Max was clearly enchanted. “I like her. I like her a lot.” He slapped Daniel on the shoulder. “So you now have your own personal psychologist, whereas the rest of us still have to write to Aggie.”
The amusement in Molly’s eyes faded. “You’ve written to Aggie?”
“Of course. We all think she’s brilliant. Except Daniel, of course. He thinks he knows better. In fact her advice has driven him so mad he made us track her down and find out her real identity. Can’t give you details, of course. All confidential,” he said, and winked at Molly, “but between you and me I can tell you she isn’t fifty people working in a call center. She’s a real person. And I’m guessing she’s a babe.”
“We need to go,” Daniel said smoothly. “And you need to lay off the champagne, Max, or you’ll be the subject of a lawsuit, not the solution.”
“Wait! You tracked her down? You did a background check?” Molly turned her head to look at Daniel and now her eyes weren’t field or forest, they were fire and fury.
He felt her anger like a punch to the gut, but he also felt something else that worried him far more. He felt her panic and her anxiety. He could almost see her mind racing forward, trying to work out what this meant.
Max was oblivious to the destruction he’d wrought. “Don’t be shocked,” he said. “It’s the reason Daniel never loses a case. He’s a detail man. He doesn’t just look at the surface, he X-rays everything underneath it until there’s nothing he doesn’t know. It’s the reason he’s so fearsome in court. Nothing gets past him. He and ‘Aggie’ would actually make a great couple. Can you imagine that? The guy who knows everything about relationships dating the woman who knows everything. Now that’s something I’d like to see.”
“I doubt you’re ever going to see that.” Molly’s voice was so cold it was like being dipped naked in an ice bucket, and then she turned and left the party without looking back.
Max stared after her, bemused. “Did I say the wrong thing?”
“You said a thousand wrong things.” Daniel followed Molly and caught her at the elevator. “Wait. Wait! Please.” He caught the doors before they could close. As he strode into the elevator he expected her to back away but instead she stepped forward and jabbed him in the chest with her finger.
“You had me investigated?”
“Molly—”
“You had me investigated, and you didn’t think that was worth mentioning?”
“Hear me out.” He was the one with his back against the wall. As the doors closed, Daniel loosened his tie and undid his top button.
Her eyes sparked. “Nervous?”
There was no sign of tears. Instead there were shards of anger. He decided he could be the object of her anger more easily than he could be the cause of her tears.
“Neither. Just hot.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” The doors opened and she stalked away from him, her balance impressive given the height and spindle-thin delicacy of her heels.
He could have let her go, but he knew that would be a mistake.
“I did not investigate you. I investigated Aggie, who was, if you remember, giving what I considered to be unhelpful advice to my clients. I had no idea it was you.”
“And you didn’t think to mention it? It slipped your mind? I don’t think so. You’re not a man who has lapses in memory. So how long have you known? Wait a minute—” She narrowed her eyes as she calculated. “That night of the Phoenix Publishing party—you didn’t seem surprised when Brett introduced us. You already knew.”
“Yes.”
“You had sex with me, knowing who I was?”
“No. I found out the day of the party.” Although if he’d known before, it wouldn’t have stopped him. Nothing would have stopped what happened that night. From the moment she’d walked through his door wearing that stretchy blue dress, the outcome had been inevitable.
“That was why you came to the party?”
“Yes. I wanted to talk to you.”
“You were so angry.” She lifted her hand to her throat, trying to slow her breathing. “But you didn’t tell me you’d had me investigated.”
“How I found out wasn’t at the top of my mind.”
“So you were angry with me because I’d been hiding something from you, even though the method by which you discovered that information was something you chose to conceal from me. Do you see the irony of that?” There was no warmth in her tone. It was as if she’d hauled all her emotions back behind a wall. Gone was the girl who had exposed her emotions when Valentine had been ill. Gone was the girl who had laughed with him and confided in him. This was the Molly who protected herself. “You could have told me you knew.”
“After Brett introduced us, there didn’t seem any point.”