Asking for Trouble - Leslie Kelly [26]
She’d looked so disappointed when he told her she could call for a tow truck that he nearly regretted making her leave. He quickly squelched the regret. Allowing her to stay would be a colossal mistake, not only because he needed to work, but also because she was too much of a damned temptation.
He just couldn’t handle someone like her. Not now. Not yet.
He’d learned a life-altering lesson about letting himself be tempted and blinded by his attraction to a beautiful woman. While he didn’t envision Lottie pulling a knife or a gun on him like the blonde in Charleston, he wasn’t ready to let himself put it to a test. He wouldn’t be vulnerable again anytime soon, not to anyone.
Deep within himself he acknowledged the final reason he wouldn’t let her stay. Because a part of him wanted her to. And he didn’t deserve to get something he wanted.
He had blood on his hands. A woman was dead because of him.
No. He didn’t deserve the kind of lightness and sunshine Lottie Santori would bring into his world.
After leading Lottie to the phone in the small, private kitchen, he returned to his office. The drizzle from this morning had turned into an afternoon deluge, but thankfully no thunder or lightning threatened to knock the power out again.
Still, the gray sky looked forbidding. The small amount of daylight oozing in through the heavy velvet draperies was weak and watery, bathing the room in shadows that even the strongest lamp could not banish. Since the power had been on this morning when he woke up, Simon hadn’t bothered lighting a fire in the hearth, so he didn’t even have that golden glow to bring the room to some acceptable level of illumination.
“Doesn’t matter,” he muttered as he sat at his desk and opened his laptop. Booting it up, he watched closely as the screen came to life. As the familiar blue desktop and icons appeared, he released a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding.
“Nothing,” he whispered, laughing a little at how ridiculous he’d been last night to think he’d really seen the photograph he thought he’d seen on his computer.
But as he breathed deeply in relief, he caught a strong whiff of a strange, spicy odor. Recognizing that bitter orange scent he’d smelled before, his pulse began to pound in his temple. The thought of a sudden migraine—which was often signaled by strange smells—made him want to thrust his fist through the computer screen and howl.
He’d never suffered severe headaches in his life until Charleston. Then again, he’d never felt a knife slice his face open and a bullet tear through his chest before then, either.
“Not today,” he muttered, remembering how he’d practically willed an attack away the night before.
This time, he was careful to close the laptop, not wanting any surprises when he opened his eyes. Then he lowered his lashes, leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his temples, willing the pounding away.
He waited for several long moments, concentrating on his breathing. Then, slowly raising his head, he opened his eyes.
The pain had eased. The computer was exactly as he’d left it. Everything was normal.
Except… “What the hell?” he mumbled, quickly rising from the chair. Feeling a little dizzy, he dropped a hand to the surface of the desk to steady himself. Then he looked toward the window again, wondering if his mind was playing tricks on him.
Never taking his eyes off the bit of glass revealed between the heavy drapes, he moved toward it. Where he’d just seen…had thought he’d seen… “No. It was just a trick of the light.”
There was no one there. He could still hear Lottie on the phone in the next room. He hadn’t seen a woman passing by the window, moving slowly as if drifting across the veranda.
He hadn’t.
“Simon?”
Spinning around quickly, he let go of the desk, almost losing his balance. Before he even straightened up, Lottie had darted across the room and slid an arm around his waist to steady him. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he said. “Just fighting off a headache. Got up a little