“Sure. He’s the guy who asked me to find you.”
“No,” she said in a low voice. “Please. Don’t do that.” She lifted her head and her eyes met his. “I don’t know who you are,” she whispered, “or what you think I’ve done but I beg you, don’t send me back to him.”
She sounded terrified. Matthew told himself it didn’t mean a damn. She was one fine actress, that was all. Look how she’d fooled her own lover.
“You don’t want me to send you back? Fine. Just tell me where the dope is.”
“The what?”
“Come on, baby. The cocaine. Tell me where you hid it and I’ll let you go. What happens between you and the colonel is your business. The dope is mine.”
“I don’t have drugs! Thinking I do is crazy. You searched my room. Searched my car.” Two stripes of crimson angled along her cheeks. “You even searched me. If I had cocaine, you’d have found it.”
She was right, he thought. He would have.
“Then, why did you run?”
“I told you. Douglas wouldn’t let me end our relationship.”
“Right,” Matthew said coldly. “So, what was he going to do? Lock you in your room and throw away the key?” She turned her face away and he caught her chin, jerked her head toward him. “You had old Dougie by the balls. Separate rooms, no sex… I’m right, aren’t I? There wasn’t any sex.”
“I—I—”
“Answer the question, damn it. Were you sleeping with him?”
The world, and time, seemed to stop. Her eyes met his and he waited, waited…
“Of course I slept with him,” she said. “He was my fiancé. Why wouldn’t I?”
Why wouldn’t she, indeed?
“Yeah.” Matthew cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he said again, and his voice roughened. “I guess teasing the poor bastard could only take you so far.”
“Does insulting a woman make you feel good?”
He had to give her credit. She was terrified, but she was determined to give as good as she got.
“I want to know why you ran away.”
“I told you. Douglas wouldn’t—”
“That’s bull,” he said bluntly. “You ran because you took something that wasn’t yours.”
“I didn’t take anything,” she said, but she was lying. He saw it in the sudden contraction of her pupils and all at once, he knew he’d been lured into a game where the only rule was survival.
Working quickly, he untied her and hustled her to the car. He shoved her inside, got behind the wheel and started the engine. The car lurched forward.
He ditched it a couple of hundred yards from the inn. Whoever found it in this godforsaken town would undoubtedly view it as a gift from the gods. The car would never be seen again.
“What are you doing?” Mia demanded as he bundled her into his SUV. “Who are you? What do you want from me?”
“A couple of minutes of silence, for a start.”
“No! Answer my questions. Tell me who you are and what you want.”
Involuntarily his eyes went from her face to her breasts. Her face colored and he knew she was remembering what had happened in the hotel room.
Hell, so was he.