14. Grace
FOURTEEN
Grace
This man was killing me.
The things he said. And the way he said them. Dane was over the top and completely sincere at the exact same time. How was that even possible?
I had sworn off dating, and then here came my greatest temptation, testing my resolve to within an inch of its life. What I kept wondering was, why me ? Was this good karma? Had I been a saint in a former life or something? I did try pretty hard to do the right things and give all I could to other people and all that. But come on.
He wanted to take me to New York City. A place I’d been dreaming of visiting ever since I’d seen the skyline in movies and wondered, Can that really exist ?
Exactly what I kept wondering about Dane.
He held my hand all the way down the trail and as we entered the lobby. I felt everyone’s eyes on us. For a girl who was fine disappearing into the background, it was a strange and uncomfortable feeling.
The hotel manager, Tobin, raised a hand and came out from behind the reception desk. “Morning, Ms. O’Neal. How’s your stay so far?”
“No complaints.”
Tobin glanced between me and Dane, his gaze lingering on where we touched. The manager had questions. Well, so do I, Tobes . So do I.
At least Dane wasn’t completely perfect. That was the only way I knew for sure that he wasn’t a robot designed to be the ultimate lure for straight women. Also, there was the part where he was Ashford’s best friend. Another complication, and I didn’t know what to do with that either.
“Mr. Knightly, could you step into my office for a moment?” Tobin asked. “I finished that task you gave me.”
Right. The security footage Dane had asked him to pull. The reminder of Ms. Scarlet and the break-in at my house yesterday sobered me.
Dane held my hand tighter. “Ms. O’Neal will come with me. We’re eager to hear what you found.” Tobin dipped his head in a nod, and we followed him to a discreet door just off the reception area. Once we got inside, he went behind his desk and switched on the computer. He turned the monitor so we could see.
“That’s him,” I said. “The man in the blue mask.”
Tobin’s screen showed a still image from a security camera. It was full color, but even if it hadn’t been, I would’ve been able to pick the man out of a lineup. Short gray hair and a frame that was heavy around the middle of his tux.
Dane nodded. “Yep, that’s the guy. What do you know about him?”
Tobin clasped his hands behind his back. “This is Dirk Lancaster, sir. One of the VIP guests who arrived for the grand opening.”
“Is Lancaster still here at the resort?”
“No, he left the morning after the party. I checked him out myself.”
“Was he alone?” I asked, thinking of Ms. Scarlet again.
“He was. Lancaster’s reservation was for his name only, and I didn’t see him leave with anyone else. From the hotel’s perspective, his stay was uneventful. He stayed two nights, ordered room service breakfast for one each morning. Nothing else of note. After you asked about him, Mr. Knightly, I ran a quick google search on the man. If I may?” Dane nodded, and Tobin tapped at his keyboard. Another window came up with the search results.
“High net-worth real estate investor,” Dane read. “No wonder his name sounded familiar. I assume my brother knows Lancaster, so I’ll have to ask Kip about him. What about the other two? The redhead and the bald man who stopped Grace in the lobby later that night?”
Tobin’s expression turned sheepish. “There, I have more disappointing news. I wasn’t able to find footage of anyone meeting the descriptions you gave me.”
What? That didn’t make sense. “But they were both here in the lobby.”
“Yes, Ms. O’Neal. But it seems there was a glitch with the lobby camera.”
“A glitch?” Dane snapped. “How the hell did that happen?”
“I don’t know, sir. The staff is looking into it. We regularly delete the security footage on our server to clear up memory. It’s possible those files were replaced sooner than expected.”
“You’re telling me someone deleted them?” Dane asked.
Tobin opened his mouth, hesitating before he spoke. “I can’t imagine it was on purpose. I have no idea who would’ve done that, or why.”
None of it made sense to me either. But I also didn’t know who would have broken into my house yesterday and taken the red mask. It was bizarre.
“And the woman?” I asked. “She would’ve stood out. Bright red hair, a low-cut black dress, diamond earrings. Another camera must’ve caught her at some point when she was coming or going.”
“I completely understand your frustration. But I didn’t see her on any of the camera footage that we have. Nor do I remember her myself. She didn’t match the description of any of our other guests, and given the importance of the grand-opening party, I was paying close attention.”
“Not close enough,” Dane growled. “I want access to all of the hotel’s remaining footage from the night of the party and the morning after. And a full briefing on the resort’s security protocols.”
Tobin’s throat moved as he swallowed. “Of course. I’ll have that for you right away.”
We went out to the lobby. In a quiet corner beside a deserted sitting area, Dane put his hand on my lower back and pulled me aside. “I’m so sorry about that.”
“You didn’t know the camera recordings would be important. I certainly didn’t think my house was going to get broken into.”
“No, but this is my hotel, and that means it’s my responsibility. Even the screw-ups.”
Dane’s fingers moved around to the side of my waist. His touch felt possessive as much as it was comforting, and I probably shouldn’t have liked it so much. But I leaned into him. I wanted to put my face against his chest and let him wrap his arms around me. Only the fact that we were in public held me back.
“At least we got Dirk Lancaster’s name,” Dane said. “I’ll ask Kip about him. See what I can find out. Maybe Lancaster knew Ms. Scarlet and can give us her real name.”
“Maybe.”
But Lancaster couldn’t have broken into my house. He’d left Silver Ridge weeks ago. He could’ve hired someone, but it was hard to imagine what a rich investor would want with that mask. Why anyone would want it enough to steal it.
Dane pushed a few strands of hair from my forehead. “Not too late to tell Chief Landry what you held back about the break-in. Someone else in town might’ve seen Ms. Scarlet. The woman came and went from the resort somehow. She didn’t just disappear.”
I shook my head. “Maybe when we have something concrete to tell him. We don’t even know for sure if the break-in was connected to the grand-opening party.”
“I’ll keep working on it. I’m glad you’re here instead of that house, though. Until we know what the intruder was really after.”
“Aunt Grace, Aunt Grace!”
I jumped away from Dane, his hand falling away from me, just as Maisie dashed across the lobby toward us.
Emma and Ashford were right behind her.
“Crap,” I whispered. My brother wore his usual resting grump face, so I had no idea if he’d seen Dane touching me. Of course, as they approached, Dane strolled casually toward them like he didn’t have a single thing to hide.
Maisie jumped into my arms, and I gave her a hug, holding her against my hip. “I didn’t know you all were coming here today.” I glanced over at Emma and my brother. “Quite the surprise.”
“We wanted to see Dane’s fancy hotel.” Maisie turned her big puppy-dog eyes toward him. “You promised we could come whenever we wanted, didn’t you? And play outside and have treats?”
Dane laughed. “I do remember saying something along those lines. Of course you guys are welcome. It’s great to see you.” He reached for Ashford’s hand, which turned into a bro-hug. Then he gave a one-armed hug to Emma. “Come on. I’ll give you the grand tour, and then we can have some lunch.”
Hopefully I could take the opportunity to get my heart rate to slow down. We hadn’t been doing anything. Yet I felt like my brother had caught me doing something scandalous with Dane.
Maybe because I wanted to.
* * *
“How’re you doing with this whole break-in situation?” my brother asked.
We were walking around the lobby atrium while Dane pointed things out to Maisie. My niece held hands with Emma, but she kept gazing up at Dane with awe like he was Santa Clause or a cartoon character come to life.
Girl, I can empathize .
I glanced over at Ashford. “I texted you this morning that I was fine.”
“Yeah, and if you lost both legs in a wood chipper and your car broke down on the way to the hospital, you would also say you were fine.”
“That’s unnecessarily dramatic. And violent, geez.”
Ashford nudged my arm affectionately. “My point stands. I wanted to make sure you’re okay. Teller said he doesn’t have any leads on who broke in and trashed your room.”
“The kitchen and bedroom too.”
“Exactly. The spaces that you were in.”
So Teller had shared that part too.
Ashford tugged my wrist and made us both stop. “Seriously, Grace. Do you have any theories about who would’ve done that? Because if somebody’s been bothering you, I intend to take care of it.”
I didn’t like keeping things from him. Even though, to be fair, Ashford had kept some pretty major things from me in the past. “You don’t have to beat anybody up right now. Or ever, because I don’t want you doing something stupid and getting arrested. Dane is helping me look into it.”
Ashford’s expression did something funny. “That’s another thing. Since when are you and Dane so close?”
“I can’t hang out with him just because he was your friend first? Are you going to tell me I can’t play with your toys next?”
“ Grace ,” he warned.
I groaned. Big brothers were the worst sometimes. “Okay, I saw him at the grand-opening party for the hotel a few weeks ago. I came with Piper.”
There. It wasn’t a secret anymore.
“Why is this the first I’m hearing of it?”
“Because I don’t have to tell my older brothers every single thing I do. Dane and I got to talking that night, and then yesterday at bingo he asked me to help him get to know Silver Ridge. We’re friends.”
Ashford frowned, squinting at me like I was a math problem that wasn’t mathing. But I didn’t want him to add it all up and realize I was lusting after his buddy.
“Come on,” I said, “we’re falling behind. You’re missing the tour.”
We made a thorough circuit of the hotel and grounds, then stopped by the restaurant for some lunch. Maisie had plenty of time to run around outdoors, though they hadn’t brought Stella with them. Then Dane said, “Let’s head upstairs. I’ll show you the view from the top floor of the hotel.”
I nearly panicked. I had avoided discussing the fact that I was staying in Dane’s suite with him, and it would be obvious once we got upstairs. But apparently, Dane wasn’t worried about that. As if he had no idea that Ashford would have strong opinions on the matter.
It’s nothing , I told myself. I was a twenty-eight-year-old woman, and it wasn’t Ashford’s business who I spent the night with. I had slept in a separate room, anyway.
We took the elevator up. Dane swiped his keycard. Inside, Maisie ran straight for the living room, while Ashford immediately got a sour look on his face.
It had taken him all of two seconds to zero in on the open bedroom door where my stack of books sat on the dresser along with my bag.
Thankfully, Ashford kept his observation to himself. For the moment. Probably because Maisie was within earshot. But that grumpy look of his still pissed me off.
While Ashford and Dane went into the kitchen, I took the opposite direction, following Emma into the living room. Maisie had found a sunny spot on the carpet right in front of the windows. Dane had given her an illustrated map of the ski runs, and it looked like she was trying to match the picture to the actual landscape through the window.
“How’s the wedding planning?” I asked Emma. “I haven’t had an update lately.”
My future sister-in-law huffed. “If it were up to Ashford and me, we would have a little party at my aunt and uncle’s place in Hartley and call it a day. But no, my parents are all very determined to be there. Of course I want them there, but with my mom living overseas, her dates of availability are limited. And don’t even get me started on Ayla’s scheduling issues.”
“Family. What can ya do.”
She laughed more than my little quip warranted. Like she could guess that I was thinking of my brothers. Emma’s siblings were around Maisie’s age, but she did have several uncles with strong opinions of their own.
“Nice of Dane to give you a place to stay last night,” Emma said. “I’m so sorry about the break-in. Must’ve been scary.”
“That kind of thing doesn’t happen often in Silver Ridge, that’s for sure.” Then I grimaced, thinking of what had happened to Emma last year. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to downplay what you went through?—”
Emma reached for my hand and squeezed it. “We were talking about you. That’s okay, you know. Letting people focus on you for once.”
I squirmed, because I wasn’t so great with being in the spotlight. “Dane has been focusing on me plenty.”
“He likes you.”
“We’re friends.”
She tilted her head. “I overheard you saying that to Ashford. But I mean Dane likes you likes you. He looks at you like he came to Silver Ridge just to find you.”
Blood rushed to my face. My stupid blush always gave me away. I did need some girl talk, though. Piper was my number one, but Emma had become a close second.
“He invited me to New York for his brother’s wedding,” I whispered. “As his date.”
“ What ?” she hissed. Emma grabbed my arm and pulled me a few feet away so Maisie wouldn’t hear us. “When is his brother’s wedding?”
“Next week.”
“You’re going, right?”
“I haven’t decided. I have responsibilities here.”
“Cancel them. If it’s volunteer stuff, Piper and I will cover for you. If it’s work, then take your laptop. You can do most things your clients need on the computer, can’t you?”
“Yeah.” Some of my clients weren’t even in Silver Ridge. Plus I was pretty well caught up on work. I didn’t do things like this, though. Just taking off for a long weekend, obligations be damned.
“You have to go,” Emma said.
“The thing is…” Ugh, how did I put this in a way that wouldn’t get back to my brother? “If I do, I have no idea what will happen between me and Dane. If you know what I mean. That freaks me out.”
Her smile faltered. “You think he’ll do something you don’t want?”
“ No ,” I whispered, glancing in Maisie’s direction. She wasn’t listening. “Not at all. It’s how much I want him that freaks me out. He’s always telling me how beautiful I am. He wants to spoil me in New York. Who says things like that?”
Dane was interested in me, sure. He had made that plenty clear. He lived a jet setter lifestyle, though. I thought of those socialites on his arm. The practiced way he used his charm. There was no way he wanted more than a fling with me.
No, for that man, fling was the wrong word. Liaison . Much sexier.
Slowly, Emma grinned. “Never mind about liking you. He’s crazy obsessed with you.”
Maisie chose that moment to get interested in our conversation. “Who’s crazy?”
Emma crossed the living room and bent down to tickle her. “Me! I’m crazy about you and your dad.”
“I already knew that,” Maisie said between giggles.
I smiled as I watched them, but inside, I wondered what the heck I should do. Because there was no way I could go on a trip with Dane without jumping him. I considered myself a strong woman, but I had my limits.
Dane had tested every one of them.
He’d been enticing when he was just a stranger at a masquerade ball. But the thought of going to bed with Dane Knightly, the generous, sophisticated, gorgeous billionaire who seemed to find me irresistible… It was enough to make my blood pressure rise to unhealthy levels.
I might not survive the actual sex. Death by orgasm.
But if all he wanted from me was sex, that was a good thing, wasn’t it? I wouldn’t truly be risking my heart.
If I already knew the end was coming, then it wouldn’t break me when he inevitably walked away.