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“You made it my business.”
He straightened so she was no longer caged, but he didn’t move away. She struggled to sound reasonable. “It’s complicated. I needed to disappear for a while, that’s all. There might be some . . . detectives chasing me, so I decided to disguise myself as a pregnant woman to throw them off.” She couldn’t let him push her around any longer, and she glared at him. “Stop looming over me. I don’t like it.”
“Good.” He didn’t move, and as she gazed at that tough, grim mouth she realized how fond she’d grown of his smile. He didn’t use it a lot, but when he did, it melted her bones.
She knew scores of military men, so she understood the value of a retaliatory strike. “You’re going to be nasty about this, aren’t you? Even though it has nothing to do with you. You physically attacked me!”
“I didn’t attack you.” He scowled, but he backed off half a step.
“Why didn’t you just ask me if I was really pregnant? And how did you know, by the way?”
“You fell against me, remember? Right after we got here when you were holding the Demon. Pregnant women’s bellies don’t feel like pillows.”
“Oh.” She remembered how strangely he’d looked at her. At the time, she’d thought he was reacting to the sexual chemistry she’d felt percolating between them, but apparently the percolation was only working one way. She rose. “Your behavior is inexcusable and boorish!”
“Boorish? You do have some vocabulary, princess. What comes next? Off with his head?” He rested the heel of one hand against the wall, about a foot from her head. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re alone in a motel room with a man you don’t know real well.”
His words were an implied threat, but she wasn’t afraid. Mat might be stubborn and crotchety. He might not have any soft edges, and he certainly wasn’t in touch with his feminine side, but she couldn’t imagine him physically hurting her.
She regarded him levelly. “Back off. You need me a lot more than I need you.” That wasn’t true, but he didn’t know it. “Starting right now, I don’t want any more questions about my past. I’m not involved in anything illegal, and I’ve said it doesn’t concern you. You’ll just have to accept that.”
“Or what? You’ll take awa
y all my castles?”
“And marry you off to the ugliest lady in the kingdom.”
She’d hoped to make him smile, but he looked as grouchy as a bear being poked with a stick. “Take off that damned pillow. It looks stupid.”
“Go pound your chest and eat a banana.” Oh, God, she was playing with fire, and she didn’t even care.
He went completely still. “What did you say?”
“Uhmm . . . nothing. A slight case of Tourette’s. It comes and goes.”
He almost smiled. “You don’t scare easily do you?”
“Well . . . you are acting a bit like an ape.”
“As opposed to your civilized rich boy ex-husband who’s hunting you down with a team of detectives?”
“On the positive side, he . . . uh . . . hates bananas.”
“You’re making this up. Every bit of it. There isn’t any ex-husband.”
She lifted her chin. “Then how did I get pregnant? Answer that one, wise guy.”
The corner of his mouth quirked, and he shook his head. “All right. I give up. We’ll play this your way for a while.”
“Thank you.”
“Except for one thing . . . I have to know the truth about whether or not you’re still married.”
This time it wasn’t hard for her to meet his eyes. “No. I promise you. I’m not married.”
He nodded, and she saw that he believed her. “All right. But I don’t want to see that damned pillow around your waist ever again. I’m serious about this. Traveling with Sandy’s kids and me is all the camouflage you’re going to get. Understand?”
She realized she wasn’t going to be able to fight him on this, but would the presence of two children be enough to hide her identity? “What am I going to say to Lucy?”
