Maybe she could have gotten this thing over with sooner if she hadn’t fallen for Caleb so hard.

She was feeling even more rattled and upset than before when she finally left the restroom. She glanced around the large ballroom, looking for Caleb’s fine body and handsome face.

She didn’t see him, so she started to circulate, wondering why she couldn’t spot him, since Caleb stood out in any crowd. It wasn’t just because he was so attractive, either. There was something about him that called attention, summoned any eyes in a room.

But he didn’t seem to be in this room, even though she’d left him just a few minutes ago to run to the bathroom. He wouldn’t have left her, and he couldn’t have just disappeared.

But she had no idea where he was.

So soon she was flustered on top of all the other tangled feelings, at a loss because Caleb no longer seemed to be at the party. When she happened to pass his engaged friend, who was the honoree of the evening, he must have noticed her futile search because he said, “I saw him go off into the anteroom back there.” He gestured toward a door at the far corner of the ballroom.

Kelly smiled her thanks and made her way in that direction, thinking it would have been nice if Caleb had spared a thought about how she was supposed to find him before he skulked off in a corner like that.

He’d probably run into a business associate and had sneaked off to deal with something work related in the few spare minutes he had.

Typical.

The door to the anteroom was partly closed, so she pushed it so she could enter. The room was small and mostly empty—with just some ornate chairs, a couple of mirrors, and some decorative tapestries on the wall.

Caleb wasn’t here. But there was another door that led to another room or hallway, and she walked toward it.

She heard Caleb’s voice before she reached the door. She wasn’t likely to mistake his voice for anyone else’s.

He was saying, “We both know what happened. And that makes us both guilty. Trying to justify it isn’t going to help at all in dealing with this situation.”

Kelly sucked in her breath and moved closer, leaning against a tapestry to get as close to the doorway as possible without actually being seen from the other room.

“Then what do you propose we should do? Because I guarantee it’s not going to go away on its own.”

Kelly wasn’t sure, but she’d guess that was Sean Moore. She didn’t recognize his voice like she did Caleb’s, but it sounded right for the man she’d met less than fifteen minutes ago.

She knew—she knew—what they were talking about.

“We need more information. There’s nothing we can do until then.”

To anyone else Caleb would have sounded calm and in control, but she didn’t really think he was. There was a kind of edge to his tone that she only heard when he was emotionally affected by something.

Whatever he was talking about was important to him.

“You have a whole little Hamlet thing going on here, don’t you?”

Kelly gasped and whirled around at the new voice coming from behind her.

Standing there was Wes, with an ironically amused smile on his face.

She literally couldn’t move for a few seconds as she was washed with a chill of guilt, fear, and recognition.

He somehow knew her. He knew all about her. He knew what she was doing with and to Caleb. He was going to reveal her identity to Caleb.

And there was nothing she could do to stop him.

Wes’s eyebrows lifted, and Kelly realized she needed to answer if she was going to have a chance of making it through this moment.

But what could she say? And how was it even possible that Wes could know she was seeking vengeance for the death of her father—as he must if he’d just compared her to Hamlet?

“Eavesdropping behind tapestries, I mean,” Wes added, evidently taking her silence for confusion.

She let out her breath in a whoosh, suddenly realizing she’d been ridiculous to think he could have found her out in the half hour since they’d talked. “I wasn’t eavesdropping,” she said without thinking. At his arched eyebrows, she added, “I mean, I was just trying to figure out if the conversation was one I could safely interrupt. He disappeared on me to talk about work.”

She thought she’d done a pretty good job, but Wes was still looking at her skeptically.

She’d convinced someone else, though. “I thought I’d be through before you got back,” Caleb said, coming up behind her through the doorway and slipping an arm around her. “Sorry about that.”

He looked and felt a little tense, but it didn’t seem to be directed at her. It must be the aftermath of the conversation he’d just had with Sean Moore.

Which had sounded very suspicious.

Like he might have killed her father.

The reality hit her so hard that she felt physically ill for a minute, the dizziness slamming into her as she felt Caleb’s lips on her mouth and then glancing across the skin of her cheek.

“If you spend any amount of time with Caleb,” Wes said in a friendly voice, “you’ll have to get used to that.”

She knew that already—that Caleb’s priority would always be his work, no matter what kinds of feelings he might develop. She didn’t need Wes to tell her.

At the moment, she didn’t care about Wes at all, though. She didn’t care about anything but the fact that her father’s murderer might be pressing his body against hers intimately right now.

And just a few minutes ago she would have wanted him to do that.

Even now she could want it again.

What did that say about her, about what kind of woman she was, about what kind of daughter she was? There was something twisted and unnatural about her that she couldn’t seem to beat back into submission.

They went back to the party, and Caleb was more handsy than he’d been before. She wasn’t sure exactly what was causing it, but she had a few ideas.

He was anxious or angry or helpless about something—whatever guilty thing he’d done that Sean Moore had brought up in that back room. And he was trying to distract himself and feel powerful again with her.

She understood it. She’d done the same thing with random men—and with Caleb—over and over again herself. Bury yourself in sex, in sensation, in some kind of visceral power, so you don’t have to acknowledge all of the things over which you have no power.

She could sense the same thing in Caleb now, and she was pretty sure it would get more intense when they left the party and were alone.

He would want to fuck her hard and rough.

And she would let him, even if she was so scared and confused and rattled right now that sex was the last thing she wanted to do.

Because sex was what she had with Caleb, no matter what ephemeral feelings they were playing with. It was the only weapon she had in this battle.

Even if she used it against herself.

She had to get things back to normal between them, and she knew just how to do it. It didn’t matter if she didn’t want it. Right now, sex was all she had to work with.

The evening went on and on, until finally Caleb said she looked tired and asked if she wanted to leave.

She said yes gratefully, wanting desperately to feel fresh air and not be surrounded by strangers.

As they were leaving, Wes came back over. He mentioned a few things in parting to Caleb about his mother and his plans for going back to Paris, and then he took Kelly’s hand.

He held it longer than he should have. It almost felt like he was about to come on to her. Kelly stared up at him blankly, wondering what was happening as he leaned toward her and whispered in her ear, “I’m not sure what you’re hiding, but keeping secrets from Caleb is a bad idea.”