Page 8 of Peyton's Price

He shrugged, the winsome smile still on his face.

“I’ll think about it.” Peyton didn’t know what made her say it, but she didn’t feel like taking it back.

This time, Ethan reached all the way across her, brushing against her long enough for her to feel his heat. He unlocked the door. “You do that. I’ll be waiting for your call.”

Chapter 4

Peyton reared back, dropping the box cutter as her index finger began to bleed. She pulled off the mangled piece of packing tape she’d been trying to remove with a hard yank.

“Frak,” she swore, putting her injured finger in her mouth to suck on the tiny wound.

“It’s an omen,” Maggie said, setting a half-filled box on her bed. “It means you shouldn’t move to California.”

Peyton plastered a bracing smile at her best friend. “You love San Francisco. You’ll visit me, and I’ll visit you.”

She snaked out an arm, wrapping it around Maggie’s neck. “And I shouldn’t have to tell you this—but it’s likely we’ll see each other just as often. You’ve been so busy lately with the new hotels, traveling all the time anyway. It’ll be almost as easy to meet there as here,” she added, stretching the truth.

She didn’t add that Maggie’s time was also limited due to a happy marriage. Her husband Jason was Ethan’s partner at the FBI. Although they had been together for a couple of years, the pair still acted like newlyweds.

“It won’t be the same,” Maggie said, a hairsbreadth away from whining.

“I know. But we’ll both get used to it. This is too good of a job opportunity to pass up.”

Maggie pouted. “I know you want to work in your field now that you have your degree, but there are tech firms here in Boston.”

“Not like this one.” Peyton held up another sweater. “What do you think? Should I bother taking these?”

Maggie reached over morosely to finger the thick wool. “Samuel Clemens said it best. ‘The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco’. So yes, take all the sweaters and the down vests.”

Peyton snorted softly, then started putting the sweater in the box. She loved Maggie like a sister, but this was for the best. Peyton couldn’t stand being here, working at the same hotel with Liam day in and day out.

Putting on appearances was exhausting. She felt as if someone had dug out her insides. Peyton was little more than a walking shell now, one capable of walking and talking and even smiling, but a shell, nonetheless. Leaving town, avoiding the man she’d loved her whole life, was her only hope for recovery.

How she was going to do it was still something of a mystery. She’d built her whole life around the Tylers and the hotel chain they’d founded. She’d given up holidays, worked on her birthday, had come in when she was blind sick and had to be sent home, all because Liam had, too. And she had wanted to be near him.

Now he was going to marry someone else. Peyton had to leave for her own sanity. Besides, it was long past time for her to strike out and try to build a life of her own. She should have done it years ago.

Plus, it was only a matter of time before Maggie announced her first pregnancy. It might be a few months or years, but it would happen soon enough. Once it did, Peyton would see even less of her friend. Yes, she felt guilty she wouldn’t be there when it happened, but Maggie had the support of an awesome husband and two involved older brothers. There was also a large number of hotel staff who loved the youngest Tyler like a daughter or a granddaughter. Maggie was going to have all the help she could possibly need.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to move in with Dylan?” Maggie asked, naming a mutual school friend who had offered Peyton a room a twenty-minute drive from her new office.

“I think it’s a great idea,” she said with a little more enthusiasm. “He’s got a three-bedroom house all to himself almost next door to Adstringo. He’s also in the start-up world, so he knows what kind of waters I’m going to be navigating. I’ll get to pick his brain nightly. Plus, judging from his last couple of calls, he’s still the same Dylan. Living with him is going to be fun.”

Dylan Nguyen had been one of the few other scholarship kids at Eastwood Prep, but he hadn’t finished. He was expelled a few months shy of their senior year for selling a dime bag of marijuana to one of their fellow students.

“Liam has hated his guts ever since he found out he got kicked out,” Maggie reminded her.

“Then it’s a good thing Liam’s not the boss of me,” Peyton quipped. Not anymore.

Maggie wasn’t letting it go. “Even Trick thinks he’s shady.”

“That was high school stuff. Dylan wasn’t charged with any crimes.”

That would have been too public for their fancy private school. Instead, Dylan had been quietly expelled. A few weeks later, he’d gone to live with his maiden aunt in Novato, California. Like Peyton, Dylan had been into computers. They’d stayed in touch despite the Tylers’ general disapproval of him.

Peyton’s continued contact with Dylan was something Maggie hadn’t understood. But she’d been taught to view life as black and white. Peyton had been raised in the grey. And she was never going to hold that kind of past indiscretion against Dylan. Like her, he’d clawed his way into the light. She admired him.

Her best friend’s lower lip wobbled, but she nodded. “I could kill Caroline for announcing the engagement at your party. You wouldn’t be moving now.”

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