Page 26 of In the Heir (Westerly Billionaire 1)
“Is there a way to refuse without appearing rude?” Alisha asked the staff member who was holding the menus.
“Refuse?”
“Yes. Is there a problem with my original table? Could I still sit there?”
Across the room, Brandi stood and waved. “Alisha.”
Alisha waved back, but directed her comment to the staff member. “I’d love to join them another night, but not tonight.”
“That party?” In scanning the room, the receptionist saw the woman waving to Alisha, and said, “That’s not where I was told to take you.”
Thank God. Alisha felt awful thinking it. She normally loved getting to know new people, but this was her week to escape. To hide. She could have stayed home if she wanted to pretend to be happy. She wanted to simply be by herself for a few days and not have to worry how anyone else felt, what they thought, or if they considered her responsible for anything.
No guilt. No expectations.
Just me.
“Okay, then, lead the way,” Alisha said. She made an apologetic face toward Brandi and motioned that she had to follow the staff member.
The woman led her to the far corner of the dining room and up a wide, curved glass staircase. Alisha paused at the top to appreciate the floor-to-ceiling windows that provided a panoramic view of the ocean. All the tables were empty, and only one was set. “Are you sure this is the right table?”
“Miss Coventry?”
“That’s me.”
“Then, yes, this is the right table.” She led her to the table and a waiter rushed over to hold the chair out for Alisha.
After taking her seat and putting the napkin on her lap, Alisha scanned the empty room again. “Is it because I’m traveling alone?” This could be an overflow section.
The woman smiled politely without answering, then walked away. The waiter coughed as if covering a laugh, then asked if Alisha would like something from the bar.
A drink sounded like the perfect way to make it through her solitary meal on the top floor of the dining room. “Yes, but I don’t know what. Surprise me,” she said.
The waiter nodded and stepped away.
“I’m glad you like surprises,” a deep male voice said, and Alisha gasped as Brett took the seat across from her.
Brett.
Not imaginary Brett from the hallway. Unless I’ve completely come unhinged.
“How . . . why . . . what are you doing here?” Alisha asked in a strangled voice.
He placed his napkin on his lap and smiled. “Could I convince you that I was in the neighborhood?”
Alisha gripped her hands on her lap. Seeing him again shook her. She’d tried to tell herself that she’d imagined the effect he had on her, but there was no denying the flush that spread up her body or how she could barely breathe. “This isn’t a joke to me, Brett.”
His expression turned serious. “Nor me. I’m here because you’re here. It’s that simple.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gift he’d picked up from the jewelry store. “I couldn’t let you leave without giving you your third gift. I had it made especially for you.” He placed it on the table between them. “Open it.”
I can’t open it. I can’t go down this road. I promised Rachelle I wouldn’t. I told myself I was stronger than this.
My mother chose a man over everything that should have mattered more to her. She let him ruin her life, my life. Why? Because she felt like this?
I won’t do it. I won’t risk losing a lifelong friendship over a man.
Even this one.
“No,” she said weakly, then cleared her throat and pushed the box back toward him. “Thank you, but no.”
The return of the waiter with a bottle of champagne provided a short reprieve during which Brett attempted to process her response to his appearance. He wasn’t an egomaniac. It was conceivable to him that a woman might not find him attractive, but that wasn’t the case with Alisha. He was experienced enough to recognize desire in a woman’s eyes, and it had been there. When he’d first appeared, the look she’d given him had made him want to haul her to him and carry her off to the nearest bed.
In fact, she was still looking at him with hungry, take-me-now eyes. There was something else, though. An anger he couldn’t understand. Is she angry with me? My family?
She stood. “I should go.”
“No.” He was at her side in a heartbeat, taking her hand in his. That touch, innocent as it was, sent flames of pleasure through him. “Have dinner with me.”
Her hand trembled in his. “I can’t.”
His mouth twisted in a wry smile. “That’s better, I suppose, than ‘I don’t want to.’”
“What I want doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
She blinked several times, pressed her lips together briefly, then said, “You’re not making this easy.”
“Good.” He pulled her closer and wrapped an arm around her waist. She melted against him. Ever so slowly he traced the curve of her collarbone, the exposed length of her neck, then cupped the back of her head. This. This is what I’ve been waiting for. “Because not being with you is slowly killing me.”
When he claimed her mouth, it was everything he’d imagined it would be. Fire leapt inside him, burning away all sense of where he was or who might be watching. There was only her mouth, eagerly opening to his, and the sweet taste of her. Fuck food. She was what he hungered for. Her hands landed on his chest beneath his jacket. The feel of her beneath the thin material of her dress. He wanted it all. Right there if he could pay the world to disappear around them.
She writhed against him, and his cock throbbed with need. Her hands moved upward to encircle the back of his neck as she arched against him. He adjusted his stance to take her more fully into his arms and knocked over a glass on the table.
She broke off the kiss and pulled out of his arms, covering her mouth with her hand. He moved to touch her, but she stepped away. Their ragged breathing drowned out the hum of conversation from the restaurant below. “We can’t do this,” she said, looking close to tears.
“Why?” he demanded.
She brought her hands beneath her eyes as if to wipe away any smeared mascara, then let out a long, shaky breath. “I promised to stay away from you.”
“Who? Spencer? He knows about us.”
Alisha shook her head and picked up a napkin to dab at the corners of her eyes. “There is no us. There can’t be an us.”
Can’t wasn’t a word he’d encountered many times in his life. “Who did you promise?” A man? The idea that she might have a man in her life that he didn’t know about was a sucker punch to his gut.
“Rachelle.”
Relief flooded him. “She’ll get over it.” He went to pull her back into his arms, but Alisha took another step back.
“She won’t. She blames me for Spencer finding out about his father. It was my fault. He wouldn’t know if I hadn’t gone to see your grandmother. Now he’s hurting. Your mother is hurting. Rachelle is trying to hold them all together. Rachelle has been my best friend for most of my life. Stephanie has been more of a mother to me than my own. I can’t risk hurting any of them more than I already have. I love them. I’m sorry. Nothing I feel with you is more important than making sure they’re okay.”
And just like that, Brett felt like a complete and utter asshole. She was putting the happiness of his family before her own. She was easily a million times better a person than he’d ever been.
How do you fuck that?
You don’t.
More than anything, he wanted her to understand that there was no reason for her to feel guilty. Not about going to his grandmother. Not about him. “Rachelle will realize that Spencer would have found out either way. It would have come out when he received his inheritance.”
She gripped the back of one of the chairs to steady herself. “I guess it would have. I just hate how it happened.”
“There was no way you could have known
. Rachelle will see that when things calm down. My mother will, too.”
Alisha nodded, then smiled sadly and looked around the empty room. “You arranged all this? Just to have dinner with me?”
He smiled ruefully and then tried to make her smile by saying, “I was hoping for more than dinner.”
She threw her napkin at him. “That’s—”
“Honest,” he supplied.
She blushed an adorable shade of pink that made him want to kiss her all over again. “Are you staying on the ship?”
“That was the plan.” Although, he was beginning to see that when it came to Alisha, nothing went as planned.
There was a pause while they both gathered their thoughts.
“And now?” she asked with a mixture of longing and sadness in her eyes.
“I could attempt the swim, but I should probably wait until we reach the first port and fly back from there.”
She stayed silent for a long moment, seemingly torn between sadness and apology. “I feel horrible. If I did something that made you feel—”
