I scanned it quickly, recognizing most names. But not the one that I was looking for.
She’s not on it.
She wasn’t on the guest list? How was that possible?
“Thanks Kat,”
Back in my office, I leaned back in my chair and rubbed a hand over my face.
How did you get there?
I crashed.I remembered her teasing, before I implied how unlikely that was.
26
SCOTT
“I need to ask you something,”I said after I’d plated our dinner on my dining room table later that night.
Isabel looked up from my kitchen counter where she was hovering over her laptop shooting out some follow ups that had apparently been on a mile long to-do list for work.
We’d been spending most evenings together and the last three weekends, so it was no surprise she’d turned down dinner with me tonight to catch up.
But since I had a business trip to California planned for a few days, I had to see her, so insisted she work while I cooked.
“What’s up?” she asked before shutting her laptop and joining me at the table.
I handed her a glass of red, and waited until she took a sip. “Do you remember when I asked how you knew Donovan or Elaine?”
She gulped on the wine and set her glass down. Avoiding my eyes.
Not a good sign.
“Yes.”
I wanted to make her look at me and tell me how she got there without being on the guest list, if she used an alias and why. I wanted to know why the topic made her nervous. Then and now.
But I hate doing that to her.
I hated the idea of making her anxious. The man in me wanted her to feel safe with me, to trust me.
But the ruthless businessman in me wanted answers. Needed to know if I was being lied to. Needed to understand the unexplainable.
“Were you a plus one?”
“Excuse me?”
Hell if I knew where I was going with this. I just knew my next words couldn’t be;What the hell were you doing there? Tell me the truth.
“Donovan asked me about you and said he doesn’t remember an Isabel on the guest list, so I figured you were just someone’s plus one.” I kept my voice as even and unaffected as I could get it. She wouldn’t feel threatened.
Not by me.
She looked up at me. “I wasn’t a guest.”
I blinked. Waiting for more.
“When I told you I crashed…I was telling you the truth.”
