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He touched her shoulder and she flinched.
“I don’t have my car,” she said, as if in explanation. “Since I don’t know the bus schedule, and cabs don’t cruise by this section of town at daybreak—”
“I’ll drive you.”
“No way. I’ll call a cab.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Silly?” She laughed mirthlessly. “I’ve already been played for a fool. I’m not really concerned with silly.”
“You know what I mean. Get in the Jeep.”
He actually sounded concerned. But then, he was a consummate actor. Hadn’t he convinced her that they’d been married? That they’d loved each other? Her heart wrenched at his story. So simple. So deceptive. Despite the fact that no one she knew had known of their romance, they’d fallen in love, hightailed it to the nearest courthouse, tied the knot and flown off to a small, out-of-theway island in the Lesser Antilles for a romantic honeymoon and while they were there she’d fallen off a cliff and nearly killed herself. Lucky for her he was around to snatch her from the jaws of death, carry her off to his bed and lie, lie, lie to her. Her fingers tightened around the strap of her purse.
“Come on, Nikki.” His voice was a caress.
“Not if your damned Jeep was the last vehicle on earth.” She hitched her bag on her shoulder and started for the main road. She’d stick out her thumb if she had to, though that might be a little risky.
His fingers clamped around her arm. “Get in the Jeep.”
“You can’t manhandle me.”
“I’m doing you a favor.”
She snorted. “Your kind of favors I can do without.”
He propelled her toward the door of the rig, pulled on the handle, and with a groan of metal the interior was open to her. “Get in.”
“I’m not going to—”
“If I have to shove that beautiful butt of yours into the seat, I will,” he warned, and she believed him. Her pride still bleeding, she climbed into the damned Jeep and gritted her teeth as he slammed the door shut. This was crazy. Pure, dumb insanity.
He slid into the driver’s seat and twisted the key in the ignition. He slammed the door shut and rammed the rig into Reverse. Within seconds they were driving along the rain-washed streets, joining the first few cars and trucks heading toward the skyscrapers swarming along the shores of Elliott Bay.
Inside the Jeep the air was thick. Steam rose on the windshield and Trent flipped on the fan. Cramming her back against the passenger door, Nikki told herself she was the worst kind of fool. She crossed her arms and glared at him. “Just who the hell are you?”
“I told you.”
“McKenzie’s your real name?”
“You saw my ID, didn’t you? When you went through my wallet.” The barb stung. Oh, well, Sherlock Holmes she wasn’t.
“ID can be bought.”
With a sigh, he flipped down the visor, ripped the registration from its holder and shoved it under her nose. “No aliases, okay?”
The beat-up vehicle was registered to Trent McKenzie. He wheeled into the drive of her apartment building.
“Okay. So now I know your name.” She shrugged as if she didn’t care, but couldn’t help asking, “What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a free-lance investigator. Primarily I work on insurance fraud. I told you all this.” He shifted down and the Jeep slowed.
“You told me a lot of things.”
The rig slid to a stop, idling near the doorway of one of the first-floor apartments. “I didn’t lie about the way we met, Nikki.” He cut the engine, and when she tried to open the door, he caught her arm. “Just hear me out.”
“I’ve heard enough. Two weeks of lies is more than anyone should have to swallow, don’t you think?” She managed to pull on the door handle, breaking a nail in the process. Too damned bad. “You lied to me, McKenzie, and what’s worse, when I knew you weren’t telling the truth, you kept piling on more and more lies.” Her words raced out of her mouth. “Not only that. You took me to bed, brought me back here under false pretenses, used me, and only when you knew the lies would begin to fall apart, did you finally come clean. But not until we made love! Excuse me, what I meant to say is not until we had sex!” So angry she was shaking, she threw off his arm. When he tried to reach for her again, she scrambled out of the Jeep, grabbed her suitcase and ran up the wet steps. He was on her heels, chasing after her, climbing the stairs behind her.
