All the while, Letty was intensely aware of him beside her. Her gaze fell upon his hand and thick wrist, laced with dark hair, as he changed gears.
“So.” His voice was ironic. “Your father is out of prison.”
Biting her lip, she looked at him hesitantly beneath her lashes. “A few days ago.”
Darius glanced back at her old coat and fraying uniform. “And now you’re ready to change your life.”
Was that a question or a suggestion? Did he mean that he wanted to change it? Had he actually learned the truth about why she’d betrayed him ten years ago?
“I’ve learned the hard way,” she said in a low voice, “that life changes, whether you’re ready or not.”
His hands tightened as he turned back to the steering wheel. “True.”
Letty’s eyes lingered on his profile, from the dark slash of eyebrows to his aquiline nose and full, sensual mouth. She still felt like she was dreaming. Darius Kyrillos. After all these years, he’d found her at the diner and was whisking her off to his penthouse. The only man she’d ever truly loved…
“Why did you come for me?” she whispered. “Why today, after all these years?”
His dark gaze was veiled. “Your message.”
She hadn’t sent any message. “What message?”
“Fine,” he murmured, baring his teeth in a smile. “Have it your way.”
Message? Letty felt a skitter of dark suspicion. Her father had wanted her to contact Darius. For the last few days, since he’d broken his arm in mysterious circumstances he wouldn’t explain, he’d been home on painkillers, sitting next to her ancient computer with nothing to do.
Could her father have sent Darius a message, pretending to be her?
She glanced at Darius, then decided she didn’t care. If her father had interfered, all she could be was grateful, if this was the result.
Her father must have revealed her real reasons for betraying Darius ten years ago. She couldn’t imagine he would even be talking to her now otherwise.
But how to know for sure?
Biting her lip, she said awkwardly, “I read about you in the paper this morning. That you sold. Your company, I mean.”
“Ah.” His jaw set as he turned away. “Right.”
His voice was cold. No wonder, Letty thought. She sounded like an idiot. She tried to steady herself. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you. It cost ten years of my life.”
Ten years. Those two simple words hung between them in silence, like a small raft on an ocean of regret.
Their car entered Manhattan, with all its wealth and savagery. A place she’d avoided since her father’s trial and sentencing almost a decade before.
Her heartbeat fluttered in her throat as she looked down at her chapped hands, folded tightly in her lap. “I’ve thought of you a lot, wondering how you were. Hoping you were well. Hoping you were happy.”
Stopping at a red light, Darius abruptly looked at her.
“It was good of you to think of me,” he drawled in a low voice, once again with that strange undercurrent. In the cold night of the city, headlights of passing cars moved shadows across the hard lines of his face.
The light changed to green. It was just past ten o’clock, and the traffic was starting to lessen. Heading north on First Avenue, they passed the United Nations plaza. The buildings had started climbing higher against the sky as they approached Midtown. Turning off Forty-Ninth onto the gracious width of Park Avenue, they approached a newly built glass-and-steel skyscraper on the south side of Central Park.
As he pulled his car into the porte cochere, she was craning her neck back in astonishment. “You live here?”
“I have the top two floors,” he said casually, in the way someone might say, I have tickets to the ballet.
His door opened, and he handed the keys to a smiling valet who greeted him respectfully by name. Coming around, Darius opened Letty’s door. He held out his hand.
She stared at it nervously, then put her hand in his.
He wrapped it tightly in his own. She felt the warmth and roughness of his palm against hers.
He had to know, she thought desperately. He had to. Otherwise, why would he have sought her out? Why wouldn’t he still hate her?
He led her through the awe-inspiring lobby, with its minimalist furniture and twenty-foot ceilings.
“Good evening, Mr. Kyrillos,” the man at the desk said. “Cold weather we’re having. Hope you’re staying warm!”
Darius held Letty’s hand tightly. She felt like she might catch flame as he drew her across the elegant, cavernous lobby. “I am. Thank you, Perry.”
He waved his key fob in front of the elevator’s wall panel and pressed the seventieth floor.
His hand gripped hers as the elevator traveled up. She felt the warmth of his body next to hers, just inches away, towering over her. She bit her lip, unable to look at him. She just stared at the electronic numbers displaying the floors as the elevator rose higher and higher. Sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy…
The bell dinged as the door slid open.
“After you,” Darius said.
Glancing at him nervously, she stepped out directly into a dark, high-ceilinged penthouse. He followed her, as the elevator door closed silently behind them.
The rubber soles of her white shoes squeaked against the marble floor as she walked through the foyer beneath the modern crystal chandelier above. She flinched at the noise, embarrassed.
But his handsome face held no expression as he removed his long black overcoat. He didn’t turn on any lights. He never looked away from her.
With a gulp, she turned away.
Gripping her purse strap, she walked forward into the shadowy main room. It was two stories high, with sparse, angular furniture in black and gray, and floor-to-ceiling windows twisted around the penthouse in every direction.
Looking from right to left, she could see the dark vista of Central Park, the high-rise buildings to the Hudson River, and the lights of New Jersey beyond it, and to the south, the skyscrapers of Midtown, including the Empire State Building, all the way to the Financial District and the gleaming One World Trade Center.
The sparkling nighttime view provided the only light in the penthouse, aside from a single blue gas fire that flickered in the stark fireplace.
“Incredible,” Letty breathed, going up to the windows. Without thinking, she leaned forward, putting her overheated forehead against the cool glass, looking down at Park Avenue far below. The cars and yellow cabs looked tiny, like ants. She felt almost dizzy from being so high off the earth, up in the clouds. It was a little terrifying. “Beautiful.”
His reply was husky behind her. “You are beautiful, Letitia.”
Turning, she looked at him in the soft blue glow of firelight. Then, as she looked more closely…
Her lips parted with an intake of breath.
She’d thought Darius hadn’t changed?
He’d changed completely.
At thirty-four, he was no longer a slender youth, but a powerful man. His shoulders had broadened to match his tall height, his body filling out with hard muscle. His dark hair had once been wavy and tousled, like a poet’s, but was now cut short, as severe as his chiseled jawline.
Everything about Darius was tightly controlled