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I didn’t react, simply because Daniela watched me. Belle touched my shoulder and followed Monty across the room.
I sat down opposite Daniela. “To repeat, what do you want to talk to me about? I’ve already told you I don’t know the woman you’re looking for.”
“Does the name Clayton Marlowe mean anything to you?”
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Somehow, I didn’t react. Somehow, I kept my fear to myself, even though it exploded inside of me.
“No,” I said, voice even despite the inner storm. “Should it?”
Her gaze scanned me. I had no doubt her other senses were, as well, even though the charm around my neck remained mute. “I suspect so.”
“You can suspect anything you like, Daniela, but that doesn’t make it the truth, no matter how much you might wish otherwise.”
She smiled coolly. “Indeed.”
The sense that twelve years of running, of careful lies and mistruths, was about to come to a crashing halt sharpened abruptly. My heart raced so hard it was all I could hear, all I could feel.
I licked my lips and said, perhaps a little hoarsely, “Is there a point to this? Because I really need to get back to work—”
“I thought you would be interested in knowing that I’ll be leaving this afternoon. My report should be on my employer’s desk within a few weeks.”
If I’d thought my heart couldn’t race any harder, then I’d been wrong. “Must be a damn long report if it’s going to take that long to write it up.”
“There are still a few things I need to check first.”
“Huh.” I paused, not sure what to say to the woman who was about to destroy my whole world. “And why would I be interested in knowing any of that?”
“Because,” she said softly, “my report concludes that you fit the description I was given in all ways except for one.”
How I held still—how I managed to present a calm front when the confrontation I’d spent twelve years avoiding had just became inevitable—I’ll never know.
“And just what is that?” I somehow managed to say. “Eye color? Because that’s pretty damn major.”
“Yes,” she said calmly. “Which is why I will be recommending that Clayton Marlowe come to this reservation and judge for himself.”
Thirteen
I stared at her.
I couldn’t do anything else.
Not for several minutes. Clayton was coming. Here. To see me. To get me. To make Belle pay and to force on me what he’d been unable to have with other women.
It felt like there was a fist around my heart, squeezing tight. I couldn’t seem to get enough air, and Daniela’s face swam in and out of focus.
Then something within me twisted, and a fiery strength rose—one that had been a part of me since before I was born, but had somehow awakened within this reservation. Calm descended. There could be no more running. Not now. This reservation was to be the final battleground, the place where my fate and my future would be decided, for good or for bad. But this was my home ground, not his. He might be more powerful than all of us combined, but was he stronger than the wild magic that now burned through me?
I guess we’d all find out soon enough.
Something flickered through Daniela’s gaze—an awareness of the power now burning within, perhaps. As much as I wished she hadn’t caught that surge, it really didn’t matter anymore. Her report would be sent, her recommendations would be made. The fate I’d spent twelve years running from was now in motion. There was nothing I could do to avoid it.
I could only wait and prepare.
“You’ve nothing to say?” Daniela said.
Nothing to admit, was what she was really asking.
