As he reached for the cocktail glass, his fingertips grazed hers, zapping her with a bolt of exquisite electricity.
Great. His deceit and her ignorance of his true nature and intentions had had nothing to do with his effect on her as she’d long told herself. He’d almost cost her her life, and she knew what he truly was and how she’d been a chess piece he’d played and disposed of...yet it made no difference to her body. It didn’t deal in logic, cared nothing about dignity and hadn’t learned a thing from the harsh lessons of experience. It only saw and sensed the man who’d once possessed and pleasured it almost beyond endurance.
She sat before he realized he still liquefied her knees...and everything else. When she’d thought she’d irreversibly turned to stone.
But she’d thought that before she’d first met him. It had taken him one glance to get the heart she’d believed long petrified quivering. He remained the one man who could reverse any protective metamorphosis.
Safe on a horizontal surface, she looked way, way up at him as he loomed over her like a mystic knight, or rather a malevolent wizard, from an Arthurian fairy tale.
“So the moment you realized I was on American soil, you decided to track me down and ambush me.”
“Precisely.”
In a heartbeat he was beside her. She marveled again at the strength and control needed for someone of his height and bulk to move so effortlessly. Even though he didn’t come too near, her every nerve fired.
Sipping the amber liquid in his crystal glass, he turned to face her fully. “I’ve been remembering how we met.”
She sipped her drink only to suppress the impulse to hurl it in his face. The moment it slid down her throat she realized how parched she was. And how it hit the spot. Perfect coolness and flavor, light on alcohol, heavy on sweetness.
He remembered. How she took her drinks.
Something suffocating, something similar to regret, swept her.
Suddenly the bitterness that had lain dormant in her depths seethed to the surface again. “We didn’t meet, Richard. You tracked me down then, too. And set me up.”
Nonchalance tugged a corner of his lips. “True.”
She took another sip, channeling her anger into sarcasm. “Thanks for sparing me the aggravation of denial.”
His gaze lengthened, becoming more unreadable and disturbing. Then he shrugged. “I don’t waste time on pointless pursuits. I already realized you know everything. From the first moment, your hostile attitude made it clear I’m not talking to the woman who cried rivers at my departure.”
“Why conclude that was because I know everything? That could have been classic feminine bitterness for said departure. Surely you didn’t expect even the stupid goose I used to be to throw herself in your arms after eight years?”
“Time is irrelevant.” Just what she’d been thinking. “It’s what you realized that caused you to change. You clearly worked everything out.” His gaze intensified, making her feel he was probing her to her cellular level. “So how did you?”
“You know how.”
“I probably do. But I’d still like to know the actual details of how you came to realize the truth.”
A mirthless laugh escaped her. “If you’re asking so you never repeat whatever clued me in, don’t bother. Working it all out wasn’t due to any discernment on my side, and I only did over three years after the fact.” One formidable eyebrow rose at that particular detail. “Yeah, pathetic, right?”
“Not the adjective I’d use.” She waited for him to substitute his own evaluation, but he left her hanging. “I don’t want details as a prophylactic measure for future operations. I know I am untraceable. Your deductions couldn’t have been backed up by any evidence. Even if they were, I made sure your best interest remained in burying any.”
“So you’re asking only to marvel at how good you are?”
“I know exactly how good I am.” The way he said that... The ache deep inside started to throb. “I don’t need validations nor do I indulge in self-congratulations.” Eyes narrowing, his focus sliced through her. “Why the reluctance to tell me? We’re laying our cards down now that the game is long over.”
“You laid down nothing.”
“I’ll lay down whatever you wish.” When she opened her mouth to demand he start, he preempted her. “You first.”
Knowing she’d end up giving him what he wanted, she sighed. “When the blows to Burton started coming out of the blue, I just thought he’d slipped in his secrecy measures. One day, when he was finally on his knees, he asserted that the breach hadn’t come from his side, that I was the only one who knew everything he did. I thought he was just looking for someone to blame, but that didn’t change a thing. I believed he’d soon make up his mind that I betrayed him. So I ran.”
Draining his glass, he grimaced, set it down on the coffee table. Then he sat back, his eyes so intense it felt as if he was physically attempting to yank the rest out of her.
Torrents of accusations almost spilled from her. Forcing them down, she skipped over the two worst years of a generally hellish existence, and went on, “I only revisited his accusations much later, started to wonder if I’d been somehow indiscreet. That pointed me in the direction of the only one I could have been indiscreet with. You. That led to a reexamination of our time together, and to realizing your ingeniousness in milking me for information.”
“And you realized it was I who sent him to hell.”
She nodded, mute with the remembered agony of that awareness. She’d felt such utter betrayal, such total loss. Her will to go on, for a while, had been completely spent.
“It dawned on me that you had targeted me only to get my insider info and asked me to leave with you to agonize and humiliate him on every front. Everything made so much sense then I couldn’t believe I didn’t suspect you for years. Who else but you could have devised such a spectacular downfall for him? It takes a monster to bring down another.”
His watchfulness lifted, fiendishness replacing it. “Monster wasn’t what you screamed all those times in my bed.”
“Don’t be redundant. I already admitted I was too oblivious to live. But once the fog of my obliviousness cleared, I only wished I could forget ever meeting you.”
“Don’t hold your breath. Even if our meeting wasn’t spontaneous, it wasn’t only memorable, it remains indelible.”
The fateful encounter that had turned her life upside down had been that way for him, too?
His cover story had been arranging security for the humanitarian organization she’d been working with. He’d demanded to meet all volunteers for a dangerous mission in Colombia to judge who should go.
Her first glimpse of him remained branded in her mind.
Nothing and no one had ever overwhelmed her as he had. And not because he’d been the most gorgeous male she’d ever seen. His influence far transcended that. His scrutiny had been denuding, his questions deconstructing. He’d rocked her to her core, making her feel like a swooning moron as she’d sluggishly answered his rapid-fire questions.
After telling her she’d passed his test, she’d exited his office reeling. She hadn’t known it possible for a human being to be so beautiful, so overpowering. She hadn’t known a man could have her hot and wet just by looking at her across a desk. She hadn’t been interested in a man before, so the intensity of her desire for him, for his approval, and her delight at earning it had flung her in chaos. She’d never known such excitement, such joy...
“The changes become you.”