Page 10 of Her Brother's Billionaire Best Friend

Of course I remember you, you traitor! How could I forget?

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I’m afraid I don’t. Have we met elsewhere, maybe?”

“Actually,” said Laura, letting herself in without being asked, “I showed up at your gate the other night. Asking to use your phone?”

I scowled as she stepped across the threshold. I hadn’t invited her in. I didn’t mean to let her through the front door, but I did.

I was forced to admit to myself, at last. It had been Laura I’d seen standing under the streetlight on Friday, after the party.

“Well, sorry,” I grunted, and stepped back into the hallway. It was a bright enough day, but I wanted to stay out of her way. My hand seemed to burn from the moment of contact it had made with her soft, slim wrist.

Just smile and be polite. Tell her you’ve got someone else for the job and kick her out.

But Laura was already standing in the wide, open hallway.

“This place is really something,” she said, her voice breathy, astonished as her eyes rose up and took in the high ceiling.

As I saw her gazing in wonder, my mind drifted. For all the years that had passed, Laura looked so very similar to the way she looked at nineteen, and suddenly, I felt an aching desire that crept up through my body and knocked on my heart. Suddenly it wasn’t the wide, open hallways of my house in which we stood, but on the porch at the Hotel. The night when I’d said goodbye, not knowing it was for the last time.

That she was going to leave me.

To my astonishment, Laura was more interested in the house than me. I was amazed that she couldn’t recognize me. Had I really changed so much? But of course, for all intents and purposes, the man she knew was gone.

Let it stay that way, I prayed silently, as I strode past her.

“So,” I cleared my throat as I climbed the stairs quickly, trying to outrun her, “How long have you been living here?”

“Well, it’s a long story,” she said. I didn’t want to jog her memory, and besides, I didn’t want to know a thing about her. Not really. Even if curiosity was burning a hole in the bottom of my stomach. I could feel my scar burning at the place where it stretched across my chest. It was an old wound that felt like it had just reopened.

“I don’t like long stories,” I said. I knew how rude I sounded. And I was going to do my best to keep it up. I wanted her out. Get out, now, I heard myself say. Before realizing that if anything were going to give me away, it would be that.

Laura frowned at me, as I turned and watched her jog up the stairs. “Uh, a few days,” she said, adopting a more professional air. “I was working in San Francisco.”

“As a PA?”

“As a journalist.”

“What paper?” I said, as I pounced down the paneled hallway which connected the landing to the annex.

“The San Francisco Post?” she said. “I was a senior reporter there.”

I opened the door to the office. “Go on,” I said, motioning through the doorway.

“O-kay…” said Laura, before stepping through.

I followed her, but my instincts told me to leave the door open.

“And why is a journalist applying for a job as a PA?” I said. “Don’t you have…I don’t know, articles to write?”

“Well, I’m taking a break,” said Laura.

“You got fired,” I replied tonelessly.

“Maybe,” she said snootily, and turned her gaze to view the office. It was a wide, open room with a desk at one end, long and curved. A glass window gave a view of the terrace and the Falls beyond.

“The raging view,” Laura muttered.

“What?”