The Darkest of Shadows (20 page)

The only issue I did have was that, not unexpectedly, they all wanted to know more about me. Where I was from? Was that an Australian accent? What did my family think about my traveling? I edged carefully around the truth. Then there was the extra uncomfortable question of what did I do before I worked for Lawrence? I tried to keep that as vague as I could and definitely didn’t mention Cartright & Nagel, because that would have made the connection to Patrick blatantly obvious.

When dinner was over, we walked a few doors down to one of the hotels and settled in the formal bar to have a few drinks before we all split up again. I hadn’t been drinking at all; Lawrence had a few that I had noticed, but the others, at least most of them, were fairly drunk by midnight. I wondered how they would manage when Lawrence called them all to focus at nine o’clock the next morning. I’d have to remember to get some strong coffee on in the morning.

Patrick hadn’t made a single attempt to talk to me that night, so I wasn’t altogether surprised when I left the ladies’ room just after midnight to find him skulking in the corridor outside. He stepped into my path when it looked like I was going to ignore him; then, without a word, he grabbed my hand and dragged me further down the hall.

“Patrick.” My voice shook in astonishment. “Stop.” But he didn’t, nor did he care when I tried to pull my hand from his grasp. He just continued down the hall and around the corner a ways, no doubt to get me as far from Lawrence as possible. He finally stopped in a darkened corridor of the hotel, somewhere I was sure wasn’t often frequented.

“You can let go now,” I told him. I wasn’t impressed with his high-handed tactics or the fact that he deemed it necessary to ambush me outside the bathroom.

But he didn’t let go of my hand. “I think you might run if I do,” he admitted sheepishly. “And I want you to stay and listen.”

I shook my head in exasperation. “We don’t have anything to say to each other, Patrick,” I assured him. “We were never official. It wasn’t real. I told you that.”

“I’m sorry, Lilly,” he said. “I’m sorry for what happened; I’m sorry for how I treated you. You deserved better than that, and regardless of what you feel, it was real for me.”

“This is why it would never work between us,” I told him, and finally managed to snatch my hand back. I crossed my arms over my chest so that he wasn’t tempted to try and contain me again. “You can’t accept that I don’t love you and never will.”

He grimaced slightly. “I know you have issues, and I’m sorry for that, but I’m not asking you for anything, Lilly. I just want to know if you’re OK.”

“I’m fine.”
Mostly
.

“Are you sleeping with Monterey?” His question surprised me so much that it took me a moment to form a response.

“Are you kidding me, Patrick?” I shot him a frustrated look. “You don’t have the right to ask me that question.”

But before he could add anything, we were interrupted as a voice called down the hall. “Lilly?” Both Patrick and my attention snapped toward the man who walked silently toward us. Charlie, better late than never, and he looked like he was trying very hard not to kill Patrick.

“Charlie, I’m fine.” I reached out a hand to rest against his arm, as he came to a stop beside me, and felt the rigid strength vibrating through his body. “Go back. I’ll be there in a minute.” I had to sort this out with Patrick, and it may as well be now; otherwise, he would just waylay me another time. And I’d rather not have that hanging over my head.

Charlie gave me a look that clearly said he thought I was mad and didn’t budge an inch. “Go.” I made it an order this time. “I don’t need you here; he isn’t going to hurt me. This is a personal matter—it’s got nothing to do with Lawrence.” He still didn’t move. “Go now, or else we’ll find somewhere else to talk,” I told him and with a fierce glare at Patrick, he stormed off down the hall.

“What is he, your bodyguard?” Patrick was frowning at Charlie’s retreating back.

“Something like that.” I tried to shrug the encounter away.

“So what is it with you and Monterey?” Patrick asked, straight back to the question. “Didn’t take him long.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Patrick, that’s insulting and offensive.” I snapped back. “Nothing’s going on between Lawrence and me, and even if there were, it’d be none of your business.”

“I miss you, Lilly,” he said sadly. I backed up as he took a step toward me, only stopping when the wall of the corridor abruptly stood at my back.

“It’s too late,” I told him, as I tried to step around his very large body. “I’m not going to sleep with you, and we’re not having a relationship. You live in Australia, for a start,” I reminded him. “There isn’t any future for us.” He just wasn’t getting it. “There is no now, and there isn’t a happily ever after. Please try to understand that. I don’t want to hurt you, and I never intended for you to feel like this.”

I doubt he even heard me, because the next minute his hands gripped my face, and he kissed me. That I hadn’t expected, and I was so astonished that I gasped against his lips—which was all the opening he needed to press his tongue into my mouth. It was a slow, gentle kiss, the Patrick that I’d come to care for, all on the line for me to see and feel, and without thought I returned it. His touch was everything I remembered, but it wasn’t what I needed; and it took only a moment for reality to remind me of who I was and why this was a very bad idea.

I pushed him away. I didn’t want this, and it certainly wasn’t going to make the situation better, if he thought that it would lead to more. He leant back a fraction of an inch, still close so that our bodies were touching, his hands gently cupping my face.

That’s how Lawrence found us. One moment I was leaning against the wall, with his body pressed to mine, and the next Patrick was pinned against the opposite side of the corridor, Frost and Charlie holding him steady while Lawrence was all up in his face.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Lawrence asked in a dangerously quiet voice.

Patrick was breathing hard and gave a few attempts to shake off Frost and Charlie, but they weren’t budging. “Let go of me,” Patrick told them, his breathing shallow and uneven.

“Not until we have a few things clear.” Lawrence took a step back, and I could see the physical effort it took for him to calm down. “You’re holding onto your position in my company by a hair’s breadth Sloane.”

“Please.” I managed to pull myself together enough to step away from the wall, but my legs and my voice were both shaky. This was horrible. “Please don’t.” I touched Lawrence on the arm, ignoring Patrick.

It took obvious effort for Lawrence to step away from Patrick, and with a curt nod to his men they released Patrick.

“We need to talk, Lilly.” Patrick stated the obvious.

I shook my head. “Not now, Patrick.” I begged him.
Not now
.

He watched me for a long moment. “OK,” he finally agreed, and then ran a gentle caress down the side of my cheek before disappearing down the hall.

This was just another layer of confusion in my life that I couldn’t deal with. It was moments like this, when all my defenses had been battered into their most vulnerable form, that everything I had lost in my life came that much closer to owning me again. How easy it was to remember who I had been, who I had loved, how easy that had been, and then to see myself as I stood in that hallway. If I could have cried, if I had that ability in my body, then I would have been a blubbering mess right then.

“Lilly?”

I pulled my gaze up from the floor and saw that Lawrence and I were alone in the hallway. “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I think I might go home now, if you don’t mind.” I needed to be alone, and without waiting for an answer I walked quietly down the hall and somehow managed to find my way back to the front of the hotel. It wasn’t until I stood on the pavement, staring with unseeing eyes out at the night, that I noticed Charlie beside me.

He got me home. I don’t remember the drive or the walk up to my room, but I do remember him pulling me against his side in the elevator and letting me rest there. Then I was sitting on the end of my bed. I’m not sure how long I sat there; it could have been an hour or a minute. I was still dressed in the clothes I had worn to dinner when Lawrence sat quietly beside me on the bed.

He didn’t say anything for a long time; he just waited, his patient understanding healing some of the unease in my body.

“Are you OK?” Lawrence asked.

I lifted a shoulder in response. I wasn’t really sure. I’d buried Patrick, I’d placed him in the part of my mind that held all the bitterness and hurt, but now it seemed Patrick wanted out of that box. Nothing came out of that box, not voluntarily.

“Do you need anything?”

I needed my life to be simple. That’s what I could manage. As soon as things got complicated, it was too hard to keep the barriers of my nicely ordered life intact. It made me miss things and people that I could no longer have. People I could only touch if I joined them in the darkness, and I tried every day to not go to that place. How easy it would be to let go of the pain and be with them again. They left me, suddenly, violently, but not forever. It was only a matter of time before I saw them again.

Each day was a fight to stop myself from prematurely rushing toward that meeting.

I shook my head sadly. This wasn’t something that Lawrence could help me with. Patrick was a complication that distance would soon take from my life. Then I would be myself again, and the ghosts of my past would retreat back into the distant recesses of my mind again.

Lawrence eventually left, and I made myself take off the dress and wash the scent of Patrick from my skin. I lay awake the whole night; not even a small part of me could manage to turn off.

It was hard to get my body moving the next morning; I was bleary-eyed and tired when I entered the conference room to join the others. It was funny how only a few hours earlier, I had jokingly thought about how I would have to get them all coffee to get them through the meeting, when in reality I probably looked and felt worse than the rest of them and was in dire need of the coffee myself.

I kept it black and had two cups within the first hour, and even then my stomach was wary of what I was forcing it to accept. The threat of continuing any kind of conversation with Patrick was making me ill, and I hoped to hell that I could get through this day without it.

When the meeting closed that afternoon, I was up and out of my chair before anyone else had moved. They all seemed happy to congregate inside the conference room for a little while longer, but I wasn’t staying. Charlie was standing beside me, waiting for the elevator, when Patrick walked up to us.

“Lilly.” His voice was quiet in the not-so-private environment of the offices. There were people scattered all around the floor, and any of them could have overheard our conversation if they tried hard enough. Charlie moved closer to me, stepping slightly to the side so that he could easily get to Patrick if he needed to, and strangely I didn’t try to stop him this time.

“I have to go back to Australia tonight,” he told me, when my gaze finally rose to meet his. “Can I call you?” He asked.

I took a deep breath, letting it exhale slowly. “There really isn’t much to say, Patrick.”

“There’s more to say than you realize,” he objected. “You’re not alone, Lilly, regardless of what you believe. I’m here for you, so if you want to talk, call me.”

His fingers reached up to brush gently against my face. “I’ll see you at Christmas,” he said quietly; then, with a single acknowledging nod to Charlie, he walked away.

Great
. I had thought that I would have some time to get over him, at least another eight weeks, but the company Christmas party was next month, and quite obviously from that comment Patrick was going to be attending. I hadn’t missed the confrontation, I’d just delayed it. “Super,” I whispered to myself as the elevator opened, and Charlie and I got in.