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Curious, she walked down to the windows at the end, just to be sure there weren’t any other hallways ahead. But she found nothing but closed doors and no Brad.
“Huh.” She headed back to the start of the hallway, then walked toward the lobby. The place was like a ghost town, and there was no sign of her brother.
Maybe she’d imagined it. She’d review the tapes and see. She retraced her steps, but as she passed the management hallway and started past the service elevators, she heard voices. The first sign of life in ten minutes.
Charlie backed up and peeked around the corner, suspicious now. And rightly so. The men’s voices grew louder, and then her brother stepped out of Keith Taggert’s office. Keith followed him out, slapping a hand on his back.
“Well, I do appreciate the effort,” Keith said. “Dinner next week?”
“Sounds good,” Brad agreed.
They shook hands, and Charlie backed around the corner as Brad headed toward her. Unsure why she felt the urge to hide, she hurried past the elevators and straight for the stairwell. After she ducked in, she caught the edge of the door with her shoe and held it open one inch to watch what her brother did. When he stepped out of the short service elevator hallway, he didn’t head toward her apartment. He walked toward the parking garage entrance.
He hadn’t been looking for her. He hadn’t stopped to knock on her door.
Charlie raced down the stairs to the basement where her own office was, just in case, but Brad didn’t appear. He’d come to see Keith.
Why? Sure, they knew each other, but what were the chances of Brad showing up here the day after she’d spoken to him about the Taggerts?
She stood in the hallway for a long moment, face crumpled into such a confused frown that she finally had to shake it off in fear of getting a headache. But still...
“What the hell?” she muttered as she ducked into her office and closed the door. Overwhelmed by the ridiculous stupidity of this whole situation, she leaned against the door and closed her eyes.
When had her life become a Scooby Doo mystery? Everything had been so damn normal up until nine months before. She’d been doing everything right. Making the right choices. But somehow it had all fallen down around her. She’d lost her job, her reputation, her security. She’d even lost her life savings on hiring a criminal defense attorney. At least that had paid off. The charges had been dropped. She wouldn’t even have to testify in the trial. She’d been fooled so thoroughly that she didn’t have anything to contribute to the defense or the prosecution.
Charlie made her shoulders relax. She took deep breaths to force her pulse to slow. The only reason her brother could’ve been here was to help her. To speak to his old friend about how she was being treated. To ask if there was anything going on with Dawn that would make her behave badly to Charlie.
Brad had come here to help. He’d felt bad about their argument, and he’d decided to make it up to her. It was the only logical explanation.
Charlie felt bad about the argument, too. He’d deserved her anger. He’d said awful things. But part of her anger hadn’t been about Brad. She’d thrown it all it him, but part of it had been for herself.
Because she’d lied a little. She hadn’t known her boss was married. He’d kept that a secret, separating his work and personal life with purposeful precision. Not so hard to do when you supervised nearly a hundred people at a giant resort. But she had known when she’d started flirting with her boss that it probably wouldn’t hurt for him to like her. When it had gotten more serious, when she’d slept wit
h him...it had felt like a triumph in more than one way. So she had lied to Brad. Sleeping with her boss had probably contributed to her promotion, and she’d thought there was no harm in that, because all that had mattered was she’d known she could do the job.
She’d been so damn wrong. If she’d been qualified to do that job, she would’ve realized something was going on. And if sleeping with him had really been uncomplicated, his betrayal wouldn’t have destroyed her quite so thoroughly.
So despite what she’d said to Brad, she hadn’t done everything right. She’d screwed up, and she’d compromised herself, which had been a sign that she could be taken advantage of. And so she’d been taken advantage of.
She’d call Brad tomorrow and feel him out. See if he had anything to say about the Taggerts.
Today, all she really wanted to do was get through the day and then head back to her new apartment, to her new friends. To one new friend in particular.
But now she had a charity function to attend. Damn. She’d hoped to finally give up her play at being a tease tonight, but she supposed it would have to wait one more day. But tomorrow... Tomorrow she’d show Walker just what he’d been waiting for.
“It’ll be worth the wait,” she said, trying to psych herself into feeling better. It wasn’t exactly a glitter cannon at a pop concert—yet—but she did feel a little better. That was good enough for now.
CHAPTER TEN
WALKER’S HEART BEAT hard as he looked over the beautiful women surrounding him. He took in their bare arms and soft smiles. The shiny hair spreading over tanned shoulders. He’d missed this kind of contact. The knowledge that he had a role to play. That they needed him. He enjoyed that. He always had.
The gelding tossed its head, letting Walker know he was holding the reins too tensely. He relaxed and tipped his hat at the nearest lady. “Anyone want a ride?”
Yes. They did. He helped a thin redhead onto the very gentle gelding and mounted his own horse to lead her out of the barn and around the inner fencing of the ranch.
“You look very comfortable, miss. Are you a rider?”
“Oh, no.” She giggled. He’d guess she was over forty, but her skin was flawless and she didn’t have the tight-lipped restraint of a lot of rich women. Each of the riders had paid a hundred dollars to charity for the privilege to ride a tame horse around the yard for five minutes. None of them were riders, but everyone loved the romance of being on horseback.
