“Tell me your real name.”
“Daniel,” he replied. “Daniel Burnett.”
“And you’re from?”
“Anywhere,” he said, shaking his head. “Nowhere. Doesn’t matter, Abby. Nothing matters. Not if you’re really going to marry him. I made a lot of mistakes, but the worst was falling in love with you.”
She snorted, not caring that it was unattractive and unladylike. “That was your biggest error? The so-called falling-in-love part? Not the lying or the scheming or the fact that you took the one thing my grandmother left me when she died?”
“No, that’s not what I meant. That was wrong, too. All of it. But it’s what I do. It’s who I am…or who I was, before I met you.”
She glared at him, willing herself to ignore how sincere he looked, how broken.
“And you expect me to believe that after all those carefully crafted lies, you’re now telling me the truth? You’re reformed? Just like that?”
“No. I mean, yes, I want you to believe me. I need you to believe me. I’m not reformed. I don’t know if that’s even possible, but I do love you.”
She contained a bitter chuckle. God, how had she become so jaded so fast?
Falling for a liar like Daniel Burnett had definitely helped.
“And why should I believe anything you say, Daniel?” she asked, putting a searing emphasis on the name the first time it passed her lips.
“I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“That’s just your conscience.”
“No, that can’t be it.”
“Probably not, since I doubt you even have a conscience.”
“I probably don’t. At least, not one I’ve paid any attention to for a long time. When I do a job, I do a job. I get what I came for, I sell it for the highest price and I walk away. It’s what I do. It’s what I’ve done my whole life. But suddenly, that’s changed. I can’t get you out of my mind. I can’t stop thinking about what I did. Remorse is an emotion I’ve avoided my entire life, and yet that’s gotta be what I’m feeling, right? That has to mean something.”
Abby took a bold, if shaky, step toward the door. This conversation was over. This situation was over. “It means you crossed the line this time, Daniel. It means you went too far. If you want to find my grandmother’s painting and return it, that’s up to you. But I want no part of it—no part of you.”
She reached for the doorknob, but he intercepted her.
“You loved me,” he insisted.
Just a short time ago, his hand on hers would have felt exciting, wicked, thrilling.
Now, it just felt foreign.
And wrong.
“I loved the idea of you. I loved the secrecy and the illicit sex. It was like a drug. But I never meant to hurt anyone. You did. If not for this sudden burst of conscience, you would have walked away without a second thought. I may never forgive myself for my part in this mess, but Marshall has forgiven me. He trusts me to never make that mistake again. That’s what love is, David or Daniel or whoever you are. Maybe someday, you’ll learn about real love, but it won’t be from me.”
Though she didn’t want to, she took one last look at him, with his dark, swarthy skin, close-cropped hair and twinkling green eyes—which had, in the uncertain light, lost their clever confidence. Every muscle, every fiber, every bone in her body ached for him, but she pushed the empathy aside. She couldn’t care about his pain. She couldn’t even believe it existed. Nothing about him was real.
“I’m going to go ask my mother to help me out of this dress. If you’re not gone by the time we get back, I will call the police and I will make sure you’re prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
“Abby, please,” he began, but he stopped when she turned her back and snatched the doorknob.
And with more power and will than she ever thought she possessed, Abby walked away.
2
Present Day…
“IF YOU NEED SOMETHING slick to rub on there, I think I have just the thing.”
Daniel Burnett stopped tugging at the ring caught on his knuckle. He must have looked like a moron, sitting in a New Orleans casino, tugging at his finger as if the gold band was cutting off his circulation. He couldn’t imagine why any woman would proposition him under these circumstances, especially since he probably looked like a schmo trying to hide the evidence of his marital status.
But when he looked up at the woman behind the sultry proposition, he nearly slid right off the bar stool.
Everything about her was different. Her hair, once a straight, unadorned brown, now glimmered with striking copper highlights. Amber eyes once muted behind square-shaped red-framed glasses now flashed from the center of long, dark lashes. Lips she’d once coated only with balm or a pale gloss were now outlined and plump with a rich cognac shade that made him crave a burning, fortifying sip.
“Abby?”
She arched a brow. “Wow, and here I thought you wouldn’t recognize me after all these years.”
“I’d know you anywhere.”
The words were out before he could stop them, before he could put a lid on the Pandora’s box of emotions flying through him. He never thought he’d see her again—never wanted to. He’d avoided taking any jobs in Chicago—hell, he avoided the whole Midwest altogether. He’d survived Abby once, but barely. A woman like her was lethal.
Dangerous.
Gorgeous.
He grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and shrugged into it. He eyed the door. His flight wasn’t leaving for another six hours, but maybe he’d be smart to head out to the airport now. Maybe he’d rent a car and drive back to California.
Or maybe he’d just crawl under a rock.
She leaned in close so that her breath, sweet with mint, caressed the skin on his neck and ear. “Come on, Daniel. After all these years, you’re not going to at least tell me how beautiful I look?”
This was the advantage of meeting up again with a woman who already knew you were an asshole. He could look his fill and she wouldn’t think any less of him—it wasn’t possible. She took a step back, hooked one hand onto her slim waist and waited while he drank in the whole delectable picture.
He deserved this. The torture of dragging his gaze up her long, tanned legs cut at his core. Her curved hips, trim waist and slim belly taunted him so that he nearly squeezed his eyes shut before he reached her sweet, round breasts. But as much as he wanted to look away, he couldn’t.
The flavor of her skin danced on the memory of his tongue. The sound of her pleasured moans echoed through his dreams. The feel of her lips lingering on every intimate part of him was like a chained ghost, haunting him with the sins of his past.
The irony that Abigail Albertini would show up in New Orleans the very night Danny had done the first good deed in his life couldn’t be denied. He glanced at the stupid ring his brother had shoved onto his finger less than an hour ago, as a reward for Danny’s help in rescuing Michael’s lover from a crazed rapist. His younger brother had spouted some nonsense about how the two-hundred-year-old heirloom would change his life, but Danny hadn’t believed a word.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
“Like what you see?” she asked boldly.
He tried not to groan as she twisted sideways so that the full impact of her curves hit him like a battering ram.
He reached