Okay. “I only started it on Monday. I had to get through Dark Souls One and Dark Souls Two first.” Her voice was the tiniest bit shaky, but most people would never notice. Malcolm would.
“I finished it in two days.”
“Of course you did. Did you rise from the grave just to tell me how good you are at video games?”
He had the fucking gall to look faintly amused. “Madsen said you didn’t believe him.”
She realized with sudden shock that deep down inside she really had believed him, and she’d spent untold reserves of energy to keep her state of denial. Suddenly she no longer needed to do so—he was really there, and she felt weak.
Yes, and she was going to pass out in front of him? Not in this lifetime or any other. “It seemed too good to be true,” she said calmly.
He laughed. “That’s pretty harsh for the woman who loves me.”
Shit, he remembers. Of course he does—he probably never forgets a thing. “I was drunk,” she said.
“No you weren’t. And you almost got killed trying to save my ass.”
“Then we’re even. You took a bullet for me.”
He shrugged, and then winced. He looked thinner, a little older, and she remembered the gaping wound in his chest. It would have taken time for him to recover from something like that, and he looked like he wasn’t quite there yet.
“Well, if you came by to tell me you’re alive, then thank you very much and you can go.” She took a sip of the coffee in her hand. It was cool by now, but she could hardly taste it. At least she looked nonchalant.
He pushed the chair back from the desk and rose, and she’d forgotten how tall and lean he was. How he moved with such feline grace. How he stalked toward her, but she wasn’t going to back away from him, wasn’t going to show any reaction at all. In fact, she took a couple of steps away from the door. She didn’t need it to hold her up—she could do this, she knew she could. She’d been living a lie for the past three months, ever since she’d left the island, and she should have no problem keeping it up.
He came right up to her, so close she could feel the heat from his body. His shirt was open at the neck, and she could see the fine-grained skin, the place where she’d bit him when he’d been driving into her, both of them covered with sweat and shaking with love and lust. At least on her part. It had just been temporary lust on his. Too bad neither of her emotions had proved temporary.
“Is Peter Madsen really here?” she asked after a long silence while he just stood there, looking at her.
“In New Orleans? Hell, no. He’s afraid of you. Besides, he didn’t have anything to do here.”
She almost wanted to smile, but there was nothing to smile about. She’d been tricked, her stupid emotions mocked. “He has good reason to be afraid. What about you?”
He considered for a long moment, then shook his head. “No, you don’t scare me.”
Annoyance was building inside her, something she welcomed, something that would drive out her desperate need to throw herself into his arms and weep on his chest. “No, I mean do you have anything to do here, or is this merely a social visit? Your way of gloating.”
“What would I be gloating about?”
Over the fact that she loved him and he didn’t care. She remembered those words too. “Cheating death one more time. Though I imagine that’s old hat for you by now. You probably don’t even think you’re mortal.”
“I’m mortal,” he said. “I figure most of my nine lives have run out. Better to pack it in than to tempt fate.”
“So you’ve come by to announce your retirement? Lovely. I’ll get you a gold watch. I can afford one—Peter Madsen decided to give me back pay.”
“I know.”
They were two simple words, but just like that she knew the truth. “It was your idea, wasn’t it?” she said in an accusing voice, like he’d committed a heinous crime.
“It might have been.”
More sympathy from the devil. She blew it off. “Then I’ll definitely get you that gold watch. Anything else? I have work to do.” Monsters to kill, she thought. She was going to make the “Big Bad” in the video game Malcolm.
“No, I think that’s it,” he said, moving past her and heading toward the door without even touching her. She watched him go, her mouth agape in astonishment.
“You came all the way from England just to tell me that?” she demanded.
He turned to look at her. “Yup. How long will it take you to get packed?”