Page 55 of Substitute Bride

Rose wasn’t getting out of bed, which was encouraging. If she’d just stay there for a little while, he’d be back—and then he could crawl into bed with her again and maybe, maybe they could work things out.

But he had to deal with this first.

He wanted to say something to her as he left, but he had no idea what to say. He couldn’t say what he felt—which was “I love you so much my head might explode with it”—since he was still her boss and there were lines there that remained too complicated to cross. And nothing else he might have said came remotely close to embodying his feelings.

So he ended up just giving her a half-assed wave as he walked out.

He shook off the coiled emotional tension as he walked downstairs to his office.

Genevieve wanted him to fly to Vegas. She said that Morris Alfred Theobald III had been angry when she’d backed out of their spontaneous elopement—which she claimed she’d only done out of a broken heart—and Morris had “hurt” her. She’d been too inarticulate to explain what she meant by that, but she’d implied it was physical somehow. She said she couldn’t trust anyone to help, and she needed him there to help her through this.

James could hardly picture the short, pudgy wuss of a man hurting anyone physically, but he wasn’t prepared to just blow it off completely. If there was any truth at all in her claim, then an honorable man would at least check it out.

He wasn’t going to fly all the way to Vegas though. The possibility of it being a calculated strategy was just too high after Genevieve’s past behavior, and there was too much James needed to do here.

He had to pick up his girls from their grandparents’ that morning, and he had to try to feel things out with Rose.

So he needed to manage the situation in a different way.

The first thing he did was call the hotel to ascertain that Genevieve was where she said she was.

She evidently was, although Morris Alfred Theobald III had checked out the previous day, which wasn’t exactly the timeline that Genevieve had explained to him. She’d said the man had done something to her that night and had left right before she called him.

More and more convinced that this wasn’t real, James asked to talk to the manager of the hotel, and he explained his problem. The manager on duty was an intelligent, helpful woman, and she said she would go up to Genevieve’s room herself to make sure the woman was okay.

James thanked her and sat by his phone to wait. As he did, he thought through various possibilities of declaring himself to Rose.

If he just burst out with it as he was tempted to, and she didn’t return his feelings, then he would have lost her for good. There was no way she would keep working for him, knowing he felt that way—and then both he and his girls would suffer.

If he just did what he’d been doing and played things by ear, waiting for a sign that she was feeling the same way, he would drive himself into insanity, going through a roller coaster of hope and despair, living in an emotional limbo.

He couldn’t seem to think of a middle ground. There just wasn’t any simple, gentle way of opening a door to move Rose from nanny to girlfriend.

He needed a female relative to get advice from, but he was an only child and his own mother had died five years ago.

And he supposed that it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to turn to Jill or Julie for advice.

He was completely clueless.

He was still mulling it over when his phone rang. The manager of the hotel had some very interesting news.

She’d gone up to Genevieve’s room to check on her, explaining that a gentleman had called very concerned about her condition.

Genevieve had evidently been ensconced in the room alone, having just ordered lobster and champagne from room service. She’d been furious when she heard that she was being checked on, cursing both the manager and James for failing to do what she wanted him to do.

The manager was quite sure that Genevieve wasn’t in any trouble, but she would be happy to summon the police or a doctor if James wished her to do so.

James thanked the woman and said that it wouldn’t be necessary.

Just as James was saying good-bye, another call came in on his phone. He wasn’t the slightest bit surprised to discover it was Genevieve.

He answered it, holding the phone away from his ear so he wouldn’t be bombarded by the stream of loud profanity she was spewing at him.

The gist of it was that he was a bastard for not believing her and rushing to her rescue.

When she’d run out of steam, James said calmly, “What did you expect me to do? If you were really hurt, then you’d need a doctor and the police right away—much sooner than I would be able to get to you.”

“But you obviously didn’t believe me—” Genevieve began.