Right now, Lilly just wanted to be around people and she was sure she’d find an employee among them to direct her to her own place.
An ajar door beckoned, and she rushed for it, seeing just beyond it another opening—into an elevator. Such devices led to places where people congregated, she thought, even as she detected the sound of footfalls behind her.
Giving in to her unfounded alarm, she rushed inside the elevator and slapped the nearest button. A muffled voice came from beyond the closing gap. Her heart sprang into her throat as a long arm, a leg, and then a whole, tall, adamantly masculine figure made it into her small space.
The elevator doors slammed shut and then it hummed, lurching upward as she stared, aghast, at her companion.
With his wide shoulders, broad chest, and sinewy forearms, even in a pair of khakis and casual collared shirt, sleeves rolled up, he was Mr. Take-Charge. His assertive gaze and his self-possessed manner proclaimed he was born for the head of a boardroom table and in his pockets he’d carry platinum credit cards, a stainless steel smartphone, and a gold pen engraved with his initials.
No wonder her instincts had been rioting. “I never expected to see you again,” she said to Alec Thatcher, pleased she’d managed to find her voice though it sounded as breathless as she felt.
He opened his mouth, then shut it as the elevator came to an abrupt stop—between floors! An alarm sounded.
Lilly tore her gaze from the man to look at the control panel and the red light flashing there in time with the irritating, intermittent sounds. “What’s this?”
“I was trying to warn you,” Alec said, as he smacked a button that stopped the infernal beeping. “You didn’t see the ‘Out of Service’ sign on the elevator, I’m guessing.”
“No.” She backed herself into a corner as he played around with the buttons some more, clearly trying to get the car moving again. “Is it stuck?”
“So far, yes.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. Had he been sitting by the pool this afternoon, or maybe walking on the beach? Tennis perhaps, something to contribute to that annoying tanned fitness thing he had going.
His gaze narrowed. “You all right?”
“I’m perfectly fine,” she said, though he was too big and too close and her pulse was careening from point to point like a chicken with its head cut off. “But what are you doing here?”
It sounded peevish. Well, she felt peevish. She slammed her arms over her chest and thought of those weird sensations she’d experienced since arriving at the hotel. “Have you been following me?”
On a sigh, he turned and mimicked her pose, crossing his arms over his chest and propping one shoulder against the side of the stalled elevator. His dark brown eyes met hers. “Not quite, sugar. Though now it looks like we’re going to be together for a bit.”
Sugar. He’d called her that from almost the instant they’d met and it had done something to her insides, making them warm and melty. Sugar. Nobody had ever called Lilly anything close to sweet.
She swallowed, shuttering the thought. “Get out your phone. Call the front desk. They’ll send someone.”
His head shook. “Don’t have my cell on me.”
Though she’d forgotten hers as well, Lilly sent him a suspicious look. “Really?”
He shrugged.
Damn. It’s not as if she could frisk him, Lilly thought, her gaze roaming his body. And then she considered that, running her hands over his wide chest and shoulders, down the long planes of his back, to his fantastic male ass and then around to his—
No.
His expression registered amusement and a tinge of smugness and she realized the cocky bastard had noticed her cataloging his physical attributes. She pressed her lips together and gave him the stink eye. “Why are you here?”
“It’s a well-known hotel.”
She supposed it made sense that Alec Thatcher, accustomed to only the best, would have booked a room at this renowned resort for the night of the wedding. “Still…why are you here here?” Her forefinger spun, indicating the current four walls surrounding them.
“I saw you dash inside and was trying to get to you before the doors closed.”
“So you were following me,” she said.
“Guilty,” he answered, though he looked anything but.
“And you saw me in the lobby earlier too, right?”
He ran a big hand through his brown hair, disordering the precise layers of his businessman’s cut. “Audra too. At that moment I imagined anyone associated with Jacob might not be a welcome sight to either of you. I decided not to approach.”
Her lip curled. “But now—”
“How’s Audra doing?” he asked, his voice soft.
She wouldn’t let his gentle tone get to her. “How do you think she’s doing? She’s devastated. The future she’d been dreaming of has crumbled beneath her feet and she doesn’t know up from down at this point.”
“And you?” Alec asked, his gaze seeming to bore through muscle and bone to her vulnerable soul. “How are you?”
The future I’d been beginning to foolishly dream of crumbled beneath my feet when I was so sharply reminded of the perils of romance.
“I’m not the injured party,” she said instead, stiffening her spine, even as the walls of the elevator seeming to be moving inward and turning from steel to velvet, creating a private world only inhabited by the two of them. It had been like this from the first, their connection intimate, private. Dangerous in its intensity.
Every emotion she experienced when she was around Alec seemed brighter, hotter, deeper. Yes, dangerous.
This is how Durands love.
“I’m not the injured party,” she repeated, to make sure they both got the message.
“Aren’t you?” Alec asked, studying her face in a thoughtful way that made her hackles rise. It made her feel naked. Exposed. “You’ve clearly put your walls up, Lilly.”
“We’re almost strangers,” she muttered. “You don’t know anything about my walls.” Pushing past him, she began to beat on the control panel with her fist.
“That’s not going to do anything—” Alec began, but then the car
