But nothing, whispered the relentless voice in his brain, nothing could 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 she had used 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?

Taking a beer to the sofa, she turned on the television and began scrolling through movies, hoping to find something to take her mind off the anger and anguish that rolled through her every time she thought of Gavin.

But, of course, a Julian Best movie came up in her queue because she rewatched them all the time. She scooped Pie up from her lap and laid her cheek against the cat’s neck, trying to soothe herself with the sound of purring.

Gavin had battered her heart with his lack of trust. She had done nothing to deserve that from him. She knew he had been betrayed by other women he loved, but she was a different person. A spurt of hot, righteous anger punched through her. Was he too damaged to see that?

Allie wanted to rage at him, to defend herself from his insulting accusations. But she understood, too. All that sarcasm was just a facade, protecting his poet’s soul. He wanted to believe in love, so he made himself vulnerable to it. And when the person he loved let him down, he imagined he wasn’t worthy. She’d been through that with Troy, thinking there was something wrong with her because her ex had told her so over and over again. She began to assume that she brought that behavior on herself. Her stomach churned at the memory.

So Gavin thought he evoked betrayal. That it was his fault.

Maybe if they’d had longer together, he wouldn’t have condemned her unfairly, no matter how damning Hugh’s news seemed. But their relationship had exploded with such suddenness that it had no solid foundation.

“Why do I have to be so darned sympathetic? Why can’t I just get mad at him for being a jerk?” she muttered into Pie’s fur. The little cat squirmed, so she set her back down on the sofa cushion.

She needed the strength of anger to combat the most serious of her problems. She loved Gavin, and the ache of losing him burrowed inside her like one of those underground coal seam fires, searing through her without any hope of being extinguished. For a moment she doubled over, her hands braced on her knees as the pain flared in her heart.

Pushing herself back to a sitting position, Allie took a long swig of beer and chose a movie at random. Working Girl.

“That’s what I need,” she said, her spine straightening. “Work.”

Her former boss at Havilland knew she was anxious for a job, but it might pay to remind him tomorrow morning. Then she remembered Ben Cavill, whose business card was on her dresser. She’d drop him an e-mail right now. Being constructive was better than crying over a man.

Pie glared when Allie launched herself off the couch to grab her laptop and the doctor’s card. She took her time composing the e-mail, then read it out loud. “So what do you think?” she asked Pie. “I want to sound confidently available, not pathetically overeager.”

She hit “Send” and started the movie again. When the secretary Tess dressed up in borrowed designer clothing to go to a party she wasn’t invited to, Allie decided it was a bad choice and turned it off.