Perfect Strangers

His head snaps to the side, but otherwise, he doesn’t move. After a moment, he rubs his jaw. “Ouch.”

Eerily calm, I say, “If you ever lie to me again, about anything, no matter how inconsequential, that won’t be the only ouch I give you. Understood?”

“Understood. Oh, wait—does this mean I should tell you my real name?”

Now I’m absolutely certain of the emotion blowing through me like wildfire. It’s fury, plain and simple.

I slap him again.

When he looks up at me, cheek glowing red with my handprint, he’s grinning. There’s a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Just admit it, sweetheart. You’re in love with me.”

“If this is love, I’d rather have dysentery. At least then there’d be a good reason for all the shit I’m dealing with.”

He stands and pulls me into his arms. His eyes hot and his voice rough, he says, “You promised me a freebie. I’m calling it in.”

When I only stare at him with thinned lips, he tries to give my memory a nudge. “One free pass in Touchy Subject land in exchange for telling you about my water competency. Remember?”

I shake my head in disbelief. “We’re so far beyond Touchy Subject land now, I can’t even see the shoreline from the water.”

He presses, “Why didn’t you walk away from me when you had the chance, Olivia? You had the perfect out. We had an argument. I said if you didn’t call me in two days, I’d understand. You never would’ve had to see me again. It could’ve been simple. Clean. Instead you doubled down. Believing I was terminally ill, believing our time together would be limited by either the end of your time in Paris or the end of my life, why would you keep seeing me?”

“Because I’m a masochistic fool.”

“Try again,” he whispers, brushing his lips along my jaw. “And this time tell me the truth.”

My hands are flattened over his chest. Under my palms, his heart beats like a wild thing.

“Don’t you think it’s a tad ironic, you insisting on the truth?”

“Tell me.”

I know what he wants me to say. I probably would have, too, if I were the same woman I was only twenty-four hours ago. But now the world has turned upside down and my priority is no longer my love life, or my happiness, or trying to maintain anything that might resemble mental health.

All my priorities have been whittled down to a bare-boned need to see the man who killed my daughter pay the price for what he did.

I push James away. He allows it, dropping his arms to his sides and gazing at me in silence. His eyes are filled with urgency. The pulse in his neck thrums like mad.

“Bring me that bastard’s head on a platter,” I say quietly. “Do that for me and I’ll tell you anything you want.”

His smile is dark and dangerous. He steps closer, takes my face in his hands, and presses a soft kiss to my lips. “If I leave right now, I can be back before sunrise.”

“Back?”

“From Germany, where he’s been lying low.” When he sees the shock register on my face, James’s small smile grows wider. “I tracked him down with the help of a few of my associates. We don’t normally work together, but nobody wants that baby killer alive.”

So now I know the truth about his mysterious trips to Germany. He didn’t travel there to participate in clinical trials…he went to find a rat hiding in its nest.

If I wasn’t already in love with him, I definitely am now.

My emotions must show on my face, because from one moment to the next, James’s smile vanishes, and his eyes start to burn.

He sweeps me up in his arms and carries me into the bedroom.