Pretending to be oblivious until he’d decided how to deal with her, he’d called her. She’d been her usual bright, eager self at first, then as if hearing through his act, her voice had changed, becoming a stranger’s. Then she’d asked if he preferred she called him Lightning, or if he’d left that name behind when he’d escaped The Organization. And he’d realized it had been far worse than his worst fears.
It hadn’t been corporate espionage material she’d managed to get her hands on, but his most lethal secret. His previous identity. And she’d known its value, its danger. That its exposure would bring The Organization to his and his brothers’ doors. The Organization that needed them all dead.
His blood had frozen and boiled at once as she’d said it was just as well he’d brought the charade to an end so she could make her demands. Some money in exchange for her silence.
“Some money” had turned out to be fifty million dollars.
Enraged, he’d assured her he didn’t negotiate with blackmailers. He took them out. So it was in her best interest to keep what she knew to herself.
Unfazed by his threat, she’d said he’d never find her to carry it out, but that she’d had no wish to expose him, just needed the money. It was pocket change to him, so he should just pay without involving payback or pride. He also shouldn’t fear she’d ever ask for more or hold her knowledge over him in any other way. Once the transaction was complete, he could consider that she’d never existed. As she’d never truly had.
Though bitterness and fury had consumed him, cold logic had said that while he couldn’t trust his instincts or her, he could trust her sense of self-preservation. She’d already known how lethal he could be, and she wouldn’t risk extorting him again. This would be a one-off thing. It would end this catastrophic breach to his and his brothers’ security.
But he’d found himself wondering. If she really needed the money, he’d gladly help her, if only she’d tell him she’d been forced to spy on him, and that it hadn’t been all a lie.
His need to look the other way in return for such a reassurance had made him even angrier. At himself. Deciding to end the sordid interlude, he’d transferred the money to the offshore account she’d provided, what had been untraceable even to his formidable resources. As per her declaration, he’d never found any trace of her again. It had been as if she’d never existed. It had been truly over.
But it hadn’t ended. Not for him.
His obsession with her continued to torment him. It sank its talons the deepest when he was at his lowest ebb. It was at such times he yearned to turn to her, the only woman who’d touched his innermost being, to feel her vitality filling his arms, her empathy touching his soul, her passion igniting his cravings. Every time, he’d cursed her even more, for needing her still.
But his anger remained mostly directed at himself—the master of stealth who’d failed to detect the least trace of duplicity in her. And who, even after it had been proved, had remained inextricably under her spell.
Shaking himself out of the bitter musings, he now exited the ballroom in pursuit of that other woman who had wrung the same reactions from him.
Scarlett Delacroix was gracefully gliding across the mansion’s expansive terrace, descending the stairs to the traditional tea garden. In the light of a gibbous moon, her red tresses were the only splash of color and heat in the scene’s monotone coldness. The layered skirt of her black dress trailed after her like a piece of night that worshipped her lush figure.
Noting that Hiro’s bodyguards were monitoring her progress, he waited as she crossed the wooden bridge to the garden house, then set off in the opposite direction.