be the one to prove it, out of some stupid sense of pride.”
“And you slept with me to find out the truth?”
“No. Not exactly.”
“Are you still an agent?”
“No, I was forced to resign six months ago.”
“For your creative investigating methods?”
“I didn’t intend to sleep with you. At least not at first, not until I realized how attracted we were to each other.”
“Why are you all of a sudden coming clean?”
“Because this has become a hell of a lot more than a weekend fling. I know you’re not involved in any illegal activities, and I just want us to have a real chance together.”
“Why the hell are you still investigating me if you’re not an agent anymore?”
“I lost my career over this case. I needed to know the truth—”
“You bastard,” she said, her voice barely controlled as she grabbed her clothes from the floor and started putting them on.
“Let’s not end it like this. Please don’t leave. Stay and talk to me.”
“Still hoping I might know something that could get you your job back? Or are you angling to get another farewell screw?”
“No, I just want a chance to prove to you I’m not a bad person.”
“And then what? We can reminisce about old times? You can remind me what it was like during the trial? How you were so busy lusting after your sixteen-year-old suspect you could hardly pay attention to the facts of the case?”
“That’s not true. I was just doing my job, and I never let anything interfere with that.”
Finished dressing, she tugged her boots on and grabbed her coat from the rack. “I can’t believe you just slept with me, before you told me your big fat secret. What the hell kind of move was that?”
“A damn stupid one. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking with the right head.”
She jerked open the door and turned back to him with fire in her eyes. “Go to hell,” she said. “And when you get there, don’t even think of calling me with a weather report.”
He watched as she closed the door, the weight of failure sitting on his chest, making it hard to breathe. He couldn’t have messed this up any more than he already had. Couldn’t have made things much worse or had any crappier timing.
Damn it, he’d screwed up.
And yet, even in his failure, he felt a tiny sense of relief that he’d been right all along. She wasn’t involved, wasn’t the criminal he’d suspected. He hadn’t let his attraction to her cloud his judgment, as had been claimed. He’d been right.
It was cold comfort.
YASMINE DROVE HOME with tears streaming down her cheeks, a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and her foot too heavy on the gas pedal.
She’d been so stupid.
Everything made more sense now. The eerie feeling that she’d known Kyle—Alex, whatever the hell his name was—from somewhere before, his odd behavior at his apartment that first night, as if he was trying to hide something from her, and his midnight use of her computer.
She’d been an utter and complete fool.
She’d let down her guard, had sex with him as though he was the last man on earth, and even let herself start falling in love with him.
With a guy whose name she hadn’t even known. A guy who’d once testified against her. A guy she’d been foolish enough to think could see past her surface, when really he’d been obsessed with the way she looked for a decade.
She should have trusted her instincts. He was just like every other guy who’d been mesmerized by her appearance to great detriment. And maybe she’d brought that on herself, unwilling as she was to change the way she looked. Maybe she liked being pretty, but she hated that no one bothered to look deeper.
When she pulled into the parking spot in front of her apartment building, she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there. She went to her apartment and undressed without thinking. Went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, undressed and got in to wash off every trace of Alex DiCarlo from her body.
She jerked the shower curtain closed and submitted to the assault of the showerhead’s spray of near-scalding water. She wanted to wash away the past week, wash away the emotions, wash away all the hope she’d managed to build up in such a short period of time.
How she’d let herself be lied to so brazenly, seduced so thoroughly, she couldn’t begin to understand. And how could a relationship built on lies have felt