Needing to break the spell, Beah bumped him with her hip. “Forget it, Murphy, the moment has passed.”
“Bet I could bring it back,” Finn said, the back of his knuckle running up her bare arm.
Sucker bet, Beah thought. Be strong, Bee. One of you has to be sensible.
A knock on Finn’s hotel door penetrated the heat swirling between them. Finn cursed and scowled at her in the mirror. “I’ll get the coffee.”
“And my clothes. And my hairband.” Beah pulled an insouciant smile onto her face, trying to pretend she hadn’t been a heartbeat away from yanking his towel down and plastering her still-wet body against his.
She waited a minute, then another, wondering what was taking Finn so long. When she was sure the server had left, Beah took another ten minutes to rub lotion over her body, to comb her hair out. Then, still just wearing her towel, she walked into the sitting room of Finn’s lavishly decorated suite and saw him sitting on the edge of a chair, his forearms on his knees staring at the carpet.
Beah halted, knowing something was wrong.
“Finn? What happened?”
Finn raised his head to look at her, his eyes filled with misery. “I just spoke to Ben. As he said, he and Piper are getting married back in the States, in six weeks.”
That was happy news, so why did Finn look sick to his stomach?
“Ben has asked me to take care of the arrangements, basically to organize the wedding. Neither he nor Piper has family who can do it for them. I’ve agreed to help them.”
She still didn’t understand; pretty much everything could be done on the internet or via Skype. Hell, Piper could get on a plane and spend a week in Boston and organize everything herself. While she admired his willingness to help, Beah couldn’t understand why he was agreeing to help with this wedding when he had so much else to do. The Mounton sale, for instance. Finn was an integral part of the most anticipated sale of the last decade. Plus, there was this upcoming meeting with Paris Cummings and the authentication of Keely’s possible Homer.
Why did a friend’s wedding skip to the top of the list?
“Piper wants to get married, in Boston, in six weeks.” Finn repeated his words, his voice flat and his eyes haunted. “She has stage four pancreatic cancer. Ben says she has, at the maximum, six months to live.”
Beah dropped down to sit on the arm of the closest chair, feeling like someone had punched her in the stomach. She lifted her fist to her mouth, her eyes instantly filling with tears at the thought of Piper—lovely, bold and vivacious—trying to make sense of her future.
Or lack thereof.
Beah pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, biting down on the tender skin. “How can we help? What can we do?”
Finn’s eyes slammed into hers. “You can help her by helping me organize a wedding that will be remembered in this lifetime. And in the next.”
Beah walked over to the tray of coffee and lifted the heavy pot and poured the fragrant liquid into two bone china mugs. Ignoring the milk and cream, she lifted the mug to her lips and took a sip, sighing when the heat hit her lips and her tongue.
Man, she needed this hit of caffeine, almost as much as she needed to leave.
But she couldn’t do that until she was dressed. Beah looked around the lounge and saw her dress on the floor. Picking it up, she shook it out before taking another sip. Scooping her panties off the back of a chair, she bunched them in her fist, thinking she’d go back to the bathroom, change and leave.
That was a good plan, a sensible plan. If she left now, she could have an hour or two to herself, to regain some much-needed perspective, to make sense of what had happened last night.
“Where are you going?” Finn demanded, his voice a low growl.
Beah sighed at his shocked and pale face. Finding out an old friend had minimal time to live was devastating to hear and she knew he needed time to process the idea. When she’d heard that her mom was on borrowed time, she’d fallen apart.
She sympathized; it was crappy, awful news. Finn needed time to digest Ben’s news, and knowing how self-sufficient and reticent Finn was, he’d want to do that alone.
Beah lifted her coffee mug, then her dress. “I’m going to get dressed and then I’m going to leave.”
“But we need to discuss Ben and Piper’s wedding.”
Beah’s eyes widened in surprise. Okay, he’d thrown out a suggestion that she help him organize their wedding, but she’d thought it was a throwaway comment, a statement made on the spur of the moment.
She hadn’t, not for a moment, thought he was being serious, as she told him now.
“I seldom make statements I don’t mean, Beah,” Finn said, standing up to pour himself a cup of coffee.