No Stranger to Scandal - By Rachel Bailey Page 0,31

have much of a trail before then. I’m not sure if it will help, but I decided it was better to tell you than not.”

He nodded at the couple, his poker face in place despite the way his mind was racing. “I’m glad you did.”

Rowena handed over an envelope. “These are the results of our research, such as it is. Mainly basic information, and we suspect that much of it is falsified. I’m sure you have other channels to go deeper. But there is one photo of Madeline that Cara managed to track down from another old school friend.” Hayden thanked both Rowena and Colin, said goodbye and made his way out through the airport. If Angelica was Madeline Burch, she could have set up Troy Hall and Brandon Ames to carry out the plan then take the fall—that would fit the pattern of Madeline’s school days. His blood pumped faster as his investigator’s senses twitched. Something about this felt right.

Variations of possible scenarios played out in his mind on the trip back to the hotel and, as he used his key card to open the door, he was still buzzing with the new directions his investigation could take. This was a lead that could break the case wide open and point the way to solid answers.

Everything in the suite was silent, so he quietly walked behind the sofas to peek into Josh’s room. His little boy was sleeping peacefully. Relieved, Hayden smiled as he shut the door. He’d have to thank Lucy later—

Then he saw her curled up asleep on the sofa and his breath stilled. Despite the temperature-controlled room, his skin heated.

She was so achingly beautiful, with her blond hair falling over the creamy curve of her cheek. Memories of touching her bare skin assaulted his senses, of the fragrance of her hair, the shape of her hip. Of her fingers touching him, feather-soft at first, then urgently when she needed him. Without realizing he’d moved, he was beside her, crouching down, close enough to feel her breath fan gently over his face.

His heart frantically battered at his rib cage, and a distant part of his brain screamed to move away before she woke, but he didn’t pull back. Couldn’t. He swallowed hard. Her skin was porcelain smooth, her lips slightly parted as she dreamed. Would he be in those dreams? She’d certainly been in his.

He leaned forward just a few inches and kissed her lightly. Sweet torture. His eyes drifted closed. He’d pull back any second now. He would. Just as soon as he committed this moment to memory.

With the softest of moans, Lucy moved her lips languorously under his and her eyes fluttered open. Now was the time to move away, now, but she smiled against his mouth and threaded her fingers through his hair and he couldn’t summon the will to allow any space between them.

“Hayden,” she murmured, then kissed him again. As she lifted herself up on an elbow, he slid an arm around her, dragging her against his chest, silently cursing the fabric between them. He was lost, drowning in her. The musky scent of warm skin surrounded him, curled through his mind, luring him to the edge of sanity, to a place where the reasons this was wrong didn’t exist.

Yet a tendril of awareness remained, a slow-blinking warning light in the peripheries of his mind. He tried to push it away, to give himself over completely to the lushness of the woman in his arms, but deep down he knew...

Thrusting a hand up to cradle the back of her head, he kissed her one more time, a kiss tinged with desperation, before wrenching his mouth away and sitting back on his heels.

“Lucy,” he said, his voice barely audible through a tight jaw. “I’m at breaking point.” He dropped his forehead to rest on hers, holding her more tightly. “I want you—I can’t tell you how much I want you—but making love again would be wrong on so many levels.”

She pulled back and moistened her lips, unknowingly daring him to throw caution to the wind again. She blinked up at him, as if she was only now truly waking up, then she relaxed and smiled sleepily. “It’ll be fine. Come down here. After last time I know there’s enough room for two.”

Frustration clawing through his veins, he speared the fingers of both hands through his hair, then tangled them together behind his head. “There’s nothing I want more in this moment, but you