Faked (Ward Family #2)(28)

Bauer turned the Jeep into the entrance for Richard's house, but my gaze wasn't on the stunning view or towering log cabin. It was on the man driving us toward it. The skin around his mouth had tightened a bit, and his eyes had lost some of the spark from earlier. This was hard on him, too, but in a completely different way than it was for me.

After taking a deep breath, I laid my hand on top of where his was resting on the gear shift.

Bauer's eyes snapped to me, then down to our hands.

His skin was warm and rough.

"I like you just fine, Bauer," I told him quietly. "I just don't know you at all."

His eyebrows lowered over his eyes as he studied my suddenly serious demeanor.

"Why did you say what you said when we were dancing?" The question was out of my mouth before I even realized it had been bothering me.

That sparked something behind his eyes. "What did I say?"

"That Finn had never danced with me like that." My face was probably bright red, but it felt ... important. If Bauer was being truthful, and he'd known the whole evening that I was Claire, then he was speaking to me when he said it. Not Lia. "Why did you say that?"

He had to disentangle our hands to move the Jeep into park, and he took a second to stare up at the house.

Then he cocked his head, angling in his seat to face me. "Why did you go to the dinner for Lia? If you hate lying so much."

Stalemate.

That was what we were in. If I told Bauer right now, before walking into this performance we were about to attempt, then he'd shut down instantly. If I told him that for years, I'd looked at his brother like the perfect man, the prototype of everything I'd wanted, but the men I'd dated had always come up woefully short in comparison.

Not smart enough.

Not sweet enough.

Not kind enough.

Not ... Finn enough.

Here was a man who was the exact opposite of his brother in every single way I could possibly list. And in front of a bunch of strangers, I was going to pretend he was everything I wanted.

I took a deep breath. "I asked you first."

Bauer smiled cryptically. "That you did, princess."

The expectant look I gave him made his smile grow wider. I wanted to climb out of my seat and rip the answer out of him. The fact he wouldn't answer made me feel edgy. like there was a vibration starting somewhere deep inside my body, spreading further and further until he'd be able to see it on the surface of my skin if he didn't tell me.

"Why won't you tell me?" I whispered impatiently.

"Why won't you tell me?" he said back, his face leaning closer to mine in the quiet confines of the Jeep. His eyes fixed on my mouth. "You're going to drive me insane before this is over, aren't you?"

It snapped the tightening cord between us, and I sat back, flattening myself against the door of the Jeep. What was I doing?

Movement from the corner of my eye snagged my attention. Richard was standing on a massive deck, waving at us. "We have company."

Bauer blinked. "Right."

The air was heavy and strangely charged, though I couldn't figure out which one of us was sending all that energy pulsing into the space between us.

He gave me a long look. "Showtime, princess."





Chapter Eleven





Bauer





Claire, who was quickly becoming one of the most fascinating women I'd ever met, did not get her wish. Richard's housekeeper, a tidy woman in her late fifties, showed us our bedroom at the end of the upstairs hallway, and I tried not to laugh at the disgruntled look that Claire tried to hide.

The room, just like the rest of Richard's place, was, oh ... could I even think of the right word.

Overwhelming.

Though his place was hidden from the road, on the tip of West Vancouver, with trees crowding the lot and blocking the view of the house from the road, once we'd stepped inside, everything about it was overwhelming. And incredibly, mind-numbingly ugly.

Claire and I stood in our bedroom, absolutely speechless.

"It's ..." Her voice trailed off when her eyes landed, wide and round and shocked, on the bed dominating the space.

"It's terrible."

She let out an airy laugh. "I think Richard Harper is overcompensating for something."

"Is that your professional opinion?"

Her slow nod had me laughing.

It looked like a turn of the century French brothel puked up over every surface. Ornate gilded gold was everywhere, on furniture and picture frames and mirrors. Deep, jewel-toned upholstery had me blinking in disbelief, just like I had been from the moment we walked in the door.

"I don't know what I expected," she said. Her hand gestured weakly at the king-size, four-poster bed, complete with blood-red velvet curtains that would completely enclose the sleeping space. "But it wasn't this."

I peeked inside our bathroom and let out a low whistle. "Close your eyes real tight before you walk in this room, princess. It'll make your eyeballs bleed."

"Rich people are strange," she said, then glanced over her shoulder at me. "Isn't that what you told me?"

"Something like that." I scratched my head and slung my duffel onto the couch framed in the large span of windows. Windows that would fully be covered by the heavy black and gold striped fabric, so overpowering in pattern, I almost felt claustrophobic looking at it.