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I find myself wishing I had something to say in order to keep me in the car longer, but instead, when Finlay parks up outside the hotel, I undo my seatbelt and slowly get out, following him into the lobby.
“Which room is it?” he asks. “I can walk you upstairs.”
“Oh!” I say, already embarrassed to have made him take me this far when he clearly has no interest in me. “That’s alright, really. I’ll probably go to the dining room first and have dinner since it’s around that time.”
“No problem,” Finlay says. He pauses and makes an awkward gesture with his hands, one of them still holding the buggy’s keys. “Like I said….”
“You don’t have to apologize,” I reply, forcing myself to smile and nod. “I had an adventure. And it was great meeting you.”
“You too, Alana,” he says. And just the sound of my name on his tongue makes me weak in the knees.
He turns to go, and I make myself turn toward the dining area and begin to walk because I will stare after him until he’s out of sight if I let myself.
I don’t want him to look in the rearview mirror and think he has some kind of weird stalker.
A deep ache inside of me is unfulfilled, a need and a want for him that’s so strong I barely have a name for it. But he’s forty years old or so, and I’m only twenty-two.
How can it ever be anything other than a fantasy when he probably just thinks of me as a kid?
A stupid kid at that, who wandered onto his land without checking if it was public or private first, put herself in harm’s way and caused him so much extra hassle.
My heart sinks right into my uncomfortable hiking boots, and I feel them rub away with every step at the skin on my ankles adding to the hurt.
CHAPTERTEN
Finlay
I find myself trudging upstairs to bed in a dark house with all the deer finally accounted for, and a weight taken off my mind.
All the other staff have long since gone home or to their own rooms, and it’s silent as I use the flashlight on my phone rather than going to the trouble of turning on the central chandelier in the hall to guide me up the stairs.
It’s been a long and trying day.
Seeing the poachers like that – they are getting bolder, it seems. We’re going to have to make an example out of them. I’ll go to the police first thing in the morning and let them have the footage.
Hopefully, they can arrest all five men and get them on as many charges as possible. Put that in all the paper, and it might scare off some of the local chancers for a while.
Or maybe I can get Hamish to take the footage to the station. Then my own time will be free to go over to the neighbors again and find Alana while she’s having breakfast, maybe invite her to come back to the house with me and see the deer for real this time.
Maybe invite her upstairs.
The master suite is the biggest in the house, and it still feels ridiculous to use it alone. It had been my parents’ once before they passed away.
I had refurbished the entire place and made it my own, but it still felt too big. A woman in here – that’s the thing that would fix it.
I could invite Alana up here.
I can see it so clearly in my head. Taking her by the hand to lead her up the stairs. Then, once in the room, pressing her up against the four-poster columns and kissing her.
Running my hands over that beautiful curvy body of her until I had her moaning. Undressing her one layer at a time until every layer lay discarded on the floor, the two of us warmed by a fire in the fireplace, warm light reflecting off our skin.
We would keep each other warm in the bed, sweating, skin sliding against skin, her taste on my lips, the feel of her….
I shake my head and blink my eyes, trying to clear them. I have to get ready for bed and go to sleep, not stand here indulging in ridiculous fantasy.
Alana isn’t here, but the estate is, and it needs me up early in the morning and ready to work.
Why am I even thinking like this?
