“Nothing to be concerned about,” she averred with a wan smile, and wondered why she didn’t have the strength of character to lay her cards on the table and confront him with her unanswered questions about their relationship and the future. Instead she chose to sidestep the issue. “Now.” She smiled feebly, luminous lilac eyes looking pleadingly up at him. “What’s been bothering you?”
“Oh, God, Erin,” he moaned and let his forehead drop to his hand in a gesture of total defeat. He raked long tense fingers through the wheat-colored highlights of his burnished hair. How could he explain that he was only a hairbreadth away from confirming his suspicions about her? Could she imagine how close he was coming to finding all of the pieces of the puzzle that would tie her into the embezzling scandal? Although everything was still circumstantial, it was stacking together so neatly that it was actually beginning to scare Kane. Although no more money had been taken from the bank, the most damning piece of evidence that he had found so far—a discrepancy in the securities cart key registration—proved as well as anything that Erin had been lying to him. How long did she expect the charade to work? How could he help her and get her out of this mess? What could he do? It would all be so much easier if he just didn’t give a damn!
“Kane,” Erin said unsteadily, still sitting, looking both childlike and wise at the same moment. Oh, God, he thought, was she going to confess? Could he bear it? His muscles tensed, and he could feel the pressure as his jaws tightened together in a viselike grip. “Is there anything I can do?” she offered in a whisper.
Erin had noticed Kane stiffen at the sound of her voice, and she was aware that the wall between them was rigidly back in place, but she felt a strangling need to climb the invisible barrier and reach out to him. Why was he suffering so?
“There’s nothing you can do,” he stated flatly. “There’s nothing anyone can do.”
She twisted her fingers together. “Is it Krista?” she asked with a shaky breath.
His gray eyes smoldered with indecision. “That’s part of it,” he conceded, and hated himself for his duplicity. Dropping his body down on the couch next to her, he let his head fall backward as if it were too heavy to support. He sat staring ahead, with only inches separating him from her. Her senses were alive to him, her nerve endings stretched taut. Erin could feel the heat of his body, smell the inviting scent of his aftershave, see the darkening shadow of his beard. But he still didn’t touch her. His hands rubbed thoughtfully against his knees, and he looked straight ahead through the window into the late afternoon sky. “I talked with Krista again today,” he said in a voice that seemed remote.
“And?” Erin prodded, not knowing why she should be concerned with Kane’s reclusive daughter.
“She doesn’t want to move to Seattle,” he sighed, and drummed his fingers against his thigh. “Absolutely refuses!”
He turned his head to look in her direction and their eyes met in a chilly embrace. “I’m going to California next week to get her and move her up to Seattle with me.”
“And you’re worried about her and the adjustment,” Erin guessed.
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“That goes without saying. Is…there anything I can do to make it easier on you?”
“Would you come to California with me?”
“To get Krista?” At Kane’s cursory nod, Erin expelled a long breath and shook her head firmly and negatively. “I don’t think that would be a very good idea. She’s going to have to adjust to a whole new city. I think you should be alone with her. She doesn’t need the intrusion of a virtual stranger.”
She could see in his eyes that she had convinced him and she continued, “But if there’s anything else that I can do….”
“There is something,” he suggested, and for a moment the tension seemed to vanish.
“What?”
“Pack your bags for the weekend” was the brief reply, but the passion that had been lurking in his eyes came alive. His silvery eyes embraced hers, and he reached for her hand. His thumb drew slow, lazy circles on the inside of her wrist, and heat began to climb up her body. “Oh, Erin,” he breathed, and his lips found hers in a feverish kiss that seemed to pulsate with need and urgency. When he dragged his mouth away from the supple curve of her lips, he looked savagely into her eyes, asking questions that she couldn’t understand. Then a softness stole over his features as he took a handful of her hair in his palm and pressed her head against the protection of his chest. In a ragged breath he asked, “Do you know how hard it’s been for me, forcing myself to keep my hands off you at the office?” He growled deep in his throat. “There were times when I thought I would actually go insane, having you so close and not being able to touch you….”
Her arms circled his waist, and she kissed the swell of his cheek. “I know…”
“No, I don’t think that you can imagine what it’s like—seeing you every day and not being able to touch what is mine.”
“Yours? Possessive, aren’t you?” she quipped sarcastically.
“Absolutely!” His grip on her tightened, and when she tilted her face to meet his, the warmth of his lips captured hers in a passion that spread fire through her veins. With great difficulty she pulled her head away from his.
“What did you say about packing my bags?” she inquired, trying to ignore the warm intimacy of his breath as it tickled her face.
“You and I are getting away for the weekend,” he stated, and with apparent effort he released her from his tenacious embrace. “Hurry up,” he ordered. “We don’t have all day. I want to get moving before we run out of daylight!”
“Kane!” Erin said with mild irritation. “What are you talking about? Where are we going? Why do I need to pack?”
His smile twisted grimly and Erin saw the weariness and cynicism deep in his crystal gray eyes. “You and I are leaving this city, the bank—” his eyes swept the homey apartment “—this house, everything! We’re going to get lost in the wild for a couple of days!”
“The wild?”
“That’s right!” Half dragging her into the bedroom, he opened the closet, against her protests, and found her suitcase. “I’m tired of sneaking out of your bed in the middle of the night like some…gigolo!” He ignored Erin’s gasp of indignation and began opening her bureau drawers. She caught his reflection in the mirror and saw that a hard, tense mask had come over his angular features. He looked up, his gray eyes held hers and he said with disgust, “And I’m tired of not being able to touch you in the light of day!” His hands were pressed firmly on the dresser top, and he pinioned her with his gaze, cold and distant, in the looking glass. Tense fingers slowly rubbed the wooden surface of the dresser. “Damn it, woman!” His fist pounded against the cool wood. “I’m sick of hiding, and I won’t do it anymore! So, beginning tonight, we are not going to keep this affair in the dark, as if we’re ashamed of it! You and your paranoia over rumors can go to blazes!” He spit the words out as if they were a bad taste in his mouth. His anger was burning in the darkness of his gaze.
“Kane,” Erin implored. “Why are you so upset? What…”