My Secret Life. Lori Wilde

wrong?” Katie felt his alarm. Hurriedly, she pulled the mask that had gotten pushed up on top of her head back down over her face and quickly adjusted her wig.

      “Richard?”

      He did not answer, but the coats mumbled as he brushed past them in his effort to get out of the closet and away from her.

      Katie fumbled on the wall for the light switch and found it just as he opened the door.

      The closet was bathed in light.

      Their eyes met.

      The pirate captain raised his palms. Katie found herself staring at the barbed-wire tattoo encircling his left wrist. Alarm shot through her, but her brain was still not processing what her eyes were telling her.

      This man was not Richard Hancock.

      This man was Liam James.

      With dawning horror, Katie gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth. She’d just had sex with her sister’s boyfriend!

      STUNNED, Liam could only stare as the woman in the French-maid costume almost knocked him down getting past him. In the stark glare of the closet light bulb, he saw her auburn wig was knocked askew, blond curls were peeking out around it.

      “Wait,” he called.

      She tossed him one last panic-stricken look over her shoulder. Even with the mask covering most of her face, she seemed oddly familiar. Did he know her?

      He shook his head to clear it. Who?

      Brooke. She reminded him of Brooke Winfield.

      The synapses in his brain fired rapidly as alarming thoughts crowded in. Had Brooke dressed up in the French-maid costume to seduce him at the party? But Brooke had brown hair and she was taller than this woman.

      And then it dawned on him and he recognized where he’d seen that saucy little walk before.

      She was Katie Winfield. Brooke’s baby sister.

      Shoving a hand through his hair, Liam groaned aloud.

      He had to go after her, had to explain himself. Had to justify what he’d done. Had to make sense of what they’d done together.

      Liam took off after her, but she’d already disappeared in the crowd. People were staring at him, pointing and tittering. Agitated, he glanced down and saw that his bare chest was exposed from where Katie had ripped the buttons off his shirt and that his pants were unzipped.

      Frantically, he tugged up his zipper as he ran. He was desperate to talk to her before she got away. But by the time he reached the front door, she’d already fled to the parking lot.

      “Katie!” he yelled as he stumbled down the stairs and out onto the asphalt road, just as her red BMW convertible sped past him.

      All he saw were her taillights disappearing into the darkness, leaving him feeling like the world’s biggest jerk.