Scandalously Expecting His Child(11)
Her fixed glance remained unchanged as her head tilted to one side, sending the curtain of her loose silk curls swishing over her polished shoulder. “Speaking of that, I always wondered what finally gave me away that time.”
He was damned if he’d give her the satisfaction, and the security, of knowing it had been total chance that had finally alerted him, and not his allegedly infallible abilities.
“You want to find out so you’ll never repeat the lapse, hone your deception powers to perfection? Sorry, you’ll have to keep on wondering. And worrying.”
“Oh, I never worry. Even in the rare times I slip up, I always manage to compensate. As I did when I preempted you.”
How she’d realized he’d found her out back then had remained a major question mark. Needing an answer to it had even outstripped his need to find his lineage in the past years.
Wrestling with the urge to pounce on her and force her to tell him now, he tried to match her nonchalance. “And now? How will you preempt me this time?”
A sigh accompanied a regretful shake of that elegant head. “It really would have been better for everyone if you didn’t recognize me.”
“Everyone meaning you.”
“Everyone meaning everyone. Starting by you.”
A vicious huff crackled from his depths. “You’re implying knowing your real identity poses danger to me, too?”
“It poses danger to you...only.” Before he processed that outrageous statement, she added, “And you don’t know my real identity.”
Giving in, he obliterated the distance he’d put between them. He needed a physical reinforcement of his dominance, feeling he was on the losing side of this confrontation.
He regretted it the moment he drew his next breath. Though she’d been so thorough in her disguise to the point of changing the soap and perfume she’d used before, her own scent deluged him, even through the masking of new adornments. Hot, vital, intoxicating. The exact bouquet that had been the only one to activate his libido.
Glaring down at her, as if it would shift the balance of power in his favor, he said, “I know this one is fabricated. As was the one before it. Which should be enough. So explain to me how this knowledge, when it’s clearly a secret you’ve kept from everyone here, wouldn’t impact you.”
“It would cause me intense inconvenience. But it’s you who stands to suffer major damage if you expose me.” Before he scoffed at that preposterous declaration, she asked, “But really, why would you want to expose me at all?”
“To stop you from setting Hiro up.”
After a moment, when it looked as if she didn’t get his meaning, incredulity coated her face. “What makes you think I’m doing any such thing? Because you consider I set you up?”
“And you don’t? What do you call what you did to me?” He waved, stopping any argument in its tracks. Haggling over facts turned them into points of view that could be contested and rewritten. And he was damned if he’d let her do that. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s criminal.”
“Because I’m withholding my real identity? Pot calling the kettle black much?” Her full lips twisted. “And if you’re citing my past actions in your unsubstantiated accusations, I did nothing criminal with you. I actually...helped you.”