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At that moment Miranda turned to her and offered up a charming smile. “Lilly. Now tell me what you do when you’re not rescuing wayward puppies.”
Her chance for a gracious escape was officially lost.
But the meal was delicious as promised, and Alec’s mother was an accomplished interviewer, also as promised. Lilly, however, was experienced in keeping much of her life private and talked easily of her current job as well as casually explaining that her parents had traveled around so much that she’d been raised by an aunt and uncle, along with a male cousin.
No one would tell by her expression or her words that in reality, her unwed mom had wandered off with some lowlife and never returned. No one knew the name of the man who had fathered Lilly.
Alec hadn’t noticed anything unusual in what she said, she was sure, because halfway through dinner he’d been easily coaxed by some teenage relatives to leave his seat for another at their end in order to mediate a heated dispute over a college basketball game. She’d waved away his look of apology, assuring him she was fine on her own.
Which she was. She wasn’t bad at extracting information either, so she learned that Miranda and Vic Thatcher lived in northern San Diego County, in a beach house they’d completed the previous year. Miranda worried about her daughter who’d recently been divorced and she thought Alec worked too much and didn’t spend enough time relaxing.
“Or pursuing romance,” she said, giving Lilly a pointed look.
“We’re just friends,” she said hastily. “Less, really. Acquaintances. We only met a few days ago. And the situation, with the wedding that’s never going to be, it makes it very awkward to think…impossible, really. Not to mention I work a lot too and I’m totally not interested in romance. Then there’s…”
Oh, God. When she realized how she’d gone on and on and on—the lady doth protest too much—she almost put her heated face in her hands.
“Never mind,” Miranda said, taking obvious pity on her as she patted her hand. “Tell me more about your job. You work at the Montgomerys’ sustainable energy company, you said?”
By the time the dessert plates had been cleared away and coffee was being served, Lilly decided she could make her getaway. Pleading a need to check on Audra, she gave her thanks to Miranda and her husband Vic and sketched a goodbye to the others around her. Then, hoping to leave without attracting Alec’s attention, she pushed up and out of her chair, quickly heading in the opposite direction from where he sat.
Within a few minutes she realized she was once again lost.
Standing amongst the ground’s lush foliage, she cursed her lousy sense of direction. She withdrew her phone from the pocket of her dress and was trying to call up a map of the resort when a hand touched her elbow. A powerful jolt nearly crashed her nervous system and she whirled to face the newcomer.
Alec, natch, the shadows caused by the landscape lighting etching his cheekbones and jaw making him even more impossibly handsome. She frowned at him. “What do you want?”
“You snuck off,” he said.
She slipped her phone back into her pocket. “That was the plan,” she said, hearing the disgruntled note in her voice. Being around him, as always, set her hackles up.
He grinned. “Sugar. You should know already that doesn’t work out for us. We’re each other’s bad pennies. We keep turning up.”
“It’s wrong.”
He drew closer, close enough that she could smell the aftershave he wore. She’d noticed it before, the scent something classic, like lime and salt. “Why?” he asked.
Lilly glanced down, unwilling to meet his eyes. “You already know. You already said.” Bringing up what he referred to as “the pull” wouldn’t make it go away any faster.
“I should tell you,” he began. “My family…we’re here until next Sunday.”
Her head came up. Damn. “That long?”
Alec nodded. “Mom wanted a very special celebration.”
“How…nice.” What could she say?
“It means we’re destined to run into each other again.”
Lilly grimaced. “I suppose.” It was the way her luck ran, after all.
