Chapter 10

Lilly landed on the inside of Alec’s hotel room door, breathless and bewildered. Once there, he let go of her hand and crossed to the minibar, where he pulled out a beer and nearly downed it in one swallow.

Then he sent her an apologetic look. “Sorry, sugar. Can I get you something? Wine? We can call room service for that tea I mentioned.”

She shook her head. “I should leave.”

“Oh, no,” Alec said, setting the beer aside. “You definitely can’t go. We’ve got something to do first.”

Ignoring that, she smoothed her palms over her thighs. “I just wanted to make sure you got to your room okay. You seem…agitated.”

“Yeah.” He laughed, his expression turning crafty as his gaze ran over her. Beneath her clothes, heat gathered at the small of her back and between her breasts.

“Why don’t you come over here and let me agitate you a little?”

Uh-oh. Without thinking, she glanced in the direction of the dark alcove where a meager light over the padded headboard illuminated the king-size bed, covers turned back, a wrapped chocolate on each pillow. “Now, Alec…”

He followed her gaze, his voice low and sexy. “You want candy, sugar?”

Eek.

“I can give you candy.” He prowled toward her, a smile ghosting his lips.

Lilly considered retreating, actually, literally, running from him, but her feet seemed rooted to the floor. Maybe it was because Audra’s advice still hung in her mind—that regrets weren’t something to avoid.

“I can make you feel so good,” Alec said in a voice oozing with dark promise. He got close enough to draw the back of his hand down the side of her face. Goose bumps rushed down her neck and her nipples pricked up, already weighing in on the idea.

“You won’t have to do anything at all, not even think. Just feel me, Lilly. Just feel me and you.”

Not thinking. Now there was an offer she found hard to refuse. It seemed like that’s all she’d been doing the past days, thinking about Audra’s pain, thinking about the ever-present demands of her relatives, thinking about the Thatchers’ loss of a beloved son, thinking about how she couldn’t seem to tame this wild attraction she had for the one right now looking at her with such intent.

Already she was swaying toward him, her body seeking the heat of his, seduced by the idea of an interlude of feeling, no thinking required. Hadn’t it been like that with him before?

She put her hand on his shoulder to steady herself and felt the deep tremor that went through him. It was that reaction to her touch that set the match to the desire pouring into her system.

His head bent over hers as if sensing her capitulation. “That’s right, sugar,” he said, his breath against her lips making them tingle. “Let’s get you out of these clothes.”

That took more time that she expected. While he was kissing her, his mouth slow and coaxing, his hands were busy, finding ways to her bare flesh. Before she was naked he’d touched her everywhere, her breasts swollen and aching from the way he scissored long fingers around her nipples inside her bra, tugging and twisting lightly until she was moaning against his lips, her tongue pushing into his mouth.

He sucked it inside wet heat and then found her own using a sneaky hand that worked its way beneath her loosened jeans and then her panties, the sensation of his hot palm on her cheeks making her clutch at him, going woozy with arousal. Popping up on her tiptoes, she allowed him easier access and shuddered as one long finger slid inside her.

Just like that, she was on the brink, her hips tilting, sensation gathering low in her belly, a tightening spiral that promised gratification. Tearing his mouth from hers, he laughed, his lips against her hot ear. “You’re gonna come that easy, baby?”

She refused to be ashamed by the idea. He wasn’t the only one with a long dry spell before this week. “Yes.”

Laughing again, he stripped down her pants and panties, flung her shirt and bra to the floor, then he had her against him again, her bare limbs pressed to his clothed body. He was hot and hard and she writhed against him, pressing herself to the rough front of his jeans as his hands ran down her back to cup her bottom.

“Show me,” he demanded, his fingers trailing a shivery path along her cleft and around to the place where she was wet and swollen for him. “Show me how fast you can come for me.”

The ascent took seconds, but the flight was joyful, weightless, a long bliss of rippling pleasure. She was still quivering with aftershocks when he laid her on the cool sheets. His gaze on her, he took off his own garments and she watched his lean, powerful body emerge from the cloth. Her arousal went from satisfied to simmering again as he palmed his erection, stiff and flushed.

“Let me see,” he said, nodding down at her. “Spread your legs for me, Lilly.”

On a shiver, she did as he ordered, knowing he would find her soft and ready for him there, the flesh pulsing and eager for his penetration. His arm reached toward the bedside table and he found something in the drawer there.

“A condom,” she said, surprised, remembering the lack of them before.

“Yeah.” He rolled it over himself with a practiced efficiency that embarrassed her to find so exciting. More goose bumps, prickling her scalp this time and scattering down her back. She squirmed against the sheets.

Alec caught his breath, his gaze burning with new lust. “Fuck, Lilly, you’re so damn sexy.”

She lifted her arms to him, needing to be held. “And you’re too far away.”

Then it was all he promised and more. Feeling. More feeling. No thoughts intruding on the decadent sensation of hot skin sliding against hot skin, of heavy muscle pressing against delicate bones, of masculine power finding its balance in the gentle sway of female surrender.

Lilly did that—surrender to Alec, because he was mastering her with long, drugging kisses and the slow drag of his hands over every inch of her body. He bent to worship her breasts, his touch reverent until it wasn’t when he drew the tips into his mouth and sucked so hard she arched from the sheets, crying out, lifting into him to offer more, more, all.

Her fingers dug into his back, feeling the long planes of heavy muscle there, testing them with her nails until he grunted and fed on her harder, opening his mouth to take in more of the round flesh as his tongue licked and flicked at her nipple.

She thought she might die of sensation. Yet she begged for more of it, with soundless demands from her hips and hands, with the moans she tried swallowing down but escaped anyway. Alec moved up to taste them, sipping them from between her lips as his fingers trailed down to the place left open by her wantonly splayed thighs. She was shaking, so ready for him she could feel wet leaking onto the sheet, and he groaned as his fingertips found it too, and used it to paint her tender flesh, circular strokes that touched her everywhere but the exact place throbbing for him.

“Alec,” she whispered, urgent and needy. Her head fell back and his mouth went to her throat, kissing there, his breath hot against her as he teased the entrance to her body. “Alec,” she said again, trying to impale herself on his fingers.

He spoke into her ear, puffs of sound that sent more shivers rolling down her body. Be sweet now…wait for it…wait until I say.

Desperate, she grasped at him, trying to pull him farther over her, trying to entice him to take the thing they both wanted most.

He settled between her legs and she instantly wrapped them around his hips. With a grunt, he let her draw him to her and then the blunt head of his penis was at her entrance, pressing in, a slow slide that parted her soft flesh. He went deeper, deeper and she bit her lip at the sensation of being opened, being owned, and then he was whispering again. Relax, sugar, easy…you can take all of me…relax, baby, yeah. There you go.

Her body, persuaded by the rough-sweet sound of his voice, gave way to his possession, each thrust taking him a little farther inside her.

When she’d taken all, he was still above her, perched on his elbows, his eyes trained on her face as if to impress the moment onto his memory. Then he began a deliberate rhythm, the friction delicious as he pulled out and lunged back in, and she clutched at his heavy shoulders as he drove on her pleasure, pushing it higher as her breath caught in her chest. One of his hands slid beneath her bottom and urged her upward, so that she met each of his lush strokes, the root of his erection pressing her throbbing clit, grinding there a moment until she became helpless against the gathering tension, slave to the thing she wanted more than breath.

Her eyes squeezed shut and Alec’s hand tightened on her cheek and then it happened, sensation shattered, flinging shards of bright and sharp pleasure across them and about the room.

They lay pressed together, chests heaving, breaths loud and harsh in the quiet. Lilly couldn’t move, and didn’t realize he had, until she heard his voice, a low rumble murmuring in her ear. A chocolate was held to her mouth and her tongue reached out for a tentative lick, then she gobbled up the rest, ravenous for the dark and sweet taste.

Alec gathered her into his arms and fed her the second piece. This time she took it in small bites, savoring the taste and the sense of being cared for.

Finally, she thought about leaving. “I should—”

“Hush,” Alec insisted, and she subsided instantly, drifting into sleep.

Hours later she found herself in a dream. A man was kissing her neck, sliding his mouth down to her breast, dragging his tongue over her hip and then turning right to seek the center of her body. Whimpering, she turned and moved and opened at his command, and then found herself awake, awake in bed with Alec Thatcher, and she ran her hands through his hair and then urged him into a different position.

Then they were tasting each other, and it was still part of the dream-not-dream and she didn’t think anything was as good as trying to entice him just as he was enticing her. The room was quiet except for licks and groans and sighs, the sounds of luscious wetness and dark, intimate pleasures. His fingers parted her and slid inside and she was sore from before, but a delicious soreness and she slid her hands between his legs to fondle the cool sac, and then they were coming, his climax triggering hers or vice versa, it didn’t matter, it was a chain of promise and of pleasure.

He gained command of his limbs before she did and he arranged them again, heads on pillows, bodies spooned, his heavy arm draped over her middle. Alec nuzzled her hair aside, finding the bare skin of the nape of her neck. He kissed her there, a gesture imbued with both friendliness and affection, even as her body still twitched with leftover pulses of glorious, naughty sex.

His voice was drowsy as he spoke, his breath stirring her hair. “You should let me be something to you, Lilly.”

Her body jolted, her eyes snapped open, her mind instantly engaged, whirring to life after hours of being mesmerized into a sensuous hypnotic state. “Alec,” she whispered, her voice tight with unease.

But he didn’t respond, or move, even when she wiggled under the weight of his confining arm. His breaths were measured behind her, the steady, slow rhythm of sleep. And though she could have shoved away from him, insist he wake and let her up, free, away, she remained still in the dark, her jaw tight.

Hours of punishment for forgetting her place.

As dawn filtered into Alec’s hotel room, the alcove containing the bed stayed shadowed and cool, like her heart, Lilly thought. When enough time had passed that she wouldn’t feel guilty for disturbing him, she managed to slip out of the bed and tiptoed to the bathroom, where she took a brief shower and then redressed in her clothes.

Returning to the alcove, she saw that Alec remained asleep, so she drew up a straight chair and waited, her knees and ankles locked together, her gaze trained on his face.

So handsome, she thought, and there wasn’t censure for herself in the thought. By any objective measure, he was a man whose masculine features and chiseled body would catch a woman’s eye. Any female with a single working hormone would be tempted into seeking some regrets by going to bed with him.

Still, she wished he’d wake up so she could get on with what she had to say, though another part of her acknowledged she could find contentment in staring at sleeping Alec all day long. Way to go whole hog with the regret thing, she told herself. Audra would be so proud.

Then Alec stirred, his lashes fluttering, his hand reaching out to the empty space beside him on the mattress. He frowned, then opened his eyes, almost instantly catching sight of Lilly.

“Hey,” he said, and flipped the covers back to reveal the place where she had lain. “Come back to bed.” His smile was sleepy and full of boyish appeal. “Let me agitate you some more.”

She jumped to her feet and began pacing instead. “I have to talk to you.”

“It will be much more comfortable when you’re on your back, naked,” he said reasonably. When she didn’t comply, he slowly sat up, the sheet pooling at his waist. “Sugar, have we got a problem?”

She paused at the foot of the bed. “I kept trying to head things off, I did. I thought I made it clear. I thought you understood we do not fit.”

His glance turned wary. “I thought we’d agreed we both don’t want a relationship.”

“We did agree to that.” Glaring at him, she folded her arms over her chest. “But then, ‘You should let me be something to you, Lilly.’ You said that last night. Didn’t you mean it?”

He rubbed his chin with his hand, his whiskers making a scratchy sound against his palm. “I feel like that’s a trick question.”

“It’s an honest one.”

“Okay.” Both hands forked through his hair. “Shit, Lilly. Fine.” He sent her a dark look. “I want to see you more. Again. Upon our return to LA.”

When she didn’t say anything right away, he threw up his hands. “Shoot me. Shoot me, Lilly Durand, because it’s true. My mind changed and I want to give it a try. I think you should let me be something to you. I want you to be something to me.”

She told herself she felt no secret thrill at those words. “That’s because you know nothing about me.”

He groaned. “Lilly—”

“There’s a blank line on my birth certificate where a father should be named. My mother took off with some new loser and left me when I was an infant.” She sucked in a breath. “I’ve never seen her since. I don’t remember her at all.”

His face softened. “Lilly…” He patted the mattress beside him. “Come sit down next to me.”

“I was raised by my uncle and my aunt, if ‘raised’ is a word you can use for sleeping on the living room couch and storing your meager belongings behind it. By five I could make breakfast, by six I did all the laundry, by seven I had learned to lock myself in the closet when my surrogate parents decided to go at each other.”

“Fuck, Lilly.”

“I went to school every morning so I could get away from them and I applied myself in school so I would never be them.”

“And you aren’t, baby. You’re you.”

She shook her head. “But growing up like that alters a person—alters their expectations and priorities. Mine…they can never be the same as yours.”

“No, Lilly.”

“Yes, Alec.” She resumed pacing. “Do you know what will happen if we become somethings to each other?”

“Uh—”

“Love will be next. And I know you didn’t say anything about love, but what if you want that too? Then where will we be?”

He didn’t look as surprised by this thought as she expected he might, more bemused if she had to label his expression. “We’ll be in love?”

“No! We won’t be in love. You’ll feel all that sparkly stuff because you’re just like Audra. Some people get to have that…you do, Audra does, you’re the exceptions or the half or whatever the number is. You, Alec, will have a life that comes up roses. The thorn that was Simon’s terrible tragedy only makes more certain that you’ll experience the full goodness of it.”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “Then if I want you, why won’t my full goodness of life mean I get you?”

She stopped again, staring at his expression, unsure of what she read there. “Let me tell you a little story.”

“I’m listening.”

“When I was twelve, I was in summer school and I met a new friend. I didn’t really have friends, because I could never bring anyone home and anyway, all kids can tell the state of another’s kid’s home life by what’s in their lunch bag…or that they don’t have one or the money to buy food at school.”

His expression turned pained. “Please come sit by me, Lilly.”

She shook her head. “So I gathered my courage and told my friend about my aunt and uncle, about the screaming fits and the throwing of plates and bottles and sometimes punches. And she said her parents used to fight all the time but they got a divorce and now everything was much more peaceful.”

Lilly hauled in a breath. “So the next time things went crazy in the apartment and they went at it, after my uncle stomped away in a rage and when I crawled out from the closet, I asked my aunt about it. While she was sweeping up the glass in the kitchen, I asked her why she didn’t divorce my uncle.”

“And what did she say?”

“‘This is how Durands love.’”

He went still. “That’s not love, Lilly.”

She waved a hand. “Of course it’s not. But it’s all I know. It’s all I ever saw outside of TV shows and storybooks until I was eighteen years old. So you see what that makes me?”

“I’m afraid to ask,” he muttered.

“It makes me worthless for a man like you, with the kind of life you were raised in and the kind of future that you’re expecting for yourself. You can’t mean something to me because I don’t know what to do with that. I’ll leave it at the park overnight or forget it on the bus, or worse, hold it too tight until it’s been worn to nothing and you won’t know how to tell me that I killed it by caring too much.”

“Oh, hell,” Alec said, as if he was fed up with the conversation. He started climbing out of the bed, but Lilly decided she was fed up too, and ran for the door, making her way into the hall with the sound of him calling her name ringing in her ears.

It was done. This time, truly O-V-E-R.

 

Lilly arrived back at her bungalow, red-faced and anxious. Stressed by the conversation with Alec, she’d gotten herself turned around again and had wandered the deserted grounds of the resort, disoriented and growing more tense with every passing minute. It was only by luck that she’d found the narrow track leading to the front door. When the key card clicked in the lock and it swung inward, she nearly fell inside, relieved. Reprieved.

Rubbing her hand over her chest to calm her thudding heart, she walked into the living area, only to encounter Audra, who stared at her in equal surprise.

The blonde had her hands curved around a steaming cup of in-room coffee and her gaze cut to the closed door of Lilly’s bedroom, then back to Lilly. “It’s so early. I thought you were still sleeping. That you’d gotten in late and had yet to wake up.”

She took in the other woman’s figure, nearly hidden by the too-large sweats. But Audra’s face gave away that she’d lost weight. There were shadows beneath her eyes and her lips were cracked and pale. “I’m the worst friend,” Lilly said, taking note again of the black coffee her friend was lifting to her mouth. “I need to feed you a real breakfast.”

Hustling to the coffee table by the sofa, she flipped through the hospitality binder to locate the room service menu. “Lattés, side orders of bacon and sausage. Look, they have ricotta pancakes!”

There was a thirty-minute guarantee on delivery, which gave Lilly enough time to shower and put on fresh clothes. She glanced at the garment bag hanging on the outside of her closet door as she entered her room and felt a fresh round of anxiety. Apparently the dress she’d bought at a State Street boutique the day before had been sent over. After making payment, the store had insisted on keeping the garment for the afternoon in order to repair an inch of fallen hem and to give it a fresh press.

The purchase had been Jojo’s idea. The other woman had persuaded Lilly that she must attend the dinner-dance serving as the final event in the Thatcher anniversary celebration week. The guests would not only include the family staying at the resort, but also a crowd of friends who were caravanning up from LA in stretch limousines. Rich people could never take no for an answer, Lilly thought now, recalling her weak protest followed by the inevitable capitulation. They expected everything and everyone to fall into line.

A warm shower washed away some of her resentment, and she walked back out to the living area, wearing a smile, a pair of yoga pants, and her favorite hoodie. The fragrance of delicious breakfast food was unmistakable. “I’m all dressed for overloading on carbs and fat,” she declared, pulling on the elastic waistband of her bottoms to prove there was extra space.

She headed straight for the room service cart and the domed platters sitting there. “Can I serve you?” she asked Audra. “And don’t worry, we have sliced melon and kiwis to counter all the bad stuff.”

When her friend didn’t answer, she glanced over. “What?” she said in response to the other woman’s speculative gaze. “What is it?”

“I was just wondering how long you thought you could get away without explaining your walk of shame.”

Lilly returned her attention to the plate she was filling, stabbing a sausage with slightly more vigor than necessary. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t know why you’re trying to pretend it didn’t happen. I’m your best friend. It’s not like I’m judging you.”

“There is no walk of shame when you’re wearing jeans and athletic shoes, is why. That walk only happens in a teeny dress and when you’re barefoot and carrying your fuck-me shoes on your finger.”

“Lilly Durand would never not wear shoes in a public space.”

This was true. Her friend really knew her well. “I go shoe-less at a pool,” she said with great dignity. “And the beach. I like the feel of sand on my toes.”

Audra rolled her eyes and came forward to snatch up one of the plates loaded with breakfast calories. With a fork in hand, she dropped to the sofa. “What’s the latest between you and Alec Thatcher?”

When Lilly didn’t answer, her friend gusted a sigh. “You’re sleeping together. Admit it.”

There was no point in denial. “We did sleep together.”

“Was that so hard?” Audra asked.

Lilly couldn’t say. Admitting she slept with Alec wasn’t the issue, it was explaining the aftermath that tied her tongue.

“Well, I’m proud of you. I hope you end up with a fabulous, glamorous regret, something like Pink might have, or…I don’t know…Angelina Jolie.”

“She’s got all those weird tattoos,” Lilly pointed out. “I don’t want that many regrets.”

“A teeny one then, manageable, like a blurry butterfly on your ankle or a small Japanese character on your shoulder that you thought was the symbol for ‘rebel’ but really means ‘noodles.’” Audra drew in a breath. “In the ensuing years, we’ll laugh hysterically over it during those happy hours when we forget to order food along with the wine.”

“I don’t think I’m ever going to be laughing about Alec,” Lilly muttered, forking up a piece of fluffy pancake.

“What’s that?”

“How about you?” Lilly said, turning the tables. “Give me a progress report on your own regret-pursuit.” Of course she didn’t want to encourage her friend to get into any trouble, but she might feel more upbeat wearing some regular clothes and experiencing the air beyond the four walls of the bungalow.

Audra’s mouth twisted. “It might take a little more time to get started.” Her gaze shifted to her plate. “I’m still wearing part of the dress under the sweats.”

“Oh, Audra.” Lilly’s temper rose, as hot as a pepper. “Jacob is not worthy of you. And he’s certainly not worth a maudlin attachment to a swath of white lace.”

“White lace and promises.” Audra moved her food around, shoving a slice of sausage against a coin of bright green kiwi. “You know, like the song.”

“Which started life as a bank commercial,” Lilly said, ruthless now. “As a way to sell checking accounts to naïve young couples.”

Audra looked up. “Way to bust the romance.”

“My point is, there’s no reason to sentimentalize the dress you were going to wear to an event that didn’t happen.”

“I still believe in love,” Audra confessed.

“Of course you do,” Lilly affirmed. “I still believe in love for you too. But you have to get over this hump first. Get out of that now-grungy dress, put on something decent, and if you have to, yes, go out and be ‘bad,’ whatever you think that means.”

Then worried, she added. “But not too bad. No tattoos you’re not entirely certain of, nothing illegal, and if he’s riding a Harley, text me first and tell me where you’re going.”

Audra, finally, laughed a little. “Maybe I like the idea of the Harley guy. Can I stipulate that whoever he is works with his hands?”

“I give you permission to get your sexy back with a plumber, baker, or a cabinet-maker.”

Her friend pointed a finger, gave a grin. “Extra points for the Justin Timberlake song reference.”

In a nonchalant gesture, Lilly blew on her nails, polished them against her shirt. “I deserve them.”

But then Audra’s smile died. “There’s one hitch to getting on with the plan.”

“What’s that?”

“Con’s coming tonight,” she said, referencing her old brother, Connor Montgomery, big, brawny, bossy.

“Why?” Lilly liked him, considering him almost a brother too, but she wasn’t sure what positive role he could play during their sojourn at the Heartbreak Hotel.

“Before, he had to leave Santa Barbara right away because of work. Now he has a free couple of days and he said he’s coming to check on me.”

A sudden thought flew into Lilly’s head. “Maybe…” Half of her rejected the idea while the other latched onto it as the perfect solution. “He should take my room. Then I can head back to LA early.” Without leaving Audra here alone.

The move would put real distance between Lilly and Alec immediately. Today she could get back to her real life.

“No,” Audra was saying, her head moving back and forth. “You can’t leave me alone with Con, the man with the crazy ideas. He’s a force of nature, like a hurricane. A day alone with him and I’ll take off on a bicycle, lose my little dog, and end up doing drugs in a field with a scarecrow, a lion, and a tin man.”

“You’re talking about a Kansas tornado,” Lilly said, not sure if her heart was beating so hard because Audra refused to let her go or because she was going to stay for a few more days, too near to Alec for peace of mind.

“That. But speaking of upheavals…” She sent Lilly a guarded look.

Her stomach flipped over. “What is it?” she asked slowly, her belly tightening.

“Yesterday I got a call from Frank.”

“My cousin, Frank?” As if they knew another. Red tinged her vision. “What the hell was he doing calling you? How does he even have your number?”

Audra shrugged. “He was looking for you. Said he knew you were out of town but that you weren’t picking up your phone.”

Lilly grimaced. It had been dead when she took it from her pocket before her shower. “Block his number,” she told her friend now, and headed for the bedroom where her own device was charging. “I promise he won’t bother you again.”

The dick picked up on the first ring. “Cuz,” he said, in an unctuous voice. The word defined the man himself, with his oily hair and his smarmy attitude. He’d bullied her when she was small—petty cruelties like breaking her pencils and balling up her homework. When he was a preteen, a couple of times he’d tried barging in on her when she was in the bathroom showering, a blatant attempt at trying to see her naked body. The second time she’d thrown a full shampoo bottle at him, catching him in the eye, and his howl had brought his mother running.

Her aunt had seen the score and hauled him off by the arm, with threats about what happened to pervy boys in prison. Later, she’d muttered under her breath about Lilly keeping the —broken—door locked, but she’d already devised her own solution. When next she put her cousin’s clean underwear away in the drawer, she’d pierced the stack of tighty-whities with a butcher knife, front and center.

Sometimes she tried to convince herself her early years hadn’t been that bad, that Frank and her aunt and uncle had done their best with a neglected child thrust into their bare-bones existence, but she had only to hear her cousin’s voice to recall the stark loneliness of her existence punctuated by the dread of being abandoned by the very people who frightened her.

“Cuz?” Frank said again now. “Are you there?”

“I’m here, Frank,” she said, hardening her voice. “And you’re to lose Audra’s number immediately.”

“Aw. I was just trying to get in touch with you.”

“Lose Audra’s number immediately.”

“Jeez. You’re so touchy.”

“I am,” Lilly said. “Now what do you want?”

“We haven’t seen you in a while. Dad’s truck—”

“I heard about that.”

“My tooth—”

“I heard about that too.”

Frank cleared his throat. “We just need a little more to get us by, honey.”

“Don’t call me that,” she said, her jaw clenched.

Her cousin huffed out a sigh. “It’s a simple request.”

“Yeah. Simple.”

“I could make it simpler for you,” Frank said, sounding eager. “I hear you’re at that fancy place, The Hathaway?”

Oh, no. “Frank—”

“We really need the cash, Lilly. I could drive up there, you could take me to lunch and—”

“No.” He didn’t have the gas money, she consoled herself. Nor the initiative to make the two-hour journey in Southern California traffic. “I’ll be back in a few days,” she said. “You’ll get what you want then.”

Ending the call without allowing him another word, she placed her phone carefully back on the table. If they were normal people, there were other ways to get them the money, like direct deposit via computer to an account at a financial institution. But a few months back they’d informed her they were operating on a cash basis only. She’d decided she didn’t want to know how they managed like that.

She glanced at her phone again, seized by a sudden impulse to disinfect it somehow, wipe it clean, clear the circuitry or whatever there was inside it of any voice print or vibration left behind by her relatives.

But that wouldn’t sanitize her childhood.

Or dispel the misgivings now skittering from the corners of her mind like the cockroaches at the old apartment. However unlikely, she couldn’t chance Frank making good on his “offer,” could she? She was going to have to go back.

Today.