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“Oh, he was good,” she murmured, gaze fixed on the top of the mountain where she knew he was, but not really seeing it. “He actually convinced me. He had me.”
And wasn’t that a lowering thing to admit? Lacy cringed internally as she remembered just how easily she’d fallen for charm and lies. Sam had slipped beneath her radar and gotten past every one of her defenses. He’d made her feel sorry for him. Made her forgive him for what he’d done to her two years ago. Made her believe again. Last night, he’d convinced her at last that maybe they had a chance of rebuilding their lives.
But he wasn’t really interested in that at all. Or in her. She was a means to an end. All he wanted from her was the land his family had given her. For his plans. For his changes. He was sweeping her aside just as he had two years ago. And just like then, she hadn’t noticed until she had tire tracks on her back.
Temper leaped into life and started pawing at her soul like a bull preparing to charge. Well, she wasn’t the same Lacy now. She was tougher. Stronger. She’d had to be.
And this time, he wasn’t going to get away with it.
* * *
She found him at the construction site, just where she’d expected him to be. Sam spent half his time up here, talking to the men, watching the progress of the new restaurant going up. And all the while, he was probably planning his takeover of her property, too.
The ride on the ski lift hadn’t calmed or soothed Lacy as it usually did. Normally, the sprawling view spreading out beneath her, the sensation of skimming through the sky was enough to ease away every jagged edge inside her. But not today. The edges were too sharp. Cutting too deeply.
The rage she’d felt when Kevin first stopped her and spilled his news had grown until it was a bubbling froth rising up from the pit of her stomach to the base of her throat. Her hands shook with the fury and her eyes narrowed dangerously against the sun glinting off what was left of the snowpack. Shaking her head, she jumped off the lift when it reached the top and before she could even try to cool down, she followed the steady roar of men and machines to the site.
Sam stood there, hands in the pockets of his black leather jacket, wind tossing his dark hair into a tumble and his gaze fixed on the men hustling around what looked to her like the aftermath of a bombing. He couldn’t have heard her approach over the crashing noise, but as she got closer, he somehow sensed her and turned to smile. That smile lasted a fraction of a second before draining away into a puzzled frown.
“Lacy?” His voice was pitched high enough to carry over the construction noise. “Everything okay?”
“Nothing is okay and you know it,” she countered, sprinting toward him until she was close enough to stab her index finger against his chest. “How could you do that? You lied to me. You used my own pain against me. You played me, Sam. Again.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Oh, he was a better actor than she’d given him credit for. The expression of stunned surprise might actually have been convincing if she didn’t already know the truth. “You know damn well what I’m talking about so don’t bother playing innocent.”
God, she was so furious she could hardly draw a breath.
But the words clogging her throat didn’t have any trouble leaping out at him. “Kevin told me what’s really going on around here. I should have known. Should have guessed. Romancing me,” she added snidely. “Flowers. Dinner.”
If anything, the confusion on his face etched deeper until Lacy wanted to just smack him. She’d never been a violent person, but at the moment she sorely wished she was.
“Why don’t you calm down,” he was saying. “We’ll go talk and you can tell me what’s bothering you?”
“Don’t you tell me to calm down!” She reached up and tugged at her own hair, flying loose in the wind. “I can’t believe I fell for it. I was this close—” she held up her thumb and index finger just a whisker apart “—to trusting you again. I thought last night meant something—”
Now anger replaced confusion and his features went taut as his eyes narrowed. “Last night did mean something.”
“Sure,” she countered, through the pain, the humiliation of knowing it had all been an act. “It was the cherry on top of the sundae of lies you’ve been building for weeks. The grand finale of the Romance Lacy Plan. My God, I went for it all, didn’t I? Your sadness, your grief.” She huffed in a breath, disgusted with him, with herself, with everything. “I’ve got to give you credit—it really did the job on me. Then slip me into bed fast and make me remember how it used to be for us. Make me want it.”
