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“Where are your parents?” He demanded fiercely, his voice cold and hot at the same time.
Jenna looked from Jane to Carter, her face wearing a mask of disdain. “Do you want me to throw him out?”
Carter would have laughed, if he weren’t so furious. Jenna was not much bigger than Jane. The idea of her throwing him out would have been hilarious if he weren’t so angry.
“I’m a black belt, Carter. I could do it.”
He lifted his hands. “My fight’s not with you, Jenna.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” She came to stand beside Jane, a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Anyone who upsets Jane is pretty much in a fight with me.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t mean to upset you, Jane.” His words were urgent. “I think we should discuss this privately.”
She bit down on her lip. “So do I.” She tilted an appreciative look at Jenna. “I’m fine. Do you mind?”
She shook her head, but seared Carter with one last filthy glare. “I’ll be in my room if you need me.”
Jane tapped her hand. “I’m fine.” When Jenna had padded away, Jane regarded him stoically. “I’m not a black belt, but she’s taught me some.”
He couldn’t help the smile that arrested his lips. “Remind me to ask you to show me some at a later date.”
She didn’t relent. She couldn’t be distracted by reminders of what they shared. “Why are you here, Carter?”
“We had a deal. An arrangement. You cannot simply disappear.”
She looked down. She had to be brave. Her resolve was deserting her, but she couldn’t let it. “This can’t work.”
He ignored her statement. “Where are your parents?”
She furrowed her brow. “Why does that matter?”
“It just does.”
She shook her head. “That’s not an answer.”
“You told your sister we don’t know each other very well?” He leaned forward, his expression grim. “We have been involved in a pretty intimate relationship for weeks now, and yet you can keep a straight face while you claim to barely know me.”
She scowled. “Details my sister does not need to know.”
He gritted his teeth. “Anita is the reason you’re not available to me in the daylight? She’s the reason you’re my very own sexual vampire?”
Her lips twitched and she schooled them back into an expression of annoyance. “Yes. One of them, anyway.”
“Why? Tell me, Jane. I want to know what the hell happened here.”
She sighed heavily. “You don’t, Carter. Remember what I said last night? I want you. I want you all the time. But I don’t want your pity. I don’t want your money – but I need it, and I hate that. Because the only thing, and I mean this, the only thing that matters to me more than my own pride is my sister Anita. If that means that I feel like the cheap hooker you first believed me to be, I have to wear that. But I don’t want your pity. Please don’t make me tell you about my life, because I know you now, Carter, and I know you’ll feel like you need to fix things up for me.”
He felt something completely foreign swamp his system. An emotion he couldn’t comprehend. Guilt? Grief? Anger? Outrage? Admiration? Pain? He couldn’t have said. It was a jumbled mix of all of them.
“I never thought you were a cheap hooker,” he tried to joke, then shook his head. “I don’t know why I do that. It isn’t funny. Seeing you with Hank made me think the worst of you. I know you’re not. That you never would. I apologise if I ever gave you the impression that I believe you capable of selling your body.”
She sat down opposite him, her expression glum. “I am selling my body. And I never would have dreamed it was possible, if I hadn’t met you.”
“That night, at the Four Seasons, I thought I was speaking to an independent, free-spirited, very beautiful woman. I didn’t realise the commitments you were fighting to protect. If I had realised that I was backing you into a corner, I would never have suggested what I did.”
“And so we’d be nowhere.”
It made him feel as miserable as she looked. “Where are your parents?”
