Text Appeal (19 page)

Finally pulling her eyes off the papers, she looked up at him. The hurt in her eyes was a punch in the gut.

“I have to go.” She grabbed the skirt off the hanger and slid into it.

“Can I ask why the rush?” He cast a glance at the clock. “You don’t work until nine and your office is just over in the other tower.”

“We have a seven o’clock breakfast meeting this morning,” she said, her fingers shaking at the buttons on her blouse.
“An important meeting.”

“So you overslept. It happens to the best of us, Ry. It’s not the end of the world.”

“It doesn’t happen to me. My father—” She shook her head. “—you wouldn’t understand.”

Charlie flinched. “No. I guess I wouldn’t.”

She brushed her hair back with her fingers, pulling the curls straight and yanking it into a tight twist at the back of her head.
“My purse?”

He picked it up off the table and handed it to her.

She pulled a clip out of the front pocket and slid it in her hair. Hidden were the soft and sultry curls, gone was the wildly sensual woman who’d looked at him across the elevator threshold and asked for his help to conquer her fears.

She pulled on the suit jacket as she walked to the door, and he didn’t bother following.

Only as she stood in the open doorway did she turn back to him. “I’m sorry to run out like this, and thanks.
For the suit and everything.”

So that was it. She was just going to sum last night up to
and everything
.

She slid out before he could find his voice to respond.

“Any time,” he whispered against the
click
of the closing door.

Across the room, he spotted the skirt and top she’d worn last night. He padded over to it and picked it up. He pressed it to his nose. Jesus, he loved the smell of her.

He didn’t want to keep her this morning, but he would explain about the papers. He’d explain that he’d never been told about his son. He’d never been given the chance to do the right thing.

It had spooked her. He’d seen it in her eyes, but she didn’t know the whole story. And he didn’t plan on letting her run away without listening.

Riley didn’t know whom she was playing with if she thought Charlie Singleton would fold that easily.

***

Riley stood frozen outside of Charlie’s suite. Her body was frozen
but chaos
reigned inside her
.
She stared at the elevator and the gleaming doors stared right back at her.
Her
pulse
quic
kened and her stomach pitched.

He has a child.

Words played on repeat in her mind, like a scratched record:
paternity
t
esting
.
Part of him had wanted him to deny it, but he’d been so matter-of-fact.
As if this was just part of being Charlie ‘the Devil’ Singleton.

Another part of her was panicked at the possibility of what would have happened if she hadn’t seen those papers.

Charlie was amazing. The way he’d fed her at dinner. His text messages after. The way he’d helped her overcome her fears and step into an elevator twice in as many nights. The way he’d touched her and tasted her.

Charlie was a man who made a girl feel like she was the only thing that mattered, and it would have been easy to leave his room this morning believing their affair could turn into something…more.

She fought the urge to turn back and tell him to explain away the papers. The man could so easily turn into an addiction she didn’t have control over. Then what would happen when she wanted more and he couldn’t give it?

“Let this be a lesson to you,” she mumbled to herself. Her father may not have been in her life before her mother died, but no one had needed to draw up court papers to get him to step up to his responsibilities. He’d taken her in without question and before she’d even settled into her new life, he’d given her his last name. Those papers were proof that Charlie wouldn’t do the same.

She pushed those thoughts aside. She had to get to work, and the elevator was her only viable option.

She could do this. She’d done it twice, now, hadn’t she? Sure, once the elevator had been glass and really not that scary, and the second time Charlie had been…distracting her, but if she’d done it
twice
, she could do it again.

Palms sweating, she lunged forward to press the button before she could talk herself out of it.

The arrows above the elevator lit up, and she held her breath. When the doors opened, she could run inside, press the button for the lobby and just close her eyes until she got there. She could do this.

The doors opened and she rushed inside. Her heart pounded. Illogically, she wondered how she was supposed to face her greatest fear when the most amazing man she’d ever been with had turned out to be exactly the kind of man she needed to steer clear of.

“Shit.” She shot a hand out and stopped the doors from closing. When they slid back open, she hurried back into the hall. She fumbled in her purse for her phone. It was already a quarter to eight, and her father’s retirement breakfast would be half over by now.

She pressed two on her speed dial and prayed Lacey had her phone on her today.

She only had to wait through two long, torturous rings before Lacey picked up.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Lacey greeted, her voice sing-song sweet. “Where did you sleep last night?”

Riley looked at the ceiling and swallowed. “I don’t have time to go into it right now. Are you near the front desk?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m in the penthouse tower, and I can’t take elevator.”

Lacey squealed. “You’re
where
? What are you doing up there? Wait. Isn’t that where my brother is staying?”

“Lace, I’m in a hurry, and I need to take the stairs.”

“Oh.” Lacey’s voice grew serious. “I see,” she said.

Riley chewed on her lip. “Do you?”

“The best I can do is shut the alarm off the second it sounds.”

Riley closed her eyes.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
This was her fault. Had she forgotten last night that what goes up must come down? “You’re going to get complaints,” she said.

“I have a few leftover vouchers for free drinks in the bar. I can handle complaints.”

“Okay. I’m heading that way in about ten seconds.”

“Got
ya
covered, sister.”

“Thanks, Lace.”

She ended the call and turned to the stairwell. The closed door had a large sign: EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. ALARM WILL SOUND.

Riley counted backward from ten and pushed through, wincing when the fire alarm blared overhead. In less than two seconds, the alarm was silenced, but she knew the shrill sound was loud enough to wake any hotel guest who’d been sleeping in—and since this was a hotel/casino, there
was
a large number of them.

She rushed down the stairs, and pressed through another set of marked doors when she reached the lobby. Again, the alarm sounded, and again was silenced almost immediately.

After darting across the lobby, she tugged off her shoes and sprinted up the stairs in the business tower. Perspiration beaded on her brow and at the back of her neck by the time she reached the executive level.

She straightened her suit as she scurried toward her father’s boardroom, and tried not to think too much about how angry he would be when she walked in almost a full hour late.

His was the first face to greet her as she slipped in the side door. “Riley. I was wondering if you were going to join us today.” Her father’s voice tried at playful, but his disapproval hardened his eyes.

People were milling around, the remnants of a concluded meeting.

Riley forced a smile. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

He gave a curt nod and turned back to
Chaz
, who extended his hand and smiled like the cat happily digesting the canary. “Congratulations on your retirement, sir. I will see you this evening.”

Her father shot a hard look at Riley and retreated to his office.

Her stomach clenched as the door shut behind him.

“Riley,”
Chaz
said softly.

She took her attention off her departing father and gave it to
Chaz
. “Yes?” She wasn’t sure how she should feel after last night.
Angry?
Hurt? Bitter? One of those would make sense, but none came to the surface as she looked at his face, took in his furrowed brow. Instead, she only felt a hollow grief for the life they might have had together, the life she had imagined for years.

“Listen, about last night—”

She shook her head. “You don’t owe me any explanation.” Each word that came from her mouth lifted a weight from her shoulders. “You’re right. I turned you down when you proposed. I think—”

He crossed the space between them and put a finger to her lips, silencing her. His skin was cold, clammy, a striking contrast to Charlie’s heat. “What you saw last night…I was ending a flirtation. I wanted to start fresh.” He smiled.
“With you.”

She stepped back and his hand dropped between them. “I don’t want that anymore,” she whispered.

Chaz
frowned. “I don’t expect you to know what you want, not after last night.” He took her hand, toyed with her fingers. “Remember when we used to talk about the future? What it would be like to be married?
To make a home?”

She closed her eyes against the warmth the idea brought her. How could she be but minutes out of Charlie’s bed and stand here wanting what another man offered? But was it
Chaz
that appealed to her or the idea of having her own family?

“Remember when we used to talk about being each other’s family?” He tipped her chin up and she looked into his eyes.
“About making babies?”

She bit the inside of her cheek to stop the tears that threatened to fill her eyes. She wanted all those things. But she no longer wanted them with
Chaz
.

You want them with Charlie
, a little voice whispered in her mind. Not only was that ridiculous—they’d only spent a single night together—it was impossible. Charlie couldn’t give her that life. He was the kind of man who had to be summoned to lay claim to his own children.

Riley opened her mouth, still not sure what to say. This time
Chaz
stopped her with his mouth, brushing it softly against hers.

She didn’t kiss him back but didn’t stop him either. His kisses had never lit her on fire, but they’d always been comforting. Now, even that was gone.

He pulled away and smiled. “Go to dinner with me tonight?”

“Tonight’s dance class.”

“So skip it.” He squeezed her fingertips.
“For me.”
“
You can come by the apartment tomorrow evening,” she said, her own words muffling the warning bells at the back of her mind. Regardless of where this went, they needed to talk. She needed to give him his ring back.
To end things officially.

“It’s a deal.” He gave her a soft smile and tapped her temple with his index finger. “Just don’t ruin things by analyzing everything between now and then.”