Playing the Playboy

by Noelle Adams

  “Okay,” Harrison straightened up, evidently thinking hard. “Okay. We won’t draw conclusions until the investigator reports in. He was going to check into her story about parasailing that first day and see if he could find anything else that could help. It might be too early for him to have something, but we can give him a call.”

  Andrew still felt blank, dazed, like he wasn’t really himself. At his brother’s words, however, he felt a faint glimmer of hope that this wouldn’t be what it seemed. Surely there was some kind of explanation.

  He’d thought Laurel was the one woman who really understood him. Who knew him for real and cared about him anyway.

  He’d thought he could find in her what he needed and offer her what she needed too.

  He’d been falling in love with her.

  It couldn’t have just been a lie.

  ***

  Laurel felt lonely and kind of abandoned in the kitchen.

  She’d thought Marietta was just taking Harrison some scones. She didn’t know why she’d never come back, and she was a little annoyed that Andrew was talking business with Harrison without her.

  She didn’t like to be left out of things—not something so important to her.

  She trusted Andrew, though, and that meant taking risks.

  She had to risk that whatever he was discussing with Harrison wasn’t going to end up hurting her.

  So she cleaned up the breakfast stuff and then called Agatha to check on Theo’s leg and see how things were going at the inn.

  Then she just sat in a kitchen chair with a lukewarm cup of coffee.

  What the hell were they discussing in there, and why didn’t Andrew come out to bring her into the conversation?

  Finally, Marietta came out, but she just ran down the hall and then back into the office. Laurel was going to call out and see if everything was all right, but by the time she realized she’d need to, it was too late.

  Eventually, Marietta came out again. Laurel could see immediately that something had upset her. It looked like the other woman had been crying.

  “What is it?” Laurel asked in concern, jumping up and hurrying over.

  Marietta took a shuddering breath and sat down at the kitchen table.

  Laurel sat down too. “Please tell me what’s wrong. Can I help?”

  “It’s bad,” Marietta told her. “Harrison kept a file—on your husband. And there’s stuff in there about you. And then they’re hearing from an investigator now. It looks like… it looks like you’ve been lying to Andrew.”

  Laurel froze, the weight of impending knowledge pressing into her slowly, irrevocably.

  “We didn’t want to believe it, but it looks really bad. Can you explain it?” Marietta’s eyes were half-pleading, half-suspicious.

  “I can,” Laurel said, her shock channeling into crisis-mode as she realized what was about to happen. “I can explain it. Where’s Andrew? I need to talk to him.”

  Marietta looked back toward the closed office door. “They’re talking to the investigator. He sent them some security footage from a shop that showed you and Andrew, and the manager said that you… It was too awful, so I left. Plus, it didn’t seem fair not to give you some…some warning.”

  Laurel choked and jumped to her feet. “Security footage? No, they can’t—”

  It was like a nightmare she’d had repeatedly, where the whole world zoomed around her at a frightening pace, while she had to stand helplessly and watch, waiting for something huge to run over her.

  She started toward the office to find Andrew, but it was too late. The door opened and Harrison came out. His expression was cold when he saw her in the hall.

  He didn’t say anything, just stepped out of the way so Andrew could come out too.

  Andrew looked like a different person—none of the warmth, generosity, or laughter on his face. His eyes focused on her but didn’t seem to see her.

  “Andrew,” she said, a naked plea in her voice. She didn’t even care. She ran over to him and grabbed his arm. The strong bicep tensed beneath her hands. “Please let me explain. You don’t understand what happened.”

  He jerked his arm away from her and took a quick step back. “I do understand. We know the letter you led me to find in that Bible was a fake.”

  He thrust two pieces of paper at her—one the letter they’d found and the other a print-off of another letter. She stared down at them, and even to her it was obvious that one was a fake.

  Which meant the inn wasn’t hers after all.

  But even that heartache paled in comparison to the heartache standing in front of her, glaring down at her with green eyes.

  “We found out everything about your plan to blackmail us with that footage,” Andrew continued, a cool bitterness in his tone she’d never heard there before. “I’ll give you this—it was well-played. I never even suspected. But we know your whole history, and evidently you’ve been playing the same game all your life. You can go pack up your stuff.”

  She stared at him helplessly, incredulous for too many seconds to count. This wasn’t Andrew. He wouldn’t believe something so wrong about her. He wouldn’t treat her like this.

  Then she looked at Marietta and Harrison. They both believed it too. All of them thought she was nothing but lying trash.

  She had lied to Andrew, and she shouldn’t have done so. But it was only at the beginning. Everything else had been real, and she’d never lied about the inn.

  She’d always believed it was hers.

  Evidently it wasn’t. Nothing she’d thought was hers really was.

  She’d liked these people, and now they hated her.

  She’d more than liked Andrew. She’d trusted him. And now he hated her too.

  She should have known better. She had known better. Her entire life had taught her better. But she’d wanted Andrew so much—she’d cared about him so much—she’d taken a risk she never should have taken.

  She’d gotten what she deserved.

  It felt like the blood had drained out of her body, and she had to clench her hands to keep them from shaking, but her voice was level when she said, “Okay. I’ll go pack.”

  She couldn’t look at Andrew again. She was too afraid of what she’d see in his face. She just turned to leave.

  “No, wait, Laurel,” Marietta cried. “Andrew, you have to give her a chance to tell her side. She said she could explain.”

  “Okay,” Andrew said in a voice that wasn’t his. “Explain. Tell your side.”

  Laurel looked at him. Then she looked at Harrison—handsome and stone cold. He thought she had used and taken advantage of his brother. Of course, he hated her. Marietta looked torn to pieces, but there was none of the open trust she’d shown her before.

  They were all waiting for her to explain. So they could judge her, decide whether or not she was worthy.

  She wasn’t going to take that risk again.

  She didn’t say anything. She just walked away.

  ***

  She packed her clothes quickly and picked up her purse and overnight bag.

  She had no money, no credit cards after the bankruptcy, no transportation. She would be stranded in the hills outside Aix-en-Provence with no way of getting back home.

  She would figure out something. She’d always managed on her own before, and she wasn’t going to ask these people for help.

  They were all in the kitchen when she walked by. Harrison had his arms around Marietta, as if he were comforting her. Something in the way he held her, in the way she burrowed against his chest, made it clear how much they loved each other.

  No one had ever loved Laurel that much.

  She’d thought for a few brief moments that kind of love was a possibility for her, but she’d been wrong.

  She’d been wrong about everything.

  Andrew sat at the kitchen table, resting his head on his hands.

  He looked defeated.

  Despite herself, her heart went out to him, and she had to resist the
urge to comfort him.

  She didn’t pause. Didn’t say anything. Just walked toward the front door.

  She simply had to put one foot in front of the other, and she would get away from here eventually.

  She had to get all the way back to Santorini. Her dogs were waiting for her there. She needed them so much.

  “Laurel, wait,” Marietta called, hurrying out of the kitchen. “You can’t just walk out. You have no way to get home. Harry?” Her last word was almost a plea.

  “I’ll take her back,” Harrison said, following Marietta from the kitchen. “Would you mind giving me a minute to get ready?”

  His voice was scrupulously polite, as if she were any other guest in his home.

  Laurel swallowed hard over a lump that was choking her. She wanted to refuse, but that would be ludicrous. The sooner she could get home the better. She’d always been practical—that wasn’t going to change now. She gave a jerky nod.

  Andrew appeared then too, his hair rumpled and his eyes still distant, like she was a stranger. “No. She’s my responsibility. I’ll take her back. I need to get back there anyway to wrap things up.”

  She just stood there while he walked back to the room they’d shared the night before. It seemed so incongruous that he still wasn’t wearing any shoes.

  She managed not to cry while she waited for him to get ready, and she managed not to cry on the silent car ride to the airport.

  She managed not to cry during the endless plane ride in a cushy seat of a private jet, as Andrew worked on his laptop and ignored her. And she managed not to cry on the final drive from the Santorini airport to the inn at Oia she’d always loved.

  Which evidently wasn’t her inn at all.

  She would have to give it up. She couldn’t take what wasn’t hers.

  She would have to give up everything.

  She hadn’t said a word for hours, and she wasn’t even sure if her throat still worked—it was so tight with aching emotion.

  Andrew had pulled the car he’d rented at the airport into the parking area in front of the inn when he finally turned to look at her.

  “You really don’t have anything to say to me?” He didn’t sound angry. He sounded wounded.

  But she was wounded too, and she’d learned all the lessons she needed today. “I’ll be out of the inn by tomorrow.”

  Something twisted on his face briefly, but it was gone before she could recognize it. “I realize your husband’s bankruptcy has left you in a difficult position. To acknowledge that you’ve put time and money into the inn, we’ll wire the amount I’d offered before into your account. It will be there tomorrow morning.”

  She nodded to acknowledge he’d said something. There wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to touch his money.

  Her life wasn’t the only one affected by this, however, so she pushed through her resistance to ask, “Hector and Agatha? Can they have a little more time to find somewhere to—” She had to stop, since her voice almost cracked.

  She loved them, and now she’d made them homeless.

  “They can stay. They weren’t involved in—” He broke off too and looked out the driver’s side window. His hand was clenched on the steering wheel so tightly the knuckles were white. “They can work under the new management. They don’t have to move out.”

  She nodded again. At least she hadn’t ruined their lives too.

  “And the dogs can stay for the time being,” Andrew added. “Until you find a new place. Theo can’t walk up the stairs yet anyway.”

  She nodded again, her eyes blurring with tears.

  She lifted her chin so they wouldn’t fall until she was safely inside.

  Chapter Eleven

  Andrew stared at his computer screen, wondering if the day would come when doing even simple things didn’t feel like a monumental effort, when every trivial detail wouldn’t make him think about Laurel.

  Despite everything he knew, he still kept wondering if there was some sort of explanation. For the last miserable week, he’d gone over every day, hour, minute he’d spent with her, reviewing every conversation, every touch, and every expression. He’d concluded it was possible she was playing him the whole time.

  But it still didn’t feel right.

  He’d never read someone so wrong.

  If Laurel wasn’t the manipulative, heartless liar she appeared to be, however, she’d had every chance to explain what he’d misunderstood. An innocent person would have defended herself. Anyone would have defended herself.

  She hadn’t said a word.

  As soon as he’d dropped Laurel off at the inn, he’d flown back home to England. He should have stayed to finish up all the details regarding the inn, making sure the legalities were addressed and then beginning the renovation and hiring the management. He hadn’t stayed, though. He couldn’t.

  He wanted to just move on, forget about Laurel and his humiliation and what felt a lot like a broken heart. He couldn’t stop thinking about her, though. He couldn’t stop worrying about Agatha and Hector. Wondering if poor Theo’s leg was any better.

  Since all those thoughts hurt like hell, it was like he was living a nightmare he refused to wake up from.

  “Excuse me, sir,” a voice came from the doorway.

  Andrew turned and saw Gordon, who had been his uncle’s butler for as long as Andrew had been alive.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I’d knocked but you must not have heard me.”

  “I didn’t,” he admitted, tugging at his hair in a futile attempt to get his brain to work. “Sorry. Come in. What’s going on?”

  “Your uncle just got off the phone with your brother.”

  Andrew straightened up, feeling interest for the first time all week. “He actually talked to Harrison directly?”

  “Yes, sir. Your brother and Ms. Edwards will arrive later in the week.”

  “Is it just a visit or…” Andrew trailed off.

  “I’m not sure they know yet. I believe they will see how things go. Your uncle has asked your brother to close out the Santorini situation.” Gordon’s very blue eyes were focused on Andrew with a scrutiny that was perfectly courteous but somehow convicting.

  “Yeah. That makes sense,” Andrew said. “Someone has to do it.”

  “You won’t be completing it yourself?”

  It was a bland question and not an accusation. Gordon wouldn’t dream of challenging any of their decisions. Andrew felt a stab of guilt anyway.

  He was quitting, letting it go because it had gotten too hard and hurt too much. He’d been doing it all his life. He’d thought he might make a fresh start, commit to something and see it through to the end.

  But his attempt had obviously been an utter failure.

  When things had bothered him in the past, he’d always tried to mask it with fun and excitement. He would jump out of a plane or find a gorgeous, sexy woman to take to bed. He didn’t want to jump out of a plane right now, and he couldn’t begin to think about another woman. He still didn’t want anyone but Laurel.

  He could only hope it wasn’t a permanent situation.

  “Sir?” Gordon prompted.

  Andrew blinked. He hadn’t been drinking, but his mind felt fuzzy anyway. He hadn’t really slept in days, since he would start to think about Laurel as soon as the lights went out, and the thoughts would turn into memories of the nights he’d spent with her.

  He would lie awake, achingly aroused but too conflicted to even take care of it on his own. Better not to go to bed at all.

  “Sir,” Gordon said again, not so much a question now as a reminder.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “What were you saying?”

  “I had asked whether you were going to complete the project in Greece.”

  Andrew was quite sure Gordon knew the gist of what had happened on Santorini. The whole household probably knew what a fool he’d been. “No,” he said. “I’m not going to complete it.”

  He wondered if he would ever finish anything
that mattered to him.

  “I see.”

  Gordon’s words were mild, but it sounded like he didn’t approve. He wouldn’t understand what it would take for Andrew to go back to Oia, even just to handle the final details of the inn.

  Laurel was probably long gone now. It wouldn’t take her long to make a new life. She would soon be in another man’s arms, in another man’s bed.

  That image made Andrew want to strangle something, even though he’d made it more than clear he wanted nothing more to do with her.

  She wouldn’t know it wasn’t true.

  “Is there anything I can get for you, sir?”

  “No, thanks, Gordon.” Andrew sighed and tried to turn back to his laptop. There were dozens of emails unread in his inbox and dozens more that were read he still had to act on.

  His uncle had given him other projects to do, since he’d given up on the last one.

  This was his future—shuffling paper, bouncing around emails, empty conversations on the phone. Never doing anything he really wanted because what he wanted was out of reach.

  “No,” he said, making a decision and closing the lid to his laptop. “Wait.”

  Gordon came back. “What is it, sir?”

  “Do we have building supplies around somewhere?”

  “Yes, sir. Of course.” The butler conveyed no surprise at all at this strange request. “I can show you.”

  Andrew followed Gordon downstairs and outside to a workshop in one of the outbuildings. There was wood, tools, and endless supplies. Everything he needed. “May I use some of this? And the Jeep?”

  “Of course,” Gordon replied. “I can summon one of the handymen if you need—”

  “No. Thank you. I can do it myself.”

  Andrew loaded the back of the gardener’s Jeep with everything he thought he might need. Then he drove out past the manicured lawns, meticulously trimmed shrubs, and blooming gardens. Past the Rococo fountain, the lush orchard, and the picturesque lake. Until he reached a big oak tree with wide, thick branches.

  In the tree was a half-finished tree house.

  Andrew unloaded his supplies. It was after dinner, and the sun was getting lower in the sky. Soon it would be dark. He hadn’t eaten anything today, and he hadn’t slept in days.