What had he read on her face?

“Nothing,” she insisted.

The small, grim smile returned. “You’re not a very good liar, Emma. What else did you hear?”

Her heart began to thump uncomfortably in her chest at the sound of him saying her name. To hide her discomposure, she rested her forearm on her open car door. His dark brows quirked slightly, his manner the cool, slightly impatient one of a prince being kept waiting.

“Okay. But you’re the one who insisted,” she said. “The rumor is that you’re a cold, selfish bastard.”

His expression remained masklike. A car passed on the country road in the distance, the sound striking her as lonely in the cloaking darkness. A puff of rain-scented wind swirled around them, rustling his thick hair.

“It’s seems to me they’re wrong,” Emma added, her voice shaking a little.

“No. They’re right,” he said.

For some reason, her chin went up defiantly. Neither of them spoke for a stretched few seconds. His face looked like carved alabaster in the harsh white lights, his gaze fierce. Emma cleared her throat and looked away.

“Well, you certainly were kind to me tonight. Thank you again. Good night,” she said, starting to get into her car.

“How far do you live?”

“Evanston. Not that far.”

“That storm is about to break,” he said, nodding to the western sky. “I’ll follow to make sure you get home okay.”

“No, that’s all right.”

He blinked at her adamancy. Did he think she didn’t want him to follow her because she didn’t want him to know where she lived? If anything, the opposite was the truth, and that’s what had made her speak so harshly. An alarm in her head blared that she was approaching some seriously dangerous water, while the rational part of her insisted that the idea that Michael Montand was vaguely interested in her was ridiculous, so what was she worried about? He was idiosyncratic, that’s all. Weren’t rich people known to be odd and unpredictable? Didn’t they live by different rules than someone like her? Besides, he’d just been warning her away from him by saying all the nasty rumors about him were true.

Hadn’t he?

“I just meant that you’ve already done enough for me tonight. I’ll be fine,” she said.

He nodded, and for a few seconds, she thought he’d actually succumbed to her wishes. But then—

“I’ll follow you,” he repeated in a tone that didn’t brook argument. He started toward the sleek sports car but paused and looked back at her. “And remember to leave your keys in the car tomorrow,” he said pointedly. “You can put them under the front seat. I’ll find them.”

The decision to agree to that seemingly innocuous request felt like too weighty of a choice to make in that moment. She lowered into the driver’s seat and shut her door.

She couldn’t stop glancing at her rearview mirror on the trip home. Every time she saw those steady headlights behind her, something swelled tighter in her chest. He stayed a respectable distance behind her.

He might as well have been inside her head, she was so aware of him.

Chapter 5

A quarter of a mile from her home the sky unloaded. Thunder boomed threateningly as rain fell in torrents, pounding on her car. As she turned into her apartment’s parking lot, she noticed Montand’s distant headlights turn and disappear abruptly. He’d whipped the car around in a tight U-turn and accelerated in the other direction without a pause. She just made out the dark red rearview lights before he was swallowed by the rain and dark gray gloom.

A bitter flash of disappointment went through her, making her grit her teeth in self-disgust.

She opted for the rear entrance so that she could remove her now-soaking shoes on the tile floor of the utility room instead of the wood floor of the entryway. Afterward, she padded barefoot into the kitchen and picked up a dish towel, wiping off her wet arms. Exhaustion struck her all at once, the adrenaline high of the evening—of her unexpected encounter with Montand—running thin in her blood. In the distance, she heard the crashing of swords and the grunts of video game characters doing battle.

“Hi,” she said wearily, rounding the corner into the dim living room. She came to an abrupt halt. Amanda and Colin sat on the couch, side by side. Two video controllers lay on the floor before their feet, forgotten. Amanda’s body jerked at the sound of Emma’s voice, but Colin continued kissing her, his hand running hungrily along the side of Amanda’s tank top–clad torso and brushing a breast. Amanda made a wild, muffled sound and pushed at Colin. Emma caught a glimpse of her sister’s frightened face around Colin’s shoulder. The vision made a hot knife of sensation stab through her belly, forcing reality into her shocked haze.

Colin finally got a clue and turned. They both stared at Emma, pale faced and openmouthed.

The silence was horrible. Strangling. Emma couldn’t think of anything to say. Her tongue had gone numb.

“Emma . . .” Amanda muttered, shock ringing in her tone. She flung herself off the couch and stood. She wore shorts, her long, lustrous dark blond hair falling down her back like a cloak. The skin of her bare legs and arms gleamed in the flashing light from the television, the only source of illumination in the cozy scenario except for occasional flashes of lightning from the storm.

You’re the stupidest woman on the face of the earth. What kind of female left her boyfriend alone night after night with a stunning woman like Amanda? It’d never even occurred to Emma to be jealous.

Colin stood slowly.

“I thought you wanted to get to bed early tonight,” Emma said to him, distantly surprised by how calm she sounded.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Colin said hollowly. He glanced uneasily from Emma to Amanda, and then back to Emma again. “We . . . I didn’t hear you come in.”

Emma nodded. “Yeah. Obviously. I came in the back door. The rain must have muffled the sound.” She started toward the hallway, moving like a robot set on automatic. “Well personally, all I can think about is sleep. Good night.”

“Emma,” Colin called sharply at the same time Amanda cried out, “Emma, wait!” Her sister’s voice rang with a mixture of anxiety, anguish, and disbelief. Emma didn’t turn around or stop walking.

“Forget it,” Colin said sharply when Amanda started to call out again, sounding panicked. “She’s not going to listen to us. Not now. Let’s go.”

That made Emma whip around. She flew across the floor toward them so fast, Colin’s eyes widened in alarm. He took a step back.

“You go,” she grated out, her teeth clenched. “This is my sister’s home. It’s mine. She doesn’t have to leave right now. You do.”

Colin’s mouth fell open in shock. She glared at him fiercely.

“You’re right. I’ll go. We can talk about this tomorrow,” he said after a moment, glancing worriedly at both of them. Amanda just stood there, looking shattered.

Emma turned to resume her exit when Colin started for the front door.

“Emma, stop. We have to talk,” Amanda entreated.

“I don’t want to talk to you. You’re the last person on earth I want to look at right now.”

She didn’t know what she was feeling aside from blindsided. Her brain and body vibrated with shock. Maybe she shouldn’t have acted so holier-than-thou just now. Hadn’t she just been lusting after another man? Hadn’t she been having intensely erotic dreams, dreams she’d never associate with Colin and their sex life in a million years?

In her room, she locked the door and mechanically stripped, changed into some shorts and a tank top, turned out the light, and plunged into bed. When the knock came at the door a few seconds later, along with Amanda’s pleas for her to open up and let her in, Emma reached for her headphones. She curled on her side and let the harsh, loud music crash into her, blocking everything out. Even though she clenched her eyelids shut, Emma knew for a fact she’d never sleep that night.