LITMIR.BIZ

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carved cornices above the windows and doors and under the gables and eaves.

      “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

      “Like I said, it’s a good investment. By the time I unload it, the property will have doubled in value.”

      Panic burst in her veins. He couldn’t sell. Not yet. “You’re going to sell it?”

      “When the market and price are right.”

      She wiped her dampening palms on her simple black sheath and followed Adam onto the front porch, tangling and untangling her fingers while he unlocked the door.

      How many times had her birthmother crossed this threshold?

      He entered, hit a light switch and then punched a sequence on an alarm system concealed by a small mirror. He gestured for her to join him, but she couldn’t move. A weird form of near-paralysis locked her muscles. She was so close to uncovering the truth. So close to the diaries and answers.

      If they were here.

      But what if she didn’t like what she learned? What if her mother wasn’t a nice person? What if her mother had died of some hideously debilitating and hereditary disease? And what if Lauryn possessed some flaw that made her unlovable?

      Her father and Susan had loved her hadn’t they? Maybe. Her parents had lied about so much that Lauryn didn’t trust herself to recognize the truth anymore.

      “Lauryn?” Adam’s expression asked why she delayed.

      She scrambled for a response. “This luxury is about as far as you can get from the military housing I grew up in.”

      “Didn’t seem to bother you at the Ainsleys’.”

      “I guess I was too nervous about meeting all those people to be overwhelmed by the house. I, um…don’t get out much.” Not anymore.

      She forced her feet forward and found herself in a soaring circular two-story domed foyer. She slowly turned around in the center of the Mariner’s Compass pattern inlaid into the marble floor like a glossy stone quilt, and then crossed to the wide staircase sweeping up and around the foyer to the second floor.

      Had her mother crept up and down these stairs, avoiding the squeaky treads in the middle of the night? If marble treads creaked, that is.

      Had the wild streak that had landed Lauryn in so much trouble as a teen come from Adrianna Laurence? Lauryn certainly hadn’t inherited it from her father, a regimented career military man, or learned it from her adoptive mother, a serene saint of a woman who never raised her voice or her hand no matter how obnoxious Lauryn had been.

      “Want the ten-dollar tour?” Adam’s voice intruded.

      She blinked. “I thought that was a ten-cent tour.”

      “Inflation,” Adam replied straight-faced. “If you don’t have cash, I’ll accept a more creative payment.”

      His gaze dropped to Lauryn’s lips and her mouth dried. She cleared her throat and looked away. “I’d love a tour.”

      She had to get into this house without him dogging her footsteps. Maybe she could convince him to give her a key to drop stuff off for the VIPs and steal a few minutes to explore. “How many bedrooms?”

      “Six bedrooms, seven and a half baths, plus servants’ apartments over the garage.”

      Six! It would take hours or days to search each closet for loose floorboards and that was assuming the closets were empty and she wouldn’t have to shift stuff out of the way first.

      “This is definitely the kind of house to raise a family in.” Her mother had grown up here, an only child, and according to what little Lauryn had uncovered, had moved back home after one semester at Vassar. Had Adrianna taken the diaries to college with her? Had she brought them home?

      “Come on.” He turned and headed through an archway.

      Lauryn hustled after him. “Did you make many changes after you bought the estate?”

      He strode past a stream of rooms, flipping light switches as he went. “Other than updating the electrical wiring, no. The previous owners kept the place well-maintained. I even bought some of the furniture in the estate sale.”

      Lauryn stumbled. She barely caught a glimpse of the book-lined library, home theater, massive kitchen, two-story living room and beamed-ceiling den as she hustled to keep up with Adam. The grandeur of the house blew her mind. She wanted to beg him to slow down, to let her soak up the details like a sponge, to ask which pieces of furniture had been the Laurences’.

      Had her mother sat on that sofa or at that writing desk? But asking would require explanations. And explanations could lead to rejection. It was too soon to launch her appeal.

      He didn’t stop until he reached a circular sunroom jutting from the back of the house like a peninsula. Three of her tiny apartments would fit in this room alone.

      To her right a wall of windows overlooked an expansive pool and patio illuminated by subtle landscape lighting. The left side revealed tennis courts, and beyond the seawall at the back of the property stretched a private dock with a long, low and fast-looking boat floating in the channel.

      With one sweep of his hand Adam extinguished the interior and exterior lights and the outside view vanished. Pale moonlight cast the sunroom in a mysterious combination of shadows and wavering silvery light.

      “Ready to go?”

      No! Not yet. “You’re not going to show me the upstairs?”

      He closed the distance between them in two lazy strides, lifted his hand and cupped her cheek. Surprise held her motionless. Shadows sharpened the angles of his face. His thumb brushed over her lips. Desire sparked instantly in her veins and judging by the sudden widening of Adam’s pupils and the flare of his nostrils he felt something, too. The air suddenly turned hot, humid and heavy.

      “If you want to get me into a bedroom, you’re going to have to accept my proposal and sign the agreements first.”

      Her thoughts screeched to a halt. She could not let herself fall for Adam Garrison. She’d given up bad boys and shallow relationships a long time ago. And while Adam wore designer clothing instead of torn jeans, he was still a heartbreaker through and through.

      Been there. Done that.

      Tempting, but taboo.

      But she had to have access to this house. She’d lost her father and her own identity eleven months ago and possibly shattered her relationship with her mother beyond repair. If she had any chance of getting her life back on an even keel then she had to figure out who she was—who she really was—not the fairy tale her parents had concocted.

      There was only one way.

      A chill raced through her. She spun away from Adam, wrapped her arms around herself and picked her way through the mottled shadows to stand by the window and stare out at the lights winking across the darkness from the houses on the island across the channel.

      “I’ll do it,” she said in a rush with her gaze focused on the rocking boat instead of the man behind her.

      Light filled the room once again. “Do what?”

      She slowly turned and met Adam’s direct gaze. “I’ll marry you. But only if we live here.”

      “I have a condo within walking distance of the club.”

      “Have you ever considered you might appear more settled if you lived in a house instead of a bachelor pad?”

      He dipped his head. “Good point.”

      “I won’t give up my job.”

      “Lauryn, you won’t need to work.”

      “But I want to.” She took a slow breath and then blurted, “And I won’t sleep with you.”

      “You’ll

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