Until he smiled.
Then a rush of heat swept over her, so devastating it threatened to make her knees buckle.
Elation rose before she could squelch it, followed by intense disappointment, embarrassment…and a little fear. He’d caught her with her guard down.
And he shouldn’t have been able to find her in the first place.
Old fears tried to swamp her.
After the murders, her grandfather and his lawyer had hidden her identity so well, not one of the tabloids or the news programs had been able to find her. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have panic attacks about being found. About having her identity, the one she’d built around herself, ripped away.
Damn, damn, damn that man.
How the hell had he found her? She’d used her personal credit card to charge the hotel bill, the card her lawyer had set up so that neither her legal name nor any other was attached to it.
He’d assured her it was perfectly legal and no one would be able to track her down through it.
Yet, here stood Joshua Golden.
Had he discovered who she was? Was that why he was here?
Don’t assume anything. He can’t know for sure.
Drawing herself up to her full height, she pushed her unruly hair behind her ears and stuck out her chin. No way would she let him see how flustered she was. After a deep breath, she walked to the CD player and turned down the volume. She wouldn’t turn it off because that would leave a silence to fill. And this was going to be bad enough.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
She’d meant her tone to be hard, unconcerned. And mentally smacked herself when it came out breathless.
That smile of his pumped her blood pressure even higher.
“I have something of yours.” His strong voice conquered the music and his smile had disappeared. Staring straight into her eyes, his intensity shuddered through her like an electric shock to her system.
She swallowed and wet her lips before attempting to speak again. His gaze burned as it followed her tongue’s path.
“You have nothing I want,” she answered, proud of her now-steady voice.
That made his lips quirk at the corners in a staggeringly handsome way. God, the man was too good-looking for her peace of mind. He had to go. Before she—
No, he just had to go.
“I thought I’d made it perfectly clear that I had no wish to see you again. In fact, I never gave you my name.”
Jared just smiled. “I know that. But I’m happy to report that I have a friend who’s a pretty decent investigator. You’d told me you were an antiques dealer so it became a process of elimination. Next time, maybe you want to pick Mary or Kathy. Belle was just too close to Annabelle.”
Okay. She could deal with this. She could deal with him knowing her name as Annabelle Elder.
What she couldn’t deal with was his presence here. In her shop. Her world.
With what she hoped was just enough haughty disdain, she lifted her chin and prepared to brazen it out. “If I ever decide to go incognito to another party, I’ll remember that. Now, I have a busy agenda today, so if you—”
“Actually”—he grinned, and that really was a crime against women—“I do have something that belongs to you. Two things, really.”
She frowned. Heat drenched her and her cheeks began to burn as he tugged on a small swatch of green silk showing just above his front jeans pocket. The bastard did have her thong.
“But I’m only giving one back.” He left the silk where it was as he reached into his shirt pocket with his other hand. The pin reflected the sunlight pouring through the front windows.
Holding her gaze, he walked toward the counter. Even though she stood behind it, she felt the need to step back, away from him. It was too easy for her to get lost in his warm—or perhaps lying—gaze. She resolutely held her position.
He set the pin on the counter and nudged it toward her with one long finger.
“The pin belongs to your grandmother,” she stated, hoping her voice sounded as hard as it did in her head.
“Not according to my grandmother.”
She frowned. “What do you mean? Are you telling me that’s not your grandmother’s pin?” She laughed, but it sounded like gravel grinding under tires. “So your little scheme was all for nothing.”
He never even blinked. “I never had a ‘scheme,’ Belle. I only wanted you. Naked and under me. Naked and over me. Naked and next to me.”
Oh, God, how could he make her thighs clench and sex contract by just talking? “I can’t believe a word you say.”
He shrugged. “I don’t really expect you to. But the pin is yours, regardless of the fact that it was stolen from my grandmother.”
Her fingers itched to reach for it, so she clasped her hands together in front of her behind the desk. “Please take it and leave.”
He shook his head. “We have unfinished business.”
“There is nothing unfinished between us.”
He smiled that smile again. “Honey, I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. I might have come, but I wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot.”
Pure lust swamped Annabelle’s entire body in a wave of remembered pleasure, even though she didn’t want to remember.
“I want you to leave.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Are you so sure about that?”
She gasped. “Can you really be so arrogant? You played me for a fool that night. You expect me to welcome you back with open arms?”
“Annabelle, I wanted you from the first moment I saw you, before I noticed the pin. And you wanted me.”
No way would she respond to that one. “Just leave, Jared. I don’t want you here.”
But she did. At least, her body did. Her body ached for him. And she couldn’t allow that.
He couldn’t be here. He made her want—Well, he just made her want so badly.
And she couldn’t. She couldn’t let herself be taken under by uncontrolled desire.
She turned from him and walked. Anywhere. She just had to get away from him. Her head was spinning and it was all his fault. She couldn’t have this. Not now, not with Carmen Moran on the way—
She froze as she realized where her feet had taken her. Her gallery.
And she knew he’d followed her.
“Yes, you—” Jared stopped in mid-sentence.
She stood there staring straight ahead, feeling him behind her, knowing he took in everything—the paintings, the statuary, the tapestries.
This room held her life’s work. Her passion.
And the only way out was through the doorway Jared now stood in. She would have to go by him to get out.
If she so much as touched him…
She managed to stop herself before that thought went any further.
But her treacherous mind began to replay their night together. In full, sweaty color.
Her. Him. The man who’d joined them. The other couples in the room.
Her lungs began to struggle for air.
“I guess you weren’t kidding when you said you had quite a collection of your own.” His tone was awestruck. “My God, Annabelle, this is amazing.”
“Please leave.” She’d plead if she had to. He needed to be gone. Or her resolve was going to fail spectacularly. “You’re going to ruin my entire day.”
“I would never want to do that, sweetheart.”
She jolted as she felt his finger trace the line of her left cheekbone, trailing warmth. Her eyes closed, shutting out the room, but that only enhanced her sense of him. The heat of his body seeped into her, making her want…
A shiver coursed through her, which she knew he felt.
Distance. She needed to put some distance between them, but the only way to do that was to go further into the room. And she didn’t want to do that either.