Bungalow Nights(39)

Vance was silent, too—though not small at all as he stalked back toward the house. His expression hard, he brushed past Layla to mount the steps.

“Are you all right?”

He grunted.

She scrambled to her feet. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to hunt down a calendar.”

Confused, she tried to keep up with him. “A calendar? Why?”

“In order to count down how many more goddamn days are left before I can get the hell out of California.”

* * *

ADDY KNEW BAXTER had returned. Though she didn’t look up from her laptop screen, she sensed him looming in the doorway of the Sunrise Pictures archives room. I’ll ignore him, she thought. Then he’ll go away.

She was done with him. She had to be done with him.

It’s what she’d been telling herself since that day in his condo. She’d kept herself busy since then, working by day on the archives and then distracting herself in the evenings by visits with old friends. She’d even gritted her teeth and managed a dinner with her mother and then another with her father.

Thoughts of Baxter hadn’t bothered her at all.

At least not as much as his silent presence was bugging her, as he continued to stand just a few feet away. “What are you doing here?” she groused, her gaze still focused on her computer. “Your reputation as All Business Baxter is going to be downgraded if you keep escaping your office like this.”

Instead of answering, he moved into the room. From the corner of her eye, she saw him riffle through one of the boxes. She’d been sorting the paperwork, and had put what she termed the “numbers stuff” into its own carton. The ledgers were bound by olive-green, cloth-covered cardboard, and she’d barely spared them a glance before separating them from the business and personal letters that she hoped held clues to Sunrise’s demise as well as the truth of the relationship between Edith Essex and her husband.

She’d scanned the correspondence page by page into her computer so she could examine it as much as she liked without damaging the originals. That process now done, she’d entered them into a database, arranged them by date and was now reading through them one at a time.

Baxter moved to stand behind her. “Have you found anything interesting?”

“No,” she said, but continued on in hopes of quickly satisfying his curiosity. Perhaps then he’d go. “From what I can tell, Sunrise Pictures was fine financially—though I confess I’m not an expert at deciphering that side of things. But the letters between Sunrise and its various vendors and suppliers don’t hint at money problems.”

“What about the personal correspondence?”

That made her sigh. “There’s a dearth of it, actually. I hoped to find letters between Edith and her husband, but so far, nothing. There are a few dozen from some of the leading men and ladies of the day to Max Sunstrum, Sunrise’s president, and there’s a nugget or two there. In between discussions of schedules and salary and availability I’ve found references to parties they’d mutually attended. As time goes on, however, more than one correspondent questions where Edith has been and why she’s been absent from the Hollywood scene.”

“Because there was trouble in the marriage? The affair that’s rumored?”

Addy lifted a shoulder. “That’s what I’m trying to find out. That’s why I’m too busy for interruptions.” Now she glanced back to see if he got her unsubtle hint.

Damn. She shouldn’t have looked at him. Of course, he’d come right from the office. His hair was in those impeccable layers, as smooth and shiny as golden fish scales. He wore his summer-weight suit like most men wore T-shirts and jeans. The tie around his neck had been loosened.

The tie.

Oh, God. She stared at the navy-and-white stripes, remembering the one she’d secured around his eyes so she’d have the courage to go to bed with him. And she’d gone to bed with him to get him out of her life.

“Why are you still here?” she demanded, frowning.

He frowned right back. “Why did you leave the other night without saying goodbye?”

Addy shrugged again. Not for a million dollars would she admit she’d been grateful he’d dozed off afterward so she could escape. He’d been her first, though not her only lover. A time or two over the years she’d looked into the face of a man she’d been intimate with and managed to make clear there wasn’t going to be another encounter between the sheets.

So it shouldn’t have been hard—once she was back in her clothes—to have said so long to Baxter in a way that made clear she meant it as a permanent goodbye. Except she’d slipped out instead.

“Was that payback for what happened six years ago?” he asked, his eyes narrowing. “Because I essentially sneaked away, you figured you should have your chance to do the same?”

She glared at him. “I don’t know what—”

“Can the crap, Addy,” he said. “I’m not buying for a second your story that you don’t remember our night together then. You gasped in shock when I licked your nipple for the first time. I kissed the tears from your cheek when I entered you—your first time.”

She opened her mouth to emit some matching sort of answer, but nothing came out. He was the one with the confidence to be so blunt. Addy March had nowhere near that kind of self-assurance, and being with Baxter only made her feel the lack more.

“I want to see you again,” he said. “I want to find some way to make it up to you for—”

“Why?” she interrupted, exasperated. “I’m not expecting you to make anything up to me.”

“But—”

“I didn’t expect anything from you after that night six years ago.”

Baxter blinked. He rubbed his palm along the length of his tie, a gesture she might label as nervous if he didn’t always appear so annoyingly poised. “You really don’t remember that night.”

Addy rolled her eyes. Maybe he wasn’t as intimidatingly smart as she’d always thought. “I just admitted I do, okay? I’d had a little crush on you for years, that’s the truth. When you asked me to dance, you’re lucky I didn’t keel over at your feet. My heart was going so fast when you took me in your arms that I thought I might pass out.”

“A crush?” He was smiling, the smug bastard. “I kind of knew the second half of that. Even with only those twinkling lights overhead, I could see the pulse at your throat. Racing. Your skin is so fragile there, so thin and sweet. It’s the first place I put my mouth.”

Addy swallowed, nonplussed again.

“It’s racing now, too,” he said quietly.

She spun back toward her laptop. “The thrill of near-discovery. I’m excited about unraveling the mystery of Edith, Max and Sunrise Pictures.”

Baxter put his hands on her shoulders and began to knead. “You’re so tense, Addy. I’m not going to let you down again. I don’t want it to be that way with us.”

“I told you, you didn’t ever let me down. Why do you keep insisting you did?”

“The things I said, the promises I made—”

“Not for one minute did I expect you to follow through on any of those.”

His hands stilled, then dropped away. “I didn’t think I could feel much worse about what happened, but you just proved me wrong.”

Surprised, she turned to face him again, the casters on the chair legs squeaking in the quiet room. It wasn’t something she’d said to hurt him, but the expression on his chiseled, nearly too-handsome face was pained. “Baxter...”

He threw himself into the seat beside her. It was wheeled, like hers, and he used the heel of one elegant leather shoe to push himself away from the table. “I guess I deserve that. Clearly I have an overinflated sense of my own integrity.”

“What?” Addy stared at him. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Despite what I did that night, I’ve always considered myself one of the good guys, okay? I’m ethical, I pay all my taxes, I always buy my mother her favorite candy on Valentine’s Day.”

Addy told herself not to be charmed. But he bought his mother candy on Valentine’s Day! “You are one of the good guys...at least I’ve always thought so.”

“But you say you disbelieved me that night...even before I had the chance to prove your distrust was well-founded.” He groaned, and ran his palms over his hair. “I am a jerk.”

“No, Baxter. I don’t think you’re a jerk. I didn’t put any credence into what you said because...because I’m me, and you’re you.”

“The jerk.”

“No.” It was frustrating and more than a little humiliating to clear this up. “You’re Baxter Smith,” she said, waving her hand to indicate the hair, the suit, the shiny shoes, “and I’m me.”