ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
.
Читать онлайн.
“It must be the joy of a wedding.”
She raised her empty glass. “I suspect it may have something to do with the champagne, too.”
The forthright observation startled Rakin. Had he at last found a woman capable of distinguishing between realism and romance? Quite possibly. She was, after all, a Kincaid, a businesswoman. It was starting to look like he’d struck twenty-four-karat gold. “Can I get you another?”
“Not yet. I’ve had enough. I think I might be a little tipsy. I’m trying to remember how many glasses of champagne I’ve had. Three maybe.” She laughed again. “That’s a first.”
Straightening from where he leant, Rakin took the glass from her and set it down on the balustrade behind them. “You’ve never been tipsy?”
She shook her head and her hair swirled about her face. “Never! My mother would be mortified, she would not approve.”
At the mention of her mother, Rakin said, “I was sorry to hear about your mother’s arrest—it must have been a difficult time for the whole family.”
“It hasn’t been easy.” All humor drained from her face and Rakin found himself missing the pleasure of it. “The police are still no closer to finding a suspect. But thankfully Mom has been cleared.” Laurel shivered, and he knew it wasn’t with cold. “I keep replaying that last day through my mind. I was at the offices until late in the afternoon. I even made Dad a cup of coffee before I left. He glanced up when I set it down, I joked that it was hot and strong just as he liked it. He laughed—Dad didn’t often laugh—and thanked me, then he went back to the documents he was reading. That’s the last image I have of him. Daddy didn’t even see me wave goodbye as I exited his office.”
She broke off, and Rakin knew she was fighting back tears.
“But I keep thinking I should’ve have had some kind premonition—noticed something,” she said huskily. “I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Several of the staff were still there when I left—Brooke, RJ’s assistant at the time, was the last to leave.”
The memory was clearly upsetting Laurel. Rakin could make out the gooseflesh rippling across the fine, smooth skin of her arms.
Wrapping her arms around herself, she walked back to the end of the balustrade. “I can’t believe I never noticed anything.”
“You weren’t expecting anything to happen.”
She fell silent. Finally she turned her head and a band of moonlight fell across her face giving her skin the sheen of silvered silk. “Out of all of us, Brooke blames herself most. In her statement to the police she mentioned while she was finishing up the filing backlog, Mom brought dinner to Dad that night. The police arrested Mom—she was the last person to see him alive and, until recently, she had no alibi. What makes Brooke feel even worse is the fact that she didn’t even think to mention that earlier in the afternoon it was pouring rain and she had her arms full of blueprints when she ran for the office to avoid being drenched. A man in a hat and raincoat held the door open for her. No one has any idea who he was. Security didn’t record his entry—they thought he was with Brooke. And, of course, she has no idea who he could’ve been. Detective McDonough thinks it’s possible he hid in the building until after everyone—including Mom—left.”
“And there’s still no clue about who it was?”
Laurel shook her head, causing her hair to ripple over her shoulders. “Video security footage from an adjacent lot puts Jack Sinclair’s vintage Aston Martin in the parking lot from late afternoon until around the time my father was shot—but he swears he was at his own office. Yet he never reported his car missing—or stolen.”
The odd note in her voice made Rakin probe further, “But you think Sinclair might have murdered your father?”
“I keep hoping not. Dad obviously loved Angela—he wanted to marry her, but his parents wouldn’t countenance it. Jack’s clearly bitter about the situation. Fact is, he may be the firstborn son, but he’s not a legitimate Kincaid. Dad tried to make it up to him—and to Angela. Yet despite the inheritance and power Dad gave him, he’s behaving like he has a major grudge against the family—which makes it hard to view Jack in any kind of positive way.”
“And you like to see the best in people?”
“I try.” The eyes that met his held the kind of honesty he’d given up hoping to find. “But I don’t always get it right. Let’s talk about something else—I promised myself I wouldn’t let Jack Sinclair ruin tonight. It’s a celebration.”
“I want to talk about you.” With a sense of satisfaction, Rakin watched her do a double take. “Eli said you possess the kindest heart of anyone he knows.”
It had crossed Rakin’s mind in the past few minutes to throw himself at her mercy and ask her to help him out of a tight spot with his grandfather, but it went against the grain. Rakin never asked for favors. His pride would not allow it. All his decisions were based on considerations of mutual benefit—and hard profit.
She wrinkled her nose at him. “That makes me sound boring.”
“Kindness isn’t boring.”
“Well, it’s not very exciting either.”
Rakin’s eyebrows jerked up at that. “You want to be considered exciting?”
“I want a life.” It burst from her. She looked taken aback at her own ferocity. “Goodness, that sounded much more melodramatic than I intended.”
Maybe Laurel Kincaid didn’t express her own wants often enough, mused Rakin. Taking two steps toward her, he asked carefully, “How do you intend to achieve the life you want?”
Her gaze shifted out to the night. For a long moment he thought she wasn’t going to answer.
Then she turned her head, and her eyes glistened in the dappled shadows. “I’m going to do all the things I’ve never done. Things no one would expect of Laurel Kincaid, director of public relations of TKG, friend of the Library, patron of the Art Gallery—first person to join a committee for the next good cause.”
Rakin couldn’t suppress a smile at the self-deprecatory comment. “Like gamble in Vegas?”
“Exactly like gambling in Vegas.” She lifted her chin a touch defensively. “It may not be meaningful, but it will be one brick broken out of the boundaries that are imprisoning me.”
What was it about this woman that caused his heart to lighten and amusement to fill him? Leading him to feel as if he’d shed the burden accumulated over years?
Then it came to him. Under that ladylike exterior, Laurel Kincaid was a rebel. A real, genteel Southern rebel. Rakin had a feeling that she was about to throw off the constraints of a lifetime. The fates help them all. “You want to experience risk and adventure?”
“Oh, yes!”
Staring into her sparkling eyes, Rakin discovered he wanted to get to know this intriguing woman better.
Much better.
He desired her. More importantly, he liked her. It would be so easy to explain his predicament to her—he suspected she would listen. He could already visualize her head tilting to one side, her eyes fixed on his as he told her about his grandfather’s threats to disenfranchise him from the company he’d worked so hard to expand. His predicament would arouse her sympathy—how could it not, given the parallels to Jack Sinclair’s efforts to destroy The Kincaid Group?
Would her kind heart allow her to agree to a marriage of convenience?
Rakin suspected she just might even consider it. Eli had been right: Laurel would make him the perfect wife.
But he needed time to persuade her. Before he could check the impulse he found himself saying, “So come away with me to Vegas.”
Three