Chapter Nineteen

Holy crap, thought Rafe as he looked in the delivery truck, his sister had bought a lot of furniture. And yet, once the crew finished unloading it all and putting it where Mia had told them to on the chart she’d made up, Rafe had to admit it was exactly the right amount.

Brooke was next door taking care of the work she’d put aside to help him with his house. It didn’t help that she’d lost another full day in Seattle yesterday. He would have offered to help her make the chocolates for this week’s upcoming delivery, but he figured he’d only end up getting in the way. Especially considering he couldn’t be in the same room with her without ripping her clothes off and taking her.

As it was, he’d been hard-pressed to leave her bed that morning. There hadn’t been one other thing he’d wanted more than to stay there beneath the sheets, her warm curves pressed against him as he tasted and kissed and caressed every beautiful inch of her. But since he’d known how much work she had to do, he’d forced himself to leave so that she could get to it.

There was still work to be done on his house, but as he wandered through each of the fully furnished rooms, he couldn’t deny that it was easily move-in ready. That first night, when he’d seen how trashed his family’s old lake house was, he’d been furious. He’d come to the lake to relax, not renovate a house. But now, instead of being glad his house was perfectly habitable, down to the matching towels Mia had ordered for the bathrooms and the bookshelves in the living room that held new hardcover copies of his favorite authors, a hard knot fisted in his gut.

Until today, it had made perfect sense to stay with Brooke. But with a new bed, a clean bathroom, and a decked-out kitchen, he could move into his own place now.

He should have been thrilled with the arrangement they’d made. Just sex. Wild sex, no less. It should have filled his independent male heart with glee that she’d clearly told him she wasn’t looking to settle down, that she wasn’t looking at him as her path to an engagement ring and a wedding dress.

Damn it, he wasn’t thrilled with any of it.

And it didn’t make a lick of sense that he wasn’t.

Brooke had offered—hell, was offering it to him as often as he wanted, any way he wanted it—every guy’s dream come true. A hot summer fling with no strings, with no expectations of anything but pleasure. But after only a handful of days with her in his arms, it wasn’t enough.

It had only taken one night for the heat from their fling to quickly spiral into emotions deeper than he’d been expecting.

Then again, it wasn’t truly a few days or just one night, was it? He’d known Brooke a hell of a lot longer than any of the women he’d been with before. As a kid, spending every summer next door to her for nearly ten years, at bonfires and waterskiing and hiking in the mountains together, he’d loved her the same way he loved his family. Because that’s what she’d been and still was. Family.

But now? He’d be a liar if he didn’t admit that the love he felt for her was a whole hell of a lot bigger. Stronger. And completely different from the love he had for his family or his other friends.

His cell phone rang, and though he wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone with his head and gut this twisted up, when he saw that it was Ben, he picked up. "You’ve found something?"

"Still putting things together," Ben said. "I’ve got a question for you."

Though Rafe wanted to push him, he knew Ben was adamant about triple-verifying everything before he would make an accusation. It was one of the reasons Rafe had been able to trust his colleague to keep the business running while he was here at the lake.

"Shoot."

"One name keeps coming up in association with Delacorte in the past six months. I wanted to check in with you about it, though, before I go any further. Do you know a Brooke Jansen?"

"She’s my g—"

Damn it, she wasn’t actually his girlfriend, was she? That wasn’t in their summer-fling agreement.

Reminding himself that all Ben needed to do his job were the facts, Rafe told him, "We’re next-door neighbors at the lake. I’ve been close to her since we were kids."

"Right," Ben said, clearly already knowing all of that. "That’s why I wanted to call before I went any further. Normally, since she’s Delacorte’s business partner, I’d do some digging into her details as well."

Rafe had been so wrapped up in Brooke—and his concern about the possibility that she had partnered with someone who couldn’t be trusted—that he hadn’t thought things all the way through. Of course she would come up in the course of the investigation. If Rafe hadn’t had a personal relationship with her, Ben would have simply done his job without asking questions. Instead, Rafe now had to make a judgment call about how to proceed.

At his prolonged silence, Ben finally asked, "Do you want me to investigate her, too?"

The word no was on the tip of Rafe’s tongue. Brooke was an open book who looked at the rest of the world with trust shining from her pretty eyes. People with skeletons in their closets didn’t smell like sunshine or laugh so often and so easily.

But how many times before had he been proved wrong? Especially during those early years of doing investigations when he didn’t want to face up to what the real world actually looked like, what it was really made of.

He had to ask himself if the real reason he was reluctant to have Ben look more closely into Brooke’s history and the details of her life was because he was afraid of what his employee would find. Because if Rafe really believed Brooke would come out of the investigation clean and pure and honest, then why would he stop Ben from completing the full investigation into her business partner, one that would have involved her in any case?

And, if he really was thinking along the lines of a deeper, stronger love for her—something that sounded a hell of a lot like forever—shouldn’t he be completely sure about everything she’d done between the ages of eight and twenty-six?

"Go ahead."

"With everything?" Ben asked, double-checking even this.

Rafe ignored the tightening in his gut as he confirmed, "Yes, everything," before they disconnected.

Having Ben do this background check on Brooke was the only way to be one hundred percent sure.

And Rafe had never needed to be this sure about anyone before.

* * *

Brooke was knuckle deep in chocolate ganache when her phone rang. She’d been waiting all afternoon for Cord to let her know how many boxes of truffles he needed for the press. Assuming it was him, she hit the speaker button on her phone with her cleanest finger and said hello.