Page 61 of Betrayed

He had convinced himself she would have been suspicious if her lover suddenly acted like her brother, which in hindsight may have been the kinder course of action. Would it have been worth the sacrifice of this weekend and the growing affection between them? Hell no! With the shit storm heading their way, he felt strongly he’d made the right play. Once the truth came out, they would need the bond they forged, no matter how new and fragile, to see them through.

Chapter 17

ON ANY GIVEN DAY, HEARINGArturo’s voice in the middle of a hectic morning would have been like a soothing balm. But her tension shot through the roof when he uttered without pleasantries, “I have something to talk to you about. Can you meet me at my suite?”

She held up a finger to the customer at the counter and stepped away, saying quietly into her phone, “This sounds serious.”

There was a brief pause on his end. “Can you be here at noon?”

“Yes. But, Arturo, what’s this about?”

“I’ll explain when I see you at twelve.”

She frowned when he disconnected, a knot forming in the pit of her stomach.

“Mari, what’s wrong? You’ve gone as white as a sheet.”

Looking up, she met Katy’s look of concern. “What does it mean when a man asks you to lunch to talk about ‘something’?”

The customer waiting in to be rung up, whispered, “Oh, dear,” as Katy grimaced.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,”she muttered, the high she’d been riding since Friday deflating like a leaky balloon.

Damn!He’s going to break up with me.

Leaving Katy to help the woman at the counter, Mari walked to her office, shut the door—somehow keeping from slamming it—and collapsed in her desk chair.

What did you expect? A lifetime commitment from a man in town for business.

He’d left her Friday night to come back to town, though she thought the rest of the weekend was good—great in fact. Maybe his business concluded, and he was done with it and with her.

Saying “I love you” wasn’t a promise of any sort. Although he’d talked in broad terms of some kind of future together, maybe she’d misunderstood, and it was the global we and us. Or maybe it was a language barrier. When his emotions ran high, like in the heat of passion, she only understood a third of the things he said. She’d meant to create a glossary, or take a refresher French class, but now it seemed the point was moot.

The knot in her stomach twisted and tightened. She felt suddenly ill, and rested her head on her desk, struggling to take slow, deep breaths to ease her queasiness.

A soft tap on her door made her moan.

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