“But that would have defeated the purpose of taking me out to lunch,” she said, her voice devoid of inflection. Of emotion. Of Becca. “So what would be the point?”
He said her name as the heavy doors slid closed behind them, enclosing them in the lush maroon-and-gold elevator car. But it was too quiet, suddenly, too close, and she was still standing there like a soldier.
“I had no idea that was what it felt like,” she continued in that same empty voice. “All those cameras. All those people. So many of them, and so close.” She squared her shoulders, in a show of bravery that seemed to roll through him, leaving marks.
“Becca,” he said again, but she wasn’t listening to him.
“But this is what you wanted, isn’t it?” She slid her sunglasses up over her forehead and into her hair, and fixed him with those mossy-green eyes, so serious now, so dark. “I assume that’s why you didn’t prepare me. So I wouldn’t look confident, or used to them. So I would look fragile instead. Like someone just recovered from a collapse and fresh from private rehab somewhere should look.”
He had never hated himself more than he did at that moment. She was not even condemning him—which made it that much worse. She was simply accepting his ulterior motives, and he could not pretend that they weren’t true. That he hadn’t had exactly that thought, that hope. That he hadn’t set the scene with exactly that end in mind.
What did that make him? He almost laughed at himself then—make him? This was clearly who he already was. Who he’d been for some time. What that meant, he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to know.
“Becca,” he said again, his voice unusually thick—as if it belonged to someone else. “I’m—”
“Don’t you dare apologize!” she snapped at him, some kind of temper flaring in her—but at least that was better than the blankness. “This was the deal. This is the job. Did I say I couldn’t handle it?”
“I didn’t know you,” he said, urgently, not meaning to move closer to her, not meaning to take her shoulders in his hands, not meaning to draw her into him, so her head tilted back and she looked up at him with those damned eyes of hers, that seemed to turn him into a stranger to himself. “I didn’t know you at all. I only knew that you looked like her. I had no idea that this would be anything but a game for you to play.”
She looked at him, and he had the uncomfortable sense that she saw things he didn’t even realize were there. Something dark passed over her face, and when she smiled, it was brittle.
“Who says that it’s not?” she asked. “It turns out that I’m good at passing for a spoiled little princess. Who could have guessed?” She laughed, a little bit wildly. “It must be those Whitney genes, after all.”
“Don’t do this,” he said then, that urgency moving through him, making his voice rougher than it should have been.
“I don’t understand,” she said, her own voice uneven in return, the wildness fading from her expression, and something far older, far sadder, taking its place. “Is it that you don’t want me to play this game according to the rules you set up yourself? Or is it that you don’t want me to be any good at it?”
He found himself shaking his head, found his fingers testing her toned muscles, found himself achingly, shockingly hard. He wanted to answer her with his body. He wanted to lose them both in the only truth that mattered to him right then. The only thing that could set them both free of a game he no longer understood the way he’d thought he would.
“I don’t know,” he said, with brutal honesty. He wanted things he couldn’t name. He wanted. And she was Becca, not Larissa, and he couldn’t seem to find that anything but perfect. Right. And her eyes held all the secret depths of the forest. And he wanted her, most of all. Now. But more than that, he wanted to be the kind of man who never would have hurt her, and it was already much too late.
Electricity seemed to hum in the air, and he could see only her. Only her, and that wild, unmanageable heat that only she seemed to stir in him, reflecting back at him. And then she sighed slightly, and he saw something almost like hopelessness flash in her gaze. But then she blinked, and it was gone.
She smiled then, heartbreaking and real, and he forgot everything but that.
“I didn’t know who you were, Becca,” he gritted out. “I swear.”
“It’s all right,” she whispered. “I know who you are.”
And then she arched up on her toes, hooked an arm around his neck, and pressed her mouth to his.
HIS HANDS MOVED to hold her, both of them warm against her shoulders and then tight on her back, but Theo did not otherwise so much as flinch. His mouth was warm, his lips firm beneath hers, and the feel of him, silk and steel, made her shiver uncontrollably.
But Becca forced herself to pull away, though it seemed much more difficult than it should have been, and dropped back down from her toes. He looked down at her, a slight frown between his remarkable eyes, and she had the sense he was trying to figure her out. As if she was the puzzle. She gazed up at him, her lips still tingling from their contact with his. However brief, she could still feel the heat of him, roaring through her veins, making her heart clatter against her ribs.
The paparazzi outside had been terrifying. More like a pack of wild dogs than people, they had pressed in against her, shouting insults and horrible, vicious questions, while flashbulbs went off again and again, blinding her. But safe inside the elevator, she had wanted to forget. Forget … everything. Did it matter that Theo had proved himself to be as ruthless as he’d always told her he was? She knew that should horrify her, but it hadn’t. It didn’t. After the terrible commotion outside, after the panic that had surged through her and made her wonder if she’d be sucked into the pack of them, whole, Theo had seemed safe in comparison. Or at least, dangerous in an entirely different, somehow more manageable way.
She had felt his hands on her, had seen the heat and the remorse in his penetrating amber gaze, and she just hadn’t seen the point of pretending to be anything but just as fascinated by him as he’d accused her of being. And if she had to run the gauntlet of paparazzi, she’d reasoned, if she had to put up with all the downsides of this glittering role she was playing—why not take advantage of the only upside she could see in all of it?
Careful, the practical side of her had cautioned. You’re too emotional right now, this is much too intense … .
But she’d kissed him anyway. She shouldn’t have done it, she knew. She might very well live to regret it with her whole heart—and yet she could not seem to feel as badly about that as she knew she should.
Instead, she felt exhilarated, as if she could take a running start from one of Theo’s balconies and soar away, high over the proud skyscrapers of Manhattan and into the sky beyond. And yet her eyes still felt too full, too heavy, as if she might cry at any moment. Her hands twitched with the urge to press against her own lips.
It was as if she no longer had control of her own body.
You are entirely too emotional, that prim voice inside of her lectured sternly. You are letting this crazy situation tie you into knots.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, because she didn’t know what else to say. She felt as if she’d run for miles, and could now only shake slightly, ache too deeply and dream of moving that fast, that far, all over again.
“For what?” he asked quietly, his eyes intent on hers, burning into her, branding her. “For kissing me? Or for stopping?”
Becca had no idea how to answer that. She felt her lips part, but no sound came out, and a