One Wild Wedding Night_ No Way Out - Leslie Kelly [17]
The goodbye was tough. She agonized over it for several long minutes, finally writing him a friendly note—thanking him for the night before, telling him how glad she was that they’d rediscovered one another as adults and wishing him well.
Warm. Affectionate. Not gushy. Not pathetic.
The shoes actually turned out to be a bigger trick. Because as she tried to go back into the bedroom, the door squeaked. Stan made a few sounds, mumbling her name; Vanessa froze in indecision. But he didn’t wake up.
Once he’d rolled back over, she realized the shoes weren’t worth it. They’d killed her feet, anyway. So, grabbing her purse and tiptoeing out the front door of his suite, she cast one more look at the closed bedroom door behind which the man of her dreams slumbered, and walked out of his life.
* * *
STAN KNEW as soon as he woke up that she was gone. The air was still, the room silent, the sheets cool. He sat straight up in the bed, hoping he was wrong, but a quick glance around confirmed it. She was not in his bedroom nor in his bathroom. And a search of the rest of the suite proved futile, as well.
He found her note. “Oh, V,” he mumbled as he read it, easily able to read between the lines.
Last night had been incredible for both of them. But the woman just didn’t know, couldn’t trust in his feelings for her. Had he ever given her reason to?
Those feelings were hard to describe this morning. Elation, satisfaction, desire, yes, all of those. But there was more. He’d loved her when they were kids. Really loved her.
And last night had showed him something: nothing had changed.
How he could know, after just one night in twelve years, that she was the woman he’d always wanted and the one he would always want, he didn’t know. But it was true.
“Uh-uh, girl, you’re not getting away this time,” he swore as he headed to the bathroom to shower. Spying her sparkly red shoes—just like the one he’d asked her about at the start of their very unusual evening—on the floor, he had to laugh.
“You might not think I’m Prince Charming, but I’m coming after you, anyway.”
He got ready quickly, not sure when checkout time was. But he knew Vanessa would have some obstacles today…such as finding her room. The right room. The one with her luggage.
After he’d dressed, he grabbed her shoes and stockings, stuck them into his coat pockets and headed for the desk. The same manager was on duty and it took Stan one smile and a single mention of the key mix-up to get the room number of a Miss Vanessa McKee.
He was at her door five minutes later.
“Yes?” she asked when she opened it, appearing flustered and distracted, not even looking at him.
“Hey, V.”
That got her attention. Though she’d been bent over, tugging a shoe on her foot when she pulled the door open, now she shot straight up and stared into his face. “Stan…”
“You weren’t really going to leave without saying goodbye.”
“I left you a note.”
“I got it.”
She swallowed visibly. “I think it said all I had to say.”
Shaking his head, he lowered his voice, noticing a few people coming out of their rooms to check out early on this Sunday morning. “No, there’s more to say. I need to tell you something. Then, if you still want to tell me goodbye, you go ahead and do it.”
Vanessa’s trepidation was outweighed by her curiosity, as he’d known it would be. Though she practically gnawed her bottom lip off in indecision, finally she backed out of the way, opening the door for him.
He entered a suite that was much like his own, refused her offer of coffee, then sat down on the plush sofa. “I stopped writing to