On the Steamy Side - Louisa Edwards [115]
His entire body ached like he’d run a marathon. Groaning, Devon sat up and wondered what fresh hell today would bring.
Ten minutes later, when he went to Tucker’s room to roust the kid out for breakfast, Devon got his answer.
The room was empty, the bed covers rumpled and twisted. His eyes went straight to the bedside table where Tucker’s beloved backpack lived.
No sign of it.
“Tuck?” Devon called, heart pounding. “Tucker?”
He repeated the name over and over, every iteration more desperate than the last as he raced from room to room. But he knew from the way his shattered voice echoed back at him that it was no use.
Tucker was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Daniel Tan had a potential second career as a professional clothes packer if he ever got tired of being Devon’s assistant. Lilah was impressed with the state of her wardrobe after it made the trip from Devon’s Upper East Side penthouse down to Grant’s place in Chelsea.
She closed her suitcase again, not ready to deal with putting things away. Maybe she shouldn’t bother; maybe she should zip up that suitcase and hail a cab to the airport, get on a plane back to Virginia.
Or maybe she should put on her big-girl panties and march right back uptown to that penthouse.
After a restless night of playing and replaying that last, horrible conversation with Devon and the look on Tucker’s face when she went to his room to say good-bye, Lilah was pretty sure she’d made a huge mistake.
Yes, Devon had said and done some awful things—but it wasn’t as if Lilah hadn’t made any mistakes. She cringed to think of her own strident, self-important belief that she had the right to butt into Devon’s complicated relationship with his father. She couldn’t really blame Devon for being angry, and she could only guess at the pain his father had inflicted down in that office.
Devon wasn’t the kind of man who turned the other cheek. He was more of the Old Testament persuasion, an eye for an eye, giving back pain for pain. So he’d lashed out. Fine. She could decide whether or not to forgive him for that.
What she maybe couldn’t forgive was the fact that she’d so completely betrayed her own newfound courage. The moment the road went from smooth pavement to pitted gravel, she’d turned tail and run off, leaving Devon to deal with his anger and hurt—and worse, leaving Tucker.
Lilah went to the mirror to pull her hair back and wound up staring at the circles under her eyes, drowning in indecision and fear.
But it was really very simple, she realized.
She had to go back.
No matter what happened with Devon, Tucker needed her. Even if it was temporary. Even if after two more weeks of caring for him, it would be like ripping her heart right out of her own chest to leave him.
That didn’t matter. What mattered was that Tucker be made to understand how much she loved him, and wanted to be with him.
Lilah felt like she used to when she and her cousins would jump off the high rocks into the swimming hole near the farmhouse. That plunge into the mountain stream so icy it stopped her legs from kicking and made her forget to wave her arms, and then after long seconds of scary sinking, she’d finally manage to hit the bottom hard enough to push off and shoot up and up through the breath-stealing cold of the water until she broke the surface with a big, satisfying splash.
Dragging in what felt like her first deep breath in hours, Lilah grinned at her reflection and whirled to grab her still-packed bags.
Her phone rang as she was struggling to heft the stupid suitcase. Lilah bobbled both and dropped the phone, losing it for a second in the cushions of Grant’s deep, smooshy couch. Excavating it out, she got it to her ear in time to bark out a hurried, “Hello? Are you there?”
“Lolly,” Grant said. He sounded weird. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“Um. No? I mean, aren’t you at work? I know I said I’d spill about what happened with Devon, all the gory