“You came back. Why?” Jake stood on the other side of the door, staring at her with parted lips as she held a white bag with red Chinese symbols on it, and clutched a DVD with the other hand.

The sky was a dark blue. The snow had finally let up, and now there were only stars in the sky, the twinkling lights moving about as if they were on the ends of puppet strings.

“Things are about to get real tomorrow. If MI6 and the FBI agree to let you on the case, we’ll be diving head-first into a shit storm. I thought maybe you and I could use a bit of normalcy before all of that.” She smiled.

He stepped back, allowing her entry from the cold. “Normalcy? I think my life will never be normal.”

She handed him the food and movie so she could remove her jacket.

“You went and bought Dirty Harry?”

“It was that or Bridges of Madison County. I know you’re a Clint Eastwood fan, but I didn’t take you for a sappy romantic.” She spun around after tossing her jacket, almost bumping into him.

“So you brought Chinese food, my favorite, and one of my all-time favorite movies?” He eyed her cautiously. “I guess this answers my question from earlier.”

“Which question?” She clasped her hands together, and she looked far too innocent for who he knew she was. Was she playing another role?

He thought back to her red hair at the hospital. How could he trust her when she had lied about their intimate knowledge of each other?

“Oh . . . you mean about did we do more than kiss?” Her lips split into a grin. God, what was this woman doing to him?

He trailed after her as she marched the food into the kitchen.

“We spent a day eating Chinese food and watching old movies while you were in London.” She looked over her shoulder at him before beginning the business of opening cupboards—probably in search of plates. “Does that answer your question?”

“Hardly. I’d like to know more.” He set the food and movie down on the kitchen table and tried not to focus on her backside, but her slender waist, perfect hips and ass—Jesus, what is wrong with me? And yet, he couldn’t find it in himself to feel bad. He didn’t notice the pain in his body right now. He didn’t even remember any of the horrid information he had learned earlier today. Every time he was near her, Alexa was like . . . medicine.

How could he have possibly forgotten this woman?

Alexa found two plates, and set them on the table. She opened the bag of food and the mix of sweet and sour aromas floated to his nose as she retrieved chopsticks from the bottom of the bag and began pulling out boxes of food. Yup, she knew his favorites: spicy orange chicken and rice with vegetables.

“I don’t have much of an appetite.”

“Sit and eat. You want the truth, right? Eat with me, and you’ll get it.” She sat down and popped a piece of chicken in her mouth with the chopsticks. She licked the sauce from her lips as he sank into the seat opposite her.

“Fine.” The tender meat of the chicken and the sweet flavor met his tongue, the spice warming his mouth.

She looked up from her plate a few minutes later and smiled at him. When she still didn’t speak, he waved a chopstick her way and narrowed one eye. “I’m eating. So, talk,” he said after swallowing.

Her hazel eyes greeted his, and his pulse quickened at the simple look. She rested her chopsticks on the table and touched the napkin to her lips before pressing back against the seat. “My sister is married to a big-shot football player in England. He has a lot of friends. And I guess your sister is dating one of those friends, which is how we ended up at the same party.”

“And?” He stopped eating for a moment, his heart racing as he waited for answers.

“And you kissed me at midnight, and that kiss led to us chatting. You called me ma’am until I finally gave you my name.”

“Your real name?” He raised his brows.

“First name.” She rolled her eyes at him. “You weren’t exactly forthcoming with information, either. You didn’t tell me you were FBI.”

“Keep going,” he urged.

She pushed her plate to the side and locked her hands together on the table in front of her as if the conversation was making her nervous. The woman could hunt terrorists, but talking about how they met was difficult for her . . .?

“We had way too much champagne, and we slept together,” she quickly said.

He filled his lungs with air, intoxicated by this confirmation of his desire. Her saffron and vanilla perfume met his nostrils, and the muscles in his biceps tightened.

“I tried to sneak out of your hotel room in the morning, but you caught me—and you wouldn’t let me go.”

“You tried to ditch me?”

“You were bloody persistent on me staying.” Her cheeks heated to a rosy color that gave her cheekbones a soft glow. “And then you kind of coerced me into spending the day with you.” She looked down at her hands. “And one day turned into seven. We were both on holiday, after all. Then you had to go back to the States, and that was that.”

“We spent seven days together and then I left?” He pulled his lips together and nodded as he processed what she’d said. “Did we ever talk again? Did I call?”

“No.” She cleared her voice. “We decided it’d be best to chalk it up to what it was—an amazing seven days.” Alexa pushed away from the table and stood, shifting away from him.

“And why don’t I believe you?” He was on his feet, but as he started for her, a sharp stabbing pain greeted his side and jolted down his thigh. “Dammit.”

“What?” She whipped around and went to him as he grabbed hold of his outer thigh.

“It fucking hurts sometimes,” he bluntly responded. Even though he didn’t break a leg, he must have landed on his side after the explosion—his hip and leg taking the brunt of the fall.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“It must have been a hell of a week we had together.” Jake’s eyes locked with hers.

Her lower lip had trembled a little before she caught it between her teeth. “It was one incredible week,” she said in a soft voice. Her eyes slid down to his mouth, and her chest slowly rose with deep breaths. “Really, really incredible.”

Jake gulped as her words baited him like sin. He leaned closer. “Just doesn’t seem like something I’d do,” he said in a low voice and stepped back.

“What do you mean?”

“To meet a woman like you and never look back.”

“Maybe the you-at-twenty-two wouldn’t do that, but maybe last year you would.”

He tipped his shoulders up. “Maybe. Or maybe not.” He left the kitchen, not waiting for her to speak or to follow.

“You’re angry at me again?”

He turned at the sound of her voice as he stilled in front of the fireplace, which was still blazing. He’d been chucking wood in there all afternoon. The fire had helped calm his nerves.

He crouched down in front of the fireplace and grabbed the poker, shoving at the logs as sparks met the air. “I’m sick of you holding the truth back from me.”

“And what makes you think I’m lying? Hell, if you can’t remember everything, then why are you the expert on what happened?”

Her voice was as cool as the Montana air, and it straightened his spine. He pushed back up to his feet, ignoring the throbbing in his thigh. “I’m the one with the memory issues, but it looks like you’re having some trouble yourself.” He kept his back to her.

“How can you be so certain that I’m not telling the truth?”

“I think you don’t know when you’re acting and when you’re being real.” Maybe he had no right to question her—he couldn’t even remember anything but their first kiss. But something inside him screamed that he was right, that she was afraid, that he would never have turned his back on her.

“You might be right,” she said as her voice grew farther away, and he realized she was probably leaving. He turned and faced her as she was putting her jacket back on. “But I definitely never pretended when I was with you.”

Jake sucked in a breath as she twisted the doorknob.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Jake. If you still want to work together, that is.”