“Why are you so hesitant? What else have you heard about me besides the family business?” he demanded suddenly.
What had he read on her face?
“Nothing,” she insisted.
The small, grim smile returned. “You’re not a very good liar, Emma. What else did you hear?”
Her heart began to thump uncomfortably in her chest at the sound of him saying her name. To hide her discomposure, she rested her forearm on her open car door. His dark brows quirked slightly, his manner the cool, slightly impatient one of a prince being kept waiting.
“Okay. But you’re the one who insisted,” she said. “The rumor is that you’re a cold, selfish bastard.”
His expression remained masklike. A car passed on the country road in the distance, the sound striking her as lonely in the cloaking darkness. A puff of rain-scented wind swirled around them, rustling his thick hair.
“It’s seems to me they’re wrong,” Emma added, her voice shaking a little.
“No. They’re right,” he said.
For some reason, her chin went up defiantly. Neither of them spoke for a stretched few seconds. His face looked like carved alabaster in the harsh white lights, his gaze fierce. Emma cleared her throat and looked away.
“Well, you certainly were kind to me tonight. Thank you again. Good night,” she said, starting to get into her car.
“How far do you live?”
“Evanston. Not that far.”
“That storm is about to break,” he said, nodding to the western sky. “I’ll follow to make sure you get home okay.”
“No, that’s all right.”
He blinked at her adamancy. Did he think she didn’t want him to follow her because she didn’t want him to know where she lived? If anything, the opposite was the truth, and that’s what had made her speak so harshly. An alarm in her head blared that she was approaching some seriously dangerous water, while the rational part of her insisted that the idea that Michael Montand was vaguely interested in her was ridiculous, so what was she worried about? He was idiosyncratic, that’s all. Weren’t rich people known to be odd and unpredictable? Didn’t they live by different rules than someone like her? Besides, he’d just been warning her away from him by saying all the nasty rumors about him were true.
Hadn’t he?
“I just meant that you’ve already done enough for me tonight. I’ll be fine,” she said.
He nodded, and for a few seconds, she thought he’d actually succumbed to her wishes. But then—
“I’ll follow you,” he repeated in a tone that didn’t brook argument. He started toward the sleek sports car but paused and looked back at her. “And remember to leave your keys in the car tomorrow,” he said pointedly. “You can put them under the front seat. I’ll find them.”
The decision to agree to that seemingly innocuous request felt like too weighty of a choice to make in that moment. She lowered into the driver’s seat and shut her door.
She couldn’t stop glancing at her rearview mirror on the trip home. Every time she saw those steady headlights behind her, something swelled tighter in her chest. He stayed a respectable distance behind her.
He might as well have been inside her head, she was so aware of him.
Chapter Five
A quarter of a mile from her home the sky unloaded. Thunder boomed threateningly as rain fell in torrents, pounding on her car. As she turned into her apartment’s parking lot, she noticed Montand’s distant headlights turn and disappear abruptly. He’d whipped the car around in a tight U-turn and accelerated in the other direction without a pause. She just made out the dark red rearview lights before he was swallowed by the rain and dark gray gloom.
A bitter flash of disappointment went through her, making her grit her teeth in self-disgust.
She opted for the rear entrance so that she could remove her now-soaking shoes on the tile floor of the utility room instead of the wood floor of the entryway. Afterward, she padded barefoot into the kitchen and picked up a dish towel, wiping off her wet arms. Exhaustion struck her all at once, the adrenaline high of the evening—of her unexpected encounter with Montand—running thin in her blood. In the distance, she heard the crashing of swords and the grunts of video game characters doing battle.
“Hi,” she said wearily, rounding the corner into the dim living room. She came to an abrupt halt. Amanda and Colin sat on the couch, side by side. Two video controllers lay on the floor before their feet, forgotten. Amanda’s body jerked at the sound of Emma’s voice, but Colin continued kissing her, his hand running hungrily along the side of Amanda’s tank top–clad torso and brushing a breast. Amanda made a wild, muffled sound and pushed at Colin. Emma caught a glimpse of her sister’s frightened face around Colin’s shoulder. The vision made a hot knife of sensation stab through her belly, forcing reality into her shocked haze.
Colin finally got a clue and turned. They both stared at Emma, pale faced and openmouthed.
The silence was horrible. Strangling. Emma couldn’t think of anything to say. Her tongue had gone numb.