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in the darkness, almost like pain.
    “You’re wrong,” she said, but knew he would not believe. “I saw what I saw, felt what I felt.” And even now, more than twelve hours later, the intensity jammed in her throat like an army of needles. “There is a woman, and you’ll die before you let Jorak Zhukov touch her.”
    What would it be like, she thought again, but aborted the question before it could fully form. What it would be like didn’t matter, because it wouldn’t happen.
    He didn’t laugh this time, didn’t react with anger or incredulity, just a bone-deep weariness. “You and my sisters,” he said, shaking his head. “These silly romantic notions.”
    The sense of time moving forward, slowly, unstoppable, tightened through her chest. She watched him, focused on those intelligent, commanding green eyes. He was a man easy to admire despite the cynicism that hummed through his blood. He was a prosecutor, after all. Disbelief was his job, doubt the commodity that kept him sharp. She couldn’t blame him for not believing her, and yet frustration ripped at her.
    She knew better than to care, than to let herself become personally involved. She knew what lay in store. And it wasn’t as though Ethan Carrington had any desire to be involved with her. The truth of that screamed from every hard, unyielding line of his body. But Brenna couldn’t suppress the thought that a pivotal lie had already been violated.
    “Z hasn’t changed at all,” he muttered, glancing at the bucket of champagne. “Sending a beautiful woman to do his dirty work.” He reached across the seats and grabbed the bottle, the two glasses. “Care for a drink, angel? Might help the time go by faster.”
    Brenna blinked. “This is all some kind of game to you, isn’t it?” A game in which there could be no winners, not when he thought she was affiliated with Jorak Zhukov. On a rush the enormity of her mistake came back to her, the details he’d coerced her into providing. Not coerced, she corrected. She’d supplied them readily enough, never realizing how easily he’d twist them to use against her. “For a man of facts you sure do have a vivid imagination.”
    The light in his eyes burned with an intensity she’d never seen before. “So what’s your role in all this, Brenna Scott?”
    He popped the top on the champagne, and the sweet liquid fizzled free. “My escort? A companion? Someone for me to cozy up to and trust, reveal all?” Smiling now, as though he was enjoying himself, he poured a glass and handed it to her.
    “How far are you willing to take this, angel? How far are you willing to go to earn my trust?”
    Incredulity gripped her, even as heat licked deep. She knew the gleam in his eyes, the dare, had seen it before. “The truth is what it is,” she said quietly. “Whether you choose to believe it is your problem, not mine.”
    He poured champagne into his glass then stuck the bottle between his knees and lifted his flute toward her. “To us,” he said in a silky voice, heavy with just a hint of an old-south drawl. “And the woman on the beach.”
    Brenna watched him lift the glass to his mouth, watched his lips part, watched him drink deeply.
    “What’s the matter?” he asked, meeting her eyes. “Not thirsty?”
    Her throat went tight. “No.”
    He started to respond, but a shrill sound cut off his words. A panel in the side of the door slid open, and a phone emerged.
    Ethan grabbed for it, clicked it on. “And so it begins,” he drawled by way of greeting. His eyes narrowed into deadly chips of glittering emerald. “Jorak.”

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    Chapter 3
    « ^ »
    ” H ow nice of you to remember.”
    The voice, deep, cultured, quietly amused, turned everything inside Ethan as hard and cold as stone. He remembered the voice, all right, had never been able to erase it from his memory, not when it poisoned his dreams on a nightly basis.
    “Your voice isn’t all I remember, you sorry son of a bitch.”
    Laughter