Not that it was a horrible idea. The more I thought about it, the more it actually made sense.
Could it help Eloise save face with her family? I owed her that.
Foster had called me earlier, but I’d let it go to voicemail. That was a message I was ignoring until tomorrow.
I’d deal with the fallout tomorrow.
Tonight, I just wanted to be alone. To stare at the stars.
A flicker of light burst through the trees. Headlights. Apparently alone wasn’t in the cards tonight either. It was probably Foster, here to have the conversation I wasn’t ready to have.
I sighed, dropping my gaze and rubbing at the slight kink in my neck. It was too dark to make out the vehicle that turned off Alderson. So I stood in the clearing, waiting until the car neared. When I made out the shape of a Subaru, my pulse jumped.
Eloise.
She parked in front of the cabin and climbed out. The porch lights caressed her face, chasing away the shadows. She’d changed out of the black slacks and soft, blue turtleneck she’d been wearing earlier. Her long, toned legs were encased in dark leggings. Her torso was covered with a racerback tank top, too thin and strappy for the cold night. Her hair was tied up in a messy knot.
“Hey.”
She jumped, startled by my voice and slapped a hand over her heart. “Shit, you scared me.”
“Sorry.” I lifted a hand as I walked over. “Didn’t expect to see you tonight.”
Eloise shrugged those bare shoulders. “I was doing laundry and ran out of soap. I was on my way to the grocery store, but my car sort of just drove itself this way instead.”
“Come on in.” I led her inside, waiting as she kicked off her shoes.
She padded toward the living room, gravitating to the fireplace. “Have you talked to anyone?”
“No. You?”
“Not yet.” She shook her head, stepping even closer to the stove, extending her hands to soak in its warmth.
A tendril of hair draped down the line of her neck, like a crooked arrow down her spine. I followed its trail to the sweet curves of her hips in those leggings.
I’d rather see them on the floor than on her body. All of this seemed simpler, easier, when I was inside her.
“Okay,” she murmured, more to herself than to me. Her shoulders sagged. Her hands dropped to her sides. Then she turned. “Okay. We’ll stay married. We’ll go to that wedding. Then we’ll get divorced.”
For the first time in hours, I breathed. Thank fuck. “Okay.”
Eloise shuffled to the couch, slumping on its edge. “Maybe if everyone thinks this is real, I’ll still get my hotel.”
She’d mentioned this before, last month in her ramble of desperation to keep this a secret. I hadn’t asked at the time what she meant, but if we were going to do this, then I needed to know what she was after.
“You said your parents didn’t want to give you the hotel. They wanted to give it to your brother Knox, right?” I asked, taking the seat beside her.
“Yeah.” She blew out a long breath. “I’ve been managing it for years. Ever since I came home from college. My mom used to run it but she’s stepped away, just like my dad did with the ranch. My oldest brother, Griffin, manages the ranch now.”
I hadn’t met Griffin Eden, but I’d heard the name around town. His wife, Winslow, was the chief of police.
“The hotel is mine.” The aggressive way she spoke, the growl of that word mine. A twinge pinched my side. Almost . . . jealousy?
Was I really jealous of a hotel? No. That would be ridiculous.
“It’s my dream,” she said. “But it’s been in our family for five generations. I’m not the only Eden who loves that hotel. My parents, my siblings, my extended family. The town. Failure isn’t an option.”
“And you think you’ll fail?” Or was that coming from her parents?
“No.” She sighed. “Maybe. I had an issue a few years ago and it rattled my confidence. Mom and Dad’s too. Hence why they wanted to give the hotel to Knox.”
I shifted, turning sideways in the couch to put an arm across the back. Then I crossed a foot over my ankle, wanting to be able to see her as she spoke. “What happened?”
Eloise traced a pattern on the leather cushion between us, drawing imaginary squares and rectangles. “My tender heart. Or that’s what my mother calls it.”
Not once in my life had anyone called my heart tender. I liked that about Eloise. That she was affectionate. Genuine. Unguarded. I liked that she could ramble when she was drunk, saying whatever was on her mind, and lose herself in a moment of passion.
“I had an employee,” she said. “It’s not easy to find reliable, hardworking people all the time, especially those who are willing to clean rooms and scrub toilets. Maybe that’s because Quincy is small. Or maybe I’d have the same problem in a large city. I don’t know. But it’s difficult. I don’t have the luxury to always be choosy. If I don’t have employees . . .”
“Then you do the work yourself,” I said as she trailed off.
“Exactly.” She glanced up but her fingers kept skimming the couch’s leather. “I hired a guy to do housekeeping a few years ago. He seemed nice. He was sincere in his interview. He didn’t have any previous hospitality experience, but it’s rare to find someone who does. And he was only working part-time. I figured we could train him along the way, and if the fit was right, we could bump him to full-time.”
This asshole had taken advantage of her, hadn’t he? “I’m guessing the fit wasn’t right.”
Eloise gave me a sad smile. “I thought it was. At first. He showed up on time. He was nice to me and polite to guests. He didn’t go above and beyond but he did what I asked him to do. Until one day, he skipped a shift. I’d been doing some schedule changes and thought maybe he just missed the calendar update. So I covered for him. The next day when he came in, he apologized over and over. Said he had a lot happening and had gotten confused about the schedule.”
He’d probably seen an opportunity to exploit Eloise’s tender heart.
“It happened again. And again. And again.” She tensed, her shoulders curling inward as that fingertip kept drawing patterns. Circles now, instead of squares. “My mom found out. Which means my dad found out. He came into the hotel one day, called the guy into the office and gave him a warning. Another skipped shift and he was gone. Guess what happened?”
“He skipped another shift.”
“Yep.” Eloise sighed. “Dad fired him. I would have done it, but Dad said he’d take care of it. Mostly, I think Dad was worried I’d cave and give the guy another chance.”
“Would you have?”
“I wish I could say no,” she said quietly. “But I’m honestly not sure.”
“So your parents got mad because they had to fire someone for you?” That didn’t seem like a big deal.
“Oh, no. It gets worse.” She scrunched up her nose. “Back then, most of us would go out to Willie’s for a drink once a month. I invited him to come along. I didn’t want anyone to feel left out. He came once, that first month after he’d started. There was a whole group of us at the bar. We had a few drinks. Played pool. Laughed. And at the end of the night, I hugged him goodbye. I hugged everyone. No big deal.”