“You’re lying to me,” he murmured, his gaze seeing far more than it should. “You’ve never done it before.”

He didn’t look pleased or gloating or even particularly surprised. It was more like he understood something, understood her.

“What’s the big deal?” she demanded, trying not to sound too bristly, although that was the way she felt.

“It’s not a big deal, but you’re making it into one. What are you afraid of, blossom?” He reached out to cup her cheek with his warm hand.

She hated and loved when he called her that—since it felt intimate, special, a little secret between just the two of them. She heard herself admitting, “It’s just always felt like—like surrendering control, and you know how I feel about that.”

He nodded and reached over to pull her against him again. “I know.”

She expected him to ask her to let him try, to prove that she might enjoy it, but he didn’t. He didn’t say anything, just held her, and it felt like he was protecting her, taking care of her, in a way she couldn’t begin to articulate.

He was too smart to trust her completely so early. And he was too guarded and paranoid to reveal himself fully to her—even if he was starting to have some real feelings.

She wasn’t stupid enough to think he could ever fall in love with her. But there were things nearly as strong as love in the world—things like obsession, like need.

Still, he wasn’t acting the way she had predicted. In fact, in some ways he seemed totally out of character. None of this felt quite right.

It wasn’t right. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be doing this. It was as wrong as a wrong thing could be.

If she could think of anything else to do, she would just do it, but all other options would mean losing even more.

There must be more to uncover about Caleb—secrets he wanted to hide from the world. If his computer didn’t offer those secrets, then something else would, if she could stay close enough, if she could get him to really lower his guard. If she left now, all hope for either justice or retribution—or even closure—would be gone.

She had to see this through.

—

A few days later, she went to get Caleb from his home office, since Breah had fixed them a really nice dinner.

The office door was opened, and she paused in front of it. She could see part of the room from where she stood, mostly just an expanse of the bookcases lining the far wall.

Before she could announce her presence or knock, she saw Caleb walk into her line of sight and pause in front of the bookcase. He closed his hand over a curlicue that was carved into the wood, evidently turning it to release a latch. Because then part of the bookcase opened out to reveal what Kelly recognized as a safe.

Kelly wasn’t surprised. She’d assumed there would be one somewhere in the house. A man like Caleb would always have a safe.

She just hadn’t known where this one was.

He punched some numbers into a keypad—his body was blocking it so Kelly couldn’t see what they were—and then the safe door opened.

He must have put something inside it, because when he straightened up his hands were empty.

He hadn’t glanced in her direction yet, but—as he shut the safe and bookcase again—Kelly realized that he’d see her at any moment. Thinking quickly, she realized he couldn’t catch her watching him. So she knocked lightly on the office door and said, “Hey,” as if she’d just arrived.

Caleb’s head jerked toward her, the only sign he made of surprise. But Kelly could tell she had taken him off guard. His eyes were hard and cold when he replied to her greeting. “I told you I was working.”

He’d swung the bookcase back into place, but he must have known that Kelly had seen it closing.

Kelly felt an instinctive annoyance at his terse tone of voice. “Well, yes,” she replied sharply. “You did. But it’s time for dinner. There’s no reason to snap my head off.”

Caleb frowned. “I hardly snapped your head off. Don’t be overly sensitive.”

“I am not being overly sensitive. You’re the one who’s acting like I did something wrong.”

He controlled his face—as if he were fighting to keep his irritability and defensiveness in check. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said coolly. “I just prefer privacy while I’m working.”

Kelly was irritated now and didn’t bother hiding it. She hated this kind of cold condescension—from anyone. “If you prefer privacy, then you should shut the damned door. And don’t act like I’m trying to spy on you. Don’t you think I’d try to be a little sneakier than standing in plain sight in an open doorway?” Her voice grew more and more exasperated, until she was snapping out the last words.

Caleb was becoming visibly annoyed now too. “I never thought you were trying to spy on me. There’s no reason to act petty and childish.”

Kelly sucked in an angry breath. “You’re the one acting like a sulky little boy who got caught hiding his best toy. I don’t give a fuck what’s behind that bookcase, and how the hell would I be able to access it, even if I did? And the next time you speak to me in that condescending way, I’ll be out the door and you’ll never see me again. I don’t put up with that—from anyone.”

She was panting now, and boiling with resentment and annoyance. She wanted to claw the cold arrogance off Caleb’s face for good. Sometimes, it was like he was two separate men—the lover and the bastard—and it was far too easy to forget that the bastard existed, when the lover was so much of what she wanted.

His mouth opened, as if he would say something, but Kelly decided she didn’t even want to hear it.

She whirled around and walked away from the office, not even remembering what she’d come there for.

—

Several hours later, Kelly was lying in the dark in bed.

She wondered if Caleb was going to come to her, the way he’d gotten into the habit of doing.

Their argument had been stupid—the kind of thing that normal couples fell into all the time. But it worried Kelly a lot. She was on very thin ice here, and any misstep could lead Caleb to give up on her completely. They had no commitment. Nothing even close to a commitment. She was here only because Caleb wanted her to be, and as soon as that changed, any hope she had of getting more information to prove his guilt would be gone. There were still things she wanted to try—gaining access to his office at work, catching him in a weak moment and gently encouraging him to drop some clues. She needed more time to really make this work.

They’d eaten dinner together, but conversation had been minimal and stilted, both of them still bad tempered. Afterward, Kelly had taken a bath and gone to bed early.

She wasn’t asleep yet, though. Her mind was whirring and she couldn’t settle down.

The sex seemed to be getting harder and harder.

And better and better.

She reminded herself for the thousandth time that the better the sex was for her, for them, the more he would be deceived.

As long as his investigations into her past didn’t turn up anything about her biological parents, which was unlikely because her mother had buried the records so well, then Kelly still had time to succeed. She just needed to move faster. Take more risks. Find out the truth. Make Caleb pay. And be done with this for good.

She couldn’t even imagine a life after it was over.

She’d been lying in the dark for a couple of hours when Caleb finally came into the room. Her back was toward the door, but she could feel him staring at her anyway.

He must have realized she was still awake because he asked, “Are you still mad at me?”

She turned over and frowned in his direction. “You haven’t given me any reason not to be.”

Caleb’s figure was looming and shaded in the dark room. “I’m sorry I was rude to you. You took me by surprise, and I never react well to that.”