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If they ever got serious, she'd have to tell him she couldn't have kids, make him choose between her and family. Family meant everything to both of them and she was destined not to have one—at least not one of her own blood. She wouldn't force that fate on him when she knew just how much his family line meant to him. Blinking away the tears flooding her eyes, she swallowed past the lump in her throat.
Doing the right thing hurt like a bitch.
“Thanks for your help.” She smiled weakly at his reflection. “We'd better get a move on.”
Confusion and hurt flashed across his face before he squared his jaw and nodded at her. “Yeah, of course. I'll wait for you in the lobby.”
Without pausing for a response, he spun on his heel and strode out the door. A second later the hotel room door clicked shut.
Beth sank down on the edge of the tub. Shaking like a loose roof shingle in a tornado, she gasped for breath as her heart exploded into a million sharp, jagged pieces.
Fifteen minutes later, Beth had to fight the urge to sneak back into the elevator when she saw Hank standing alone by the hotel's rotating front door. Her body ached like she had the twenty-four hour flu and she had the nausea to go with it. Nothing like realizing you loved the wrong man to make you wish you could curl up into a ball and never get out of bed.
A woman tugging a screaming toddler stopped next to her at the elevator bank. The bawling child's misery drew Hank's attention her way. The ice in his gaze did nothing to melt the heat flooding her body at the mere sight of him. Sighing, she trudged toward him. This was the path she'd chosen, she'd just have to push her way through it. Maybe in a few days, it wouldn't hurt so much.
Hell, she might as well admit it would more likely be decades before that happened.
The Nebraska football fight song blaring out of his jeans pocket saved her from having to make small talk. Without acknowledging her, he pushed his way through the rotating door, obviously assuming, correctly as it turned out, that she'd follow.
Back ramrod straight, he stood perfectly still and didn't even make a flicker of a movement toward his phone when it started ringing again. For as long as she'd known him, he'd been unable to let a phone ring. The Layton family curiosity would drive him to pick it up, but not this time. The vein near his temple bulged as he ground his teeth throughout the thirty-second jingle. If he kept this up, he wasn't going to have any molars left. Pissed off didn't begin to describe him.
As for her, she felt like shit. It had taken ten minutes of deep breathing and pacing before she could get her emotions under control. Now they were waiting in the taxi line and her gut twisted with anxiety. She yearned to say something to make him feel better, let him know that it wasn't him, but before she could open her mouth, the fight song went off in his pants again.
“You gonna get that?”
He kept staring at the back of the sixty-ish valet's shaved head. “Nope.”
“Look, Hank—”
“Save it Beth, okay?” He turned and glared at her, tension streaming from his tightly wound body. “We're friends, but you won't even trust me to help you when someone's threatening you. You kiss me, but then you pretend there's nothing between us. I spent too many years with a master manipulator who turned me inside out every chance she got to ever go down that path again. From now on, you're just my little sister's best friend who happens to be in trouble. I'm with you until we find out who’s behind the threats, but don't expect me to act like nothing's changed. I'm done chasing you when you obviously don't want to be caught.”
And she thought she couldn't feel any worse.
Dropping her chin to her chest to hide her watery eyes, she fought to regain her tenuous hold on her emotions and bite back the apology ready to spill out of her mouth. No. This was for the best. She could do this. She had to do this.
“Your cab.” The valet's soft voice contrasted with the dirty look he leveled at Hank. Opening the door, he smiled warmly at Beth.
When Hank didn't move, she walked toward the cab's open door. “Thank you.”
“Arriba los corazones,” the valet said as she slid across the cab's backseat.
Hank sat down next to her, shutting the door after him. “What was that all about?”
“I think he was trying to be nice.”
“Oh yeah? What did he say?”
Beth shrugged. “I know a few phrases and words, but I don't speak Spanish. My grandparents were pretty firm in their desire to raise an All-American girl. They thought it would give me the same advantages as the white kids.”
Of course, now one of her biggest hobbies was genealogy and she'd signed up for Spanish classes at the local community college. The reminder of her grandparents laid a heavy weight on her shoulders. What would they think of how she'd turned out? The fact that she was an attorney, was it proof they'd made the right choices? How did you ever know?
Weariness settled into her bones as she contemplated the uncertainty of it all. Needing a distraction, she grabbed her phone and turned it on, not taking her eyes off the small screen while it powered up.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“Paris.”
“Oui, oui.” The cabbie chuckled at his joke.
