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She looked at him as if he were babbling in some foreign language she couldn’t begin to identify.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she demanded, growing steadily angrier and more frustrated with every second that went by.
Bowie stared at her, incredulous. How far did she intend to carry this charade?
“So what?” he asked. “You’re telling me that you’re going to continue playing dumb?”
“I am telling you that I don’t have the faintest idea what you are carrying on about,” Marlowe informed him, exasperated. She was not buying into this act of his, and she was insulted that Bowie would even think that she would.
His eyes pinned her where she sat. “You mean to tell me that you don’t know that someone’s been trying to kill me ever since I left your hotel room at the Dales Inn six weeks ago?” Bowie questioned angrily.
Marlowe looked at him, stunned and momentarily speechless that Bowie could actually believe she was some sort of black widow, femme fatale capable of “mating” and then killing the man she’d just had sex with.
That was totally bizarre.
Of all the images she’d ever had of herself, that wasn’t one she’d even remotely ever entertained. She’d never thought herself capable of doing something like that. She knew she wasn’t glamorous enough to pull it off.
Nor would she want to. Behavior like that was vapid and empty, and completely devoid of any sort of moral scruples. None of that would ever come even close to describing her.
Pulling herself together, Marlowe found her tongue. “Again, I have no idea what you’re talking about. None,” she emphasized. “I don’t even remember what this ‘secret’ was that I was supposed to have told you.”
The second the words were out of her mouth, Marlowe’s eyes grew large as it occurred to her that she had another problem on top of the one she was already aware of. Oh God, what was this secret she’d told him, and how was this going to blow up in her face?
The suspense and anticipation threatened to eat away at her stomach lining in record time.
“You don’t remember telling me anything,” Bowie said in a mocking tone. “You honestly expect me to believe that?”
“I can’t help what you believe or don’t believe, but that’s the truth,” she insisted angrily.
“No, you’re lying,” he accused, standing firm. “It’s too much of a coincidence that right after you told me your precious secret, people started aiming their cars at me and shooting at me.” His eyes darkened. “Our families have been rivals practically since the beginning of time, and I should have had my head examined for going against everything that made sense and thinking that I could have misjudged you. I should have kept my distance from a viper like you the way I always have.”
Marlowe glared at him, furious at what Bowie was insinuating. Furious with herself for ever letting her own guard down and allowing him to get close enough to really complicate her world.
Furious with herself for ever thinking that he could be capable of being a decent human being...even though he was the father of her child.
Staring at the ruggedly good-looking man now, Marlowe couldn’t help wondering if he—or maybe someone in his family, if not the entire lot of them—could be behind that awful email that had thrown her own family into such turmoil.
“Well, you didn’t keep your damn distance, did you?” she all but spat out. “And pretty soon everyone’s going to know that.”
He stared at her, completely at a loss as to what she was saying to him. The woman certainly spent a lot of time babbling, he thought, irritated.
“Now what are you talking about?” he demanded. “I don’t speak gibberish.”
Marlowe glared at him. “Neither do I,” she shot back at this interloper.
“Then what the hell are you saying?” he asked.
He wanted it spelled out? All right, she’d spell it out for him. She was through being patient. “I’m saying that our
families are going to have to find a way to tolerate one another.”
“And why, pray tell, would they want to do that?” he asked, really wishing that in the middle of all these hot words that were flying back and forth between them he didn’t find this woman so damn attractive that his toes all but curled.
Why couldn’t he find her the least little bit repulsive, or ugly or even off-putting? Hell, he’d really settle for off-putting.
Instead, while shouting at this woman he was convinced was trying to have him killed, all he could think of was the way her mouth had tasted that fateful night. How soft her skin had felt beneath his hands and how much he still wanted to make love with her.
He had to be out of his mind, Bowie thought. That was the only explanation he could come up with. Maybe she had slipped him something that night, something that was now making him behave like a mindless, lovesick loon.
