Instead, she’d lied to him from beginning to end.
Justice escaped the bed in one fluid movement and crossed the room. Ripping open the closet, he snagged the first pair of slacks that came to hand and yanked them on, struggling for control. Damn it to hell, where had his control gone? It had always been like that with her. She possessed an uncanny knack for pushing the exact right buttons guaranteed to turn his carefully laid plans inside out and upside down.
“Justice?” Her sleepy voice came from the warmth of the bed, slow and sweet and contented. And oh, so false.
He snatched a deep breath. Then another. His temper might be held by a tenuous thread, but at least it held. He turned and faced her. “Good morning.”
She blinked the sleep from jade-green eyes, focusing in on him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’d like you to leave now.”
She sat up in bed. Her hair should have been snarled and knotted with snakes, like Medusa’s head. Instead, the wheat-blond length tumbled straight as a waterfall to her shoulders. The sheet dipped toward her waist exposing the lovely apple-breasts he’d found so unbearably sweet last night. In the morning light, he could see the nipples were rosy pink, the same rosy pink as the color sweeping across her cheekbones.
It didn’t make sense to him. She was a snake in the grass. An asp posed to strike. And yet, he didn’t think he’d ever seen a more beautiful sight. How was that possible?
She blinked those impossibly green eyes at him. “I’m sorry. Did … did you just ask me to leave?”
“Yes.”
Good. Short and to the point. No mistaking the response, either. She was a woman. They tended to take longer to dress and do whatever it was women did in the morning. He ran a fast calculation. Chances were excellent that she’d be gone in just under nine-point-four minutes.
“There is something wrong. What is it?”
She shot from the bed and seeing her in the sunlight, every inch of her on full display, nearly brought Justice to his knees. No question. If he survived the next nine-point-three minutes it would be a miracle. And he didn’t believe in miracles.
“I remember who you are.”
“You do?” She smiled in delight. “That’s great. How did you figure it out?”
“Your tattoo.” That damnable tattoo. “Seeing it has somehow forged a connection between my consciousness and that particular set of memories.”
“Was that all it took?” She had the nerve to laugh. “I’m surprised your own tattoo didn’t do that.”
“I don’t have a tattoo.”
“Sure you do. A panther’s paw with claw marks to match my cat’s eyes.” She pointed. “It’s there on your hip—” She broke off, distress causing her to catch her lower lip between her teeth, a lip he’d taken great delight in catching between his own teeth only hours earlier. “Oh, Justice. There’s only a scar there now. I’m so sorry.”
“Stop it, Daisy.” He cut her off with a slice of his hand. “Your tattoo is merely a catalyst. I don’t just remember who you are. I also remember what you did.”
“What I did?”
A tiny line formed between her brows. Excellent. Maybe it would encourage wrinkles to form and she’d be less appealing. Of course, that might take thirty years. Or even fifty, depending on her genetics. He didn’t think he could wait that long. He needed her out now.
“You lied about your age that summer. You told me you were seventeen. You told me you would be a high school senior to my college freshman, just one year behind me. Instead, you were a fifteen-year-old child.”
“Almost sixteen,” she retorted, stung. “And I lied because I knew you wouldn’t kiss me if I told you the truth.”
“Kiss you?” The thread holding his temper snapped. He literally heard it, the sound as loud and sharp as the crack of a whip. He came at her, not even realizing he moved until he caught her shoulders in his hands and yanked her onto her toes. “I made love to you. You were a damn virgin. You were … untouchable and I touched you. The one true home I’d had since my parents died and you ruined it for me. Took it from me. I lost my scholarship because of you because I was no longer of ‘good character.’” Dear God that had hurt. Devastated. “Because of you Harvard wouldn’t touch me.”
“What?” He couldn’t mistake the shock on her face. Nor could she have faked the way every scrap of color drained from her face and the pupils of her eyes narrowed to pinpricks. “Oh, Justice. I’m so sorry. They told me you’d left early for college … I never realized …”
He released her and stepped away. “Put on your clothes.”
That brought color back to her face. Without a word, she snatched up the various bits and pieces scattered across the suite and dressed. Even that she did with grace and elegance, and Justice turned his back, unable to watch without—Without wanting her again. Without touching her again. Without snatching her into his arms, carrying her to that bed and making love to her until they were both too exhausted to move. How the hell could he still want her after what she’d done?
“Justice?”
He hadn’t heard her approach, but he sure as hell felt her tentative touch on his bare arm. He almost broke, catching himself at the last instant. He turned on her, wanting her to understand just how much she’d cost him. How he’d never forgive her duplicity.
“That final home, that place—” he practically spit out the word “—they put me those final months was the worst of them all. They knew what I’d done and treated me …” He broke off, shaking his head, his back teeth clamping as he fought back the blistering spill of emotions. Emotions he refused to acknowledge. Refused to allow to touch him ever again. “When I turned eighteen, they kicked me loose. I had nowhere to go, no one to help me. No job or money and no chance of acquiring either.”
Her breath hitched throughout his recital, disbelief warring with … It took him a moment to identify the emotion. Pain? Heartbreak? “I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t.”
Tears came then, sliding down her cheeks and reddening her eyes and nose. She wasn’t a pretty crier. Instead of pleasing him, the discovery bothered him on some deep, visceral level, perhaps because it suggested that her tears were sincere. He should have taken pleasure in her distress, felt some sort of redemption. Once upon a time he might have. But not now. Not after all these years. He struggled to ignore the tears, using her emotion to lock away his own. To distance himself from that long-ago time.
“Are you even an engineer?” he demanded.
“No, of course not.”
Of course not? God save him from illogical women. “You are at an engineering conference. Only engineers were permitted to attend the keynote speech. No guests. No media. No—” He made an impatient gesture. “Whatever you are.”
“I write and illustrate children’s storybooks.”
It was so far out of expectation that it took him a split second to adjust his thinking. “Then, what the hell were you doing at my speech?”
“I saw your name and photograph on one of the hotel placards and recognized you. I slipped in on impulse.”
“You told me you were an engineer.”
She scrubbed impatiently at her cheeks before planting her hands on her hips. “I most certainly did not. In fact, I told you I wasn’t.”
He sorted through their time together and came up empty. “No, you didn’t.”
“It