At some point during the night she’d stopped being Lara and become Matilda in everything but name, but the closeness and trust had remained.
“I want to see you again.” His voice was deep and decisive and she felt a rush of excitement mingled with nerves.
She should tell him.
She should tell him her real name, explain. They’d laugh together. “I’d like that, too.”
She felt like dancing, but dancing invariably involved breakages, so she contented herself with a smile. “Back in a moment.”
She slid out of bed and walked to the bathroom. All she needed to do was work out the best way to tell him.
“Incredible legs,” he murmured, and she smiled and realized for the first time in her life she wasn’t trying to make herself seem smaller. Instead of making her feel like a freak, he made her feel fantastic.
She turned to tell him as much and saw that he’d fallen asleep, dark strands of hair flopping over his face. It made him seem younger and less severe.
Gazing at him, lost in her own dreamworld, she turned back to the bathroom and her elbow knocked his wallet onto the floor. The contents scattered.
She rolled her eyes. Still, as accidents went it could have been worse. It could have been something glass and precious, or something liquid and red.
She stooped to clear up her latest mess, thinking that the one thing she knew she wasn’t going to find in his wallet were condoms, because they’d used them all, and then she froze.
Dazed, she reached for the credit card. Chase Adams.
Chase Adams?
She checked the next card and the next. All had the same name.
Which meant only one thing.
He was a thief.
The man she’d spent the most amazing, unforgettable night of her life with was a thief. He’d stolen Chase Adams’s wallet. Hands shaking, she tried to stuff the contents back inside and then saw the photo.
Her gaze lifted from the photo to the man on the bed. It was the same person.
He hadn’t stolen Chase Adams’s wallet; he was Chase Adams.
Crap, crap, crappity crap. She’d had wild sex with Chase Adams. She’d spilled her hopes, her dreams and an entire bucket of ice on a man who was entirely out of her league.
A man who had lied about who he was.
Alarm and horror turned to anger.
Why hadn’t he told her the truth? Why had he lied about who he was?
Her mind tracked back over the night they’d shared. All those things he’d said. All those things he’d told her about himself. All lies.
But she’d told lies, too, hadn’t she?
The knowledge that she was being hypocritical doused the flames of her anger. She was equally guilty.
It was the ultimate irony that she’d begun the evening pretending to be someone else, only to discover that he’d also been pretending to be someone else.
She put the wallet back carefully and picked up her clothes.
This wasn’t a plot twist, it was karma, and Lara would have said that karma was a total bitch, but she was done with being Lara. She was back to being herself. For a little while she’d loved being herself and the reason she’d loved it was because he’d liked her that way.
All she had to do was carry on doing that without him, and ignore the fact that her heart felt as if it had been wrenched from her body.