But he hadn't taught her to ride that day, he guessed.
"I went back to my foster family that week and I was placed in special classes. When I turned eighteen, Leo had my own apartment waiting for me, and a job, as well as training. I've been there ever since."
And she had always been alone.
"That was when Dane started sneaking into my bedroom," she sighed. "He would leave things on my pillow. A trinket. Tickets to a movie or concert. Vouchers to a clothing store. But it was usually about the same time that I caught the evidence of his recklessness." She flashed a smile, one that told him she had enjoyed the game as much as Dane had. "He bribes me now, to keep me from going to the Leo. Leo likes to rage at him for endangering himself. And he rages at me for not telling on him," she finished mockingly.
Leo wouldn't be raging at her again, Mercury promised himself. He would make certain Dane, as well as Leo, clearly understood that Ria was no longer the other man's keeper.
"You never married?"
She shook her head, lowering it once more, letting her hair hide her expression as she worked. Or pretended to work. He could sense her uncertainty flowing around her now.
"Did you have many lovers?"
She shrugged. "A few," she answered, still not looking at him.
"No one that stayed?" he asked gently.
Her chin lifted. Pride glittered in her eyes now, her expression tightening as she glared back at him.
"I don't need a man to complete me," she informed him as she moved to her feet and walked around the desk to the file table. "I had dates for whatever functions required one, and if I decided I wanted a lover, I knew how to find one."
"I don't doubt that for a moment, Ria," he murmured. "I wonder though why you rarely wanted one."
She frowned. "And what makes you draw that conclusion?"
He flicked his fingers to her outfit. "You have a gorgeous body but you dress like someone's maiden aunt. You pin your hair up in that tight little bun and whenever you work you wear glasses that come from the last century rather than having corrective surgery done. You dress to hide."
And the light of battle glittered in her eyes.
"I dress to work," she told him stiffly. "This," she waved her hand down the outfit, "is safe. Unassuming. And completes the image of the poor little orphan child the Vanderales felt sorry for. It gets results. I'm not seen as a threat, nor am I seen as someone who needs to be suspected of searching for secrets."
"And you didn't risk your heart, because you made certain you wore a shield that screamed keep away," he told her.
He could see it now. He had seen it the moment she stepped off the plane, those sharp eyes taking everything in, that homely bun in place and those dowdy clothes covering her body.
She was silent. She crossed her arms over her br**sts and stared back at him impassively.
That look made something rise inside him that had him cautiously probing for the feral displacement he was so wary of. It was like a primal stretching, an arch of challenge to an inner part of him that he hadn't felt in so long it gave him pause.
As though the animal the scientists thought they had killed inside him were reaching out, demanding that he push her, to bring out the woman he knew hid behind those eyes.
"What would you wear for me, Ria?" he asked her, letting his eyes rove over her body. "You have gorgeous legs. High heels instead of those thick heels you're wearing?"
Her lips pressed together tightly.
"You wear silk to sleep in, gowns that make my mouth water to chew off your pretty body. I know your br**sts are perfect, perfect for my hands, for my lips. Would you wear silk that hinted at those curves? Skirts that bared your pretty legs?"
"Trying to change me already, Mercury?" she asked with false sweetness. "You actually lasted longer than I expected."
He grinned at that. He was pushing her, daring her, and pricking at needs he knew she had. She had been Vanderale's paper pusher for so damned long she didn't know how to be anything else. He wanted her to be herself. He wanted that wild woman he could glimpse within her. The one who scratched at his shoulders, who bit his arm when she came, just as he bit her shoulder.
"I dare you." He voiced what he knew she didn't want to hear. "Just one day. Just with me. Show the woman you hide, Ria. Show me how she dresses, how she laughs. Show me how she lives."
Her eyes darkened, regret and pain, want and need flickering within them.
She shook her head and looked down at her clothes. "What you see is what you get, Mercury."