Undercover Pursuit by Susan May Warren

Undercover Pursuit by Susan May Warren

Author:Susan May Warren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2011-11-22T16:00:00+00:00


NINE

“Where on earth have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you.”

Bridgett glanced over at Scarlett as she stepped out onto the balcony off her sister’s villa.

Oh, sure she had. In fact, Bridgett appeared downright wrung out with concern, wrapped in a fluffy cotton bathrobe, lounging on a chaise under an oversize umbrella on the deck outside her villa, her hair wrapped in a turban, zinc oxide slathered on her nose and lips. Someone, please, get a doctor.

“You don’t have to get snippy about it. I really was worried.”

Oops, had Scarlett said that out loud? She sank down into the opposite chaise and drew in a breath of the ocean, crashing and frothing on the coral and rocks below. The sky appeared nearly cloudless, save for the rim of darkness on the far horizon. “I’m sorry, I just meant—”

“I mean, one minute you’re getting a body wrap, the next some strange man practically carries you off. Did I mention that he told me he’d have you back by dinner?”

He did? So perhaps that accounted for Luke’s quietness this morning, the way he stood at the rail, watching the boat skim the waves toward shore. He’d seemed friendly enough on the surface, but anyone who really knew him could tell that something ate at him.

Except she didn’t really know him, did she? Scarlett thought she’d had a glimpse, for a second, last night. The man behind the façade, the man awakened by his own failures.

I couldn’t believe she betrayed me…or that I’d betrayed myself.

She saw it all as he’d explained it—the horror on his face as he realized that his girlfriend had duped him, that he’d aided and abetted her cheating on her husband.

Never mind that he’d slept with a woman he wasn’t married to. But he’d explained that part, too, and she saw his desire to be a new Luke, a man who worked hard to keep his promises.

Not everyone is like that woman who lied to you.

She hadn’t quite meant to put so much vulnerability into her voice when she said that, but it slipped out anyway, and for a second, when he’d looked up at her, all the pretend vanished.

At least for her it had.

For a long—too long—moment, she wished herself into his arms, kissing him without the performance and instead with what had started to stir in her heart.

No, for her, it had ceased to be pretend. So she’d had to…well, pretend.

She’d had to act as if it hadn’t nearly turned her inside out to see him crying out in his sleep, to see the torment in his eyes at his own guilt, his own shame. She had to act as if she didn’t want to take him into her arms and soothe away the demons.

Today, when she’d left him on the boat, she had wanted with everything inside to hole up in her cabin and refuse to leave. She’d even managed to let him kiss her goodbye—a peck really, one that had the warmth of the Minnesota she’d left behind—without clinging to him.



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