Page 113 of The VIP Doubles Down

All he felt was cold, chilled to his core. Guilt hacked at him for his hope that Allie was feeling it, too. He banged the window closed and tossed back the rest of his bourbon before going for a refill.

He threw himself into a leather armchair but stood up again to pace the room.

It took every ounce of his willpower not to race to the front door and drag Allie back into his house. Without her, the walls seemed to echo with loneliness.

“Damn it!” He knocked into a small table and sent it crashing onto the floor, its collection of knickknacks shattering. He’d had enough to drink that his balance was going. Still he walked, because what did it matter if he broke every object in the room? He had the money to replace them all.

But nothing, whispered the relentless voice in his brain,nothingcould replace Allie.

Hugh had said not to jump to conclusions. Allie had told him to figure out who else could have done this. Was that just her way of throwing him off her track, or could someone else be the guilty party?

The bourbon was making his thoughts spin in useless circles, dredging up flashes of Allie bending over him, her face upside down as she moved his head with her strong little hands. And Allie stroking Pie while she read Gavin’s work on the computer screen, so engrossed she didn’t notice him approaching. And Allie curled against him in bed, her body warm and lax from their lovemaking.

A wordless groan tore out of his throat.

What did it matter if shehadused her connection with him? People did it all the time. He needed to toughen up and accept that his wealth and position evoked a certain response in others.

Another Allie moment whirled up from the recesses of his memory. They’d been talking about her ex-husband, and he’d asked her about regrets. He’d heard the sense of failure in her voice. But she’d been so Allie as she turned her lemons into sugar-sweetened lemonade. She’d said that she wished her ex-husband well, but Gavin could see the relief in her eyes that he was three thousand miles away.

Would she invite that pain back into her life by helping her ex?

“How the hell should I know?” Gavin muttered, leaning against the mantel to stare into the cold, empty grate of the fireplace.

If she wouldn’t, who would? Who else knew him and knew Troy?

Realization seared through him like an electric shock, and he jerked away from the mantel.

Irene. She was an actress. She lived in LA.Troy was an actor who’d just moved to LA. So they easily could have met.

He pushed the intercom. “Ludmilla, please bring a large pot of coffee to my office.”

Holding on to the banister with a death grip, he climbed up the stairs and dropped into the chair in front of his computer. If he typed very slowly, he could get most of the letters right as he googled Irene and Troy in combination.

And there it was. They worked together in a soap opera.

The welcome scent of coffee preceded Ludmilla into the room. “Where you want it, Mr.Gavin?”

“Right here.”

Ludmilla carried the brass-and-wood tray over and lowered it carefully onto the desk. “Ms.Allie is all right?”

Clearly, his housekeeper didn’t have the same restraint as her husband. “She’s fine,” Gavin snapped.

All the warmth and concern left Ludmilla’s face. “Yes, sir,” she said, her voice without inflection. “You want anything else?”

Now he’d alienated her, too, but he didn’t have the energy to apologize right now. “I’m good.”

She stalked out of the room, her back ramrod straight.

Gavin poured himself a mug of the powerful coffee and drank down half of it, trying to clear his brain enough to puzzle out what Irene would have to gain by sending Troy to audition for a nonexistent movie.

He stared into the steam rising from the mug and debated whether he really wanted to know.

Because then the guilt of what he’d done to Allie might just destroy him.

Chapter 29

Allie wondered why she’d bothered to drag herself out of bed in the morning. Sleet ticked against the windowpane, Pie had hacked up a hair ball on the comforter, and there was no tea or coffee in her pantry. She opened the refrigerator to get orange juice, saw a six-pack of beer, and thought,What the hell?