Finally, he found the right combination of words. They might not be the ones she wanted to hear, but it was an honest response. “I really like you, Lucy. More than I ever expected to. I don’t want to believe you could do something like that. I’m not sure if that makes me idealistic or just plain stupid.”
Lucy watched his face for a moment. He could tell by the dimmed light in her eyes that he’d still hurt her even though she was trying to act as though he hadn’t. “Thank you for answering that honestly,” she said at last. She sat in deep thought for a few seconds before a yawn overtook her and he could tell she was losing the fight to sleep. “I don’t know how to prove to you that I’m not like your stepmother, but I’m not going to figure that out tonight. I guess all I can do is keep trying. Good night, Oliver.”
She leaned in to give him a kiss, then she lay back down, cuddling against him with another contagious yawn. After a few moments in the dark silence, he could tell she’d drifted off to sleep. He wished he could fall asleep that easily. But not tonight.
Tonight, he was left with questions he couldn’t answer. Not with enough certainty to make him feel better. When Lucy called him out for putting his hang-ups over Candace on her and painting them with the same guilty brush, he felt foolish about the whole thing.
Oliver had decided Lucy was guilty without a stitch of evidence to prove it. And his big plan to uncover her secrets hadn’t resulted in a single incriminating thing about her since that day at the lawyer’s office. Honestly, he hadn’t really tried. A background check hadn’t revealed anything insidious. She was the only child of two blue-collar parents from central Ohio who split up when she was only a few years old. No criminal record, no negative remarks on her credit report…even her transcript from Yale proved her to be an above-average student.
By all accounts, she was delightful to be around, thoughtful, smart and sexy as hell. He couldn’t imagine her being a crook like Candace was.
Even then, he had a hard time turning off his suspicious thoughts.
He’d like to think that if he truly suspected she was guilty of tricking Alice into changing her will, he wouldn’t be in bed with her at the moment. That had to be worth something. And yet he hadn’t called off his lawyers either. It was entirely possible that his aunt had simply left her estate to someone she thought deserved it.
As far as she knew, no one in the family was truly hurting for money. He was fine. Harper seemed to be getting along okay. And despite his father’s claims of being broke, he was far from it. He still brought in more income in a single month from his investment portfolio than most people earned in a year. It didn’t last as long in Manhattan as it would other places, but he wasn’t about to be out on the street. He also had his retirement from the company. Real estate holdings. It just wasn’t enough to maintain the lifestyle Candace wanted.
His father may have been blinded by love, but Aunt Alice was no one’s fool. If she could see all the quibbling going on over her will, she’d come back from the grave and tell them all to quit it because she knew full well what she was doing when she changed it. Lucy would have to be a very skilled scam artist to pull one over on her.
He didn’t see that level of cunning in her. So why didn’t he drop the protest? He was the only one keeping Lucy from getting everything she was due.
Maybe he would.
Oliver sighed and closed his eyes to try to sleep.
Maybe he wouldn’t.
* * *
Lucy woke up in Oliver’s bed the next morning. She wasn’t sure if it was nerves or regret about last night, but she found herself wide awake at dawn with her mind racing over the night before. She didn’t want to disturb Oliver, so she put on her capris, stole a T-shirt from his dresser and slipped out of the room.
She made herself a cup of coffee using the Keurig on his Carrara marble countertop, doctored it with half-and-half from his refrigerator and settled at the kitchen table. There was no reason she would be awake at this hour after staying up half the night, but there was an anxiety swirling in her stomach and in her head. It demanded she wake up, so here she was. There would no doubt be a nap in her future once she was back at her apartment.
For the time being, Lucy sipped her coffee. It felt strange sitting idly in Oliver’s kitchen, but she felt equally weird about doing anything else in his home while he was still asleep. That left her the option of leaving, and she knew that wasn’t the right path to take. Last night, while unexpected, had been amazing and romantic. This morning might prove awkward, and they might never share a moment like that again, but it wouldn’t be because she chickened out and ran before he woke up.