had asked the same question half a dozen times since they left—escaped—the lobby for their hotel suite. He’d led her through the tiny living area with its small shades-of-blue love seat and coffee table straight to the whitewashed dining room, where he fixed her a cup of herbal tea.
She hadn’t taken a sip until she was sure she could lift the mug without her hands shaking and then had to swallow a burst of hysterical laughter along with the brew. Chamomile. Did Griffin really think the soothing benefits would help in this situation?
Chance. Here. At Hillcrest.
The last fifteen minutes were such a blur, the moments so surreal, she could almost believe she’d had some kind of out-of-body experience. The second she saw him, her brain had shut down even as her limbs kept going, her mouth kept moving.
Nice to meet you?
What had she been thinking? She’d been stunned, yes, but to look him in the eye and pretend they’d never met? Alexa didn’t know Chance McClaren well—other than in the biblical sense—but even she had to realize a man so macho would take that kind of flat-out dismissal like a challenge. She didn’t remember? Well, then, he would just have to remind her, wouldn’t he?
Take a chance.
The play on words had been the phrase he’d used to get her out onto the dance floor, into his arms and, by the end of the evening, into his bed.
Take a chance.
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one who’d ended up pregnant!
“Alexa?”
Jarred from her thoughts, she cupped her hands around the warm white ceramic mug and met Griffin’s worried gaze. “I’m fine now. Really. I think I was just—overwhelmed for a minute back there.”
He seemed to think she was referring to the tour and the wedding coordinator’s ideas for their perfect wedding. He had no reason to think anything else since Alexa had never told him the name of the man she’d had that weekend fling with.
“I meant what I said, you know. Maybe it wasn’t the most romantic proposal—”
“Griff—”
“But the two of us—the three of us—we make sense, Allie.”
His offer and the sincerity in his golden gaze wrapped around her like one of his exuberant hugs. They’d met when she was eight years old—the day of her parents’ funeral. Her grandmother’s estate had been filled with people—inside and out. Mourners draped in black inside and paparazzi with long-lens cameras outside. She had spent most of her childhood feeling lost and alone, but she’d never felt as invisible as she had in that crowd. Neither her parents’ jet-setting friends nor her grandmother’s old guard seemed to have any idea what to say to a young orphan. Though she had overheard plenty of what they had to say about her...
Poor thing. What on earth do you think Virginia will do with her?
I’m sure she’ll be sent to boarding school. I’m surprised Stefan and Bree hadn’t enrolled her already.
To say she had slipped away unnoticed would have been a huge understatement. No one had paid attention to her when she was there; why would anyone notice when she was gone?
Alexa hadn’t given much thought to where she was going. Slipping out the back entrance, she ran. For miles it had seemed, traveling that much distance before ever leaving her grandmother’s property and stumbling onto the neighbor’s vast estate next door.
Though the grounds were as sculpted as her grandmother’s with high hedges, flower gardens and fountains, this yard had a swing set, and that was where Griffin found her.
And as if he’d come across a homeless kitten, he’d taken her back to his house, fixed her a glass of milk and a bowl of cereal. And when his mother found the two of them sometime later, Griffin had announced, “This is Alexa. Her mom and dad died, so she’s gonna live with us.”
She felt the same way now as she had then. Like Griffin was the one person she could count on. And she loved him. She really did. She just wished—
Alexa shook her head. Maybe that was her problem. Always wanting more than she had. The oh-so-typical poor little rich girl.
“You’re my best friend, Griffin.” Setting aside the mug, Alexa rounded the table to take his hands. “You have been since we were kids, and if I ever lost that, if I ever lost your friendship—”
“Not gonna happen. I promise you that. Scout’s honor.”
“You were so never a Boy Scout.” After giving his hands a final squeeze, Alexa pushed him toward the door of their suite. “Go! You know you don’t want to be stuck in this room with me.”
Recently, Griffin’s father had expressed an interest in Hillcrest House. Evidently, he had heard that a competing national chain had made an offer on the Victorian hotel, and he’d asked Griffin to go see whether the property was worthy enough to make a counteroffer.
Alexa was more than a little surprised Griffin had agreed. He had his own dreams that had nothing to do with becoming a hotel magnate. Dreams that could come true—if he found a way to prove himself responsible to his father.
“Just so you know, I’d never think of myself as being stuck with you.” He paused with a hand on the doorknob. “Only lucky that you were by my side.”
“Go! Before you make a ridiculously hormonal woman start to cry!”
He left with a wink and a wave, and the reality of the past few minutes hit like a hurricane, practically knocking Alexa off her feet. She sank into the blue love seat, the strength all but sapped from her muscles, and pulled a matching pillow against her chest.
Chance McClaren...
Seeing him had been like—seeing a ghost.
A living, breathing ghost.
Because despite that initial news report, Chance McClaren had not died in the bomb attack.
Two days later, every news channel in the country was scrambling to revise their headlines. Chance was injured but alive in a hospital in some foreign city Alexa had never heard of.
But for those two days between, shock had left Alexa blessedly numb after the roller-coaster ride of emotions she’d experienced since the night they met.
She’d spent her childhood waiting for her parents to call, watching out windows for them to show up out of the blue. Waiting, wondering, hoping, only to have that hope dashed time and time again when one nanny or another would tell her that her parents weren’t coming.
Until the day when her grandmother arrived and put an end to all of it. To the waiting, to the wondering, to the hoping. Her parents weren’t coming. Not ever again.
She’d relived every twist and turn, every jolt and jerk, every stomach-in-her-throat loop-the-loop after Chance left, and when she read that first news report, a small, desperate part of her had been—relieved.
This
