‘You told me you were the one who worked in the gift shop,’ he said, and knew he had her when she flushed. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about you And Demarest, Iona?’ He pressed his advantage, despite the tremble in her fingers as they clutched the stem of her margarita glass.
It was what he was trained to do. And he wanted to know. Suddenly it seemed vitally important to hear the truth from those lush lips.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about what Demarest did to you?’
She remained rigid in her chair, her eyes glassy with shock.
‘Did you think I would judge you?’ he added, softening his voice.
A lone tear spilled over her lid, shocking him.
Hell. Had it been worse than he thought?
She brushed the tear away with her fist and stood up.
‘You can go right to hell, Montoya,’ she whispered, her whole body vibrating with tension.
The show of temper was a relief after the moment of anguish. But his relief was short-lived, when she threw her napkin on the table and rushed off through the crowded tables towards the exit.
‘Hey, come back here,’ he shouted, making the nearby diners turn and stare at him, but she didn’t even slow down.
Tugging his wallet out of his pocket, he threw a wad of bills on the table and headed after her.
Where the hell was she going?
Iona burst out of the restaurant into the night, ignoring the queue of people staring at her and Zane’s shouted demand to slow down.
She wanted to throttle him. She would throttle him, if he so much as touched her.
‘Madre de Dios.’
She heard the muffled curse only moments before a hard forearm wrapped round her waist, halting her getaway as his lean body butted against her back.
She swung round but he grabbed her bunched fist in his hand, and stopped her from socking him on the jaw.
‘Calm down, damn it.’
‘No,’ she shouted, the word whipping away on the wind as the fury rose up to mask the pain and humiliation.
She’d let her guard down, had started to believe that this might be more than just a pity date. That he’d actually meant what he said about wanting to get to know her better—which only made the humiliation worse. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said yanking her hand out of his.
The tightening in her breasts, and the slow pulse of arousal in her belly that she had no control over, only added insult to the injury.
‘Miss, is everything all right?’ The tentative question had both her and Zane turning to stare at the older man who had come to her rescue. ‘Is this man bothering you?’ he asked, not looking quite so confident about the gallant impulse when Zane glared at him.
‘She’s great,’ Zane ground out, before she could think of what to say. She knew she wasn’t in any physical danger from Zane Montoya, but didn’t emotional danger count? ‘I’m a cop.’
‘Okay.’ Her Sir Galahad nodded quickly. ‘Sorry to bother you, Officer.’ He hurried back to join his wife in the queue—the impulse to rescue her hastily abandoned.
‘You’re not a cop,’ She snapped as Zane hauled her into the car park, away from the ocean and out of sight of the other customers. ‘You’re a fake cop, remember.’
She kept her voice down. She was perfectly capable of fighting her own battles. Especially now she’d got a good head of steam.
‘I used to be a cop,’ he shot back, sounding as furious as she felt. ‘Now shut the hell up before you cause any more trouble.’
‘Me?’
He’d ambushed her, when she hadn’t been prepared for it. She should have guessed he’d been a cop—he certainly had one hell of an interrogation technique. He’d let her think she mattered, that even though this might be a pity date, it had potential. She’d been flirting with him, the buzz of the margaritas making her bold as they devoured the food and she lapped up all that focused attention. And then he’d shown his true colours and ruined it all. And for what? So he could get information out of her that she hadn’t wanted him to know. That he had no business knowing. The case was over, Brad was in jail where he belonged—what had been the point of humiliating her further? Had he wanted to punish her? Who gave him the right to do that?