at the sight of his strong face and tender eyes.
She had an inexplicably poignant moment, wondering what she would ever do without him.
It reminded her that she needed to tell him the truth about how she’d acted when they first met. Maybe she’d get the courage this evening.
“So you’re going to France tomorrow?” she asked, shaking away the strange feeling.
“Yes, I have to.” He paused. Then, “Did you want to come with me?”
She did.
***
Andrew tried to call his brother once more as he pulled a rental car into the drive leading to the villa Harrison and his girlfriend, Marietta, had been renting for the last two months.
Laurel and Andrew had taken a private jet from Santorini to Marseille, and from there they’d driven to the villa just outside of Aix. They’d gotten a late start, so the sun was already starting to set.
Andrew hadn’t been able to reach his brother on the phone in two days, and that fact was obviously starting to annoy him. It was unsettling to Laurel too.
She would never have started out on a trip without ensuring that whomever she was visiting was indeed present and waiting for her. Evidently the Damons functioned differently.
“What will we do if they’re not here?” she asked, as Andrew pulled the car around the house to the garage in the back.
He shifted the car into park. “We’ll figure something out. I’m sure there’s a window we can jimmy.”
“Well, if you have your handy multi-tool, you can probably break in.”
She gave him a teasing look, hoping to nudge him out of his frustrated mood. He grinned when he looked at her expression and reached over to cup her face in an affectionate gesture.
She leaned into his hand briefly, relishing the unfamiliar experience of being understood, valued, appreciated by a man who wasn’t afraid to show her.
Jerry had loved her, but he’d always held her at a distance, treated her like she wasn’t an equal partner.
Andrew wasn’t like that at all.
Then, because they actually had business to accomplish and her personality hadn’t changed, she pulled away from his hand and got out of the car. They walked around to the front of the house and knocked.
“I don’t think they’re here.” Laurel dropped her canvas bag from her shoulder to the ground. “What will we do?”
He looked baffled and slightly embarrassed. After a few seconds, he smiled down at her. “I’m really impressing you, aren’t I? Our first trip together, and we can’t even get in the door.”
She chuckled, torn between ironic amusement and a giddy excitement about what his words might imply. “I’m sure there’s a hotel around here where we can stay.”
“Let’s see if we can get in the house first. It would be easier to wait for them here. Maybe they just went out for the evening. I’m sure we can find something to do in the meantime.” He twitched his eyebrows with a naughty implication that was impossible to misinterpret.
His comment didn’t explain why Harrison hadn’t returned the call from yesterday, but she didn’t want to break the mood between them with tedious reality. Flushing a little in pleasure at the idea of making love to Andrew again, Laurel studied the lock on the door. “It looks like this one might be harder to pick. Do you think you can do it?”
“I doubt it. I’m not really an expert lockpick, and this is a sophisticated lock. Actually, the villa probably has a security system.” He sighed. “Sorry. I assumed we’d be able to reach him by now.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, sliding her arms around his neck. “I’ve never been to Provence before. It’s so beautiful.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. Then he leaned down to kiss her, just a soft pressure of his lips. “I’m usually more impressive than this,” he murmured, his voice a little husky in a way that gave her shivers.
Her heart, even more than her body, responded to the affection and warmth in his expression. “I think you’re very impressive.”
He kissed her again, more deeply this time. She responded eagerly. But, just as she was really getting into it, another slice of guilt cut through the sensations.
She shouldn’t be kissing him like this unless she was willing to tell him about how she’d tricked him that first day.
She pulled back—not out of his arms but far enough away to meet his eyes. She liked that he was taller than her. A lot of men weren’t.
“What’s wrong?”
She swallowed and steeled herself to get it said. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. She hadn’t known him at all when she’d made her plan, and she’d dropped the plan completely as soon as she got to know him. “Can I talk to you about something?”
“Sure.” He sounded overly casual. “But I’ve got to say, just in terms of good strategy, if you’re going to dump me, it would be smarter to wait until after we settle the inn. I mean, settle everything officially with all the paperwork signed. I’d estimate it will take at least six months, if you need
a general timeline. Maybe up to a year.”
Laurel was surprised by a burst of amusement when she processed what he was saying. And what it meant. He was afraid she was going to break up with him and was masking it with a joke. She hugged him again and laughed against his chest, her humor just on the edge of tears. “I’m not going to dump you, Andrew. Am I crazy?”
“Well,” he murmured against her hair, tightening his arms around her so much she momentarily couldn’t breathe, “I didn’t think so. But maybe you don’t fully recognize how good a catch I am. I can provide references, if you’d like.”
She laughed again, her eyes burning with emotion so powerful she could barely process it. She couldn’t believe—simply couldn’t believe—that he wanted to be with her so much he was worried she didn’t feel the same. “I don’t need references,” she told him, the words muffled by his shirt. “I know exactly how good a catch you are.”
“Good. Just so we’re on the same page about that.”
She felt a light pressure against her head and realized he’d kissed her hair.
She raised her head to look up again, determined to get the hardest thing over with. “I did want to talk to you about something. When we first met,” she began, her mouth twisting slightly, “I didn’t know what to expect and I was worried about the inn, of course. So I had this idea—”
Andrew’s phone rang then, and he pulled away from her to check it. “It’s Harrison,” he said, relief reflecting on his expression. “Can you hold on just a minute?”
He had turned the volume up on his phone when he was checking messages on the plane, and he hadn’t turned it down—so Laurel could hear both sides of the conversation, the voice on the other line just slightly muffled.
“Why did you call eleven times?” Harrison demanded, as soon as Andrew answered the phone.
“Where are you?”
“I’m in the car. We’re heading back to the villa. What’s going on?”
“I’m at the villa,” Andrew said. “It’s business.”