Her Man Friday(59)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

She was, without question, the most extraordinary woman he’d ever known. He still wasn’t entirely sure why that was, but no woman had ever reached inside him and seized his heart the way Lily Rigby had. Certainly he’d met women as beautiful as she was—well, almost as beautiful—and he’d known women who were as much fun as she was—well, almost as much fun. He’d dated and made love to women who were intelligent, attractive, articulate and enjoyable. Yet none of them had come close to stirring up inside him the things that Lily Rigby had stirred up.

And she wasn’t even honest.

He remembered all the things he’d learned from Eddie Dolan prior to her arrival, all the things that had made him want to turn around and run away from whatever it was that had sprung up between him and Lily. But whatever it was between them had grown much too large to be avoided. And really, in spite of everything, Leo had simply wanted her too much, for too long, to ever turn away from her.

So she’d hidden some aspects of her character from him, he thought now. So what? Nobody was ever entirely honest about themselves when they first met another person, were they? It took time to build a relationship—and for some reason, the eruption of the word relationship didn’t bother Leo nearly as much as it usually did—and time for people to open up to each other. And, hey, it wasn’t like he’d been entirely honest about himself.

But he still had work to do before he could come clean with Lily and tell her about who he really was, and explain why he’d misrepresented himself the way he had. As much as he hated to do it, he still needed to access her computer files without her knowledge, to see if they might offer him some insight into where Kimball—or whoever—had hidden the missing money.

Leo reassured himself that his motives in prying into her personal affairs were based on his suspicions about Kimball or someone else, and not about Lily. Because even though he’d started to feel a little edgy when Eddie had told him the things he’d discovered about Lily’s past, even though she had motive and opportunity enough to rise to suspect status, Leo knew now that there was no way she could be capable of filtering millions of dollars from her employer.

Yes, she may be hiding some things from Leo, and yes, there might be some questionable reasons for why she had been doing so. But no woman could make love with the total freedom and lack of inhibition that Lily had shown and be a dishonest person. There was no way he would ever believe that a woman as giving as she had been tonight would be able to hide a theft of the magnitude that had struck Schuyler Kimball. She was, quite simply, not that kind of girl. He had good instincts, he reminded himself. And his instincts told him that although Lily was almost certainly hiding something, it wasn’t something illegal or dishonest or immoral.

Regardless of the fact that the two of them definitely had things to talk about, things to straighten out, things to settle, Leo was confident that they would do just that. He’d never been in love before, and truth be told, he wasn’t positive that love was what he felt for Lily Rigby right now. But by God, whatever he felt for her must be damned close. Because suddenly, he couldn’t imagine ever having a life that didn’t include her.

Once again, he reached out to touch her, a little more insistently this time. Gently, he moved her arm and covered her breast with one hand, thumbing the taut nipple to life. She moaned with pleasure as her eyes fluttered open, then she smiled like a woman who wasn’t quite satisfied yet, and reached a hand toward him.

Yeah, Leo thought as he lowered his head to cover her mouth with his, they had some baggage to unload before they could be entirely free to enjoy each other. But he was certain that, eventually, they’d both work through all the things they needed to work through. Sure, they would. Sure, they would.

Chapter Sixteen

Lily’s room at Ashling was a lot like Lily herself, Leo noted the following day, when he entered her bedroom with all the stealth and silence of a sneaky little fink. As he closed the door behind him, he tried not to think about the fact that, in his need to perform his damned job, he might be potentially—and irrevocably—damaging any chance he had for happiness with Lily. Because if she caught him in here snooping around without her permission, especially after the night they’d just spent together, she was going to be just a tad surprised, just a tad peeved, just a tad totally unforgiving.

But it was four o’clock, he reminded himself, a time that she always, always, set aside for tea. Of course, usually, she enjoyed her tea perched on the edge of Kimball’s big desk, flashing Leo with a breathtaking hint of thigh while he enjoyed a cup of coffee. But there had been a couple of occasions over the past two weeks when he’d been so immersed in his work, that she’d politely excused herself to take tea alone in the kitchen.

Today, he had feigned just such immersion. And now, he was going to take advantage of her absence—and her trust—to delve into—and violate—her private domain.

He tried to forget about the way they had awakened beside each other that morning to enjoy yet another sexual encounter—using their mouths to please each other that time, he recalled with a wave of almost unquenchable need. They had showered together and breakfasted together, then had driven to Kimball’s estate together—well, with Leo following on her bumper every mile, which sort of constituted together, since they’d been on their cell phones the whole way—and then they’d snuck in the back way just before dawn together.

They’d been like two teenagers who had stayed out all night when they’d been expressly forbidden to see each other, he thought. He hadn’t had that much fun since he was a kid.

And they had giggled like kids as they’d tried to maintain their silence through the garden, had been forced to stop more than once so that they could enjoy another fierce, all too brief, embrace. Leo had nuzzled Lily’s neck as she’d fumbled for the key to the back door, and they’d almost tumbled to the floor once they were inside, tempted to make love one more time. Instead, they had brewed a pot of coffee before Mrs. Kaiser, the cook, had even come in to work. Then Lily had gone upstairs to change into her Miss Rigby clothes, and Leo had gone to work.

Work, he muttered to himself now. Lying and scheming and sneaking around was more like it. Man, he was a creep.

Pushing the thought away, he crossed silently to the writing desk that was situated exactly where Halston Man had said it would be. Instead of being obscured by Beanie Babies, however, Lily’s laptop was switched on and unfolded, as if she’d been using it very recently. It hummed softly in the otherwise silent room, the screen saver dancing almost eerily. It almost seemed as if she were inviting him to investigate, he thought, heartening some, as if she had absolutely nothing to hide.