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Dismay soaring, he raised an eyebrow with all the cold impatience he could muster. He needed this confrontation to be over.
“Rex?”
Everything inside braked so hard he realized for the first time how people dropped unconscious from shock.
The sister who’d last seen him when she was six years old had recognized him on sight.
But it was still just a suspicion. Only he could solidify it. Or Isabella, now that he’d revealed his connection to Rose. But knowing her, she wouldn’t be the one to do so. So it was up to him.
Feeling his insides clench in a rusty-toothed vise, he made his choice. “You must have mistaken me for someone else. The name is Richard. Richard Graves.”
He flicked Isabella a warning glance, just in case. Not that he’d needed to. Isabella seemed to have lost the ability to speak or even blink. But when she regained the ability to talk, if she did tell Rose...
He couldn’t worry about that now. He had to get the sodding hell out of there.
Not giving Rose a chance to say anything else, he turned and strode away, fighting the urge to break out into a run.
Once in his car, he drove away as if from an earth fissure that threatened to engulf everything in its path.
Which was a very accurate description.
Everything since he’d seen Isabella again had been like an earthquake that had cracked the ground his whole life was built on. He’d thought he could stem the spread of the chasms and return to a semblance of stability again.
But there was no fooling himself anymore. He’d set an unstoppable sequence of events in motion. And if he didn’t stop the chain reaction, it would unravel his whole existence.
And everyone else’s, too.
* * *
Two hours later in his penthouse, after a couple of drinks and a hundred laps in the pool, he had a plan in place.
He’d just gotten out of the shower when the intercom that never rang did.
The concierge apologized profusely, claiming that it was probably a false alarm, since he’d never allowed anyone up in the past six years, but a lady insisted he would want her up.
Isabella. She’d preempted him.
A wave of excitement and anticipation swept him as he informed the concierge that Isabella was always to be let up without question. He ran to dress, but she arrived at his door so fast he had to rush there barefoot in just his pants.
The moment he saw her on his doorstep, he wanted to haul her to bed, lose himself inside her and forget about all they had to resolve and all he had to do.
“Isabella...”
She pushed past him, strode inside. It took him a couple of minutes of following her through his penthouse to realize—to believe—what she was doing.
&
nbsp; She was heading to his bedroom. And she was stripping.
Almost every surprise he’d ever had had involved her. This one almost had him launching himself at her as she passed one of the couches, tackling her facedown and thrusting inside her before they even landed on it.
He held back only because he wanted to let her take this where she wanted, to savor the torment of watching her disrobe for him, exposing her glory to his aching, covetous gaze. The contrast between the pitiless seduction of her action and her straitlaced stride made it all the more mind-meltingly arousing.
Once in his lower-floor bedroom, he could barely see her until he remembered he could turn on the lights with a whisper.
The expansive space filled with the subdued lighting he preferred, showcasing her beauty in golden highlights and arcane shadows. At the foot of his bed, she turned, wearing only white bikini panties and same-color, three-inch-heeled sandals. Her eyes were burning sapphires.
He approached, waiting for her to say or do something. She only stood there looking up at him.
