Busir opened his mouth to yell, just as his world went silent.
Okay, enough was enough.
Kat threw back the covers on the gigantic four-poster bed, clicked on the bedside lamp and scrambled out from between the sheets. The clock across the room read 2:10 a.m. as she dragged on her jeans and slid her feet into her shoes.
She’d been lying here for the past two hours, listening to the sounds of the rain pounding the city, waiting for God-only-knows-what. She was done waiting.
The dainty Victorian furnishings with their Queen Anne legs and that delicate rose wallpaper surrounding everything was making her head swim. And every time she looked up at the lace canopy above the monster bed she’d been laying in with its intricate carvings and wide posts, she wanted to puke because it made her think of Pete and what he was doing in another room in this enormous apartment right now.
She’d been stupid to think he would come to her. Obviously, what had happened between them in that motel room last night had been all about sexual tension, time and place and leftover hormones from being at that strip club. And his following her to North Carolina? Not about her, but about watching his back.
It didn’t even bother him that she was up here and he was down there, with that…piranha.
She turned for the door, not caring that it was pouring outside, or that she had no idea where she’d go from here, or that Minyawi and his goons could be out there waiting for her right this very minute. If she spent another second in this penthouse, she was pretty sure she was going to lose it.
Her chest grew tight, and useless, pathetic tears she had no right to shed clawed up her throat until simply breathing was a major feat. She wasn’t going to cry, dammit. The thought of melting into a puddle only ticked her off more. She didn’t want anything to get in the way of the truckload of pissed-off that had dumped itself smack on top of her.
She grabbed her jacket, cursed the man who’d left her in this spot as she grabbed her backpack from the floor and yanked the bedroom door open. Then pulled up short when Pete’s broad shoulders and handsome face filled her only means of escape.
Shock came first—that he was here instead of with that witch. Then anger that he would check up on her to make sure she sat tight while he had his fun.
“Get out of my way,” she snapped.
He didn’t move, just stood there with those insanely sexy, completely emotionless, smoky gray eyes as he stared at her. He kept one hand braced on each side of the doorjamb, preventing her exit.
“I’m leaving,” she said sharply in case he’d missed the hint. “I’d appreciate it if you’d step aside.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“The hell I’m not.”
In response he dropped his hands and moved forward, his body filling the space until all she saw was him. No more hall, no more door, nothing beyond the fresh, white dress shirt stretched across his strong chest.
With nowhere to go and her emotions almost at a breaking point, Kat stepped back. Then clenched her jaw to keep from lashing out at him. He closed the door at his back with one hand, never looking away from her face, and clicked the lock.
“You can’t keep me here,” she blurted. “I’m not your prisoner.”
“You’re not leaving, Kat.” He took the backpack and jacket from her and tossed them onto a chair.
Who the hell did he think he was? She glared at him with all she had, and still his expression didn’t change from calm and totally collected. She was quickly going from pissed off to irate, and he didn’t even seem to care.
Those stupid-ass tears bubbled up again. Her nose tingled. She whipped away from him so she wouldn’t embarrass herself more and blinked several time to keep from bawling like a baby. There were some things a woman shouldn’t ever have to endure. Staying in this house, tonight, topped that list.
“Just go,” she said in a voice that came out weak and stilted and not nearly as firm as she’d hoped. “I get it, okay? Just go back to your girlfriend and leave me alone.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.” She didn’t hear him move, but she felt him suddenly at her back, just a whisper of a touch as the air stirred near her. “If I wanted to be with her, I would be.”
“So why aren’t you?” she snapped.
“Because she’s not you.”
Those four little words were like a noose around Kat’s heart.
“Something about your story’s been bothering me,” he said. “There’s one part I can’t wrap my mind around.”
Her back went up. She pushed thoughts of their past out of her mind and focused on the present. And why the hell he was bringing this up at two a.m. “I didn’t lie about anything.”
“No, but I think you purposely omitted something important.”
She wanted to step away, but there was no place to go. In front of her was the bed, to her left the window. If she moved right, it would look like he was making her uncomfortable, and she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. She crossed her arms over her chest again instead. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I think you do. In fact, I think it’s the whole reason you’re here right now.”
“You must be jet-lagged, Kauffman, or your brain’s turned to mush from too much sex because you’re not making a lick of sense.”
“The only sex I’ve had was last night, and it wasn’t nearly enough. Why were you at my auction, Kat?”
His revelation that he hadn’t been screwing Maria downstairs was quickly overshadowed by a question that seemed to come out of left field. Puzzled, she turned her head slightly to the side and realized he was even closer than she’d originally thought. Mere millimeters from touching her. The warmth of his breath fanned across her cheek and sent electricity zinging along her nerve endings. Had he really not slept with that woman? “Wh—what do you mean?”
“Why now?” he asked. “Why was it so important you get that necklace back now?”
“I…you know why. I had to make sure you didn’t sell it.”
“Are you telling me you were never in Miami? That you never went to see for yourself that I still had it? Not once in six years?”
Her throat grew thick as she fished for an answer she didn’t have. Of course she’d kept tabs on him and what he’d done with her pendant. She’d had to for security reasons. She’d even been in his gallery once when she’d known he was out of town. At the time, she’d been shocked by the sheer magnitude of what he’d built. But how did he know any of that?
He moved even closer, until she felt his chest brush her back and the warmth of his body pressing softly into hers. And that heart rate she’d tried so hard to contain shot straight through the roof. “You could have taken it whenever you wanted. You know I didn’t have it locked up.”
She swallowed. Thought about what she could say. He was right. She’d sneaked into his office that one time she’d gone to his gallery and seen the golden pharaoh sitting on a glass shelf across from his desk.
His fingertip brushed a stray hair at the nape of her neck. “You told me you stayed in hiding all this time to protect your family. If that’s true, then why didn’t you come for it after your mother died? Why did you wait so long?”
“It…it doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me. You could have cleared your name anytime. I think you stayed in hiding for a reason. In fact, I can only think of one reason why you wouldn’t have come forward sooner.”
Kat’s heart thumped erratically against her ribs, and words lodged in her throat.
“No confession to make on that one?” he asked in an amused voice as he twirled his finger in a lazy circle against her arm.
She bit her lip.
“Then I think it’s time you listened to mine.”
He continued to swirl his finger in that languid way, keeping contact between them that did amazing things to her body but kept her head in a fog.
“You were right about why I went to your tomb
that first time,” he said. “About why I came back and why I asked you out. I asked you out because I knew you were an easy mark.”
She stiffened, though she didn’t pull away, because she sensed—okay, hoped—there was more to what he was trying to say. Please let there be more.
“You didn’t know,” he said as his finger brushed over her forearm, “couldn’t know, what you did to me that night. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t thinking about money or what kind of deal I was going to haggle next. That night, all I could think about was you.”
Regret tinged his husky voice, and Kat found herself listening, praying what he was telling her would somehow change things and make them better.
“After that weekend at the Mena House, I didn’t go back to the States like I’d told you. Instead, I stayed in Egypt a few days so I could back out of the deal I’d been brokering.”
He hesitated, and a stillness descended between them, one that froze her pulse because she had a really bad feeling what he was about to say next was something she didn’t want to hear.
“Ramirez was right about one thing. I did know Busir—I’d worked with him before.”
Kat went cold all over, and a sick feeling bubbled up from her abdomen and shot into her veins. That hope she’d clung to burst in an explosion that rocketed through her soul. Everything she’d suspected about him but never truly believed was confirmed in that one instant.
And the heart she’d tried so hard to keep safe shattered at her feet.
She wheeled on Pete so fast, she nearly knocked him over. “How could you!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Hold on, now.”
Pete grasped Kat at the wrists and jerked her against his chest before her fist made contact with his jaw. She barely heard his words or felt his strong grip. All she could focus on was a growing sickness at her naivety. After everything she’d done, how could he? How could he?
She wiggled to the side, then jabbed an elbow in his sternum hard. When he doubled over and loosened his grasp, she broke away and raced for the door.
Two powerful arms engulfed her from behind and lifted her off the floor before she reached the exit. She kicked out and tried to wrestle free. “Let go of me, you son of a bitch!”
“Not until you hear me out!” He muscled her arms around in front of her until he had them pinned in both of his hands. Groaning from the effort of controlling her flailing, he walked backward and dropped onto the bed in a seated position with her held firmly in his lap.
“Let me go,” she growled again, struggling once, twice more to no avail.
“Not yet.” He tightened his hold, flipped his leg over hers so she couldn’t nail him with her heel. “Not until you listen to what I have to say.”
“Go to hell!” She thrashed against him again, even though she knew it was useless.
“You’ll probably get your wish.” He shifted his head to the side so she couldn’t crack him with the back of her skull. “Until then the least you can do is give me five minutes of your precious time. I’ve given you way more than that over the last two days.”
She ground her teeth together, twisted in his arms, and knew she was stuck. But the minute he loosened his grasp…
In the silence between them, she heard his heavy breathing, mirroring hers, felt the beat of his heart at her back and wanted to scream for him to just get it over with so she could get as far away from him as possible.
But he didn’t. He just sat there until she cooled down.
Which only pissed her off more.
Long minutes later, he finally said, “That’s better.”
“Fuck yo—”
“Kat.” He dropped his forehead against her back, and there was such pain in his voice, she closed her mouth instantly. In that one word—her name—he sounded distraught and…sad. And though she didn’t want it to, it softened her, just enough so she could listen to whatever it was he had to say without a brawl.
He heaved out a breath. “You don’t have any idea what you did to me. What that weekend did to me. It changed everything. I cut off my deal with Busir. I went home to Miami and started cleaning up my business because I didn’t want you to know what I’d been doing. I tried to stay away. God, I really did. But I couldn’t. Do you have any idea how hard it was to stay away from you for two damn weeks?”
Yes, she did. Because at the time two weeks away from him had been like pure hell for her.
“It was worse than hell,” he said, almost as if he’d read her mind. “I knew after we were together you were frustrated with me because I wouldn’t talk to you about the gallery, because I was traveling so much, but I was brokering deals, working my ass off to get Odyssey on the level before your dig was up and you came back to the States. I didn’t want you to know the man I’d been. I wanted to be…better.”
The fight rushed out of her at his words.
“I swear to you,” he said, “I didn’t have anything to do with the smuggling ring or Ramirez’s death or what happened to your roommate. That day you came home from work early and I was packing—shit, I screwed up, Kat. Busir contacted me just after you left that morning and told me he had some new relics. I shouldn’t have gone, but I went to see, and the next thing I knew, I had them. I didn’t know they were from your tomb. I swear it. I fucked up. If I could go back and change that day, don’t you think I would?
“I’ve spent the last six years paying for that one mistake. Knowing if I’d done things differently, you wouldn’t have been in that car the day that bomb blew. You would have been with me. You’ve got no reason to believe me, but I swear to you, I cleaned up my act after that day. Even though I knew it wouldn’t bring you back. I cleaned up because I owed you.”
Kat’s heart skipped a beat at what she heard. Then another. And another. And then it kicked in and started beating fast and erratic as the reality of what he was telling her took root.
He wasn’t a saint. But he wasn’t the sinner she’d pegged him as either. And she’d made her own fair share of mistakes, hadn’t she? Could she really condemn him if there was a chance what he said was true? If he’d really been involved with the smuggling ring or Sawil’s death, would he have been so upset with her accusations in Cairo? With her showing back up now? If he was being honest with her—and she sensed he was—then the only thing he was truly guilty of was poor judgment. Poor judgment and trying to clean up his life. For her.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered as her eyes slid closed and a thousand memories of the two of them together hit her from all sides.
He released his hold and gently turned her in his lap. Blood rushed to her arms, but she barely felt it, didn’t struggle or try to move off him. Was too fixated on everything he’d just told her to consider going anywhere.
“All that stuff at the auction the other night,” he said softly, “all of it was bought and paid for through legal means. You know I left everything I bought from Busir that day in your flat. The only thing I kept was the pendant you sent me. I swear it to you. Every time I’ve come across an Egyptian piece over the last few years I haven’t been able to pass by without buying it and sticking it in storage because it reminded me of you.”
That admission was so sweet, it touched her heart in a place she hadn’t thought existed anymore. And when he brushed his thumb over her cheek in such an achingly tender move, tears threatened behind her eyes.
“Tell me why you didn’t walk away after the auction,” he said. “You thought you had the pendant. There was no reason to follow me. Why were you driving my limo? Why were you outside this building? Why did you bother to step in when Busir had me in the alley? Those aren’t the actions of a woman who hates me.”
“I…I never hated you.”
“No?” A wan smile tugged at his mouth. “You sure didn’t like me very much there at the end.”
Six years of worry and regret, hope and heartbreak, betrayal and beliefs swirled inside her. And sitting there, so close to him, bombarded with ques
tions she didn’t know how to answer, it was too much. Hot tears filled her eyes. She covered her face with her hands to keep the dam from breaking.
She didn’t fight it when his arms circled her, when his legs opened so she could sink lower onto the mattress between his thighs, when he pulled her close so her face was against his throat and she was surrounded by the familiar scent and feel of him.
“Just tell me,” he whispered. “Why now? I need to hear it from you.”
“Because I messed up,” she managed. “Because after Busir and Minyawi saw me at the auction, I knew they were going to come after you. I…I couldn’t let them do that. I spent too many years making sure they never—”
She closed her mouth tight when she realized what she’d been about to admit.
He tipped her face up. “You spent too many years making sure they never went after me,” he finished for her. “You stayed away all this time because of me, didn’t you?”
She couldn’t deny it, not anymore. And part of her didn’t even want to. She closed her eyes as the first tear slipped down her cheek.
“Kit-Kat,” he whispered. “Look at me.”
She opened her eyes to look up into his handsome face, a face that had haunted her dreams for so long. A face that was still sporting a shiner from Busir and cuts from their run-in in Raleigh.
“You sent that crouching pharaoh to me instead of giving it to Slade for security. So that in case someone did ever come after me to get to you, you’d have a bargaining chip. Even when you knew it could possibly clear your name.” When she couldn’t answer, he whispered, “Christ. Why the hell didn’t you tell me this days ago?”
“Because I knew you wouldn’t believe me. And I…” She drummed up her courage and glanced at the open collar of his shirt. “No matter what happened between us before, I was afraid if you knew, you’d walk away, and then you’d be in more danger than I’d put you in originally.”