“I bet Hiro doesn’t know this part. Or he does, and you’re still dangling the bait. And while you wait until he swallows the whole fishing rod, you welcome diversions?”
“Why not? I’m a free agent so far.” She uncoiled to her full statuesque height. “But I’ve had enough of indulging your role-playing fetish. Let’s revisit this when you decide to talk to me, not your imaginary character.”
Without lingering one more second, she turned away. He watched her receding, a flame-haired goddess of the night dissolving into her domain, his thoughts tangling.
Had he made a gigantic fool of himself? All evidence said so. His instincts, however, still screamed their contradictory verdict.
Exasperation rumbled from his gut as he lunged after her, grabbed her by the waist and slammed her against his length.
A gasp swelled in her chest as he stabbed a hand into the heavy silk at her nape, tethering her head. In the golden illumination of fire-lit lanterns, her eyes held his in utmost composure, belying her ragged moan at his roughness. And he crashed his lips over hers, swallowing the intoxicating sound.
Her lips parted wide under his onslaught, letting him plunge into her depths, her flesh softening to accommodate his impacting hardness. Her surrender blazed through his nerves. But it was certainty that singed his every cell.
This. This was her unforgotten feel and taste, her inimitable delight. This was her.
The beast that had been perpetually clawing inside him finally tore free. It devoured her, everything inside him roaring with remembrance. Of every minute of deprivation of the five years after she’d left him. Craving more. Needing closure.
Then it swelled. Disgust. With himself. Over the only weakness he’d ever suffered, this susceptibility to her. It towered, then crashed, made him tear his lips from hers, push away from the body that had seemed to melt into his every recess.
Stumbling back at the abruptness of his withdrawal, she leaned against the nearest wall, the only discernible reaction to his explosive kiss her faster breathing.
Then, through those lips he’d just ravished, her voice washed over him, calm, collected...but hers at last.
“What gave me away?”
“Everything.”
The word boomed in the silence of the garden house. Its reverberations hung in the charged air between them, dripping with bitterness, heavy with five years of unresolved anger.
Not even a blip in her gaze or posture demonstrated any agitation. Only a slight tremor of her now-swollen lips betrayed any reaction to his fury. One that stilled at once, making him think he’d imagined it.
Which he probably had. Meeting him hadn’t fazed her at all. And why should it have? She’d come to the ball knowing she’d see him. It was he who’d gotten the shock of his life.
Then, as calmly, she said, “We both know that can’t be true. Not even I recognize the woman who looks back at me in the mirror as myself.”
She was right. Even on such close-up inspection, there wasn’t the least trace of his treacherous lover in her. He’d changed his looks to eliminate perfect resemblance to his old self, but she had totally different facial features and bone structure. Even her complexion looked different. Hannah had had alabaster skin, the kind he’d thought would burn, not tan. But this Scarlett’s tan looked effortless, her skin even, velvet honey. And the deep shade of burgundy of her hair looked natural, too, when Hannah had been an equally convincing platinum blonde. All those changes were certainly artificial, even if their result looked 100 percent real. The only changes that could be natural were her body’s. Maturity and heels could account for the appreciation in her curves and height.
But all in all, this woman bore no resemblance to the one who’d been in his bed every day of those five months, whose every inch he’d memorized and worshipped.
He cocked his head at her, drenching her from head to toe in disdain. “I assume this is my money’s worth? This total and undetectable transformation?”
Her expression remained tranquil, assessing him back. “I wouldn’t call it undetectable. At least, not anymore. You detected me.” She let out a conceding sigh. “I did have some incredibly costly surgeries to reconfigure my face from the bone structure up. And though your money did foot the bills, along with the other cosmetic and stylistic measures needed to complete the transformation, not even all that cost anywhere near fifty million dollars. The whole thing cost around two million. A couple more financed the creation of my new identity with a whole history and paper trail for it.”
“So you still have millions to spare. Or did you invest those into billions? Was that how you got into Hiro’s inner circle, through the doors only that kind of money opens?”
Her lashes lowered before rising to strike him with a flash of azure. “I sort of...crashed my way into that.”
His simmering blood tumbled in a boil. “So you’re still using your old tried-and-true methods.”
“Why change what works?” Suddenly her expression became distant, as if reversing into the past to the crash she’d manufactured to enter his life. “It was a different sort of crash.” Her eyes refocused on him, resumed being supremely placid. “Even if just as effective. But though I put your money to the best use possible, alas, the Midas touch that turns millions into ever-increasing billions remains firmly yours.”
Teeth gritting, he bunched hands stinging with the need to grab her again at his sides. “You seem very much at ease with divulging your machinations and secrets now.”
A graceful shoulder rose in an easy shrug. “You already found me out. And I’m still waiting to hear how you did.”
“It was your eyes.”
Those eyes filled with mock reprimand. “They were what I worked on most, so I’m pretty sure they’re unrecognizable.”
“I recognized the color.”
“You can’t possibly have recognized me from just that.”
“It’s a unique color, and changes hue in as unique a way. I used to be fascinated by its fluctuations, thought they corresponded to shifts in your emotions. Then I found out you have none, and those were just a response to variations in lighting.”
A still moment, then a tinge of sarcasm entered those eyes that were totally different, yet, to him, somehow exactly the same. “Are you telling me I owe being exposed to a fixation you had with my eye color and some trick of light I wasn’t even aware of? And you’re sticking with that story?”
“I felt you.”
His hiss wiped the provocation off her face. She’d cornered him into admitting her relentless hold over him, and that even without evidence, he’d always know her.
Now that the admission was out, he might as well go all the way. “I felt you before I turned to see you on Hiro’s arm. Not even millions of dollars’ worth of permanent disguise was able to wipe off the inimitable imprint you left on my senses.” He cocked his head, his gaze spearing hers. “How about that story? You find it more plausible? More satisfactory?”
Her gaze had emptied, and now her voice followed suit. “I had no idea I’d left such an indelible mark. It’s why I thought it okay to come here tonight. I thought there was no danger you’d sense the least familiarity, let alone recognize me outright. I met many people who knew me well in my previous...incarnations, and none even felt any vague resemblance.”
“I’m not ‘people.’”
Her