Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Playing with Numbers
EMILY
C hristine and I had just gotten back to the room after an early dinner downstairs. The conference was winding down, and a deep sense of failure was building within me. I hadn’t solved the treasure hunt, and time was running out. The conference would end tomorrow, though there was still a chance if we pursued the clue we’d found in the woods. The thing that was really weighing on me though, was that I’d gotten deeply involved with Archie without admitting who I really was to him. And now it felt like it was just too late.
Over dinner I’d suggested to Christine that I could just sneak away when the conference ended. I wouldn’t have my story, and I could deal with that back home. But I also didn’t really have to tell Archie who I was—not if we’d never see each other again. But I knew I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t even really consider it—it was just my fearful brain seeking a way out of the situation I’d created. Either way, I owed Archie a goodbye before I left, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to live with myself if I didn’t also tell him the truth.
Christine had asked if we might see each other after I went home, and I wanted the answer to be yes, somehow. But once I’d told him who I really was, how likely would that be?
The thought of not seeing him ever again made me sad. Actually, the feeling was so far beyond sad that I couldn’t seem to find an appropriate word for it. It made me feel bereaved—like someone had been lost to me irrevocably. Because I couldn’t imagine my life now without Archie in it. Or at least without the possibility of him in it. I knew success was a long shot in any relationship, but the feelings I felt between us...I hadn’t felt that with anyone before. Wasn’t that worth exploring?
He deserved the truth if we had any shot at all. Only, I was pretty sure telling him now would effectively eliminate any chance we might have at a future. What a mess.
I’d forgotten my phone in the room during dinner and was only just checking it when a knock came at the door. Christine moved to answer it as I read a couple texts from Archie wondering if I was busy this evening.
“Oh, hello,” Christine said.
“Hi. I was looking for Emily?” It was him. The deep rumble of his voice was immediately recognizable. It would stick with me the rest of my life.
“Hey,” I said, standing and moving to the front door. Christine patted my shoulder and moved away to give us some privacy.
He looked so gorgeous standing there, the lights from the hallway picking up gold in the deep rich mahogany of his hair, which had the familiar messy waves that told me his hands had been in it as he worked through some issue or idea.
“Hey,” he said, the smile ticking up one side of his mouth. “Are you busy?” He looked boyish, hopeful.
I shook my head, realizing I was willing to do just about anything to see that smile, to be the subject of Archie’s attention when his eyes twinkled like they were right then.
“No. What’s up?”
“I wondered if you wanted to help me search room 515? And maybe 525 if that doesn’t work?”
“Ohh, yes!” Guilt and worry faded to the background as excitement over the treasure hunt took over. I’d worried that in the chaos around the arrival of Aubrey’s baby the rest of the hunt might be put on hold—effectively eliminating any shot I had at helping to solve it. The potential for the cover was still there, and I tried to console myself with the prospect. If we solved the hunt, if I got the cover, I could travel. And maybe with enough travel, I’d forget how much I’d wanted what I’d found here in Kasper Ridge. Maybe travel could help me move past whatever reaction Archie might have when I finally tell him who I really am. “Right now?”
“Yeah, if you’re free.” Archie held up a key—not a plastic one like mine, but an old-fashioned metal key—the kind he’d told me the resort used to have for all the rooms.
“Let’s go.” I turned and waved goodbye to Christine, who rolled her eyes at me and mouthed “Tell him” before I slid out the door.
“How was your afternoon?” Archie asked me. There was an air of formality between us now, the easy comfort of our night together sliding away in the face of our time apart.
“Good. Mostly just chatted with Christine and then went to dinner.” We climbed the stairs in the guest wing of the hotel up to floor five and then started across. “You?”
“Got Aubrey and Wiley settled, and then hung out with a friend for a bit before coming up to check on everything here. With Aubrey and Wiley both out for a bit, I wanted to make sure we were on track with everything.”
“And are things okay?” I asked.
He glanced at me, shooting that smile at me again. “Yeah. The staff here is almost too on top of things. They don’t even need me.”
“That’s a good thing, right? You can go do other things if you want to.” I tried to keep my mind from skittering ahead to a world where Archie had forgiven me and he came to visit me in San Diego, or came along on a trip once I’d secured my fancy new life.
“Yeah, I guess,” he said. “I have no idea where I’d go, though.” We arrived at room 515 and stopped. The hallway was quiet and had an air of abandonment about it, which was so odd given how close it was to the hustle and bustle of the rest of the resort. It was a bit like stepping back in time. Archie slid the big key into the ancient lock and turned. We pushed open the door to reveal the somewhat dusty room beyond.
“Oh wow,” I said, stepping into the space. We were looking at the past. The wallpaper, which hung in strips in a few places, was flocked and ornate. The furniture, coated in a thin layer of dust, was much like what was in our room, but hadn’t had the benefit of being reupholstered and shined up, and it wore the patina of long years of neglect. Still, there was something magical about the space, as if those who’d stayed here remained in some small way, imbuing the room with their essence somehow.
“Where should we start?” Archie asked, looking around.
“I guess we’ll begin with what would be obvious and then decide how much demolition we want to do.”
“Good plan,” he said. “In the other rooms, we found things under wallpaper, and even behind the wall in one case.”
“You want to take down all the drywall?” I wasn’t exactly dressed for demolition.
“I’d rather not. And I don’t think we’d need to. In that case, there was a hole that was just papered over.”
I nodded as we separated, and moved in opposite directions, scanning the furniture and beginning to open drawers and examine the walls.
After about twenty minutes, we hadn’t found anything, but we’d managed to strip the bed and move the furniture around. We came together in the center of the room, both of us smiling and slightly breathless with the exertions of searching the room.
“What now?” I asked, realizing that I’d stepped close to Archie at the same time as he moved toward me, putting his chest just inches from mine. I could feel the heat coming off him, and my body began reminding me what it had felt like to be even closer to him.
His arms rose, finding my waist and pulling me into his body. “Are we totally sure we checked the bed?” he asked, a playful glint in his eyes ramping up my desire.
“Well...we could roll around on the mattress to make sure we didn’t miss anything there,” I said, my voice a whisper as I held eye contact. Guilt threatened to rise again, but I pushed it down, working to ignore it as Archie’s eyes promised the addictive closeness and connection we’d had in the hotel room.
As Archie moved closer, his lips brushing mine softly, the jolt of guilt hit me at the same time as a visceral desire to press myself into him, feel his arms around me, his body against mine. “I should...” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him, but Archie silenced me with a kiss.
He pulled us closer to the bed, which was almost dust-free now that we’d stripped off the ancient covers, and I tried one more time to get words out, to try to explain who I was and why he might want to know.
“Archie, I need—” Unfortunately, those words came out breathy and low, and they were equally as appropriate to the situation at hand as to the confession I should have been making.
“I need you too,” he said, his teeth finding my earlobe and sending want rocketing through me.
We tumbled onto the mattress, and our bodies moved in frenzied tandem, our hands finding what they needed as our clothing found its way to the ground.
This time, the sex was almost desperate, each of us pulling, pressing, gasping with want and need. When Archie pressed inside me, the sheer sensation silenced the chirping voices in my head, the guilt that hounded me, the need to tell him who I really was.
It was replaced by a kind of contented satisfaction laced with urgency. I needed more, wanted more, but had so much right here. The duality of the feelings inside me made it impossible to think, to do anything but experience.
No one had made me feel this way before. No one had ever stimulated my mind and my body the way that Archie Kasper could, just by being himself. Why did things have to be so complicated?
As he moved over me, I lost myself to the feeling, letting my hands coast the hard planes of his back, his ass, letting the sheer glee of being filled by him over and over surge through me.
And when the sensations began to build into a wave I knew would overtake me, I held on tighter, feeling like perfection was an attainable plane of existence when Archie signaled his own release with a sexy groan.
Together, we hit our climax, each of us crying out, grasping the other, and finally, falling together wrapped in an embrace I hoped would never end. But as soon as I regained my breath, the guilt flooded back in.
I opened my eyes to find Archie’s face close to mine, his deep blue eyes clear and focused on my own. He looked young, his face unlined and smooth, and I lifted a hand to trace his handsome cheek, follow the angle of his angled jawline.
His hand found my face, and he drew a line from my temple to my chin, around the curve of my jaw. “You’re so pretty,” he whispered. “So smart.”
The praise warmed me, but it stirred the guilt too. What would he think of me if he knew who I really was? If he knew that the terrible secret he’d revealed to me in a moment of intimate confidence wasn’t a secret at all? I couldn’t stomach the thought of telling him now, of breaking the perfect closeness of this moment.
“What will you do now?” I asked.
“Maybe a kiss, I think,” he said, leaning in and taking my mouth.
I laughed against his lips, pulling away after kissing him back. “I meant about the hunt.”
“Ah.” He smiled, his fingers toying with my hair now. “Well, I guess we search rooms 525 and 535. The number on the tree was pretty faded.”
“I’m supposed to leave tomorrow,” I reminded him. “The conference concludes at lunch and then I’ve got a shuttle down to Denver.” I hated reminding myself of this, thinking about it.
His eyes squeezed shut for a beat and then popped open, and he looked so sad I wanted to say whatever he needed to take the sorrow from his expression. “Or you could stay a bit longer?”
I considered it. “I don’t know...” I had considered that I might stay longer when I’d planned the trip. Only now I was torn. It would give me more time to figure out how to tell Archie the truth, and potentially allow us to figure out this clue. But I worried about my parents. My mom, specifically. Managing Dad alone. I wondered how much worse he’d been, knowing I was here. With Archie Kasper.
“Why not? Your room is comped...you could just change your flight. You’re on assignment, right? We have to finish the hunt.”
There was an easy logic to his statement. The gnawing guilt in me told me that getting in deeper was the wrong move, though. I should tell him the truth, bear the brunt of his reaction, and run. But I didn’t think I could do it. I’d always feel like I’d left something behind here.
“Stay, Emily.” The words were simple and low, and Archie’s eyes didn’t leave mine.
I found myself answering despite the worry swirling in my mind. “Okay.”
He grinned and pressed a kiss to my lips again, pulling me close against him. “Good.”
“You just want help solving the hunt,” I teased.
Without missing a beat, he responded. “I don’t care about the hunt anymore. I have an ulterior motive. I just want you to stay.”
I knew more about ulterior motives than I could ever admit to Archie.
That night, I returned to my room and called my parents, letting them know I’d be staying a bit longer so they wouldn’t miss me at Sunday dinner. Archie had asked if I wanted to stay with him, but for this last night at least, I wanted to finish up the conference agenda with Christine and handle my parents without him potentially hearing anything.
“How is everything going?” Mom asked, and I could hear the real question behind her words.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m just trying to soak up as much writing goodness as I can.” Mom and Dad didn’t know about the treasure hunt, and giving them any information about the time I’d spent with Archie would only inspire more questions, so I didn’t volunteer anything else.
“Okay honey. We can’t wait to hear about it when you get back,” Mom said. “And um . . . have you . . . did you happen to . . .?”
“I’ll tell you all about it when I get home,” I said, cutting off the questions that I knew led to the Kaspers.
“Love you, Em.”
“Love you, Mom.” I hung up, a whole different brand of guilt evolving inside me. Who knew there were so many flavors of such a distasteful emotion?
“Did you tell him?” Christine asked, standing in the door to the bathroom of our room. There was resigned judgement in her voice and posture. She already knew the answer.
“Not yet.”
She nodded, probably reading the guilt in my face. “Okay.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to worry about you,” she told me as she prepared for bed. “You’re digging a pretty deep hole here.”
“Yeah. But I will tell him. I just have to find the right time.” And my window to do it had just extended a bit.
She gave me a look that said she didn’t believe me but didn’t argue.
“Um, also,” I said, earning another stern look, this one with a raised eyebrow. “I’m not leaving tomorrow. Archie invited me to stay to try to finish the hunt.”
Now both eyebrows went up, and Christine blew out a breath and then dropped her face into her hands. “Em...”
“I know.” I did know. I knew it was a terrible idea. I knew I should just leave, put all of this behind me. Or tell him everything. What I didn’t know was what I was actually going to do.
“You’re going to give me an ulcer,” Christine moaned, shuffling toward her bed.
The next morning, we went together to the farewell events for the conference, and before it seemed possible, I was on the curb waving goodbye to my friend. The bulk of attendees left in a harried wave of shuttles and cars just after noon, and by early evening, the resort felt like a completely different place.
Quiet. Sleepy. Like a place hiding more secrets than the one I carried.