“Okay, thanks.”
“And Torie?”
“Yeah?”
“Want to go out to dinner tonight?” Paul said in a rush, his voice muffled, as if he’d cupped his hand over the phone. “To celebrate the partnership?”
“Uh,” Torie began.
“Just think about it. Okay?” He quickly said good-bye and hung up.
Torie wasn’t sure what had just happened. She circled the two blocks necessary to get her back to the garage entrance, mentally apologizing to Marco, the bodyguard, for making him do the same. She had yet one more civil conversation—almost lover like—with Paul Jameson. Had he just asked her on a, well, a real date?
She was living in his house, but she was a guest. It was temporary. She wasn’t…
A memory of Paul’s amazing hands, the way his body had felt above hers, caressing her, flashed into her mind.
Stress made you do funny things.
She pulled into the garage and parked. Leaning her head onto the headrest, she closed her eyes. What the hell had she done? What had they both done? They’d unleashed something between them in the early morning. Something that had slumbered for a long, long time.
That something, however, was hemmed in by pain.
Torie felt her body quiver, remembering how deeply she’d felt him, how fully. It had been a mistake. But she’d needed to feel alive, feel like something, anything, was good in the world.
And it had been good. It had been earth-shattering and fabulous. She’d always enjoyed and appreciated sex, but wondered why people would kill for it. Or die for it. Sex with Paul had the kind of dangerous quality that gave her an inkling of why people would have affairs, throw caution to the winds. Do anything to have more.
Had that been why she’d driven him off, accused him of asking her out for all the wrong reasons? He hadn’t forced her to have sex. Then, like now, she had started it. Was it her fear keeping them both prisoner?
Maybe.
All she knew was she wanted more.
A knock on the glass jerked her, screaming, from her thoughts.
Her heart pounded furiously as she looked into the eyes of Melvin Pratt Jr. She took a relieved breath, and smiled at him.
“Lord in heaven, Melvin,” she said getting out of the car. “You scared a year off my life.”
Melvin eyed the car and Torie’s face, and smiled. “I’m so sorry, Torie. I was worried about you, just sitting there. I didn’t mean to scare you, though.”
There was something about the way he said it, the look in his eyes, that made Torie uneasy. Melvin had always been a bit smarmy.
“Thank you. I was just trying to gather my thoughts before I went upstairs. Paul said that your father wanted to meet with me to review everything that’s going on.” She wasn’t sure why she said it, but she wanted to get away from Melvin. He’d always made her feel uncomfortable. He’d asked her out several times after she and Todd had broken up, but she’d always declined. When she’d started dating again, she hadn’t wanted to date him.
“Ah, well, I’ll walk you up then. I haven’t had a chance to thank you for helping dear old Dad the other day when the fire alarm went off.”
“You’re welcome.” Torie didn’t know how to keep the conversation going as they rode up the elevator. She always hated the sense of forced proximity of an elevator, and for some reason it was worse with Melvin.
“You seem uncomfortable, Torie.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologized, though she wasn’t sure why. “I have a lot on my mind.” She smiled at him. “There’s so much I have to do. You never realize how much you count on the little things you’ve accumulated until you lose everything.”
“Yes, I’m so sorry about the fire. It’s horrible to have to replace everything. I know you’ll be glad of all the extra money when you get to the point of repairing things.”
Torie was puzzled. What money? “Well, the insurance will cover the house. That’s the basics, however. I’m afraid I’m going to have to put a lot out and get reimbursed,” she said ruefully.
“Oh,” Melvin seemed surprised, then wary. “I’m sorry. I thought that you would have…the will…” He stopped. It was an awkward pause, but the opening doors saved him from having to complete the thought. “Here we are. I’m sure Martha will have whatever you need until Father and the others are done.”
He stepped aside, motioning her off. She wanted to ask him what he’d been talking about. What about the will? What extra money?
She vaguely remembered Paul saying something on the beach in North Carolina, something about Todd leaving her something. It made her unbearably sad. Todd had felt so responsible, so determined to make sure that she never felt any repercussions from his decisions. He was just like that. But, as she’d told Paul, Todd had long ago paid any debt he might have owed. She had always felt so strange that he’d paid for everything, given her so much.
The idea that there was more made her heart ache. She’d rather Todd had spent it all, enjoying life in the big way he’d had.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Hagen,” Martha greeted her. Still as cool as ever. Torie had no idea what Martha thought of her.
“Good afternoon,” Torie began. “Paul had said…”
“Yes, he let me know that you were to have the use of his office. Would you like some coffee? Tea? Perhaps a soft drink?”
“I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“It isn’t,” she declared with a tight smile. “I would do it for any guest.”
Ahh. A guest. Yep. That was the distinction. She was making sure Torie knew she was a guest, not a fixture. Torie almost laughed. Since she felt so little was permanent in her life at the moment, from where she lived to what she wore, what Martha thought hardly phased her.
“Thank you then, a soft drink would be great.”
“I’ll get that for you. Please go in and have a seat.”
Not make yourself at home. Nope. Martha didn’t want her making herself comfortable, that was for sure. Torie sank into one of the comfortable leather chairs at the conference table.
Where did she belong?
“Here you are.” Martha sat down a coaster and the soft drink can. A glass with ice followed, placed precisely on another coaster. “If you’d like to use the phone, this line at the conference table is available.”
“Thank you.” Torie mustered a smile.
“You’re welcome. Do you need anything else?”
“Might I trouble you for a pad of paper? I need to make some notes.”
“Certainly.” Martha moved behind Paul’s desk, opened a drawer, and produced a leather portfolio and pad. Handing it to Torie along with a pen, she asked briskly, “Anything else?”
“No, thanks.”
“Then I’ll leave you to your calls. Mister Jameson should be returning within the hour.”
Torie waited until Martha left, then stared at the blank page in front of her. She picked up the pen, but couldn’t bring herself to write anything.
It all came crashing in on her. The house, the destroyed hotel rooms, her job at TruStructure, Paul.
She put her head down on the table and wept.
Chapter Twelve
“So, we’re agreed?” Melvin Pratt Sr. said into the silence following his announcement that their consultants were recommending the same course of action the police technical specialist had mentioned. Full back-up on a new system. “We have the capital budget for a secondary system. In order to protect our files from further encroachment, we’ll get it installed immediately. Our technical people and the consulting team will reboot the files from there. In the meantime, utilize the portable hard drives that are being hooked to your computers.”