Obsession

15

HE WAS TOO LATE.

Drew knew that the moment he entered the hotel and the assistant manager, Philippe, considered him with barely concealed contempt.

He’d had a bad inkling all morning. Actually, since last night he’d had the strange suspicion that somehow, some way, Josie had learned the truth about him. And that had bothered him beyond his capacity to deal with it just then.

He looked around the lobby and courtyard and didn’t spot the person he was looking for, the only one who mattered in this entire situation.

“Where’s Josie?”

Philippe crossed his arms. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“That’s why I asked.”

“She doesn’t want to see you.”

There it was. What Drew had been dreading: she knew.

He turned toward the stairs.

Philippe moved faster than Drew would have thought possible, blocking his progress. “Whoa. Where do you think you’re going?”

“To find her.”

“I told you she doesn’t want to see you.”

Drew stared down the younger man, suppressing the urge to remove him physically from his path. He was surprised by the primal desire. For the past decade he’d used words to make his point, to wage his business war. He hadn’t resorted to physical confrontation since his stint in the military.

It didn’t help that his adversary seemed to be egging him on, as if he wanted Drew to take a swing at him. Which gave him considerable cause for pause.

“That’s all right, Philippe.”

They both turned to see Josie standing at the top of the stairs.

For an all too brief moment, the world stopped turning. Or rather, it began revolving again, propelling life in the right direction.

Drew’s breath froze in his lungs. While Josie was wearing a summery dress similar to the others he’d seen her in, she could have been wearing a slinky evening gown, the way the sight of her stopped his heart. Just looking at her made him feel not himself somehow. As if the moment she entered a room, a part of him fused with her, as if they were two parts of one whole instead of separate entities.

The sensation was unfamiliar to him. And left him feeling unprotected. As if he were in the middle of a clearing with twenty sniper rifles aimed at him.

The expression on her face told him she was experiencing some similar emotions that she didn’t quite know how to handle either.

Her expression also told him that he’d lost something he’d never be able to regain: her trust.

“Can I talk to you?” he asked.

Philippe spoke, “Haven’t you already said and done enough?”

Josie started down the stairs. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything, Philippe.”

The other man appeared prepared to object.

But thankfully he thought better and moved out of Drew’s way as he followed Josie to the kitchen. Drew didn’t miss Philippe’s lethal look though, that conveyed all that Philippe would have said and done if Josie hadn’t appeared.

As he walked behind her, Drew couldn’t keep from taking in the gentle, unconscious sway of Josie’s hips and the sexy curve of her neck. But he had no place appreciating her pure grace when inside he felt so impure, as though a tar-like stain spread under his skin. A dread that all they’d begun to build between them was forever lost.

As much as he wished otherwise, Drew knew that this meeting in the kitchen wouldn’t have anything to do with food and Josie being enjoyed on top of the island.

He expected her to turn toward him when they entered, but instead she busied herself making coffee.

“Talk,” she said.

Josie’s heart was beating so hard she thought for sure he could see it through her chest.

When Detective Chevalier had spilled what he knew, she hadn’t wanted to believe he was telling her the truth. It didn’t fit in with anything she knew about Drew or with what had happened between them.

But as the homicide detective had continued talking, verifying that the tip had been phoned into his office by an anonymous source who had nothing to gain, and that some checking had proven that Drew wasn’t a car-parts salesman but rather an independent contractor who’d been dubbed “The Closer” by those he worked with, she’d had the sinking sensation that Chevalier was right.

Drew had always seemed a step above the salesmen she usually crossed paths with. A little too well groomed. A little too edgy.

And now…

Well, the instant she’d glanced into his eyes, she’d known the information was right. And that he knew that she knew.

She quirked a brow at him over her shoulder only to find his gaze lingering on her backside.

Her blood heated, but not in anger. Instead, desire ignited in her stomach and rushed through her veins. A reaction she was sorely unprepared for.

How could she still crave him sexually when he’d hit her with such a crushing emotional blow?

“Josie, I…you have to believe me when I say that the last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

He surely couldn’t be saying what he was.

She turned fully and leaned against the counter while the coffee brewed. The only sounds were the spitting of the machine and the uneven cadence of her own heartbeat in her ears.

Her voice was quieter than she meant it to be. “Is this where you try to convince me that you only had my best interests in mind?” She swallowed past the emotion clogging her throat. “Drew, you…you wanted to take away the Josephine. My hotel.”

Pain rippled across his handsome face. “I used the present tense, not the past.”

She tried to follow him but her brain seemed oversaturated, incapable of making sense out of even the simplest of statements, and his had been anything but.

He looked suddenly agitated, as if understanding that he stood on a sinking boat that was taking on more water than he could bail out. And stunningly, she felt a need to make things easier for him.

How could that be? This man had come to her place under false pretenses, had lied to her from the word go. Had schemed to take away the thing that meant the most to her.

Hot tears flooded her eyes.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she whispered, starting for the door so she could go up to her rooms and lock herself in where no one could bother her. No one could touch her. Lie to her.

She hadn’t expected him to grasp her wrist as she passed. In a knee-jerk reaction, she slapped him soundly across the face with her free hand.

He blinked at her, and she got the impression that his wince was as much due to the physical blow as to the crack to his ego.

“I suppose I deserved that.”

“You deserve much worse.”

He averted his gaze. “You’re right, I do.”

Josie didn’t know how she knew, but she sensed that he meant what he was saying. And hope lit anew in her stomach.

A hope she didn’t want. Not when what they’d shared had been temporary anyway. She’d always known it would end.

For some reason, she didn’t want it to end badly.

He looked up into her eyes again, his gaze intense. “I know all this-what you’ve learned about me-is a shock. And that right now you’re reacting on an emotional level…and that you’re hurting.” He lifted his hand to her face and stroked her cheek with his thumb. When she moved so he couldn’t touch her, he dropped his hand back to his side, his eyes beseeching. “Think about it, Josie. Try to look beyond how you’re feeling right now.” She heard the click of his deep swallow. “Not once did I ever mention a word to you about selling the hotel. Not ever.”

She couldn’t fully absorb his words.

“What do you think that means, Josie? Here I am, a guy whose only intention, supposedly, is to get you to sell, yet I never mentioned the hotel and the many problems you’re having. Not once.”

From a place outside herself, she realized he was right. He’d never made the hotel or her ownership or possible sale of it the focus of any conversation they’d had.

Of course, most of their time together had been spent having sex.

Still…

She reached beyond the cloud of betrayal and hurt and tried to grasp something that was just outside her ability to get hold of just then.

“‘The Closer,’” she whispered. “I get the impression you’re very good at your job, Drew. At whatever you decide that job to be.”

He shifted on his feet and she noticed the way he held his hands tightly still, as if barely able to contain his longing to touch her. And suddenly, irrationally, she wanted that touch more than her next breath, despite her knowledge that he could be working her still, even at this moment.

His voice lowered to a rasping murmur that made her shiver. “If you can’t answer the question of why I never mentioned the hotel, Josie, then answer this one-what am I doing here? Why am I standing before you right now, out of my mind with the thought that I’ll never again be able to touch you? Kiss you? Taste your sweetness on my tongue? Hold you in my arms?”

She searched his eyes, her brain stalling, her body longing to surge forward, longing for him. But she had more to say. “You could be here because you didn’t finish what you came here to do.”

She watched his eyes close briefly. Then he lifted his right hand, put it down again, then raised it again so that he could trail his fingertips over the inside of her arm at her elbow. Goose bumps ran over her skin at the subtle yet powerful touch. Over her wrist, her palm, then he was lacing his fingers with hers. He lifted her hand so that the back of it rested against his chest.

“You’re right,” he said. “I didn’t finish what I started.” His pupils dilated, taking over the blue of his eyes. “Only my objective did a complete one-eighty the instant I kissed you. The moment you invited me into your body…and into your heart.”

The aforementioned organ had contracted to the point where it clutched painfully in her chest.

“And I am there, aren’t I, Josie?” He moved their hands so that they rested between her breasts. “Just as you’re in mine.”

A part of her didn’t want to hear what he was saying. Wanted words that would feed the ache in her stomach and help her shore up her crumbling defenses.

“Yes, I’m an independent contractor. Yes, I worked for a client that wants your hotel. Yes, I came here with the sole intention of getting it for him.”

She narrowed her eyes. Where was he going with this? Every word seemed to aim for and hit her where she was most vulnerable.

“But all that’s changed, Josie. None of that makes sense to me anymore. My job seems so unimportant.”

She licked her lips, unable to speak, unable to move, mesmerized by what he appeared to be saying.

“What is important is the fact that I’m falling in love with you.”

An almost unbearable pain mixed with hope inside her.

“Correction-I’m not falling in love with you. I’m in love with you. And falling deeper every moment I gaze into your eyes and touch your soft skin.”

His thumb was stroking her hand, sending sensations rushing up her arm and over her sleep-deprived body.

“I can’t…” she began, towing her gaze from his face and searching for something, anything, with which to pull herself free from the overwhelming emotions enveloping her. “I can’t deal with this right now, Drew.” She found a piece of strength within to draw from. Strength that had been in the Villefranche family for longer, much longer, than she’d been a part of it. “Maybe what you’re telling me is the truth. Maybe not. Maybe this is all just some sort of ruse to try to salvage a situation beyond repair.”

On a level she was loath to recognize, she sensed that this wasn’t the case, but her doubts needed to be addressed.

She smiled sadly, giving in to her own overpowering need to touch him and lifting her free hand to his face. She ran her fingertips over his strong cheekbone, over his jaw, the rasp of his stubble rough against her palm.

“Look,” she whispered, focusing her attention on his mouth rather than his eyes. “We both knew that this, whatever it is that exists between us, was temporary. That it would end almost as quickly as it began.” The prospect of not seeing him again hurt her more than what had transpired in the past few hours. What did that mean?

“Yes, but I’m not gone yet,” he murmured.

Then he leaned in and did what she wanted most in the world in that one moment.

He kissed her.