“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, anger entering his tone.

“Why didn’t you just tell me your name was Vanni?”

“I don’t know,” he replied just as edgily. He paused, seeming to search for an explanation for her question. “Not everyone calls me Vanni. Besides, I don’t recall you ever calling me anything. What did you mean when you said you watching me with Astrid doesn’t mean anything to me, but it does you?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to stand in my patient’s driveway and have this conversation,” she said, once again reaching for her door handle.

“What was it that upset you the most?” he demanded, subduing his anger.

Her mouth sagged open with disbelief. She couldn’t seem to inhale a full breath. She felt cornered by his direct question and piercing stare.

“I’d be hard-pressed to name something that didn’t. It all disgusted me,” she blurted out.

He caught her wrist when she reached for the door. She looked up at him, startled.

“You’ve been lying to yourself, Emma. You knew it was me. Or part of you did. You knew since that night I called you to the dining room.” She gasped in shock at his calm, concise understanding of the private inner workings of her mind. His fingers moved slightly on her skin as if to soothe the sting of his words. He lowered his head and spoke near her ear, his warm breath making her shiver. “I’m not an animal. Don’t label me depraved just because it makes things easier for you. Are you forgetting I’ve made love to you? You might be inexperienced, but you enjoyed giving control to me. There’s nothing wrong with it. It was natural the way you responded to me. Beautiful,” he said, his softly uttered words striking her as palpably intimate even in this unlikely setting. “Don’t run from what you don’t understand.”

It was too much. His quiet voice, not entreating her exactly, but calling to her. Speaking to something deep inside her that he knew she heard.

Somehow.

I’ve told you what I can offer you. It’s the same I can offer any woman. It isn’t much, she recalled him telling Astrid so coldly. I’m going to bind you onto the sliding track, then use the flogger on you.

Something hot and volatile swelled in her chest. He was too complex for her, too dark. The last thing she needed was someone like Vanni Montand in her life. She couldn’t handle it. She couldn’t handle him.

He leaned down, his lips brushing her temple, and her fearful thoughts evaporated.

“Leave your keys under the seat,” he directed in her ear. “I’ll call someone and have them pick up your car and deliver it to your apartment. Come with me now. I want you at Cristina’s funeral.”

“Why?” she whispered numbly.

“Because she made you laugh.” She turned her head and met his stare. “She deserves to have someone there who liked her, don’t you think? But that’s not the only reason. I need you there.”

She stared at him, aghast at his harsh declaration of need.

“We’ll talk more about what you saw later, after the funeral. You’re not a coward, Emma,” he said, his quiet words piercing her like hot knives. “You can’t keep running from this.”

She tugged again on her arm and this time he let her go.

His expression was impassive when she faced him after putting her keys beneath the driver’s seat and slamming the car door. Even so, Emma didn’t think it was her imagination that she saw stark relief flicker across his bold features ever so briefly.

After Vanni had opened the passenger door for her and she got inside, she looked down at what she was wearing.

“I can’t go to Cristina’s funeral like this,” she said once he was seated next to her, anxiety overtaking her. “Can you take me to my apartment to change?”

His gaze swept down over her in a cool assessment, making her skin prickle in awareness. It was warm today, so she’d opted for a lightweight floral skirt, a pink T-shirt, and flats. It was better than jeans and high-tops, but it was still inappropriate for the funeral of Cristina Montand.

“You’re fine,” he said. “It’s going to be a very simple ceremony. Only a few people will be there.”

“But—”

“You’re fine,” he repeated quietly. You’re fine because I said you were fine. He didn’t say it, but it seemed like he did. She opened her mouth to protest.

“There isn’t time for me to take you to your apartment. Please, don’t concern yourself about what you’re wearing. It’s the last thing I’m worried about, Emma, and I told you. I need you there,” he said quietly. Forcefully. Again, she was reminded of the brew of complex emotion she sensed boiling behind his cool façade.

“All right,” she said in a choked voice.

He cleared his throat, and the charged atmosphere seemed to dissipate. He reached for a hands-free phone headset.

“I hope you don’t mind. There are a few phone calls I need to make on the way. My company is sponsoring a big racing event in France this summer. It’s the first time for it.” He grimaced as he put on the headset. “I just hope it’s not the last.”

Emma exhaled, relief going through her at the realization they weren’t going to plunge into anxiety-provoking topics like what she’d experienced in that armoire. “Is it that French-American grand prix road-racing event Montand Motorworks is sponsoring on the French Riviera?” He gave her a surprised glance. “I read about it in the Chicago Tribune,” Emma explained.

He nodded. “It’s experimental. I’m not sure how it’ll go over. I’m tramping on European tradition a bit, attempting it.”

She didn’t really understand what he meant. She’d never been remotely interested in car racing. Him, she understood better. Or at least she experienced his unruffled manner and bone-deep confidence. “If anyone can do it, you can,” she said.

She saw his blank expression of surprise. “Why would you say that so certainly?” he asked, dark brows furrowed in puzzlement.

“Because of your background and your knowledge of cars and everything. You’re both American and French and you know all about racing and you have that . . . cachet.”

He leaned forward slightly, hands on the wheel. “Cachet?”

“Sure,” Emma said, hiding her blush by digging in her purse for her phone. “The Aloof Automobile Prince Raised in America. Racecar Royalty Returns to His Roots—”

She halted her rambling and looked around at the sound she heard. He laughed. Really laughed. The sound was deep and rich and uninhibited. His smile cut her to the quick. Somehow, he seemed relieved. Something twisted and pulled inside her at the vision of white, straight teeth and the look of stark amusement on his face. There was something else gleaming in his aquamarine eyes: genuine warmth as he stared at her. This was the same man whom she’d watched make love so coldly.

Knitting the two images together was going to be so hard. Wasn’t it?

“You really are odd at times,” he said, his gaze narrowed on her. She held her breath when he reached up and touched the angel at her throat. It suddenly struck her that she hadn’t removed it, even while she slept, since she’d hurried out of the Breakers after Cristina’s death. Surely that meant something.

“You’re not so normal yourself,” she muttered.

He smiled slightly and dropped his hand, and she immediately regretted her need to lighten the moment. His attention turned to driving and his phone calls, but Emma couldn’t help but notice that although his smile had faded, his usually hard mouth looked a little softer. She really had provided him a moment of relief. The realization warmed her more than she liked to admit. It also made her wonder for the thousandth time about the unspoken tension that seemed to shroud him anytime Cristina was mentioned. She was texting a message to her patient’s daughter, explaining about her car being left in the driveway and someone coming to pick it up, when Vanni began to talk. He spoke to someone named Jake whom he asked to retrieve Emma’s car. When it came time for him to say where to deliver the vehicle, Emma leaned forward, trying to get his attention to give him her address. He remained turned in profile to her, however, and crisply supplied her street address as if it were his own. She was a little mystified that he’d been able to see the address, given how dark and rainy it’d been that night he’d followed her home.