Dangerous Flirt(Laytons Book 2)(34)
Hank sighed and sank back into his seat. “You know my mom, there's nothing I can tell her. Knowing her, she'll have dug up every bit of gossip from the last six months, scoured the online marriage certificates in Vegas, gotten every little piece of information out of my brothers—that is, if Chris and Sam are out of their poker game yet—and made contact with a private eye.”
The description made her laugh. “She does always seem to know everything about everything.”
The light bulb went off in Beth's head as bright as the sun. Why hadn't they thought of it earlier? She opened her mouth, but Hank cut her off before she could utter a word.
“I'm already on it. I'll text her now and call her after I have a chat with Little Elvis. With any luck, he'll be willing to share his surveillance video from last night.” His large fingers crawled across his phone, too big to type quickly on the tiny keyboard keys. “Mom will give me all the rumors and innuendo there is about who wants to buy your grandparents' house.”
Chapter Fourteen
Her perfume filled the cab with its warm, inviting scent until all Hank wanted to do was bury his face in the soft curve of her neck and breathe in his fill. This was torture; pure, blissful torture, and if he wasn't so pissed off, he'd be in heaven. The need to touch her wreaked havoc on his ability to function, let alone compose a decent text to his mom that wouldn't send her through the roof.
Mentally groaning, Hank hit the itty-bitty delete key on his phone. Again. He hated texting. If God had wanted man to text, He would have made the keyboard bigger.
HANK: DON'T KNOW WHAT CLAIRE SAID, BUT NOT MARRIED. ALL WELL HERE. HOPE YOU ARE GOOD. TALK TO YOU SOON. LOVE HANK.
Giving the message another look, his finger hovered over the delete key. He sounded like an idiot. Even in a text, his mom would know something was up. The woman always did.
The cab stopped in front of the Paris Hotel, leaving him without a choice but to hit send. There was no time to figure out a better way to lie because things were far from okay.
He slapped a wad of bills into the cabbie's hand and stepped out of the car. Beth emerged right behind him, still eerily silent. The lack of chatter spoke volumes about just how much he'd hurt her feelings. She tucked a strand of dark-brown hair behind her ear and sighed as she walked past him into the hotel. Her normal jaunty swagger had disappeared, thanks to him and his big mouth.
You're a real asshole, Layton.
She wasn't like Amanda. Hell, he doubted Satan himself was as bad as Amanda. But he'd lashed out at Beth as if she was his ex-wife incarnate. Why was he still letting that manipulative woman influence his actions? If he didn't figure out how to shake off her ghost, he may as well give up on winning Beth over. The rub was, he had no idea what to do now besides follow Beth into the hotel and make sure she was safely on her panel before he paid a visit to Little Elvis.
Nodding at the bellboy, he quickstepped into the hotel and spotted her glossy, dark hair moving through the throng of gamblers sitting in a trance at the one-armed bandits. She cleared the slot machines and took a right turn at the elevators. Hustling, he caught up with her in the walkway leading to the conference rooms. Nervous sweat made his hands clammy and he wiped them on his jeans before grabbing her wrist.
“Beth.” No other words came. He had no idea what to say next, but he had to say something before it was too late.
She jerked to a stop, her face a dispassionate mask, mouth in a neutral position and her eyebrows arched. Her chin jutted forward as she tilted her face upward toward his. When her lips curved upward into an almost-smile, his stomach sank.
“You were right, Hank. I haven't been fair with you, so let me be now.” She peeled his fingers one by one from her tiny wrist. “I'm your little sister's best friend, nothing more and nothing less. Let's just forget about what happened.”
He stepped in front of her, blocking her path in a desperate attempt to salvage the tenuous connection they'd forged. “Look, I owe you—”
“No, you don't owe me anything.” She glanced around him and gave someone in the crowd a little wave. “I need to get to my panel.”
Looking behind him, he spotted Sarah Jane Hunihan marching toward them like Patton bearing down on the Germans in Italy. Judging by the snap, crackle, pop in her eyes visible at twenty paces, the normally sweet-natured old biddy was more than a little ticked off. But by the time she stopped in front of them, the angry spark had melted away as if it had never been there at all. But the spit-and-vinegar attitude seemed more natural somehow, an impression he filed away to consider later.
“There you are! We've been looking for you everywhere since you missed the morning sessions. I was so worried that something had happened to you.” She clasped her hands together so tightly her knuckles turned white. “Goodness, this is such a dangerous city that I feared the worst.”