Playing the Playboy (17 page)

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.

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.

He didn’t care.

He picked up a piece of wood and started to work.

***

It was evening two days later when he pounded a bolt into the door-hinge. Hanging the door was the last thing to do on the tree house.

It was hot for so late in the evening, and Andrew was drenched in sweat. His legs and arms felt rubbery, since he’d been working on the damn house for two days straight, but he wasn’t going to stop until he finished it.

“Andrew,” a voice called up from the ground.

Andrew glanced down and saw his brother standing beneath the tree. “Hey. Just a minute.”

He looked around at the small, one-room house. There were two windows, one door, and a slanted roof that was covered with neatly nailed shingles. The house was unfurnished, but its construction was complete.

He would have loved it as a boy.

With a ludicrous feeling of satisfaction—since the gesture of finishing it had proved exactly nothing—Andrew climbed down the tree.

“What are you doing here?” he asked Harrison.

“I was asked to fly in a couple of days earlier than we’d planned, since it was rumored you might be having some sort of breakdown.”

Andrew couldn’t help but laugh as he wiped some of the sweat from his forehead with his shirt. “I don’t think it’s a breakdown.” He leaned down to set the toolbox on the grass. “But what the hell do I know?”

Harrison stared up at the tree house. “I can’t believe you finished this old thing. I’d completely forgotten about it.”

“I hadn’t.”

Glancing over, Harrison added, “I would have helped you, if you’d asked.”

“I know.”

“Seriously. Are you okay?”

Andrew shifted his gaze to the house he’d just completed, feeling a little uncomfortable with the personal question. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

There was a long pause. Then Harrison said what he was obviously reluctant to say. “I was told that I still have a habit of assuming the worst about women—women other than her. And that I might have encouraged you to come to conclusions too quickly.”

It hurt. Andrew could feel it in his throat. But he managed to ask, “Marietta told you that?”

“Yes. Over and over again, I might add. And that, yes, it looked bad, but we don’t know the whole story, so we shouldn’t judge. And that, even if she did have shady plans that first day, she obviously didn’t follow through with them—which should mean something. And that, even if the arrest in her background was based in fact, women don’t do those kinds of things because they want it. They do it because they feel they have no other choice. And we don’t know what she was dealing with that might have led her to such choices.”

Andrew had thought about all of that—hundreds of times during the last week—aching over why and how Laurel had been so absolutely desperate, back then and just a few weeks ago. Irrationally angry at himself for not being there to help her. He didn’t know how to reply so he said nothing.

“And,” Harrison continued, his voice light and dry, “we’re in no position to judge her choices anyway, given the kind of lifestyle we’ve had.”

Andrew snorted. “She didn’t mean both of us, did she? You never slept around much. She meant me.”

Harrison gave a little nod of acknowledgment.

Andrew sighed. He didn’t usually talk so openly with anyone—even his brother—and it made him uncomfortable. He had to talk to someone, though, and Laurel was no longer an option. “All of that doesn’t really bother me. Well, it did at first—since it seemed to create a certain picture of her. But I have as messy a history as she does. I don’t care about that. But she lied to me. Even if she didn’t go through with whatever her original plan was, she kept lying to me.”

“Did she not have a good explanation? What did she say on the trip back to the island?”

“Nothing. She said nothing.”

Harrison was silent for a long time. “I’m going out there at the end of the week. I’ll wrap things up for you, so it will be off your desk completely.”

Andrew shook his head. “No. I’ve got to do it.”

“Do you think you’ll talk to her?”

“I doubt she’s still on the island. She’s probably trying to get settled somewhere else. We gave her enough money to go where she wants, but I should still be the one to finish this. Then, I’ll…” He trailed off. He just wished he knew why Laurel hadn’t tried to explain herself to him. If she’d wanted a relationship with him at all, surely she would have tried.

If he had the slightest hint that there was more to the situation, something she hadn’t told him, he would hunt her down and see if there was any way of working things out.

But she must not want that. She must not want
him
.

Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe he needed to talk to her for his own sake, so he could finally move on.

“You were already planning to go back yourself, weren’t you?” Harrison asked.

“Yes.”

“Can we tell Marietta I talked you into it?

Andrew surprised himself with a laugh. But laughing reminded him of Laurel, and the laughter transformed into something aching. It died off into silence.

“Damn,” Harrison muttered, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go for you?”

“No. It has to be me.”

***

“What do you mean she hasn’t touched the money?” Andrew demanded, looking from Agatha’s face to Hector’s in disbelief. “What is she living on?”

He’d arrived at the inn less than an hour ago, and he’d been trying to explain to them what would happen in the next few months when he saw that most of Laurel’s belongings were still filling the rooms. He finally pried out of them that Laurel hadn’t even taken the money he’d wired into her account two weeks ago.

Hector and Agatha didn’t appear to be angry with him, but they looked worried and distrustful. He must have seriously disappointed them. Strangely, Andrew hated that thought.

“She works,” Agatha said. “She will not take charity.”

“It’s not charity. It was a reasonable settlement. She invested a lot in this property, and she deserves to have something to show for it.”

Hector and Agatha were both shaking their heads at him now. She said, “No charity.”

“Then why did she leave her stuff?”

“She took clothes to wear. She said nothing else belongs to her.”

“But most of her clothes are still here,” Andrew said, looking around the bedroom helplessly. In the closet, he saw an entire row of neatly pressed tops, pants, and dresses, as well as two tidy rows of shoes. “She can’t think those have to stay with the inn.”