Her hand fell away from the metal handle. She stared up at him, dry-mouthed. Mute.

After a moment, he closed his eyes and lowered his head slightly. The breeze ruffled his thick hair in the taut silence that followed.

“You were,” he said with an air of grim finality. He inhaled, a tried executive who had just realized his worst assessment of the situation had come to pass, and was grimly positioning himself for his next move. Her heart beat uncomfortably against her breastbone. “Why?” he asked simply, opening his eyes.

“I didn’t want to be there. It was an accident,” she said, unable to keep the misery from her tone. His arm jerked slightly, as if he wanted to touch her, but then it went still at his side. She recalled how she’d flinched away from him after Cristina had died. He’d thought she’d recoil again at his touch, she realized, her throat swelling. “The washer was broken in Cristina’s suite and the repairman said he wouldn’t have the part to fix it until the end of the week. We needed clean linens and towels.”

“So you searched for a washer and ended up—”

“In your suite, yes, by accident,” she said, the words tumbling out of her throat now as if the confession had been stored under pressure and the lid had just been released. “I heard you two coming, so I hid. I know it was stupid, but I thought I’d be in trouble for leaving Cristina’s suite. I panicked,” she admitted.

“You hid in the armoire,” he said heavily.

She swallowed back the dread rising in her throat. “You knew I was in there?” she whispered.

“No,” he said, staring off into the distance, his light eyes reflecting the low clouds and blue sky. “I just put it together this weekend. I thought I’d heard something rustling in there that night, but dismissed it. Later, I saw you walking up the steps. You carried a bag.”

“That was the laundry,” she said tremulously. Her pulse began to throb at her temple. Her head ached with all of her thoughts. He knew she’d watched him flog that woman. He knew she’d seen him screw her with such ruthless precision using that gliding rack that had clearly been designed for his selfish kink. The same man had made love to her with sweet, intense passion on that beach. What was she supposed to do with the paradox? Michael Montand Jr. Vanni. She rubbed her temple. She was going to have a headache later. “I never saw your face,” she murmured, wanting to get this over with now that she’d started. “And like I said last Thursday, your hair was longer and lighter looking. When you cut it, a lot of the sun streaks disappeared. And she—Astrid—called you Vanni. I didn’t know that was what you were called.”

“So you didn’t realize Vanni was me, am I right?” he asked, exhaling heavily, his tone making it clear that the pieces were falling into place for him. “Emma?” he prodded. He waited for her to answer.

“You didn’t realize it was me until you heard Cristina call me Vanni. Do I have it right?” he pushed.

His gaze narrowed on her when she didn’t reply.

“I wouldn’t have wanted you to see that,” he grated out. “I didn’t ask you to watch. In fact, it’d be one of the last things I’d want anyone to witness,” he said in a hard, quiet voice. “I’m well aware it wasn’t my finest moment. But what you saw was consensual between Astrid and me. I’d never even met you. It was just a bad coincidence. It doesn’t have anything to do with what happened between us.”

“Of course it doesn’t. For you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, anger entering his tone.

“Why didn’t you just tell me your name was Vanni?”

“I don’t know,” he replied just as edgily. He paused, seeming to search for an explanation for her question. “Not everyone calls me Vanni. Besides, I don’t recall you ever calling me anything. What did you mean when you said you watching me with Astrid doesn’t mean anything to me, but it does you?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to stand in my patient’s driveway and have this conversation,” she said, once again reaching for her door handle.

“What was it that upset you the most?” he demanded, subduing his anger.

Her mouth sagged open with disbelief. She couldn’t seem to inhale a full breath. She felt cornered by his direct question and piercing stare.

“I’d be hard-pressed to name something that didn’t. It all disgusted me,” she blurted out.

He caught her wrist when she reached for the door. She looked up at him, startled.

“You’ve been lying to yourself, Emma. You knew it was me. Or part of you did. You knew since that night I called you to the dining room.” She gasped in shock at his calm, concise understanding of the private inner workings of her mind. His fingers moved slightly on her skin as if to soothe the sting of his words. He lowered his head and spoke near her ear, his warm breath making her shiver. “I’m not an animal. Don’t label me depraved just because it makes things easier for you. Are you forgetting I’ve made love to you? You might be inexperienced, but you enjoyed giving control to me. There’s nothing wrong with it. It was natural the way you responded to me. Beautiful,” he said, his softly uttered words striking her as palpably intimate even in this unlikely setting. “Don’t run from what you don’t understand.”

It was too much. His quiet voice, not entreating her exactly, but calling to her. Speaking to something deep inside her that he knew she heard.

Somehow.

I’ve told you what I can offer you. It’s the same I can offer any woman. It isn’t much, she recalled him telling Astrid so coldly. I’m going to bind you onto the sliding track, then use the flogger on you.

Something hot and volatile swelled in her chest. He was too complex for her, too dark. The last thing she needed was someone like Vanni Montand in her life. She couldn’t handle it. She couldn’t handle him.

He leaned down, his lips brushing her temple, and her fearful thoughts evaporated.

“Leave your keys under the seat,” he directed in her ear. “I’ll call someone and have them pick up your car and deliver it to your apartment. Come with me now. I want you at Cristina’s funeral.”

“Why?” she whispered numbly.

“Because she made you laugh.” She turned her head and met his stare. “She deserves to have someone there who liked her, don’t you think? But that’s not the only reason. I need you there.”

She stared at him, aghast at his harsh declaration of need.

“We’ll talk more about what you saw later, after the funeral. You’re not a coward, Emma,” he said, his quiet words piercing her like hot knives. “You can’t keep running from this.”

She tugged again on her arm and this time he let her go.

His expression was impassive when she faced him after putting her keys beneath the driver’s seat and slamming the car door. Even so, Emma didn’t think it was her imagination that she saw stark relief flicker across his bold features ever so briefly.

After Vanni had opened the passenger door for her and she got inside, she looked down at what she was wearing.

“I can’t go to Cristina’s funeral like this,” she said once he was seated next to her, anxiety overtaking her. “Can you take me to my apartment to change?”

His gaze swept down over her in a cool assessment, making her skin prickle in awareness. It was warm today, so she’d opted for a lightweight floral skirt, a pink T-shirt, and flats. It was better than jeans and high-tops, but it was still inappropriate for the funeral of Cristina Montand.

“You’re fine,” he said. “It’s going to be a very simple ceremony. Only a few people will be there.”

“But—”

“You’re fine,” he repeated quietly. You’re fine because I said you were fine. He didn’t say it, but it seemed like he did. She opened her mouth to protest.

“There isn’t time for me to take you to your apartment. Please, don’t concern yourself about what you’re wearing. It’s the last thing I’m worried about, Emma, and I told you. I need you there,” he said quietly. Forcefully. Again, she was reminded of the brew of complex emotion she sensed boiling behind his cool façade.

“All right,” she said in a choked voice.

He cleared his throat, and the charged atmosphere seemed to dissipate. He reached for a hands-free phone headset.

“I hope you don’t mind. There are a few phone calls I need to make on the way. My company is sponsoring a big racing event in France this summer. It’s the first time for it.” He grimaced as he put on the headset. “I just hope it’s not the last.”

Emma exhaled, relief going through her at the realization they weren’t going to plunge into anxiety-provoking topics like what she’d experienced in that armoire. “Is it that French-American grand prix road-racing event Montand Motorworks is sponsoring on the French Riviera?” He gave her a surprised glance. “I read about it in the Chicago Tribune,” Emma explained.

He nodded. “It’s experimental. I’m not sure how it’ll go over. I’m tramping on European tradition a bit, attempting it.”

She didn’t really understand what he meant. She’d never been remotely interested in car racing. Him, she understood better. Or at least she experienced his unruffled manner and bone-deep confidence. “If anyone can do it, you can,” she said.

She saw his blank expression of surprise. “Why would you say that so certainly?” he asked, dark brows furrowed in puzzlement.

“Because of your background and your knowledge of cars and everything. You’re both American and French and you know all about racing and you have that . . . cachet.”

He leaned forward slightly, hands on the wheel. “Cachet?”

“Sure,” Emma said, hiding her blush by digging in her purse for her phone. “The Aloof Automobile Prince Raised in America. Racecar Royalty Returns to His Roots—”

She halted her rambling and looked around at the sound she heard. He laughed. Really laughed. The sound was deep and rich and uninhibited. His smile cut her to the quick. Somehow, he seemed relieved. Something twisted and pulled inside her at the vision of white, straight teeth and the look of stark amusement on his face. There was something else gleaming in his aquamarine eyes: genuine warmth as he stared at her. This was the same man whom she’d watched make love so coldly.

Knitting the two images together was going to be so hard. Wasn’t it?

“You really are odd at times,” he said, his gaze narrowed on her. She held her breath when he reached up and touched the angel at her throat. It suddenly struck her that she hadn’t removed it, even while she slept, since she’d hurried out of the Breakers after Cristina’s death. Surely that meant something.

“You’re not so normal yourself,” she muttered.

He smiled slightly and dropped his hand, and she immediately regretted her need to lighten the moment. His attention turned to driving and his phone calls, but Emma couldn’t help but notice that although his smile had faded, his usually hard mouth looked a little softer. She really had provided him a moment of relief. The realization warmed her more than she liked to admit. It also made her wonder for the thousandth time about the unspoken tension that seemed to shroud him anytime Cristina was mentioned. She was texting a message to her patient’s daughter, explaining about her car being left in the driveway and someone coming to pick it up, when Vanni began to talk. He spoke to someone named Jake whom he asked to retrieve Emma’s car. When it came time for him to say where to deliver the vehicle, Emma leaned forward, trying to get his attention to give him her address. He remained turned in profile to her, however, and crisply supplied her street address as if it were his own. She was a little mystified that he’d been able to see the address, given how dark and rainy it’d been that night he’d followed her home.

On his next call he began speaking in fluid French. She stared out the window as the urban landscape passed by her, her entire attention focusing on the sound of him. At first, she tried to see if she could pull out any words that she might comprehend. When she couldn’t, she found herself relaxing to the sound of his voice: the rich resonance, the rhythmic cadence, the foreign words blending together into a sensual anthem that both lulled her and created a tickle of excitement along her skin and at her core.

She cast a sideways, covetous glance at him, wondering all the while what she’d gotten herself into. If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up crashing and burning like a novice behind the wheel of a superfast, high-tech Montand car.

For the hundredth time, she repeated a mantra for caution inside her head.

She was so caught up in the sound of Vanni speaking French that she forgot to be nervous about where they were going. That all came to a halt when he turned the sedan onto the grounds of a cemetery. Her anxiety started to amplify as he finished his call and deftly maneuvered the sedan on the narrow road winding through lush trees and grounds. Neither of them spoke, a hushed somberness seemingly overtaking them both.

He drove directly to a lovely spot atop a small hill. There was a lagoon with swans floating serenely on it to the right of Emma. He parked behind a hearse, three other luxury sedans, and a Nissan. In the distance, Emma caught a glimpse of the coffin down the small hill to the left of them topped with a lush, colorful flower arrangement. Her anxiety ratcheted up several degrees when she saw the pinched expression of Mrs. Shaw as she ascended the slight rise to the road. A handsome older man with a mane of silver hair followed her along with a younger, dark-haired man.

Emma got out of the sedan and went around the back to join Vanni, feeling more and more out of place by the second.

“Where have you been?” Mrs. Shaw asked Vanni with barely subdued anxiety as she approached him.

“There was something I needed to take care of,” Vanni replied coolly, hardly sparing her a glance. He shook hands with the silver-haired man and then the younger one with the Mediterranean good looks. The latter grasped him with both hands, a concerned look on his face.

“You okay?” the young man asked in a quiet, confidential tone. Here was a friend to him, Emma immediately realized. She was glad of it. Vanni struck her as so alone sometimes, like a secluded prince.

Vanni just nodded. He put out his hand toward Emma in a beckoning gesture. She saw Mrs. Shaw’s face flatten in disbelief when she turned to see Emma approach their small group. “Niki, Uncle Dean, this is Emma Shore. She’s the nurse who took care of Cristina during her last days. Emma, this is Dean Shaw, my mother’s brother. He’s also the chief financial officer of Montand Motorworks. He used to work for my father as well. And this is my good friend, Niki Dellis.” Both men greeted her warmly and took her hand in greeting. Niki’s expression was amiable, but sharp and curious. Emma decided Dean Shaw had a nice smile.

“And of course you’ve already met my aunt, Vera Shaw.”

Well, here was some news, Emma thought, hiding her shock. She’d had no inkling Mrs. Shaw was his aunt. Vera Shaw was nowhere near as welcoming as her brother or Niki Dellis had been.

“We should begin,” Vera told him tensely. Vanni nodded significantly down the hill. Vera and her brother started ahead of them, Emma following between Vanni and Niki. She glanced up at Vanni when he took her hand as they went down the slope. She didn’t require him to steady her balance, but she did appreciate his touch. This was an extremely awkward situation for her.

One look into his impassive features and stormy eyes and Emma knew it was a thousand times worse for him. Her self-consciousness diminished almost to nothing upon seeing his carefully controlled emotional state.

There were only three other people attending the simple service besides her, Niki, Vanni, Vera, and Dean. Two extremely well-put-together, very thin women already stood on the far side of the casket. They looked like they might be in their early fifties, but Emma’s instinct told her they were older and just well-preserved by plastic surgery and regular, opulent spa visits. Friends of Cristina’s most likely, she assessed, although they certainly hadn’t bothered to visit her when she’d been ill. A middle-aged man was there as well, and Emma realized he was the presiding minister when Vanni nodded at him, and he began to speak.

It was a short, simple ceremony, but the beautiful surroundings and the luminous summer afternoon seemed to bless it as special. Vanni’s and her handclasp had broken when they reached the bottom of the hill, but Emma was highly aware of him standing next to her. She sensed his tension level like a storm silently building on the horizon.

As the minister spoke, Emma glanced curiously around. The paradox of Vanni’s feelings for his stepmother was obvious here as well. The carved mahogany casket with gold fastenings was of the highest quality, and the flower arrangements were lush and stunning. Emma noticed that a large gravestone next to Cristina’s gravesite was also decorated with fresh flowers, as were two others next to it. Did those graves belong to Vanni’s father and mother?

Was it usual for a husband to be buried next to both his wives? Emma thought it odd, but didn’t have enough experience to know. And to whom did the fourth grave belong?

The minister led them in a prayer, and Emma cast her gaze downward. At the word forgive, Vanni jerked ever so slightly next to her. Without thinking, Emma grasped his hand. She tilted her head up slightly and saw that his stare was on her, the message in his eyes weighty, but unreadable.

The realization slowly dawned on Emma that it wasn’t just her who seemed awkward at the funeral. Everyone there seemed tense, as if there were a million unspoken words zooming around their bowed heads, words Emma herself couldn’t comprehend any more than she had Vanni’s French. It was odd that Vanni’s maternal aunt and uncle attended his stepmother’s burial, but perhaps they were just there to support Vanni? The two well-groomed ladies barely showed any emotion at all during the service, except perhaps shameless curiosity as they stared at Vanni, and occasionally at Emma and Niki.

Poor Cristina, to have her life memorialized in such a stilted, emotionless fashion.

As the small gathering began to dissipate at the end of the ceremony, Vanni reached in his pocket and withdrew a crisp handkerchief from his suit and handed it to Emma. She saw the MGM monogrammed on the edge of it. Emma looked at him in confusion, but then realized her cheeks were wet.

“Thank you,” she said thickly a moment later, blotting her face.

“Someone should cry for her,” he said simply. His eyes were dry and clear.

After she’d dried her face, he took her hand and started to lead her up the hill. He paused when Niki approached them.

“Niki, would you mind?” Vanni nodded down at Emma significantly. “I’m going to . . .” He faded off and gestured with his head toward the graves. Emma was confused, but Niki seemed to immediately understand Vanni’s request. Niki took her hand with a smile. He asked her in a friendly manner about her work, and Emma answered distractedly. When they got to the top of the hill, Emma looked back. She saw Vanni kneeling in front of the third grave from Cristina’s coffin, his strong profile rigid. Was it his mother’s grave? After a few seconds, he stood and placed his hand on the gravestone. Emma could almost feel how cold and hard it felt against his fingers and palm before he broke the contact then turned and walked away.

“Where are we going?” she asked Vanni quietly twenty minutes later. He hadn’t spoken since they’d left the cemetery. He seemed thoughtful, although his driving was as skillful and adroit as ever as he maneuvered through crowded suburban evening traffic. He’d finally turned onto a rural drive that paralleled the lakefront and flew down a country landscape, and that’s when she’d asked the question.

“I’m taking you home . . . the long way,” he said, staring out the front window fixedly.

“Good.” She noticed his sharp sideways glance. “Because I’m not ready to make a decision yet . . . about it all.” She didn’t want to go to the Breakers. She didn’t want to be seduced by him. Or she did, but she knew how important careful thought was in this situation with Vanni, with whom rational thought was most difficult.

He stared ahead at the unfurling road. Maybe he’d just take her home more quickly, if she wasn’t willing to continue with their agreement tonight? She felt cast at sea, sometimes, trying to imagine what he was thinking. It was an odd paradox to how inexplicably connected she felt to him at other times.

“I told you we were going to talk. That’s all right, isn’t it?” he asked, his gaze never shifting from the road.

“Yes,” she said, looking at his profile. He turned suddenly, his gaze sweeping over her.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked sharply. She swallowed thickly, both relieved and anxious that they’d approached the intimidating topic.

“Our agreement.”

“Are you regretting agreeing to see me? Now that you know that I’m the same man you saw with Astrid?”

“I’m not sure that ‘regret’ is the right word,” she said slowly, thinking. “I’m uncertain. Confused.”

“I realize you’re upset about what you saw that night. About what you think you saw,” he added under his breath.

“I know what I saw,” she said emphatically.

“Maybe you do,” he said soberly, smoothly taking a bend in the country road around a bluff. “But you don’t know what any of it means.”

“Are you going to want to do those things to me?” she asked the question that had been burning at the back of her throat ever since she’d agreed to come with him this afternoon . . . ever since she’d fully understood who he was.

He glanced sideways, his expression going rigid when he saw her anxiety. “I’m the first person to admit I’m not an expert on kindness, but if you actually think for a second that I’d be that selfish and uninspired as what you witnessed, you’ve got this all wrong, Emma. Besides, I could do those exact same things with you, and it wouldn’t be remotely the same,” he added under his breath, his lips curled into a frown.

She stared at him, wide-eyed, still confused, but also a little amazed at his burst of honesty.

He stopped at a stop sign and looked at her. “Just remember this. I’m not going to ask you to do anything you don’t want to do. If you don’t want something, just say it.”

Her mouth hung open. “It’s that simple?”

“No,” he said grimly, staring out the windshield. “But that part is as cut-and-dry as it comes.”

He pulled the car onto a narrow, weed-covered road with crumbling pavement that no one would ever have seen if they weren’t formerly familiar with it. A moment later, the vista of the great lake appeared. He put the car into park before a three-foot-tall wall that must serve as a dam during high water. Today, the waves struck rhythmically against a rocky beach a dozen feet below them. It appeared to be an old, forgotten lookout, Emma realized as she got out of the car and Vanni did the same, taking off his jacket and tossing it in the backseat. Weeds and grass were breaking through the pavement as nature reclaimed the area. She walked up to the wall and stared, the evening summer sun making the ruffled light blue blanket of water wink and sparkle at her. She knew immediately when he stepped up beside her, but for a moment, neither of them spoke.

“How did you ever discover this place?” she wondered, thinking of how remote the turnoff had been.

“Old high school and college drinking spot.”

Emma considered him for a moment. “Did you have a Montand car? When you were a sixteen-year-old?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

“Yeah,” he said, his shoulders twitching slightly as if he’d thought the question inconsequential.

Emma glanced around the secluded area. It would be an ideal make-out spot. Not that Vanni probably ever just “made out” even as a hardened, gorgeous high school boy in a car that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The thought made her shift uncomfortably on her feet.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, glancing over at her with a furrowed brow.

“I hadn’t realized Mrs. Shaw was your aunt,” she said quietly, sidestepping the issue.

He nodded and placed his hands on the top of the wall. “Yes. My mother’s older sister. Mom was the youngest, Dean is the oldest.”

“Was your mother . . . like Mrs. Shaw, I mean, Vera?” she asked, experimenting with the name.

Vanni shook his head, the lake breeze ruffling his thick hair. “Not at all. My mother was warm and full of life. I realize Vera isn’t the most . . . approachable of women. She is an excellent house manager, and she and Janice, my administrative assistant, work well together to make sure I have what I need both at work and home. My mother and Vera look a little alike,” Vanni mused after a pause, his gaze cast out at the lake. “Once in a great while.” Emma’s heart squeezed a little at something in his voice. She wondered if he kept Vera around because of that, looking for similarities in his aunt, hungry for reminders of his mother. “They were definitely alike in one thing,” he added.

“What?” Emma asked, leaning her hip against the wall and watching his striking profile instead of the sun-gilded water.

“They were both crazy about my father,” he said dryly.

“Really?” Emma asked, making a face. “Wasn’t that a bit awkward for your mother?”

Vanni shrugged, the action bringing her gaze downward to his muscular chest covered in the crisp dress shirt. “My mother never knew about Vera’s crush. Or I don’t think she did. Who knows, really, what a wife suspects?” he said, the reflection off the lake making his eyes look more blue than green at the moment. “My mother likely suspected a lot of things she wouldn’t have told me about, as young as I was.” He glanced aside and noticed her puzzled expression. “My father was an inveterate womanizer. There’s no way my mother didn’t know about his infidelities,” he stated grimly.

“Do you mean that Vera and your dad actually—”

“No,” he interrupted, catching her drift. “At least I don’t think so. Aunt Vera’s infatuation was unrequited. I always felt a little sorry for her, existing in the shadow of her sister . . . and so many others.”

Emma didn’t reply, a feeling of sadness going through her at his matter-of-fact assessment of such a crucial aspect of his family life.

He turned to her suddenly, leaning his hip against the wall, and touched the angel at her throat.