out.
Except business …
“So you’d like to gamble in Vegas?” he asked, swirling the gold liquid in his flute.
“Maybe.”
He could hear the smile in her voice. Was she teasing him? He couldn’t read her expression. “You’ve really never been?”
“Only once—as a young child. But I don’t remember it, so it doesn’t count.”
“Such a lack is easy enough to remedy—but you shouldn’t go alone.”
“I only discovered recently that I wanted to go at all. A few months ago I could’ve invited Lily or Kara along with me. But it’s too late for that—they’re both married now. You may not have heard, Lily and Daniel decided to solemnize their union in a very private service just a couple of days ago—Lily didn’t want to overshadow Kara’s wedding. They intend to have a bigger elaborate family affair in October after the baby is born.”
She spoke in a matter-of-fact voice, yet Rakin thought he detected a hint of loneliness in her voice. He was no stranger to loneliness. An only child, he envied Laurel the bond she shared with her sisters and brothers. The closeness among the Kincaids was evident in every look, every laugh.
The closest he’d come to that kind of relationship was the friendship he shared with Eli—but neither of them talked much about family … or emotions. Sport, money and business were their main lines of communication. “Marriage won’t change the fact that they will always be your sisters.”
Laurel moved away from the light, to the end of the balcony. She raised her glass and sipped while she stared out into the night. At last she spoke, “I know that. But now they have priorities of their own. Both of them have husbands … and Lily is going to be a mother. The sisterhood will never be the same again.” Her voice held an echo of sadness. Then he caught the glint of startling white in the shadows as she turned her head and smiled. “Enough of that. I have plenty of friends with whom I can visit Vegas.”
Rakin didn’t doubt that for a moment. She was vivacious and breathtakingly beautiful. She’d have friends buzzing around her like bees at a honey pot.
“How did you come to be friends with Eli?” he asked.
It had puzzled him when Eli had first spoken about Laurel Kincaid back at Harvard. Initially, Rakin had thought the two must share more than friendship. With his upbringing in the traditional society of Diyafa followed by all-boys schooling, envisaging a close friendship between a man and a woman had been foreign. But Eli had made it clear he and Laurel were nothing more than friends—very close friends. When the news had come that they were engaged, Rakin had not been surprised. At some point any friendship between a man and woman would have to cross into the sexual realm. Women and men were not created to be simply friends.
Laurel’s jilting of Eli, and Eli’s ready acceptance of it—and his wry joke that Rakin should marry her—had astonished Rakin. So, too, had the fact that Eli’s heart had not even been the slightest bit battered after Laurel’s desertion.
“Growing up, we were the same age—it seemed natural that we hung out together. Now, years later, with both of us still single and such good friends, we were invited everywhere together. I guess we were linked in everyone else’s minds as a couple long before the idea ever occurred to either of us.” She shrugged, and light glimmered on the pale slope of shoulders left bare by her silver-gray dress. “The next step was marriage. But clearly we’re better at being friends than lovers. There was no spark.”
And that would explain Eli’s philosophical acceptance of the breakup. Rakin put his glass down and took a step closer to Laurel; then he murmured, “You wanted spark?”
“Doesn’t every woman?”
Something leapt between them. Before Rakin could consider his actions, he lifted a hand and brushed a strand of the dark fire from her cheek. Her dewy skin was softer than any he’d ever touched—and it left him hungry to stroke again. Abruptly, he dropped his hand before he could give into the moment’s madness. “Everyone seeks that elusive flame—few are lucky enough to find it.”
“You mean love?”
“I don’t believe in love—I’m talking about what you called spark. A tangible force that connects two people in perfect harmony only a few times in a lifetime.”
She tipped her head back and drained the last of her champagne. The elegant column of her neck gleamed in the lamplight. “Spark sounds … interesting. I used to think I wanted love more than anything else in the world.”
“You don’t think so anymore?”
“Nope.” She giggled. “That should be ‘No,’ clearly and politely enunciated, of course.”
Rakin found himself grinning at that absurdity. The revelation that she wasn’t looking for some romantic notion of love eased his conscience. Business … and maybe some sparks … might be enough to persuade her to go along with his plan.
“Pardon my giggling.” Laurel moved back into the pool of light beneath the wall sconce. “There hasn’t been much to laugh about lately so this feels very good.”
“It must be the joy of a wedding.”
She raised her empty glass. “I suspect it may have something to do with the champagne, too.”
The forthright observation startled Rakin. Had he at last found a woman capable of distinguishing between realism and romance? Quite possibly. She was, after all, a Kincaid, a businesswoman. It was starting to look like he’d struck twenty-four-karat gold. “Can I get you another?”
“Not yet. I’ve had enough. I think I might be a little tipsy. I’m trying to remember how many glasses of champagne I’ve had. Three maybe.” She laughed again. “That’s a first.”
Straightening from where he leant, Rakin took the glass from her and set it down on the balustrade behind them. “You’ve never been tipsy?”
She shook her head and her hair swirled about her face. “Never! My mother would be mortified, she would not approve.”
At the mention of her mother, Rakin said, “I was sorry to hear about your mother’s arrest—it must have been a difficult time for the whole family.”
“It hasn’t been easy.” All humor drained from her face and Rakin found himself missing the pleasure of it. “The police are still no closer to finding a suspect. But thankfully Mom has been cleared.” Laurel shivered, and he knew it wasn’t with cold. “I keep replaying that last day through my mind. I was at the offices until late in the afternoon. I even made Dad a cup of coffee before I left. He glanced up when I set it down, I joked that it was hot and strong just as he liked it. He laughed—Dad didn’t often laugh—and thanked me, then he went back to the documents he was reading. That’s the last image I have of him. Daddy didn’t even see me wave goodbye as I exited his office.”
She broke off, and Rakin knew she was fighting back tears.
“But I keep thinking I should’ve have had some kind premonition—noticed something,” she said huskily. “I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Several of the staff were still there when I left—Brooke, RJ’s assistant at the time, was the last to leave.”
