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“You were following me.”
The instant certainty congealed her blood. Realizing his premeditation made it all so much worse. And the possible outcomes unthinkable.
He shrugged. “You took your time in there. I was about to knock on the Andersons’ door anyway to see what was taking you so long.”
Not putting anything beyond him, she imagined how much worse it would have been if he’d done that. “And you went to all this trouble to ‘catch up’?”
“Yes. Among other things.”
“What other things?”
“Things you’ll find out when you stop wasting time and follow me. I’d tell you to leave your car, but your friend might see it and get all sorts of worrisome ideas.”
“None would be as bad as what’s really happening.”
His expression hardened. She was sure it had brought powerful men to their knees. “Are you afraid of me?”
That possibility clearly hadn’t occurred to him before. Now that it did, it seemed to...offend him.
The weirdest part was, though she’d long known he was a merciless terminator, her actual safety wasn’t even a concern.
It was in every other way that she feared him.
She wasn’t about to tell him that. But she did give him an honest answer to his query. “I’m not.”
“Good.”
His satisfaction chafed her. The urge to wipe it off his cruelly perfect face surged. “I’m not, because I know if you wanted to harm me, I wouldn’t have known what hit me. That you’re only coercing me indicates I’m not on your hit list.”
“It is heartening that you grasp the situation.” That soul-searing smile played on his lips again. “Shall we?”
She stood there, her gaze trapped in his, her thoughts tangling.
They both knew he’d cornered her from the first moment. But succumbing to this devil without resistance would have been too pathetic. She’d at least let loose some of her anger and bitterness toward him first. What she’d thought long extinguished.
It was clear they’d only been suppressed under layers of self-delusion so they wouldn’t destroy whatever remained of her stability, what everything—and everyone—in her life depended on.
Now that she’d admitted that, it was easier to admit why she’d succumb to his coercion.
The first reason was that she would have, even without his threat. If he’d turned a consummate fiend like Burton into mincemeat so effortlessly when he’d been a younger and less powerful man, she didn’t want to know what he was capable of now. She was nowhere in his league. No one was.
The second was harder to face. But what she’d belatedly learned about his truth and that of what they’d shared and what he’d done to her had left a gaping hole inside her.
She wanted that hole filled. She wanted closure.
Holding his hypnotic gaze, she finally nodded.
He just turned and walked away. Before he lowered himself into the gleaming black beast that looked as sleek, powerful and ruthless as he did, he tossed her an imperious glance over his acres-wide shoulders.
“Chivvy along.”
At his command to hurry up in his native British English, she expelled the breath she’d been holding.
Chivvy along, indeed.
Might as well get this over with as quickly as possible.
In minutes she was following him as ordered as he headed to Manhattan, emotions seething inside her. Fury, frustration, fear—and something else.
