Seduction on the Sand (The Billionaires of Barefoot Bay #2) by Roxanne St. Claire Page A

that happy, but the same woman forever? That was not easy enough for Elliott Becker. That was downright...difficult.  
    He signed off the call and picked up the two pictures again, looking at them side by side, imagining that little—
    “Can I help you find something?”
    He jerked around, stunned that he hadn’t heard her come in. “Just looking at your pictures.”
    “Also known as invading my privacy.” She strode closer and took the photos, placing them exactly where they’d been on the bureau.  
      “What happened to your parents?” he asked, letting his gaze shift to the other picture.  
    She swallowed, hard. “9/11.” Her words were so gruff, so soft, he almost didn’t understand. But then he did. And he felt his own shoulders sink with the truth.
    “Both of them?” God, that wasn’t fair. So, so not fair.
    She blew out the slowest, saddest breath he’d ever heard, closing her eyes. “Both of them.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and he couldn’t stop himself from reaching to her and pulling her into his arms.  
    “Frankie, I’m sorry.”
    She was stiff at first, but then she molded into him with the next sad sigh. “Not as sorry as I am.”
    Something in his heart just twisted and cracked and fell right open. Easing her down on the bed purely so he could sit and hold her, he stroked her hair off her face and looked into her eyes.  
    He shouldn’t do this. He shouldn’t get personal or care. Zeke and Nate wanted this land, and when they wanted something, they got it. She’d just be the collateral damage of their unstoppable success. Well-paid collateral damage.
    His job was to figure out how to get this land, not how to understand her heart. That’s why they’d sent him.
    Still, he couldn’t help himself. “Tell me about them,” he whispered.
    He felt her lean further into him, one step closer to trust he knew in his gut he didn’t deserve. Trust he’d be betraying soon. But he held her anyway because there was no way he couldn’t. No way.

Chapter Six
     
    Comfort. Sweet, strong, delicious comfort in the form of muscular arms wrapped around her and a bare chest beating with a heart she wanted to rest against. The consolation felt so good and necessary when she let herself slip to that sad place, so Frankie just let herself fall into Elliott’s embrace.  
    “I really don’t talk about it, about them.” She swallowed against the rock in her throat, sniffing the lingering smell of lavender and sea salt. “You used my goat’s milk soap.”
    “That creamy stuff?”
    She nodded and sniffed again. She’d never smelled it on anyone but herself, and on him it was divine. “I made it.”
    “Nice.” She could feel his face move in a smile against her head. “And nice attempt at a subject change. Talk to me, Frankie.”
    She exhaled, knowing this man well enough to realize he wouldn’t let her stand up and go on until he got what he wanted. Inching back, she met his gaze, unashamed of her tears. “My parents are the reason you can’t sway me with money. I really do believe it is the root of all and every evil, including the greed that stole their lives.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “Greed didn’t drive jets into the World Trade Center, Frankie.”
    “No, but greed had my parents insisting on being workaholics, never missing a day, even an hour. Even that day, when...” She fought the lump again, the injustice, the bad timing, the big fat what if that had ruled her life for so long after September 11, 2001.
    Every time she’d heard a miracle story about someone who hadn’t gone to work at the Twin Towers that day, she choked on her own “what ifs.”
    “What if they’d skipped work that morning to come to the school open house instead, like they promised they would?” she asked, giving voice to a question she’d asked herself a million times. “What if they’d chosen to meet my new teacher like all the other parents? What if they had a story like that…and