“Then why don’t you tell me?”

She’d die first. “You don’t know her at all, do you? You didn’t have a clue how lucky you were. She’s the most loving, most generous, most unselfish person I’ve ever known. She’d have crawled through broken glass for you.” Afraid she’d do something violent if she didn’t move, Lori began to pace. “I was so happy when she told me about you. I could see how much in love she was. Really in love. She wasn’t just taking you under her wing until she could find someone for you.”

“Find someone for me?”

“What do you think she did with all those other men who were dazzled by her?” Lori tossed back. “Oh, she’d try to talk herself into being in love, and thinking they loved her back, and the whole time she’d listen to their problems like some den mother. Then she’d steer them in the direction of some woman she’d decided was perfect for them. She was usually right.”

“She was going to marry—”

“She was never going to marry anyone. Whenever she said yes, it was because she couldn’t bear to hurt anyone’s feelings. And, okay, because she always wanted to have someone she could count on. But however loyal, however sensitive, she is to other people’s feelings, she’s not stupid. She’d tell herself she was going to get married, then she’d go into overdrive finding the guy a substitute.”

“Substitute? Why—?” But Lori wasn’t ready to let him get a word in.

“Not that she ever calculated it that way. But after you watched it happen a couple of times, you saw the pattern. But you…” She whirled back to him. “You broke the pattern. She needed you. You made her cry.” Angry tears glazed Lori’s own eyes. “Not once did I ever see her cry over any man. She’d just slip seamlessly into the my-pal-Bess category, and everyone was happy. But she’s cried buckets over you.”

He felt sick, and small, and he was beginning to understand a great deal about groveling. “Tell me where she is. Please.”

“Why the hell should I?”

“I love her.”

She wanted to snarl at him for daring to say so, but she recognized the same misery in his eyes she’d seen in her friend’s. “Charlie was—”

“No.” He shook his head quickly. “It doesn’t matter.” What did matter was trust, and it was time he gave it. “I don’t need to know. I just need her.”

With a sigh, Lori fingered the square-cut diamond on her left hand. Bess had pushed her into taking the right step with Steven. She could only hope she was doing the same in return. “If you hurt her again, Alex—”

“I won’t.” Then he sighed. “I don’t want to hurt her again, but I probably will.”

She weakened, because it was exactly the thing a man in love would say. “I sent her home. She wasn’t in any shape to work.”

“Dyakuyu.”

“What?”

“Thanks.”

She hated feeling this way. The only way Bess could get from one day to then ext was by telling herself it would get better. It had to get better.