The thought seemed to come from somewhere else. Emma herself was too disturbed and confused to have thought it. She was too rapt to judge her admiration of a man who made love with such cold, methodical precision.

How can you possibly call it cold when not only Astrid but also you are boiling hot?

She moved closer, spellbound, her nose touching the hard edge of the wood door. Cool air brushed against her scalding face. He wore a condom that glistened either from lubrication or Astrid’s juices. The latter, most likely, given Astrid’s frenzy of sexual excitement. He’d removed his shirt, but hadn’t even fully removed his black pants, she realized. She could see just the front of his fabric-covered thighs. Daringly—hungrily—Emma opened the door slightly wider, then immediately eased it back¸ panicked when Astrid spoke.

“Please . . . please . . . may I come?” she pleaded shakily, air puffing out of her when Vanni slammed her onto his cock without interruption.

“Do whatever you want,” he grated out, and again Emma sensed his razor-edged tone contrasted with a weary resignation. She almost heard what he didn’t say. What difference does it make to me what you do?

What difference does anything make?

He strained forward slightly and Emma caught a glimpse of his flexing, powerful biceps. What was that on the one farthest away from her? A tattoo . . . a simple one, some kind of Japanese or Chinese symbols?

Astrid began to wail in climax, thrashing her head. He increased the pumping action to a wicked pace. Only a very strong man could have done it. His hands fisted the metal handles, biceps bulging, cock pounding like a well-oiled piston.

He fucked himself, masturbated using a woman’s flesh. But wasn’t Astrid doing the same, selfishly pleasuring herself using his? It was so wrong, so beyond Emma’s experience, so shocking . . . so exciting.

Emma’s chaotic thoughts were cut off when he suddenly flung his head forward and growled. It was the most thrilling sound she’d every heard. His hair tossed forward as well, blocking his face. It was brown with sun streaks of gold, beautiful and wild. It probably would hang several inches past his chin when he held his head upright. He grunted, his arm muscles flexing hard and huge, his body going rigid. Astrid’s shrieks and cries dissolved into the roar in Emma’s ears. A great shudder went through his powerful body.

He didn’t move, breathe, or utter another sound while he came.

Neither did Emma as she stared openmouthed at this man—Vanni—locking down the detonation in his flesh.

Her panic and confusion evaporated. Her sex continued to ache dully. Emma switched hands again, alleviating the pain from holding the door closed, and slumped back in the dark cupboard. She should have still been wild with anxiety in the ensuing moments, but something inside her had altered upon seeing that incomplete, disturbing, and yet highly compelling image of him.

She lost track of time and the bizarre reality of her situation. A numbness settled on her.

Something had happened to her in that armoire, and she didn’t know what it was.

She still listened to them. How could she not, as close as they were and knowing their movements prevented or allowed her escape?

After an immeasurable period of time, their more distant, sporadic murmuring quieted. The minutes dragged by without Emma hearing a sound. She finally dared to open the cupboard a half an inch and peer out cautiously. Not only was the bedroom dark, every light in the office had been extinguished. The only exception was the monitor on the desk. It cast a dim, bluish, ghostlike luminescence on the shadowed room. All was quiet.

Now. Go.

Just when she’d galvanized herself into action, she saw a tall shadow suddenly appear in the bedroom entrance—there and then gone. She jerked slightly, her breath hissing into her lungs at the sudden shock of seeing him. She’d rustled the garments in her surprise. Her limbs tingled when she heard the subtle metallic sound of the hangers moving on the rack above her. His footsteps slowed just feet from the armoire.

Oh my God, he heard me.

She waited, horror settling on her like a mist, tingling and burning her skin, but she didn’t move. She didn’t breathe.

A second or two later, she heard the muted sound of the lock being released on the door to the suite, and the knob turning.

No. He didn’t hear me.

It’d been her oversensitive imagination.

The door closing behind him sounded hushed and mysterious, like a lover’s secret whispered in the darkness.

His insomnia was growing worse. It didn’t matter how much he threw himself into his work, or fiddled around in his workshop, or exercised, he couldn’t quiet his brain anymore. Sex used to help him rest, too. But the sickly residue that seemed to be permeating his life was now ruining even that primal, fundamental aspect of his existence. Oh, he still felt the physical pleasure, but it was like he was enacting a parody of the sexual act these days while part of him seemed to watch his uninspired performance, disgusted and amused by his lameness.

Cynical and bored . . . tired, and not yet thirty-one years old.

He’d had high hopes that like his father, full depression wouldn’t settle in until his forties. But in all fairness, his father hadn’t known Cristina when he was eight years old like he had. That was when she’d entered their life like a poison. By most accounts, he was the champion survivor of the Montand family in the post-Cristina apocalyptic world.

Not that there was much victory in that.

He walked silently through the living room and passed the bar, recalling he’d left the brandy decanter in the dining room earlier. A moment later he shut out the lights and stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows with brandy snifter in hand, gazing at the wide body of water that he couldn’t really see because of the cloaking night.

The darkness pressed on him. Called to him.

A strange prescience distracted him. The bare skin of his torso tingled and roughened. In the reflection of the windowpane he saw movement. He went utterly still.

His morbid thoughts vanished as he watched the girl ascend the stairs in the distance. What was she doing? Where had she been? He’d specifically asked that the nursing staff remain on Cristina’s level, he thought irritably.

Her figure was so light, her feet were so quick, her tread so silent he might have been catching a glimpse of a fey creature making an escape. He watched her fly up the stairs, her red fairy pack flung over her shoulder. Curiosity and amusement replaced his brief flash of anger. Her back and shoulders were held very stiff and erect, as if to say that although she was fleeing, she was doing so proudly. Defiantly? Silently thumbing her nose at the mortal world?

His stiff mouth softened and flickered at his uncharacteristic fanciful thought.

She wasn’t entirely fairylike. No, he’d recognized her just now from the back—that erect carriage, that enticing, graceful curve that led from a narrow waist to round hips. He hadn’t noticed her today because he’d been overseeing some new equipment installation at his plant in Deerfield, but he’d seen her yesterday on Cristina’s monitor. Just in passing . . . brief glimpses before she’d cheekily opened those curtains.

Emma Shore.

He’d asked Mrs. Shaw for the offender’s name yesterday and recalled it now.

He’d thought her unconventionally pretty before she’d irritated him by yanking open those curtains. Interesting looking. Her golden-blond hair was fairly short and reminded him of the style flappers used to wear, boyish and highlighting the shape of her skull. It suggested a nonconformist spirit—or at least a female who wanted others to think she was different, anyway. It touched her collar in the back while the soft-looking waves in the front ideally framed a delicate, piquant face. He couldn’t tell the color of her eyes on the monitor, but he’d noticed they looked large and dark next to her pale skin and hair. She had a tilt to her chin and a bright smile that went well together. Most people couldn’t pull off brash sweetness, but she did. Somehow. Or at least that had been his quick impression.

He’d certainly thought that her face looked far too young and fresh to go with the lush, ripe firmness of her ass. Her figure was light and supple, the gracefulness of her movement capturing his attention.

Not that he’d been staring. She was just difficult not to notice on the screen, that’s all. Any straight man would have looked twice. Any straight man with good taste would have looked more than that.

He’d follow her now and demand an explanation for her intrusion into his home.

He remained unmoving, however. She’d annoyed him, but her appearance had lightened him somehow as well, freshened him like a lungful of sea air after a night of debauchery.

He stared out at the black lake, lost in thoughts that, for once lately, weren’t bitter and morose.