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La Costa was twenty-five hundred words into the first draft of her next romance trilogy, with the working title: The Jess Trader Chronicles, when Henry emerged from the bedroom, dressed and ready for the day. He leaned in behind her at the keyboard and nuzzled her neck with a chin full of prickly stubble.
“I know you don’t think that you can come up in here without a clean-shaven face and kiss me,” La Costa teased.
He knew how much she hated his scratchy post-dawn beard, but it was already past eight, and he had to get to the bistro.
“I’m sorry, babe. I have to run. I wouldn’t be so grizzled if you would have let me get any sleep last night,” he said, pulling her hands from the keyboard and wrapping them around his neck. “My staff doesn’t mind the new look. Everyone knows that I’ve gone to seed since you stole my heart.”
“Is that so? Seems to me that someone passed out last night after too much wine and turkey. Once our guests were gone, so were you. As soon as you hit the pillow!” La Costa said, straightening his collar. He looked adorable in his button-down shirt and starched chinos. Who would have ever thought that her type was this delicious-smelling, intoxicating, clean-cut white man, Henry Paige? Certainly not her.
“Where’s Louis?” Henry asked, reaching for his car keys and slipping the Tumi satchel strap over his shoulder.
“He went back to the hotel with Tess and her family. They are taking him with them on the road trip to San Diego. He and Reyce are like brothers. Said he wanted to go.”
“So that means . . . ?” Henry smiled.
“We are going to be blissfully alone for the next couple of days. They will drop Louis off when they make their way back to LAX on Sunday to fly back to New York.”
“Oh,” Henry said with a sly smile. “We will definitely have to take advantage of that.”
“You read my mind,” La Costa said. “But not before I get this word count done for the day. Till then, I can’t even think about that, so go on and get. I have work to do.”
Henry gave her another kiss and squeezed her waist. “Don’t work too hard. Dinner tonight at my place?”
“It’s a date. Now, go!” La Costa said.
Not two minutes after he had left, La Costa’s phone buzzed. It was a call from South Carolina.
“Ms. Jackson?” The voice on the other end of the line was terse and formal. “I am attorney Anderson T. Wade. I have some unpleasant news to tell you about a Ms. Georgia Byrne. I am sorry to say that she passed away ten days ago.”
La Costa sat, stunned and silent, in the chair, staring at the blinking cursor on the screen. She barely heard the lawyer’s voice droning on the other end of the line as tears welled up in her eyes and her body started to tremble.
“I am handling the details concerning the terms of the will, which has been presented to court for probate on behalf of her executor. You have been named in the terms of Ms. Byrnes’s will as a person of interest in the estate. Her great-niece is requesting that I contact you. When can you be here?”