Billionaire's Touch(51)

“I think I more than just started,” Evan said grimly. “Show me happy, Randi. I think you’re the only one who can.”

Her heart accelerated as she contemplated what he was asking. Evan thought in broad terms when he requested something he didn’t quite understand. It hurt her heart to think he’d never really experienced a happiness that could help him understand contentment. “You have to trust me first.”

“I do,” he shot back immediately.

She grimaced, knowing she was committing herself to spending most of her free time the next few days with Evan. It was tempting, but dangerous. “It won’t be all about sex,” she warned him. Hell, she loved the sex as much as he did, but it wasn’t all there was to being happy and content.

His face fell, and Randi bit her lip to keep from smiling. Jesus, it felt good to have a man want her that much, but it wasn’t enough for Evan. He needed to learn that he wasn’t going to find what he was looking for by working every waking hour of the day. There was obviously little levity in what he did, or the people he worked with on a day-to-day basis.

“Okay,” he agreed, sounding reluctant.

“It won’t hurt a bit. I promise,” she assured him with a smile, her heart aching that Evan trusted her enough to let down his arrogant guard with her.

“Then show me.” He leaned forward and put his lips to her forehead.

His willingness to put his vulnerability into her hands had been her downfall. Randi was going to show Evan that there was more to life than just work and duty if it killed her . . . and judging by the sensual, hot look in his eyes, she decided that she just might not make it out of the whole experiment unscathed.




Dear M.,

What’s your favorite flower?



Randi looked at the short email from her pen pal, wondering what prompted him to ask that question. They threw out weird questions to each other, but it was usually relevant to something they’d been discussing at one time or another. This one was totally random.

Shaking her head at her laptop, she replied.



Dear S.,

I love calla lilies. My foster mother used to plant some of the huge, white variety down by the creek on her property every spring. Calla lilies in general don’t do well in the Maine climate, so she dug them up every year and preserved them inside for the winter so she could replant them in the spring.



Randi had named her dog after the flowers, because their center was actually the same gold color as Lily’s coat.

She had a momentary stabbing pain in her chest remembering that there would be no giant, white calla lilies by the creek this year. Joan had been too sick to preserve them, and Randi had never learned how.



It will be sad not to see the giant white flowers by the creek this year.



Randi added the sentence to her previous message before S. could reply.



Dear M.,

Still hurting?



Randi answered honestly.



Dear S.,

I think I’ll miss her and my foster father for the rest of my life. It’s been way over a month now since she passed, but it still hurts so much sometimes that I can hardly breathe. I know I was lucky to have them in my life at all, but our time was too short.



Randi pressed “Send,” already knowing that her friend would understand. He always did.



Dear M.,

I wish I had the words to make everything right, but I think time will help. I can’t say I’ve ever been standing in your shoes. I can only imagine how much it would hurt to lose someone I loved that much.



Randi sighed. S. always made her feel better somehow, maybe because he had an uncanny ability to empathize.



Dear S.,

I guess you’ll just have to put up with my sulking for a while.



She’d been pouring out her heart to him since her foster mother died.



Dear M.,

You’re not sulking, you’re grieving right now. Is it helping to have a guy in your life?



Randi thought about his question for a moment. Evan wasn’t really what she’d call the man in her life, but they’d shared more deeply buried secrets with each other than they had with anyone else. She’d never shared her secrets with a man she cared about except S., and he was a fantasy. He didn’t know her background, and Randi had no idea what her email friend was like in person.

She was willing to bet Evan shared very little with anyone.



Dear S.,

I think it does help, even though it’s nothing permanent. It takes my mind off my own sorrow.



Thinking of the challenges Evan had been through made her determined to teach him how to be content and live in the moment for just a little while. Her mission did help to lessen her grief.



Dear M.,

It could become permanent. You never know.