Page 18 of The Perfect Deception

From her bed­room, she called Zach. “I’m sorry, I need to post­pone tonight. Can we resched­ule? I have a semi-emer­gency that I need to take care of. I’m so sorry. I don’t usu­ally do things like this.” She never can­celled plans, but some­thing about Adam, a look in his eye, made her do it.

“Oh gosh, is there any­thing I can do?”

She thought about Adam cur­rently sit­ting in her liv­ing room, jit­tery, up­set, need­ing her. “No, it’s some­thing I have to take care of on my own. I’m so sorry to do this last minute though.”

“No prob­lem. I’ll call you later in the week and we can resched­ule. I’m busy the next few days with an ex­per­i­ment I’m run­ning, so I can tell you all about it when I see you next.”

“Ter­rific. Thanks so much for un­der­stand­ing.”

She hung up, glanced in the mir­ror, and shud­dered. Well, Adam would have to deal with her look­ing like a schlump—that’s what hap­pens when you show up unan­nounced. Re­turn­ing to her liv­ing room, she watched him pace, filled with a fre­netic en­ergy she didn’t un­der­stand.

His eyes re­flected hurt and sad­ness. She wanted to fold him into a hug, but he wouldn’t stop mov­ing. He prob­a­bly wouldn’t want her hug any­way. “What’s go­ing on, Adam?”

“Noth­ing. I just was in the mood for a good time and thought of you.”

She cringed at the im­pli­ca­tion. He threw his hands up as if in sur­ren­der.

“No, wait, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“Let’s go some­where, do some­thing, drive fast.”

He raked his hands through his short blond hair. A part of her wanted to feel its tex­ture be­tween her fin­gers while an­other part of her wanted to run and hide un­der her cov­ers.

“Adam, I don’t do spon­tane­ity.”

“Why the hell not?” He spun to­ward her and took her by the shoul­ders. De­spite his quick move­ments, his hands were gen­tle. The hurt in his eyes had less­ened. But it was still there. His hands were warm, his breath minty. While part of her wanted to run away, an­other part of her wanted to melt into him. “Be­cause I’m a plan­ner.”

“And you have plans.”

His gaze raked her from top to bot­tom, leav­ing a trail of heat in their wake. Only the heat wasn’t de­sire, it was em­bar­rass­ment. Be­cause she knew very well what she looked like. She folded her arms across her chest. “I did, which I can­celled when you showed up.”

“You were go­ing to the gym?” He raised one side of his mouth into a lop­sided smile.

She would have laughed if she had found his com­ment the least bit funny. “No, I was re­lax­ing be­fore get­ting ready to go out with some­one who doesn’t care what I look like.” She in­haled as soon as the words left her mouth. “I…I didn’t mean…”

Adam gave a bit­ter laugh. He shut­tered the last of the emo­tion she’d thought she’d seen. “Of course you did. I should have con­sid­ered you might be see­ing some­one else. My bad.”

He edged to­ward the door. “Go ‘un­can­cel’ them. See you around.”

Be­fore she could say any­thing else, he strode down the stairs. The click of the door as it closed gen­tly re­ver­ber­ated through her head. He was gone.

Chap­ter Six

Hours later, Adam re­turned home from aim­less driv­ing, bleary eyed. Ev­ery mus­cle in his body ached from the tight con­trol he’d main­tained, and hadn’t been able to re­lease. Park­ing in the un­der­ground garage, he stum­bled his way up to his apart­ment. When the el­e­va­tor doors opened into the gold-car­peted lobby, he stopped short.

Dina was curled up in one of the red leather chairs. What the hell?

Bend­ing down, he smelled co­conuts in her hair. He in­haled, clos­ing his eyes and imag­in­ing her wrapped naked around him, ly­ing on a beach with the waves lap­ping at their toes. But they weren’t at the beach and she wasn’t naked. She also wasn’t sup­posed to be here.

Anger, em­bar­rass­ment, and de­sire com­bined as he looked at her, try­ing to fig­ure out what the hell he was sup­posed to do with her. He couldn’t leave her here—it was two in the morn­ing. He wasn’t an ass, even if oth­ers might think so. It was rude. She’d be em­bar­rassed. He wasn’t that guy.

He knelt down and gen­tly shook her shoul­der. She was warm be­neath his hand. “Dina?”

Her eyes opened. She blinked, her eyes al­most egg­plant in the dim light of the lobby. They were slightly un­fo­cused. Ex­tend­ing her legs out from their curled-in-a-ball po­si­tion, he heard the faintest of squeals as she stretched. His heart thumped. She re­minded him of a cat stretch­ing in the sun. His imag­i­na­tion went into over­drive as he pic­tured her naked in his bed, wak­ing up af­ter a night of mak­ing love. He fought the urge to pull her against his chest and nuz­zle her hair. As if slammed by recog­ni­tion, she started and sat up straight.

“Adam! What are you do­ing here?”