"Just like that?" He snapped his fingers.
"Just like that."
"After last night?"
"Nothing that happened was real."
"Oh, it was real," he said with a short laugh. "And you've got the marks on your body to prove it."
She blushed, remembering the faint bruises she had discovered on her breasts and thighs while she was showering. An hour ago, she had gloried in them, equating them to an artist's signature on his masterpiece. Now she was ashamed to think of how his mouth had put them there.
"Look, Elizabeth," he said with diminishing patience, "I don't blame you for being angry. I don't even blame you for jumping to the wrong conclusion. I read something I shouldn't have. It was personal and private. I violated your privacy by reading it. But" — he paused for emphasis — "the only way it changed my opinion of you was to make you more fascinating."
She aimed a straight finger down at the sheets of paper on the table. "I'm not the kidnapped girl, any more than you're the pirate. She's a figment of my imagination. She's nobody. She's make-believe."
He disputed her words with a slow, negative shake of his head. "She is you. She's what you secretly think, how you feel about sexuality, how you feel about love, what you want in bed but would never ask for. Just like the moon, we all have a dark side, a part of us that the world doesn't see. It's in our makeup and is nothing to be ashamed of."
He had backed her into the counter. She shook her head adamantly, fearfully. "I'm not like that."
"Not on the outside. On the outside, you're every inch a lady. Don't you realize that's what makes you so attractive, so damned fascinating?" His tone became softer, more cajoling. "Elizabeth, why do you think I wanted to sleep with you last night?"
His words about falling in love with a woman he liked waking up with came back to cruelly mock her now. She wouldn't believe him. She wouldn't be made a fool of again.
"So you could keep on using me until I finally caught on."
His brows drew together in an impatient frown. He braced his hands on either side of her hips and leaned over her, forcing her head back. "You're not angry because I read what you wrote. You wrote it to be read. You're upset because I'm not a stranger. You're not anonymous. Now I know your secret. Now I know that under your cool, prim exterior, you burn hot."
The words popped and hissed like drops of water on a hot skillet. Elizabeth's hand cracked across his cheek.
Neither could believe she'd slapped him. His eyes narrowed dangerously as he gradually pushed himself away from her and straightened up. She had spanked her children only on the rarest occasions, then cried harder than they afterward. The aggressive child in the family had been Lilah, never her older sister, who always gave in to avoid any chance of a physical altercation. But now she had slapped a man who easily outweighed her by seventy-five pounds and who towered over her.
The shock over striking him didn't alleviate her rage, however. She would never forgive him for the despicable way he'd manipulated her into making love with him. It made her sick to think that everything he'd said and done to her had come, not from his heart, but from a licentious curiosity.
She said nothing to detain him when he turned and angrily strode toward the door, nearly ripping it from its hinges when he opened it. What have you got to be so angry about? she wanted to shout at him. He'd gotten better than he deserved!
But she said nothing. Her voice box wouldn't function. It was too congested with emotion. She sank into the nearest chair, laid her head on the kitchen table, and submitted to the luxury of heart-rending sobs.
Things didn't improve with time.
For the next several days, her mood was funeral. She was so short-tempered with her children that they counterattacked by behaving their worst. One afternoon she caught them playing on Thad's hammock with the puppies, and yelled for them to come in right that minute. They set up a howl, asking her why they had to come in. She could provide no plausible answer. They sulked for the rest of the evening. When Megan told her she wished they lived with somebody fun like Thad, Elizabeth banished her to her room.
Lilah called to ask her about her date with Adam Cavanaugh. Elizabeth was barely civil, unfairly blaming her sister for all her recent misfortunes.
"Gee," Lilah had said after several attempts to draw Elizabeth out, "you're a barrel of laughs. I'll call back when you're acting human."
Her foul disposition had successfully alienated her from everyone in her life. For a while that was fine. She didn't feel like talking to anybody. She nursed her misery like a witch did her brew, adding particles of resentment to it daily, stirring it, watching it simmer.
But gradually she disliked her solitude even more than she did other peoples' company. She was even glad to see Adam Cavanaugh when he came breezing through the door of her shop late one morning.
After calling her name twice, he laughed at her startled expression. "I always seem to catch you lost in thought. Where do you go when you leave the rest of us behind?"
She tried to recover quickly. She hadn't seen him since he'd walked her to her door and given her a discreet kiss on the forehead. He didn't take advantage of women the way some men did. And Thad had accused Adam of being a playboy!
"Daydreaming is a bad habit I picked up in childhood," she told him. "I'm a professional wool-gatherer. My sister torments me about it."
At the mention of her sister, he frowned. "How is that disrespectful sister of yours?"
"Disrespectful," Elizabeth replied, thinking that it was time for her to mend her fences with Lilah. It wasn't Lilah's fault that Thad Randolph had turned out to be a rat.
"Lunch?" Adam asked, snapping her out of her thoughts.
"Lunch? Uh, no, thank you, Adam. I don't have anyone to mind the shop if I go out. I usually brown-bag it here."
"Close for an hour. Please. I've been giving our evening together a lot of thought." His voice took on a mysterious pitch and his brown eyes danced with secrecy. "There's something very important I want to discuss with you."
Half an hour later, Elizabeth was picking at a salad she had built from the Garden Room's noon buffet. Adam and she were sitting at a corner table where two glass walls intersected to provide a great view of the city's skyline.
"Well?"
"I don't know, Adam. You've taken me completely off guard."
"You can't be too surprised by my proposal."
"But I am." She lifted troubled china-blue eyes to his inquiring ones. "I've never considered opening another Fantasy. This one takes so much time and energy."
"I can appreciate that," he said, after taking a sip of his iced water. "I took your situation into consideration. I realize that being a widow with two children isn't exactly conducive to owning and operating businesses in several cities at the same time. But I'm confident you can handle it."
Though the idea of opening several more Fantasy shops had come as a complete surprise, she was flattered. In spite of her myriad reservations, the idea had piqued an ambitious streak she hadn't known she had.
Leaning forward in his chair, Adam stressed his point. "Fantasy is the biggest money-maker, percentage-wise, of any of our lessees. That impresses me. You impress me. I can't find a single fault with you. Other than a little daydreaming," he teased. "You've tapped into a unique market. You buy intuitively. People will pay a quality price for a quality product. And the demographics show that the people who stay at my hotels are accustomed to doing everything first class."
"But I — "
He held up both hands to forestall her. "I'm saving a space for you in the lobby of the new Hotel Cavanaugh Chicago. Soon, I want to install your shops in other cities."