Flirting with Felicity

by Gerri Russell

  “No, Blake,” she said softly. “We are both different now. I’m stronger, and your heart is bigger than it used to be.”

  “Felicity, I—” He stopped himself before he could continue. Instead, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You’re right,” he said tenderly as he pulled her back into his arms and once again gathered her against him. “Let’s wait and see what tomorrow brings.”

  Tomorrow. The word held both a hopeful and ominous tone. Moments ticked by as he looked into her face, his eyes dark with promise. Then, as a slight smile curved his lips, he bent his head and kissed her. It was an achingly slow, devastating kiss that sent them right back to the bliss and forgetfulness they found in each other.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Watery sunlight filled Felicity’s room at the Bancroft Hotel the next morning. As she woke, she rolled over to find Blake was gone. Fumbling for the clock by the bedside, she was alarmed to see it was almost eight o’clock. She shook off the sensual miasma that still lingered deep inside her from their lovemaking last night and got out of bed. After checking in with Hans to find he had everything covered for the restaurant, she took a quick shower, then got dressed.

  Entering the sitting room of the suite, she found her father in a chair by the window. She was thrilled to see he’d moved himself from the bed to the chair. The procedure on his brain was definitely causing changes to occur. “Good morning, Dad,” she said cheerfully as she kissed him on the cheek.

  At her approach, he turned to her with clear eyes and a smile. He remained quiet. He’d said nothing more than that single word two days ago. But that one word was enough for her to see him as the father she used to know instead of the stranger who had taken his place years ago.

  “I’ve arranged for your therapist to meet you here today, and I’ve hired a nurse to stay with you while I take care of some business.” She’d had to use the rest of her savings to do so, but that had covered the expenses for the next two weeks—plenty of time for her and Blake to determine the fate of the Bancroft Hotel.

  Since Hans had things covered at the Dolce Vita, Felicity decided to check in with the Seattle Historic Preservation Program to find out where her petition was in the process. She could call the lawyers and have them check in for her, but she felt like doing something herself. Action always made her feel more in control of her goals. But before she headed there, she needed a cup of coffee. She would have preferred a cup from the Starbucks on the corner, but a quick glance outside from the lobby told her the local reporters were still there, waiting for, as Destiny put it last night, “something to happen.”

  If she wanted coffee, she’d have to get some downstairs with the rest of the hotel staff. Taking the elevator to the ground floor, she headed for the staff break room. The gathering place was unusually quiet for this time of the morning when all the housekeeping and restaurant staff seemed to congregate in the same place.

  The smell of burnt French roast coffee wafted through the room. The tables were empty, their cheap tan-colored plastic surfaces littered with only a few earthenware mugs with black coffee stains around the rim. Felicity smiled. Her employees were not unlike so many other Seattleites who loved their morning brew.

  Hans sat alone at the back of the room reading the Seattle Gazette. As soon as he saw her, he hurriedly folded the paper and tossed it onto the table. “Felicity,” he greeted. “What brings you down here?”

  The headline on the front page jumped up at Felicity.

  Billionaire and Lover Questioned in Assault

  Below the headline were two separate articles and two pictures. One of the pictures was of Blake being escorted through the lobby by the police. The other was of her pressed intimately against Blake, wearing nothing but his shirt.

  Mechanically, she reached for the paper.

  “You haven’t read the newspaper this morning?” Hans asked, attempting to snatch the paper away.

  Felicity avoided his grasp. “No, I haven’t.”

  Hans grew silent, suddenly nervous. The slow, soft whirring of their breath became the only sound in the room.

  She looked down at the byline at the top of each article: “Story by Destiny Carrow.” Obviously that was what Destiny had done when she’d gone back to the Seattle Gazette’s offices last night.

  A knot of fear tightened Felicity’s stomach. And she knew the color had seeped out of her cheeks as she read the article about Blake first. It contained a great deal of lurid speculation about why he was questioned for the assault of a photographer that still remained unconscious at Harborview. Destiny didn’t outright accuse him of the crime, but she might just as well have, considering the conjecture she’d used in the article.

  But there was one paragraph in the article that chilled Felicity to the core. Destiny described an argument Blake had had with his father the day before his parents died. She described the scene with the coins. His father’s concussion. The coroner’s report, stating the cause of the accident might have been due to that very concussion.

  He’d told no one but her about that incident.

  So how had Destiny found out?

  “Oh my God,” Felicity said in a strained voice. He’d think she told her onetime friend.

  “It will blow over,” Hans replied.

  No, she doubted it very much. Blake would hate her for this, regardless of her innocence. “People will believe the worst, before they seek the truth about a man as rich as Blake.”

  Almost afraid of what she’d find in the article about her, Felicity started reading. When she was through, it was no longer fear, but anger that made her fingers tremble. Destiny had claimed she’d wanted to be a serious journalist. If that were the case, these articles were a poor example of her skill.

  The second article not only exposed Felicity’s impoverished beginnings, but it painted her as a desperate woman, willing to do whatever it took to climb her way up the social ladder. In the pictures accompanying the article, she did look like a social climber aboard the fancy yacht. Hysterical laughter bubbled up in Felicity’s throat. She clamped her teeth together to keep the sound from slipping past.

  She and Blake had both been played for fools. Before she could launch into a tirade, her cell phone rang. A look at the screen told her it was Blake.

  “Hello?”

  “Have you seen today’s newspaper?” he asked. His tone was flat, but not accusing.

  “Yes,” she said hesitantly.

  “Where are you?”

  “At the hotel.”

  “Stay there. I’m sending Peter to get you. Meet him in the back alley behind the kitchen.”

  Before she could agree or object, he hung up.

  “I’m sorry, Felicity,” Hans said softly in the silence that followed. “I had no idea about your past.”

  The pity in Hans’s voice hit her like a fist to the gut. Hot tears stung her eyes. She dashed the tears away with the back of her hand. “Don’t pity me, Hans. I worked hard to leave that past behind.” She made her way toward the door, her need for coffee forgotten.

  “And you have.” The sous-chef stood, blocking her way before she reached the door. “No one here who reads the article about you will be anything but proud of what you’ve overcome. In fact, it explains why you’re so passionate about your Hungry Hearts program.”

  Felicity shifted her gaze to the wall, trying to gather herself.

  “Are you okay, Felicity?” Hans asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said, forcing her chin up and squaring her shoulders. “Will you cover the restaurant tonight?”

  “Of course,” Hans replied. “If there’s anything else I can do—”

  Before he could finish the sentence, Felicity moved past him. She clenched the newspaper in her hands as she kept moving toward the hotel’s lobby. Five days ago she had been the happiest she’d ever been in her life. Vern had given her the greatest gift she’d ever received. After years and years of scraping by, of sacrificing, she finally had something t
hat could give both herself and her father the future she’d always dreamed of.

  Her gaze drifted to the picture of her and Blake. She’d been so happy in that moment, too—wrapped in his arms, with nothing between them but their mutual attraction. Or so she’d thought.

  Felicity turned the paper over, hiding the picture of her and Blake from her view as she made her way to the alley. Vicious lies and grotesque innuendos—that was Destiny’s idea of what it took to get ahead in the newspaper business? Perhaps in the tabloids.

  Raking her hair back from her forehead with her fingers, Felicity tried to consider what to do. Surely Blake had a plan. That’s why he’d sent for her, wasn’t it?

  She paced the back alley for fifteen minutes until Peter arrived. After a short car ride through Seattle, they arrived at the Columbia Center off Fifth Avenue.

  “I’ll let you out here,” Peter said, stopping in the loading zone in front of the skyscraper. “Blake’s waiting for you in his attorneys’ office on the sixty-third floor.”

  Felicity knew the moment she saw Blake that something was different. The gentle man who’d held her in his arms last night was nowhere in sight. He stood, as did the man at his side, when she was ushered into an elaborately appointed meeting room with a highly polished mahogany table in the center of the room.

  “I’m glad you could join us,” Blake said, motioning for her to sit in the chair opposite the handsome older man next to him. “Felicity, this is my lead counsel, Marcus Grady. Marcus, Felicity Wright.” His voice was pleasant enough, but his face gave no hint of his mood or emotions.

  Marcus greeted her, his dark eyes assessing. At a nod from Blake, he removed a sheet of paper from the stack before him and slid it across the table to her. It was a newspaper article from a paper many years ago with the same picture he’d showed her of his grandfather and Byrne Fairfax, Reid’s grandfather.

  “Byrne was my grandfather’s partner. He was removed from the board of trustees by my grandfather and fired from what was then called B&F Industries. The minutes from the trustee meetings report that they could prove he had embezzled more than a million dollars from the company. Back in the forties that was a lot of money.”

  “It’s a lot of money even now,” Felicity said, realizing her perspective and Blake’s were radically different.

  Blake and Marcus shared a glance she didn’t understand, but before she could question them, Marcus continued. “We found a witness who is willing to testify that Reid was the one who assaulted Jack O’Conner. The police are on their way to arrest Reid right now.”

  “Why would Reid try to blame you for the crime?” she asked, but she already knew. Destiny had reported in her article that this wasn’t the first time Blake had been questioned by the police. Once he’d had to fight off an intruder in his hotel room, another time he’d been attacked as he stepped out of his car. Both times, the attackers were found beaten in an alleyway. Jack O’Conner was Reid’s third attempt to ruin Blake’s reputation. Although this time, with Destiny’s help, he’d taken it further than ever before by exposing Blake’s fear that he’d caused his parents’ deaths and painting a picture of him for the world of an angry and violent man.

  Felicity’s heart hammered wildly in her chest as she tried to capture Blake’s eyes. He kept his gaze averted. “You don’t think I had anything to do with this, do you?” she asked in a pained voice.

  He stiffened at the question, and, when he brought his eyes to hers, she could feel this unspoken accusation like a knife to her heart.

  In silent protest, she shook her head and stood, coming around the table toward him.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he warned softly.

  She stopped cold, her mind registering the physical threat in his voice, refusing to believe it, her gaze searching his granite features.

  “Blake,” she began, trying to formulate an explanation, but the words died before they were spoken, frozen by the blast of contempt in his eyes.

  He was closing himself off again, protecting himself from being hurt. It didn’t matter if she was innocent or guilty, he didn’t care. He’d already locked her out of his heart in an effort to stop himself from feeling any more pain.

  “I love you,” she continued bravely, putting her own emotions out there for him to see. “You have to listen to me.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said icily. “We had a business arrangement that is now concluded. I trusted you with intimate details of my life, and you used them against me.”

  Felicity shook her head. “That’s not true. I—”

  “It was you and me in the rooftop garden, Felicity. No one else. You told me you’d do anything at all to make sure you kept the Bancroft. I should have believed you.”

  Felicity swallowed roughly at the look of betrayal in Blake’s hard blue eyes. “I would never do anything to hurt you like that, Blake. You have to know that.”

  “I don’t know anything when it comes to you and me, other than that you want something that isn’t yours. If you won’t willingly give it up, then it’s time for me to take it from you. Marcus, you’re up.”

  The older man’s dark eyes filled with remorse as he slid a packet of papers toward her. “Felicity Wright, Blake Bancroft is serving you with papers . . .” Marcus continued, but the words he spoke jumbled together in her brain. The room swam before her eyes as she blindly felt for a chair, then dropped into it, suddenly boneless.

  Pain gripped her. She clenched her eyes shut, as if blocking out the light would make this last wound hurt less. It didn’t. Memories of her and Blake, playful and carefree in Hawai‘i, merged with her unspoken hopes and dreams until they became a tangled, useless coil of burning pain.

  What a fool she had been, falling in love with him. For a short time, he’d actually made her believe she deserved to be loved, to be happy, that good things could happen to her. He’d shined a light upon her and she’d reached out of the darkness for the warmth that he offered her. But now that light was gone, and she was back where she’d started.

  Alone.

  Blake tore his gaze from the love in Felicity’s eyes. He didn’t believe it was real. He couldn’t allow himself that luxury, not when everything he’d worked for over the past few years was at stake. He had been forced to take irrevocable steps to banish Felicity from his life. Felicity or, if she was to be believed, someone else had exposed his deepest secrets to the world, only reinforcing in the public’s mind the truth about who he was. He prayed for blessed numbness to seep over him, to spare him any more pain. But numbness didn’t come, just the hard, cold reality that he had always believed—that he was unworthy of love.

  Across the table, Felicity’s gaze met his. For a heartbeat her bright brown eyes searched his with such an aching need that it made him hurt all the more. Her face went ashen as he stood and headed for the door, leaving her alone with Marcus. That final look of sadness on her face tore through him. He’d been a fool to let things go this far. He’d started this game knowing the consequences and sacrifices that would come in the end. Bancroft Industries was his life. There was no room for anything more. As he approached his waiting car, he growled his frustration, making Peter jump.

  “Everything all right, sir?” the startled driver asked.

  Blake doubted anything would ever be right again once he returned to his old life in San Francisco, a life without Felicity. “I’ll be fine. I just need a minute.” Sliding into the car, Blake shut the door. The sound resonated deep in his soul.

  “Take me to Pioneer Square, please. There is something I need to do before leaving town.”

  “No problem, sir.” Peter started the car and whisked Blake away from the Columbia Center and Felicity.

  “Damn you to hell, Uncle Vernon,” Blake breathed as they made their way through downtown Seattle. Even from the grave, his uncle had wounded him by bringing Felicity into his life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The next day Felicity sat in her office, attempting to
go over the hotel’s accounts, but the numbers jumbled before her eyes. No matter how hard she tried to focus her thoughts, the task eluded her today. She looked out her office window only to see summer rain rolling down her windowpane.

  She quickly averted her gaze. The rain reminded her too much of the tears she tried so hard not to shed. Blake Bancroft was gone from her life. She should be happy about that. Instead, it felt as though she might never be happy again.

  A light tap on the door interrupted her thoughts. Edward stood there, framed by the doorway, a look of concern etched on his face.

  “What’s wrong?” Felicity asked as a sense of foreboding came over her.

  “There is a man—a Mr. Marcus Grady—here to see you,” he said. “He says he has papers he must hand you personally.”

  Blake’s lawyer wanted to serve her with yet another lawsuit? Felicity went pale. “Did he say what sort of papers they were?”

  Edward shook his head. “He refused to say until I threatened him.” Edward’s eyes slid away, his face harsh with sorrow. “They’re from Mr. Bancroft.”

  The world reeled as Felicity tried to stand. What would he do to her now?

  “I really think I hate that man,” Edward said, coming to Felicity’s side, offering her a supportive hand.

  Felicity stiffened. “It’s okay, Edward. He can’t hurt me anymore. Tell Mr. Grady to meet me in the Dolce Vita in five minutes.”

  In those five minutes, Felicity tried to run through every possible reason that Blake could sue her yet again. Was it because she’d applied for historical protection? Was he upset that she still lived on the premises with her father? Was it because she used the hotel’s kitchen for purposes other than feeding paying customers? She had absolutely no idea what to think as she hesitantly approached the man she’d met yesterday.

  When she entered he stood and greeted her. “Greetings, Felicity. How are you?” His tone was cordial, friendly even, confusing Felicity all the more. He didn’t wait for her to answer his question as he pulled out a chair at the table he’d been sitting at and encouraged her to sit down. “I’m sure you’re surprised to see me, especially after our—”