She strained to read his expression, but she couldn’t. She had no clue in that moment how he’d react to her confession, but nothing less than honesty was available to her at that moment. Nothing else would do anymore. She’d reached the end of the script as far as her role.
“I think I might have fallen in love with you a little, as unlikely as that seems, just by looking inside your world, just by watching you breathe, sleep, move and exist,” she said softly. “It’s the only thing that really makes sense, in the end. I know you thought I was some kind of practiced exhibitionist and voyeur, but I’d never done anything like that before. I’m not the kind of woman you were used to.” She gave a ragged laugh at the understatement. “I’m not bold or experienced or sexy—?
?
“Wrong.”
She blinked and glanced at him, startled at his harsh utterance.
“You’re unbelievably sexy. And you may not want to admit it, Eleanor, but you are an exhibitionist. An incredible one. I can’t take my eyes off you when you start to dance.”
Her lower lip trembled. “I’ve never really thought of myself that way before. I was the boring one in the family. The bookworm. In seducing you, I felt like I completely stepped out of myself. I became something different.” She met his stare entreatingly. “But you have to believe me when I say that I wasn’t channeling Caddy to get through my grief. That wasn’t it.”
“Then why did you get so upset when you suspected Caddy and I had been involved?”
“I wasn’t sure what I thought then,” she said starkly. “It all just struck me as so bizarre.”
“Yeah,” he said grimly. “Me too.”
“But it was more than just strange. I felt like Cinderella for a minute there, like the prince was staring at me in rags. That moment, when I realized you and Caddy had a connection, it just seemed like the magic fell away.”
“Magic?”
“Yeah, the illusion I’d created for you disappeared.” She sniffed and swiped at an escaped tear.
“Why then?” Trey demanded. She heard the puzzlement in his tone, and the lump in her throat swelled bigger. “Why did it disappear when you heard I knew Caddy?”
“Because Caddy was the real thing, and I was just a stand-in. That’s what it felt like to me for most of my life, even if I don’t feel that way anymore,” burst out of her throat. She inhaled raggedly when she saw his stunned expression. “Not when it comes to us, anyway.”
Trey seemed to consider what she’d said for a moment.
“Your sister was a special woman. I liked her a lot. Did you know she and I were the same age, and that we had the same graduation years?”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Eleanor said, made wistful for some reason by his question.
“Well, we did. And did you know that my assistant used to bring her hot cocoa when we were working together on something in the office?” he asked with a small smile. Her throat too tight to respond, Eleanor just shook her head. “A little thing you two had in common. The Briggs sisters and their hot chocolate. And I knew about it, firsthand.” He reached and grabbed her hand. He squeezed it warmly. “I thought about it a lot in the past couple weeks. It’s horrible that Arcadia passed so young. But I’m glad I knew her in the time she was here. I’m glad I knew her for you. She was special to you. And I know why, at least partially. That means something, Eleanor.”
He was right. It came to her in a rush of amazement, what a blessing it was that the man she’d fallen in love with had known the light that was Caddy before she’d left this world. He let go of her hand and curved his fingers around her jaw. Her pulse began to throb at her throat when he turned her face to fully meet his stare.
“I admired your sister a lot. But I wasn’t in love with her, Eleanor. Far from it.”
“I know that now,” she assured. “I talked to Sandra Banks, her best friend, about you and Caddy earlier tonight. I guess I just needed an outside source for some perspective. She told me that you were the one to suggest you and Caddy keep things on a professional basis. You didn’t want to cloud things with her and ruin your working relationship.”
“Are you okay with it all, then?”
She met his gaze squarely and nodded.
His finger moved on her cheek. “I don’t know what to say about all this stuff about you acting and not being honest with me. Are you telling me you were faking your attraction to me? Or your response in bed? Your feelings for me in general?”
Heat rushed through her. “God, no. Nobody could be that good of an actor,” she exclaimed.
He exhaled roughly and shook his head. His hand moved, smoothing back the hair at her temple. Her skin tingled beneath his touch. “Then you weren’t acting.”
“As it turns out,” she said incredulously, “I wasn’t. That’s what I’ve been trying to say that I’ve come to realize. I thought that I wanted you so much that I was willing to put on the performance of a lifetime. But apparently—”
“You really are bold and daring and hotter than a firecracker?” he asked, the hint of a smile on his lips.
“With you,” she whispered. “For you.”