Chapter Thirteen
“WHAT THE HELL are you doing?” Bette demanded to know, and like he’d done the day he’d caught her in his office after hours, she had to ask him twice.
But he still didn’t know how to answer her. Heat rushed to his face with embarrassment that he’d been caught snooping. He’d wanted to know what the hell she’d hidden in her closet. He’d noticed the clothes knocked askew on the bottom rack, and he’d reached behind to find what she’d stashed there.
It wasn’t a man but a sketch pad. She had a portfolio full of them. Then he’d found the box of lingerie, which he was on his knees leaning over at the moment. And he understood that all those sexy outfits weren’t gifts from a married lover or from any lover at all. Next to the box, he’d found a sewing machine and some reams of lace and silk. And he’d figured out what her big secret was and it wasn’t selling any of Street Legal’s secrets.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” he asked.
Her face flushed a bright red that nearly matched the color of the corset he held in his hands. “I don’t have to tell you why I’m quitting,” she said. “Even your employment contract states that.”
“I know,” he said. “You didn’t have to tell me. But why wouldn’t you?” Was she ashamed of what she did, because of her upbringing?
Her face flushed an even deeper shade of red. “You would have laughed.”
That wasn’t the reply he’d expected. “What? Why would you think that?”
“Boring Bette Monroe designing lingerie?” She uttered a short chuckle of her own, but it was full of bitterness. “Even I think that’s funny.”
He was more confused now than when he’d discovered her secret. “Why in the hell do you think you’re boring?”
She snorted. “Come on, you thought that, too—the past two years.”
His face heated a bit, and he had to admit that he had. But in his defense, he explained, “I was going off the way you pull your hair into such a tight bun and how you dress. I had no idea what you’ve been wearing under your clothes this entire time.” He held up a handful of the lingerie. But even then he’d still been attracted to her; he’d seen her beauty no matter how hard she’d tried to hide it.
“Why do you dress that way?” he asked. “Why do you wear your hair that way? And the glasses, I don’t even think you need them.” He stepped closer to her. “What are you hiding from, Bette?”
She took the lingerie from his hand, but she wouldn’t answer his question.
“Are you hiding from me?” he asked.
“Given your reputation, I thought it was a good idea to dress a little more conservatively than I used to,” she said.
He flinched as a twinge of pain struck his heart. “You were afraid of me? Afraid that I’d force myself on you?”
Then he glanced down and saw that, in her hand not full of lingerie, she clutched a canister of Mace. He sighed. “I guess you are afraid of me.”
“I thought you left,” she said. “I didn’t know who was in my closet. I can’t believe you’ve been snooping through my stuff.”
“I knew you were hiding something,” he said. He’d thought she’d been hiding the evidence that she was the mole. But she wasn’t. And he was so relieved that he laughed.
Anger flashed in her eyes. “See, I told you that you’d laugh at me!” She threw the lingerie at him and stomped back into the bedroom.
He rushed after her so quickly that he was still knocking G-strings off his shoulders as he joined her near the bed. “Guess I should be glad you didn’t mace me.”
“I almost did,” she said. “You scared me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For scaring me or for snooping?” she challenged him.
“For scaring you,” he admitted.
He’d hoped she would sleep through his search. And that he would be able to slip back into bed with her before she’d even noticed he’d left it. He hadn’t wanted to. She’d felt so warm and soft and somehow comforting sleeping in his arms, her head against his chest.
“You’re not sorry for snooping,” she said with disgust.
He was unapologetic. “I had to find out the truth.”
Her brow furrowed. “The truth about what?”
He couldn’t tell her—not now. She was already mad at him. If he told her that he’d suspected her of selling secrets from Street Legal’s case files, she would be furious, so furious that she would throw him out of her place and out of her life.
And he couldn’t have that because then he couldn’t have her. Now that he’d learned her secret, he wanted her even more.
“I already told you,” he said. “I knew you were hiding something.” He just hadn’t realized that something was herself. “And you never answered me. You never told me why you were hiding from me. Are you afraid of me?”
* * *
Bette had never been as afraid of Simon as she was now. She was afraid that she was beginning to have feelings for him. She nearly laughed now over the irony of that. For days she’d wanted him to believe she was in love with him, so that he would cut her notice short. But now that she was actually falling, there was no way she wanted him to know.
She’d pretended to have feelings for him because she’d known it would horrify him. She didn’t want to horrify him. But she did want to be honest with him just as he’d been honest with her.
“I’m afraid of becoming my mother or my sister,” she said. “I don’t want to get so into some guy that I forget who I am and what I want out of life.”
He laughed again. But this time she didn’t mind that he was laughing at her. “I think you know exactly who you are, Bette Monroe,” he said. “It’s the rest of the world you don’t want to know you.”
“My friends know me,” she said.
“You don’t dress in the cardigans and skirts around them?” he asked.
He probably hadn’t seen much else in her closet.
“That’s as much a habit from how I was raised as a way to hide,” she said. “I had to dress conservatively when I was growing up.”
“But you’re all grown-up now,” he said, and his blue eyes darkened with desire.
“I’m still mousy Bette in so many ways,” she said.
And he laughed as if she’d told him the funniest joke he’d ever heard. Then he focused on her face and stopped. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he said. “You can’t really see yourself that way.”
“That’s how I saw myself for a lot of years,” she admitted. “So it’s a hard habit to break. Designing and wearing my lingerie makes me feel sexy, though.”
“And beautiful,” he added.
She smiled but shook her head. “And you told me you stopped conning people.”
“I’m telling you the truth,” he said. “You know the women I’ve dated.”
She nodded. “Models. Actresses. That’s why I know you’re lying.”
Anger flashed in his eyes now. He jerked her into his arms and tipped up her chin so she had to look into his face—his gorgeous face. “You, Bette Monroe, are a beautiful, sexy woman.”
Maybe he was a hypnotist as well as a con artist because she was beginning to believe him, especially since he kept repeating those words between kisses.
His mouth nibbled at her lips. “Women pay to have lips like these,” he said. “Full, silky, sexy...”
He tangled his fingers in her hair. “And this... It’s real, no extensions.” He pushed the robe from her body and skimmed his hand over her breasts. “Like these. You’re real, Bette.”
“I never knew that was sexy.”
“The sexiest,” he said.
And with the way he looked at her, she felt sexy, even without her lingerie. She felt sexy naked.
“And beautiful,” he added.
He pushed her back onto the bed. And he touched and kissed her with an almost reverence, as if she was a work of art. She believed him.
She was no longer mousy Bette Monroe.
She was the siren he’d called her.
And she wanted him to feel what she was feeling. She wanted him to have feelings for her, too. So she pulled him down on top of her and pressed kisses to his chest and his shoulders and onto his washboard abs that rippled beneath her touch.
“Bette...”
“You’re the beautiful one,” she said.
Of course he didn’t deny it. He couldn’t not know how handsome he was. He’d undoubtedly used his looks when he’d conned those people with his father and with his friends when they’d all been struggling to survive on the streets.
And even though he’d claimed he’d stopped conning people, she worried that he was conning her now. Not into believing she was beautiful and sexy; she felt he was sincere about that. But she couldn’t help but think he’d been trying to make her fall for him.
He joined their bodies again, driving his shaft inside her. She clung to him, riding him as he drove them both to insanity. The orgasm shuddered through her body, more powerful than any even he had given her before.
And she knew she was in trouble, that she was getting in deep...