LITMIR.BIZ

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lushness of her body pressed into his own. Her soft whispers of love in his ear.

      He sucked in a deep breath, the ache of those memories slicing deeper than the superficial cut on his chest. He’d been fooling himself that they’d be able to resume where they’d left off after he explained everything.

      Well, not everything.

      He planned to tell her just enough to make her understand. Enough to keep her from asking more questions—questions he couldn’t answer. But now he sensed it wasn’t going to be that easy.

      That didn’t stop him from asking a question of his own. “If you sold the apartment, why are you here now?”

      “That’s really none of your business.”

      Jealousy flared up in him once more. Was she living with another man? He looked around the room. “This doesn’t look like your furniture.”

      “You’re right, it’s not,” she replied, with no further explanation.

      “So what is it doing here? What are you doing here, Paige?”

      She picked up one of the chairs and set it upright on the floor. “If you must know, I’m leasing the place on a time-share basis—weekends only. I thought it would give me a chance to get away from everything.”

      That did make sense. He’d met her mother. But his instincts told him there was still something she wasn’t telling him. A year ago, Alex would have pushed her for a clearer answer. Digging deeper. Always digging. Paige had mentioned once that she liked the way he always listened to her. She hadn’t realized that was his job.

      Paige’s voice cut through his reverie. “So why are you here?”

      “Because I want to explain why I left.”

      “Don’t bother. There’s absolutely nothing you can say that will change anything.”

      “Maybe not. But I’ll feel better.”

      She arched a finely winged brow. “This may come as a shock, Alex, but making you feel better isn’t high on my list of priorities.”

      She was bitter. He couldn’t blame her. But Paige deserved to know the truth. Needed to know the truth. At least, some of it.

      “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he blurted, realizing too late he should have rehearsed what he was going to say to her. He’d certainly had long enough to do it. “Everything just got out of control.”

      “You should have told me you were having second thoughts,” she said haltingly. “Instead, you just…left.”

      “Under the circumstances, I thought that would be for the best.”

      “Best for you, maybe. You didn’t have to announce to everybody that the wedding was off. You didn’t have to deal with the caterer or the reception hall or the band. You didn’t have to pretend your heart wasn’t broken….” She sucked in a deep breath, then tipped up her chin. “Don’t you see, Alex? You did more than dump me. You humiliated me.”

      Her words hit him low in the gut. Wrenching. Twisting. He braced himself against the pain, knowing it was only going to get worse before the night was over. He glanced at the door, tempted to walk out. To let her think he’d just suffered a case of cold feet.

      But that wasn’t the case. He’d waited a year for this moment. Marking off every day on the calendar until he could tell her what was in his heart.

      Alex didn’t plan to waste another second. “I’m sorry about everything you went through, Paige. But I have to make one thing perfectly clear.”

      “What?” she asked.

      “I never asked you to marry me.”

      PAIGE STARED AT HIM, wondering if the collision with the floor had affected his brain. “That’s not true. I still have the proposal you e-mailed me.” She looked at the gray ashes scattered on the messy floor. “At least I had it until a few minutes ago.”

      “I agree you received a proposal,” Alex said slowly, “but it wasn’t from me.”

      Paige reached blindly behind her for a chair and sat down. Maybe it was the champagne or the shock of seeing Alex again or the fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt, but for some reason her knees felt a little wobbly.

      “Are you just trying to torture me?” she asked. “I’m finally over you, Alex. The last thing I need is for you to come barging back into my life, causing more chaos. So I suggest you leave. Now. For both our sakes.”

      A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Just hear me out first.”

      Nobody could say she hadn’t warned him. “Okay, fine. Tell your story.”

      Alex pulled up another chair beside her, straddling the back of it in one easy motion. She couldn’t help but notice the ripple of taut muscle over his chest and belly. He was slimmer than he’d been a year ago. Fitter. Maybe the time away from her had been good for him. Maybe Franco had a shirt he could borrow.

      When Paige met his gaze again, she couldn’t help but feel that Alex was a virtual stranger. Those wonderful few weeks of their whirlwind courtship almost seemed like a blur now. A crazy dream. Had she really agreed to marry this man?

      “Promise me you’ll hear me out,” Alex said. “No matter what I say, you won’t leave or try to kick me out until I’m done.”

      Her stomach twisted. It must really be bad. Was there another woman? Was he married? Was he an alien? Paige shook those unsettling thoughts from her head. She’d been spending too much time with her mother. “Okay, I promise.”

      He hesitated, as if not sure how to begin. “Our first meeting was a setup, Paige. I was supposed to bump into you that day on the wharf. I was supposed to make you fall in love with me.”

      Her mind flashed back to that fateful day on Fisherman’s Wharf, a place she loved despite all the tourist trappings. She spent almost every Sunday there if the weather was decent. It had been sunny the day she’d met Alex, if a little cool. She’d worn a khaki jacket. Alex had spilled raspberry iced tea on it when he’d bumped into her.

      Now he was here telling her that had all been staged. All part of some scheme. Which left her with one simple question. “Why?”

      “Because I was assigned to find information about your missing stepfather. We didn’t buy the story about his abduction by a UFO. We thought you and your mother were hiding the truth. So if I got close to you…”

      “You could find out what really happened,” Paige breathed. It was all starting to make horrible sense to her now. The police had been called after her stepfather’s disappearance but they’d been highly skeptical of Margo’s UFO explanation. Even speculating that her mother might have something do with Stanley’s disappearance.

      They’d obviously decided to send in one of their own to determine if there had been foul play. And what better way to get to the mother than through the daughter?

      It also explained why Alex had never shared much about himself or his family. The fact that she’d never been to his home—or even knew his address. The way he’d listen so patiently when she talked on and on. The fact that he never complained about spending time with her kooky mother. She’d watched enough shows about undercover cops to know that’s how they operated.

      No wonder she’d thought of him as a stranger just now. He was a stranger. And she’d been ready to marry him!

      The impact of her own stupidity made her slump back in her chair. Alex had just been doing his job. He’d never cared about her. Never loved her. Never even been attracted to her.

      Her cheeks flamed when she thought about the reason he’d given her for not wanting to make love. How he’d wanted to wait until their wedding night. She’d thought him an old-fashioned romantic at the time. What a fool.

      One tiny, rational part

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