as perfectly straight. This plastic surgeon had done the opposite of what was usually required; he’d made her perfect features imperfect—made her look less movie-star gorgeous and more natural.
Why would she have gone to such extremes to change her identity? With him, her effort was wasted. He would know her anywhere, just from the way his body reacted—tensing and tingling with attraction. And anger. But she was already afraid of him and he didn’t want to scare the child, too, so he restrained his rage over her cruel deception.
“You’re Josie Jessup.”
She shook her head again and spoke, but this time her voice was little more than a raspy whisper. “You’re mistaken. That’s not my name.”
The raspy whisper did nothing to disguise her voice, since it was how he best remembered her. A raspy whisper in his ear as they’d made love, his body thrusting into hers, hers arching to take him deep. Her nails digging into his shoulders and back as she’d screamed his name.
That was why he’d let her fool him once, why he’d let her distract him when he had needed to be focused and careful. She had seduced and manipulated him with all her loving lies. She’d only wanted to get close to him so she could get a damn story. She hadn’t realized how dangerous getting close to him really was. No matter what she’d learned, she didn’t know the truth about him. And if he had anything to say about it, she never would. He wouldn’t let her make a fool of him twice.
“If you’re not Josie Jessup, what the—” He swallowed a curse for the child’s sake. “What are you doing here?”
“We were gonna see my grampa,” the little boy answered for her, “but we didn’t wanna wake him up.”
She was the same damn liar she had always been, but at least she hadn’t corrupted the boy.
His son...
* * *
JOSIE RESISTED THE urge to press her palm over CJ’s mouth. It was already too late. Why was it now that her usually shy son chose to speak to a stranger? And, moreover, to speak the truth? But her little boy was unfailingly honest, no matter the fact that his mother couldn’t be. Especially now.
“But we got out on the wrong floor,” she said. “This isn’t where your grandfather’s room is.”
CJ shook his head. “No, we watched the numbers lighting up in the el’vator. You said number six. I know my numbers.”
Now she cursed herself for working with the three-year-old so much that he knew all his numbers and letters. “Well, it’s the wrong room.”
“You said number—”
“Shh, sweetheart, you’re tired and must not remember correctly,” she said, hoping that her son picked up the warning and the fear in her voice now. “We need to leave. It’s late. We need to get you to bed.”
But those strong masculine fingers were still wrapped tight around her wrist. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“You have no right to keep me,” she said.
With his free hand, he gestured toward CJ. “He gives me the right. I have a lot of rights you’ve apparently denied me.”
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Why the hell would she have told the man who’d tried to kill her that she was pregnant with his baby? If his attempts had been successful, he would have killed them both.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Josie.”
CJ tugged on her hand and whispered loudly, “Mommy, why does the man keep calling you that?”
Now he supported her lie—too late. “I don’t know, honey,” she said. “He has me mixed up with someone else he must have known.”
“No,” Brendan said. “I never really knew Josie Jessup at all.”
No. He hadn’t. Or he would have realized that she was too smart to have ever really trusted him. If only she’d been too smart to fall for him...
But the man was as charming as he was powerful. And when he’d touched her, when he’d kissed her, she had been unable to resist that charm.
“Then it’s no wonder that you’ve mistaken me for her,” Josie said, “since you didn’t really know her very well.”
She furrowed her brow and acted as if a thought had just occurred to her. “Josie Jessup? Isn’t that the daughter of the media mogul? I thought she died several years ago.”
“That was obviously what she wanted everyone to believe—that she was dead,” he said. “Or was it just me?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.” You. Just you. But unfortunately, for him to accept the lie, everyone else had