Merry With a Scrooge (The Love Beach Holiday Collection)

9. Vail

Vail

Thirty-six hours later

Laney hasn’t even been gone two days and I already know I can’t spend the next month without her.

Fuck. I knew the minute she left I wasn’t going to be able to cope.

But like everything to do with Laney, I stuck my head in the sand and pretended I was fine. Pushed—tried to push—all thoughts of her away.

It soon became apparent all my efforts weren’t going to work. I might have been ignoring the way I want her, and we might not have crossed any physical lines but mentally—emotionally—we’ve been together.

I’m lost without her, without knowing she’s just outside my office door or in her apartment a few miles away. Without seeing her.

Her absence has gutted me as much as Kavan’s has.

She’s my assistant.

Nothing more.

In spite of the way I’m feeling—the ache inside my chest—the woman is not mine.

Except everything inside me screams she is.

Our connection is tangible in a way I’ve never experienced. The attraction I’ve felt for other women pales in comparison to what I feel for Laney.

I’ve fought it for years. Denied it. Ignored it. Nothing has stopped her from sinking so deep under my skin she’s now a part of me. I’m not whole without her nearby.

And now she’s hundreds of miles away.

And I can’t stand it.

Can’t breathe because of the invisible weight pressing on my chest, squeezing my ribs.

It’s why I’m currently throwing clothes in a bag and a private jet sits ready to fly me to South Carolina.

I won’t go another day without seeing her. I can’t .

Except I can’t bear the thought of seeing anyone else. Especially my best friend.

Quade will kick my ass when he finds out what I’m planning.

My only hope is to get to Laney and plead my case with her before anyone knows I’m in Love Beach.

If she rejects me—and I admit the chance of that is high—I’m not sure what I’ll do. Woo her?

I don’t recall ever having to woo a woman. They’ve come easily or sought me out.

Except Laney. Nothing about Laney is easy.

But the one who owns me heart and soul should be different, shouldn’t she?

I should have to work hard for her. Prove to her I’m worthy of her attention. That pursuing a relationship with her outside of her being my best friend’s baby sister is not only what I want but worth the possible disapproval we’ll get.

Over the last four months I’ve caught the occasional look from her that isn’t employ to boss. I’m not one hundred percent confident I’ve read her right though. Because while I’ve been able to read her well in the time she’s been my assistant, what I’ve seen on her face—in her eyes—might only be one friend’s concern for another.

In this one area I’m gambling my heart. I have to. Losing Kavan has proven more than anything, that the people you love can be taken away in a heartbeat. And even with the ache I have thanks to his absences, I would never wish him from my life, never regret loving him.

It might have taken me forever to realize the obstacles in the way of me having Laney are trivial. If I’m wrong and she doesn’t like me as anything more than her brother’s best friend—her boss—I’ll find a way to live with it.

I’ll have to.

When I look back at the months we’ve spent together, at the things she’s done for me, at work and outside of it, there’s a sliver of a chance she feels more. And I’ll take any possibility I can.

Tossing my toiletries in the bag, I zip it up and grab the handle. I scan my bedroom one last time and don’t see anything I need.

Fuck. If I need something I can always go shopping. I’m going to have to do that at some point anyway. I’ve got no presents for Christmas. Nothing for Kavan. For Laney.

The thought of doing any kind of shopping makes me sick when I remember I might not get to spend Christmas with my son. Or Laney. But I doubt money in envelopes will cut it.

I’m sure Laney will have a thing or two to say about that. Hell, she went over my head to Quade and Easton when I told her not to decorate the office for the holidays. To cancel the holiday lunches we usually put on for our staff.

I can’t help the curl of my lips.

The thought of arguing with her has my insides heating. In a good way. I’ve never gotten off on conflict with the opposite sex before Laney. Then again, I’ve never felt the way I do for her for any other woman. It stands to reason I’d find every aspect of our relationship a turn on.

My phone beeps letting me know my ride is here and I rush through the house to the front door. I don’t bother locking up as I leave. I have my housekeeper coming over first thing in the morning to take care of clearing out everything. If something gets stole between now and then it’s no loss.

Belted into the back seat of the town car I look through the rear window at the house as the car pulls away from the curb.

It’s one of two brownstones I own in this part of the city. The one a few streets over where I lived for years before Kavan came into my life. And this one.

The one Felicity insisted we have for our home.

I won’t miss this one. It might hold good memories of the time I spent inside those walls with my son but if I can convince Laney to give me a chance, I want to do that with a fresh start.

And if somehow I get even luckier, and Kavan is back in my life, I want him to have a different home to the one his mother took him from.

I already have my agent looking for suitable properties and hopefully he’ll have something for me to look at before the New Year.

January seems like a good time for a clean slate and a new beginning.

A new beginning I hope to have with Laney by my side.

But if I can’t convince her to give me a chance, I want that new beginning anyway. I can’t live in this darkness any longer. It took the last of the light in my life—Laney—leaving for me to know I don’t want to live the way I have been.

At this late hour traffic is light, and it doesn’t take long to get to the airport. With a private jet ready to take off within minutes of me climbing on board, I find my heartbeats fast, light. Already the darkness of recent months is lifting, and I smile.

It’s Laney.

Whether she accepts me or not, she grounds me and if all I ever have with her is boss and assistant, I know I’ll be okay. But I’ll fight for more. I won’t stop fighting for more until I have what I want—what I need.

The flight is around two hours. Then I have a twenty-minute drive to the Sanderson estate in Love Beach. By my calculations I’ll arrive somewhere around three in the morning. Which means I should be able to go undetected by anyone but Laney.

When the car pulls up, I thank the driver and head inside. I have no right to smile. There are no guarantees what I have planned will work out. Fuck. Odds are probably against me but I’m willing to take a chance because the tearing in my chest has to stop.

I can’t live with this level of pain and still function. The last thirty-six hours have proven that.

I might have been able to cope the first few months after Felicity took Kavan but the last four have only been bearable because of Laney.

For seven years I’ve wanted her. I’m a smart guy. I should have worked out why it was so difficult to fight my attraction. So difficult to get her out of my head. Except when it comes to this, I’ve been the stupidest man on the planet.

I’ve been in love with Delaney Sanderson since the moment she walked into the room a few months after her eighteenth birthday.

It made no sense, the sudden and blinding desire for her. We’d known each other for years by that point. I watched her go through the awkward teenager with braces stage and not once seen her as anything but Quade’s baby sister.

Then bam! It seemed as though overnight she went for a girl to a woman and every cell in my body screamed mine .

I have to admit, I did a valiant job of staying away. Of ignoring the woman I’m meant to spend my life with. Of pretending—even with myself—I’m not head over heels in love with Laney.

I can’t even say when I realized it was more than lust. More than my dick wanting a spectacularly beautiful woman. Maybe it was never just physical attraction.

Maybe that’s why I’m boarding a plane at midnight and hoping to sneak into my best friend’s family estate.

And maybe, if I’m lucky beyond what I deserve, Laney will open her door and let me inside.