Engaged in Embellishments: Tulle and Tulips, Book 5.5 Read Free Page B

didn’t seem good enough to simply say “I’m sorry”.

Chapter Four
    Lori had woken with the realization that a day had passed without a proposal from Trevor. Betrayal and abandonment had warred with each other and clouded her mind. As a former spy, one habit she’d never released was always having an exit plan. She’d taken a stash of cash and one of her former IDs out of her purse’s secret lining and rented a room in the hotel.
    It had never been her plan to use the backups, and certainly not as a way to hide from Trevor, but old habits became instinct when she found herself backed into a corner. Even an emotional one.
    Wrapped in a robe from the hotel, she curled up under the covers and stared blankly at the TV. She’d seen the movie that was on before, but she couldn’t think of the name. She didn’t really care.
    She only cared about figuring out why the lack of a proposal one day had the power to shatter her. It was ridiculous and didn’t mean Trevor felt any different today than he had yesterday. She certainly wasn’t a weak woman who needed a man to complete her.
    Her phone rang. It would be Trevor, but she didn’t bother getting up to answer it. She wasn’t ready to talk to him, to face whatever it was that had driven her away from him.
    She wanted Trevor though. She wanted him as much now as she had when they’d first met. He consumed her thoughts as completely as he had when she’d been kidnapped and held captive. The memory of his touch lived as vividly in her mind as it had when she’d been recovering and living under protection before the trial of the madame she’d helped bring down.
    Everything about Trevor and the way she felt with him was… She struggled to name what it was because it was unlike anything she’d experienced. Maybe that made it normal, maybe that made her normal for the first time.
    A proposal of marriage was a normal part of life. Perhaps that’s why she’d latched on to the power of them and hadn’t accepted one yet. If this kind of pain was normal, she wasn’t sure she was cut out for it.
    Her phone rang several more times. She let it go to voicemail every time, and every time it jingled with the notification of a new message.
    Testing her strength, she retrieved the phone and dialed her voicemail. Trevor was in a panic looking for her. The longer she listened to him, the more she felt like an ass for making him worry. She’d selfishly only thought about her own misery and hadn’t given any real thought to the fact that her disappearance would sweep him back to the time when he hadn’t been able to find her. When he now knew she’d been held captive and tortured.
    Sinking into the depths of selfish sorrow, she listened to his last voicemail.
    “Lori.” Defeat was evident in his tone, and it exacerbated the self-loathing currently filling her. The man who never begged was begging. He’d never let her down and now she was letting him down. “I let you down, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Please let me know where you are. That you’re okay. That we can talk. I really need to talk to you.
    “I’m at the beach; you know the spot.”
    The beach was the last place she’d go, which was probably why he’d gone there to look for her. He’d expect her to do the unexpected. Or at least he’d hoped she would.
    “I’ll be here in case you want to talk before the wedding. If I don’t see you before, know that I’ll still be there for you. I love you, and I’m sorry I caused your heart pain.”
    As hurt as she’d felt, she wondered if he wasn’t suffering more. He sounded like it. Changing back into her clothes, she went to the door to go to him. To apologize for her stupidity and selfishness. She couldn’t make herself grip the doorknob. She couldn’t convince herself to go to the beach where her world had first fallen apart.
    He would come to her if she told him where she was, and that was tempting. Very tempting. It was also the reason she