Page 65 of Pure Seduction (Chamberlin Brothers 1)

“Right. There’s always a story. This is me asking.”

“He was a one-night stand,” Ryan said. “Not long after you left.”

Fuck. I hit the side of the truck with my hand and then cursed over the fact that I hadn’t drunk enough that my nerve endings were numb. Here I’d been so destroyed over being sent away from her that no other woman had ever compared, and it turned out the second I was gone, she found someone new.

Well, don’t I feel like a fucking idiot…

When Ryan pulled into the parking lot of Wilhelmina’s, I shoved open the door and climbed out. Today could just fuck right off as far as I was concerned. I stormed into the B&B and was halfway up to my floor when Ryan called out to me.

“What?”

“What we just told you on the way home just now? Remember, it’s just a rumor.”

“What does that mean?”

Ryan walked up a couple of stairs and lowered his voice a fraction. “It means exactly that. It’s a rumor. I work with Jake every day. I have for the last two years. Look at him a little closer the next time you’re around.”

What the hell he is talking about?

Before I could ask, though, Ryan was already jogging down the stairs. So I made my way to my room and lay down on the bed. That was when his words began to repeat in my head over and over again: Look at him a little closer… Look at him a little closer….

32

Noah

I DIDN’T SLEEP worth a shit last night. I’d tossed and turned until the early hours of the morning, and anytime my eyes did begin to close, Ryan’s voice woke me up again.

Look at him a little closer…

Bastard. What kind of thing was that to say to someone who was clearly not thinking straight and also alcohol-impaired? Didn’t he realize the kind of chaos that would set off in my brain? If he did, he clearly didn’t care, because I hadn’t slept a wink.

Look at him a little closer… That could only be interpreted one way as far as I was concerned, and the fact that I was even entertaining the thought was unbelievable. Because for that to actually be true would mean Laurel had lied to me for well over a decade.

It would mean that she had kept something as monumental as a child from me. And the girl I knew would never do something like that. Something so selfish, something so cruel. But then again, she was no longer the girl I knew, was she?

Laurel was an adult now. A mother. She was a complete and utter stranger to me, and that was almost as shocking as everything else running through my mind. Here I’d been chasing ghosts, chasing memories from the past, and it was now blatantly obvious that those things no longer existed. At least not in any form that I remembered.

I stared at the clock in the suite and watched as the second hand made its slow climb up to twelve. It had just turned six, and I was trying to convince myself that it wasn’t too early to track Laurel down.

I wanted to talk to her. To have her clear up these crazy thoughts I’d been having all night, because maybe that was all they were—crazy thoughts. Ryan was probably talking out of his ass. Seeing things that weren’t actually there. But I couldn’t help the niggling thought in the back of my head: What if he’s not?

Sick and tired of playing this guessing game, I grabbed my wallet and stuffed it in my back pocket. The best way to clear this up was to confront it head-on. Then I could put these insane theories behind me and move the hell on.

I gave myself a once-over in the mirror and ran a hand through my still-damp hair. I looked exactly how I felt, tired and hungover. But there was no helping that, not even the shower I’d stood under for a good twenty minutes. I’d have to be sure to give Willa an extra-big tip for the hot water I’d used.

I opened the door to my suite carefully and slowly stepped outside. A quick look down the hall told me the coast was clear as I made my way toward the stairs. I was just about home free when the front door opened and Willa stepped inside carrying a basket of freshly cut flowers.

My feet froze and I gripped the banister to keep myself steady, and for a split second I wondered if I had time to turn around and head back upstairs.

It turned out I didn’t.

“Good morning, Noah. You’re up early considering the, uh, night you had.”

The smile Willa flashed was friendly and good-natured, and it was difficult to do anything other than return it.

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