Not that he cared. As he’d told her, so many things had changed in the past forty-eight hours. His previous intentions weren’t applicable anymore. He wanted her, had already decided to leave her family situation untouched. Laying down the card of his relationship to Rose now felt appropriate.
He’d always wondered if she’d ever worked out that his revenge on Burton had had a personal element, until last night when she’d made it clear she’d always thought it purely professional. He’d expected the truth to come as a surprise, but the avalanche of shock and horror that swept her at his revelation was another thing he’d failed to project.
Before he could think of his next move, the door opened after only a cursory knock.
And he found himself face-to-face with Rose.
His heart gave his ribs a massive thump as observations came like bullets from a machine gun. Rose’s silky ponytail thudding over her shoulder with her sudden halt, the white coat swinging over a chic green silk blouse and navy blue skirt, her open face with its elegant features tensing and the eyes full of affection as she entered Isabella’s office emptying to fill with surprise.
He’d checked her schedule, made sure she’d be occupied with patients during his visit. This confrontation hadn’t been a possibility.
But it was a reality now.
And finding the sister he’d watched from afar for more than twenty-five years less than ten feet away was a harsher blow than he’d ever thought it could be.
Tearing his gaze away, he turned to Isabella, who was gaping at him as if she hadn’t even noticed Rose’s entry.
“I’ll leave you to your visitor, Dr. Sandoval. We’ll continue our business later.”
He turned around and Rose blinked, moved as if coming out of a trance. “Don’t go on my account.”
He gave her his best impersonal glance. “I was just about to leave anyway.”
Before either woman reacted, he’d almost cleared the door when Rose caught him by his sleeve.
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.
She was heading to his bedroom. And she was stripping.