Present Day

She was bringing everything up to the surface. Jacob was frustrated as hell at her for that.

He was also wary, not to mention so damn curious, he thought he was going to lose it sometime soon.

Did she remember? Or didn’t she?

Sometimes, it felt like all he could do to keep himself from grabbing her and demanding she tell him the truth about what she recalled about the August before her seventh-grade year. What did she remember about a sociopath called Emmitt Tharp, about being kidnapped, of escaping with scrawny Jake Tharp? She’d say things sometimes that seemed like echoes from their past: her onetime phobia for dogs and knives, her wistful musings about someone from her past helping her get over her fear of heights, what she’d said tonight about the fire being for security, not just warmth. Those things, and so many other small mentions on her part, made him wild with speculation and curiosity.

And yet . . . he’d searched her expression each time, and there would be no connection he could discern in her eyes between whatever hint she’d dropped and him—Jacob—the man present with her there in the moment. It was as if everything he’d told her about him remaking himself new every day was the literal truth, as if Jake Tharp and Jacob Latimer really were two different beings . . . that there was truly no connection for him to find in Harper’s beautiful eyes. That rattled him nearly as much as the idea that she did remember him.

Maybe he really had killed off Jake Tharp in his single-minded mission to become Jacob Latimer. That concept used to reassure him. It’d been the only reason he allowed himself to indulge in a relationship with Harper. But increasingly, he searched for that connection not just because he dreaded it. He wanted her to remember Jake, to acknowledge that past connection and their shared history . . .

If only a little.

And that alteration in his attitude had him seriously on edge as they left Geb, and he opened the limo door for her. Because there was no a little in this scenario. She either remembered, or she didn’t. Either he resolved to promote Harper’s apparent amnesia, or he prodded her to recall more, tainting and altering his present-day world. Because it wouldn’t just be the sweet, poignant moments of their time spent together that would jump out of that Pandora’s box of memory. So many ugly, shameful secrets would spring out of the past as well, truths Jacob vigilantly guarded against. He’d figuratively killed off Jake Tharp so that Jacob Latimer could live and thrive.

And he’d been doing it so well, until she’d walked into his life again.

It wasn’t just his concern about what Harper would do with those memories in regard to his life, either. He was worried for her, and that concern rose every minute he spent in her company. If her father had truly been successful in making her forget a traumatic kidnapping and assault at age twelve, then Jacob should be doing whatever he could to make sure those ugly memories stayed buried. He knew all too well what effect Emmitt’s foulness had had on a victim less fortunate than Harper had been.

The conflict raged in him. The push-pull he experienced toward her mounted, the friction of it becoming unbearable.

The atmosphere in the private enclosure of the limo was almost as stifling and charged as it had been last night, after the opera, Jacob realized with a frown. They’d finished dinner soon after Harper’s comment about the fire and Jacob’s sharp questions and comments. They’d both skipped dessert and coffee, and had been polite enough with each other while Jacob took care of the check. Still, their former intimacy and warmth had vanished, only to be replaced by a growing, taut strain.

They rode in silence for twenty minutes. As Miguel, his driver, maneuvered them through tight Saturday evening traffic, he found himself unable to restrain his volatility any longer, however.

She sat on the seat across from him, staring out the window, the passing lights glimmering in the stones of the earrings he’d bought her. Her pure, striking profile was what drew his gaze, however, not the precious gems. He clenched his teeth.

God, he wanted her.

“There are times that I feel like you know more about me than you’re letting on.”

His words sounded harsh, cutting through the billowing silence of the dim, hushed limo. He recognized that a portion of his volatility stemmed from her aloofness at that moment . . . her untouchable quality. Because despite all his ambiguity and uncertainty toward her, the need to touch, to assure himself of her reciprocated need, never once waned. If anything, his hunger seemed to be growing exponentially in the face of his doubts.

She turned to him. He saw incredulity written large on her face.

“Why in the world would I know more about you than I’m telling you?” she demanded. He saw understanding slowly dawn on her face. “Do you think I’m putting on a show? To get a story about you? Did you talk to Cyril? Did he tell you I was asking questions about your background this afternoon?”

Cyril hadn’t told him anything, but Jacob’s expression didn’t shift. His heartbeat began to thrum in his hears. “Cyril and I have been friends for years,” he replied neutrally. “We don’t keep a lot from each other.”

She exhaled, shaking her head, the motion causing her long, lush hair to slide across her pale shoulders and arms. Desire and confusion clashed inside him, making his muscles tense hard.

“I told him I wasn’t asking questions about you to get fuel for a story, or to use the information in any way that was harmful to you. I told him I was just trying to understand you better. Then he ran to tell you everything, apparently. You have him trained well,” she stated bitterly, staring again out the window, her jaw tense. She suddenly made a desperate, disgusted sound and whipped her head around. “Why are you so convinced I want to hurt you?”

“Because you can.”

She started. He, too, felt a little taken aback by his honest answer. He’d just admitted point-blank that he cared enough for her that she had the power to hurt him. After a stretched moment, she inhaled slowly.

“Because I have access to your homes? To your world? To you? Don’t kid yourself. You haven’t given that much away, Jacob. Besides, you’ve asked me to take risks for you,” she breathed out coldly. “Maybe you’re going to have to decide once and for all if you’re willing to do the same for me. Oh . . . and once you make your choice, stop getting pissed off at me every time I remind you of someone else, or make you feel in the tiniest bit vulnerable. That’s just the way being . . . with someone else works.” She scoffed and rolled her eyes. He sensed her disgust at him, but also at herself. “I almost said ‘being in a relationship.’ Imagine me, saying that to Jacob Latimer.”

“Harper—”

He cut himself off when the limo came to a halt. He realized in mounting frustration that he wasn’t sure what he would have said to her, anyway. What he could say. He felt blocked at every turn.

They didn’t speak as they approached the Sea Cliff house, and he keyed in a security code. She walked ahead of him when they entered, and headed directly for the stairs. He followed, his agitation swelling at the vision of her elegant, stiff back and shoulders. She was pissed, and good. But he wasn’t exactly pleased at learning she’d been trying to pull answers from Cyril about him, either. They entered his suite and he slammed the door after him. His frothing frustration spilled over when, without pause, she walked briskly toward the guest bathroom.

He lunged toward her, grabbing her upper arm and spinning her to face him.

“You’ve got me twisted in every direction, Harper.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “But I’m not responsible for your pissy moods.”

He gripped her upper arm tight. “I haven’t spoken to Cyril since I saw him with you this afternoon. I wasn’t saying that you could hurt me because you have access to my life. I was saying it because I care about you. Too fucking much.”

He saw her eyes widen slightly before he swooped down and kissed her. She stiffened at first, but he was so far gone, he didn’t care. He required her taste, her scent, the sensation of her soft, firm lips moving against his. He bit at her lower lip, demanding she join him in this boiling lust. Instead, she bared her teeth, pressed closer to his body, and nipped him back. He saw red. Her hands clutched hard at his shoulders, and her fingers delved into his hair. The feeling of her nails scraping his scalp made savage arousal tear through him. He opened his hands along her sides, encompassing her slender torso, and plunged his tongue into her mouth.

Need assaulted him. He lifted her several inches off the floor and walked with her pressed tight against him. He set her on the edge of his bed, still feeding hungrily from her hot, responsive mouth. Everything seemed to be striking him in sharp, bullet-like flashes of awareness, like his brain was overloading with sensation. Her hands moved anxiously along his shoulders and neck, pulling him to her, urging him onto the bed. Before he came, however, he reached around her neck and unbuttoned the collar of her dress. He broke from their kiss, snarling at the deprivation of her mouth.

He jerked her dress down, baring her breasts. They felt so soft in his hands, so firm and sweet, the tight, coral-colored nipples killing him. They were his to touch—for now—and that knowledge unleashed a desperate excitement in him. He heard Harper’s whimper through the blood pounding in his ears. The next thing he knew, he was pushing her back on his bed and coming down over her, clutching a condom in his hand.

Everything was cast in a haze as he fed again from her mouth, and her supple body writhed beneath him, fueling his lust.

Another flash of clarity came to him. He held his throbbing cock in his hand and was shoving her dress roughly up to her waist. There was a ripping sound of cloth, and he stared at the heaven of her pale, parted thighs and pink sex. He dipped a finger into her, growling at the sensation of her tight, lubricated sheath.

His groan ripped at his throat as he entered her a moment later. He thrust, his eyes rolling back in his head at the slicing pleasure of being submerged to the hilt. The haze cleared as he stared down at her tense, flushed face, reddened lips, and eyes that were shiny with lust. She was stunning. So gorgeous.

Harper.

Supporting himself on the mattress, he used his free hand to reach for her wrists. He pressed both her hands to the mattress above her head, his gaze fixed on her bare, vulnerable breasts rising and falling as she panted. He kept his hand there, restraining her and bracing his weight at once.

There was so much feeling inside him, he thought he’d explode from it. He wanted to feast on her breasts and her mouth. He wanted to taste every square inch of her skin. His hands itched to grab fistfuls of her lush, sexy hair. But he needed to take her now . . . to be buried deep inside her surrender.

“You make me so crazy,” he grated out before he started to move.

His bed shook. She did. He knew he took her hard, and that he was ruthless. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself. It was like something else drove him, some savage force that insisted he drown in her submission. He felt only a single-minded goal to possess her utterly.

At some point, he heard her cry out. He’d paused with his cock sunk deep and pressed his testicles and pelvis against her outer sex, circling his hips subtly, demanding that she burn for him. He registered her flushed face, saw it tighten even as her sex convulsed around him. She cried out his name. Heat rushed around his cock, and he was pounding into her again, fucking the core of her unfurling pleasure, slaking himself like a satyr on it.

Then he was kneeling over her, panting, shucking the condom off his pulsing, rigid cock. He jerked viciously. The sweet pain in him swelled and broke, and he was coming on her pale thigh as wave after wave of pleasure shook him.

His harsh breathing entered his awareness. Slowly, the haze began to recede. He looked down at the bed. Harper lay there, panting, her dress shoved down below her breasts and up to her waist. He fisted his cock hard. A stream of ejaculate still clung between the damp head and Harper’s thigh. He noticed something black clinging to the top of her leg. It was wet with his come. He realized it was Harper’s thong. He hadn’t ripped her panties all the way off her, but just tore through the fabric at one hip before shoving it partially down the opposite thigh. Once the heaven of her had been revealed, nothing had mattered but being deep inside her.

His lungs burning, he dared to look at her face. Her eyes were damp, and her cheeks and lips were flushed. She looked thoroughly debauched . . . and incredibly beautiful. She looked like a woman who had just survived a brutal storm.

He inhaled raggedly at the thought. He’d been that storm.

“Are you all right?”

She nodded. She appeared to be holding her breath.

“Jacob . . . what is it?” A single tear trickled out of one eye. “What’s haunting you? Please tell me.”

Her pressured whisper cut straight through him. He felt completely transparent. He came off the bed. His pants and underwear were bunched above his knees. He flinched. He hadn’t even taken off his suit jacket or tie, for Christ’s sake. What the hell was wrong with him?

“Let me get something to clean you up,” he muttered, hitching his pants and underwear up before he walked away.

Harper had never been so shaken. She watched him walk toward his bathroom. How could he be feeling so much, and yet keep it locked deep inside the impenetrable shell of his everyday persona? It’d been like he was exorcising his demons when he’d made love to her just now. Harper had been only too glad to be the target of his angst. Even in the midst of his anguish, he hadn’t failed to excite her. Pleasure her. In fact, her arousal had been sharp and urgent. She’d looked the true Jacob Latimer in the face there for several pleasure-infused minutes, and witnessed the full extent of his power . . . of his pain.

But she’d seen the way the shutters came down over his eyes as he stood by the bed just now.

No. He wasn’t going to be making any more revelations anytime soon, she realized with a sinking feeling.

If ever.

But he had told her he cared, hadn’t he? Wasn’t his volatility a result of him admitting that to her, and to himself?

When he returned to the bed, she saw that he’d changed into dark blue pajama bottoms. Otherwise, he was nude. He didn’t speak as he sat on the edge of the bed. He removed her dress over her head and carefully drew the thong he’d torn off her leg. He took off her pumps, his touch on her achingly tender. She watched him as he solemnly washed away his essence from her skin with a warm, damp cloth and then dried her with a towel. Emotion swelled in her chest cavity. Such a beautiful, haunted man.

There was nothing she could think of to say. Everything seemed trite and without substance in comparison to what she experienced on the inside. Even her doubts were washed away by an onslaught of raw feeling.

When he’d finished and set aside the towel and cloth, she shifted on the bed, crawling under the covers. She put her arms up to him, and he came on the bed with her. He held her tight against him, stroking her hair. She felt that inexplicable bond between them surge and quiver, almost like it was a living thing.

He smoothed back her hair with his hand and pressed his lips to her temple.

“I hate wearing a condom with you,” he said in a hoarse voice next to her skin. “I hate even that coming between us.”

She made a sound of anguished longing and pressed closer to him.

“Harper?” He nudged her cheek and she lifted her head to look at him. “Are you on birth control?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“When we get back to Tahoe, let’s have a doctor examine us both. If we get clean bills of health, I want to be inside you. No more barriers.”

“Okay,” she agreed shakily, unable there, in his arms, to say anything different.

He opened his hand along the side of her head, holding her stare.

“And I want you to spend the nights with me when we return, too.”

“Every one?” she asked, stunned.

He nodded. “For as many as possible. For as many nights as we need, I want you with me. And I want you to know that I’m there. I don’t want you wondering—or doubting—because we’re separated.”

“You mean wondering if you’re with another woman?” she asked, the image of the beautiful, troubled Regina leaping into her mind’s eye against her will.

“I don’t want you doubting or worrying about anything. I don’t want to worry about you.”

“I worry about the end,” she admitted impulsively, her face and throat tightening with emotion. “Our end. Especially if I agree to what you’re proposing.”

Because wasn’t that the unspoken part of his proposal? Wasn’t he saying that their attraction was so strong, that they may as well play it out at its fullest, give the fire all the fuel it demanded until it banked, and they were finally free of the compulsion of it?

Or at least . . . one of them was. Her fear about getting involved with him surged inside her.

His hand shifted on her head, his fingers stroking her hair. She’d never seen so much compassion in his agate eyes than she did at that moment.

“It’s too late, Harper. I care too much, whether I wanted to or not. I think you feel it, too. We can’t go back, only forward. No matter what happens. Surely you sense that, too?”

She made a choked sound and pressed her cheek to his chest. Neither the word yes or the word no would leave her throat. She felt trapped. His mouth pressed against the top of her head.

It would be nice to believe that she had a solid choice in all this, to cling to the idea that she would never willingly steer herself toward catastrophe or heartache. She hugged him tighter and sensed the powerful bond between them tighten until it hurt. Maybe the volatile attraction between them would eventually wane; who knew?

But maybe Jacob was right.

In that full, poignant moment with him, Harper couldn’t help but wonder wildly if it were even possible for either her fears or Jacob’s ghosts to sever their bond.

By the time it came for them to leave San Francisco on Sunday morning, Jacob hadn’t pressed Harper any further about his proposal for her to stay with him in his Tahoe mansion as much as was possible. She couldn’t decide if she was glad or disappointed about that.

She kept thinking about his unexpected mood shifts. Was he moody like that with everyone? No. Somehow, she didn’t think he was.

It’s me who has him so edgy.

She detailed in her mind the topics they’d been discussing when he behaved so strangely, trying to make sense of what had touched him off. Her ruminations only made her more confused.

When they returned to Tahoe Shores at around noon, Harper peered out the sedan window onto a gorgeous, crystalline summer day. Tahoe Shores brimmed with bustling vacationers, everyone seeming intent on squeezing every last bit of fun out of the waning summer. Lakeview Boulevard was lined bumper-to-bumper with beachgoers’ cars.

Harper’s attention on what was happening outside the window was fractured slightly when Jacob received a call from Elizabeth. He’d told her that Elizabeth had gone with Regina back to Napa. Was his assistant calling because there was more trouble? He barely said more than five words to Elizabeth before he hung up. He opened his briefcase and pulled out a newspaper he’d bought at the airport in San Francisco. He began leafing through it.

“Look at all the cars and people,” Harper murmured.

“It is a holiday weekend,” Jacob said distractedly, frowning down at the newspaper.

“Is something wrong?” Harper asked him.

“No, not at all,” he replied briskly, folding up the paper and shoving it back in his briefcase. Jim had picked them up at the airport. Jacob opened up the window to the driver’s area of the car and spoke to him.

“Can you take us to Harper’s first? She’s going to run in and get some things to take to my place, then come right back out.”

Her heart jumped. Again, she had that feeling of being trapped between her desire and caution. She longed to be with him, of course, to indulge in the lush, sensual connection they shared. She wanted it too much. The velocity of their growing attachment to one another, the sheer power of it, left her vaguely panicked that they were on a path together that could only end in catastrophe.

And that didn’t even take into account that she was increasingly feeling like she wasn’t fully getting what was going on with her and Jacob . . . what was going on with him.

“Jacob, I really should run some errands and check the mail,” she prevaricated when Jim pulled up to her townhome entrance. She leaned forward to hand Jim the clicker that activated the privacy gate. She looked back at Jacob when he grasped her extended hand, and was abruptly caught in his stare.

He’d dressed casually for their return trip to Tahoe in jeans and a forest green collarless shirt that emphasized his riveting eyes and broad shoulders. He pulled her hand into his lap and pushed a button, and the window between them and Jim silently closed. She didn’t say anything when he silently drew her against him, his hand at her lower back. She put her hands palms down on his chest and inhaled his scent, her logic about why she should resist his demands already melting.

He touched her hair. “It’s still the weekend. Still the holiday. Surely you can wait to do errands.”

She pressed her nose to his chest and inhaled, sacrificing her last remnants of resistance. His fingers moved in her hair, and she shivered. He slid two fingers beneath her chin and lifted it, so that she met his stare.

“Do you really want to go home?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Then why are you hesitating?” he asked, his brows slanting.

“It’s nothing.” She shrugged helplessly. It was hard to put her insecurities into words. “I just have this feeling—”

The sedan came to a halt outside her townhome. Jacob’s hold on her didn’t flinch.

“What kind of feeling?” he asked.

“That the faster we go, the more intense we are, the quicker it will end,” she admitted.

“You can’t know that, Harper.”

“I know I can’t,” she admitted, staring at his chest. “I told you. It’s just this feeling.”

“Of dread?”

She looked up sharply, stunned by his insight. “Yes.”

He nodded. “I think I know what you mean.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. But it’s like I said last night. We can’t go back. We can’t tread water. The only way to go is forward.” He caressed her cheek, and she instinctively moved her face toward his touch. “Besides. It’s not just dread, what I’m feeling. Far from it, Harper. Is it for you?”

“God, no. I wouldn’t be here, if it were. But aren’t you even a little worried we’re moving too fast?” she asked softly. That there’s some big unnamable thing happening, something either threatening or wondrous. She couldn’t tell which . . .

“I told you before. I don’t think I can be with you in any way but all the way. One hundred percent. Look at me.” She met his stare reluctantly. “Everything’s going to be okay, Harper. Trust me.”

She drank in his quiet confidence. How could she be so intimidated by him and everything he represented, and yet feel incredibly secure with him at the same time?

“The only thing you have to agree to is this afternoon. Tonight,” he said.

“What about tomorrow night? And the night after that? You said in San Francisco that you wanted us to spend every night together that we could—”

“Then I’ll take it back, if it makes you feel better about it. I guess I’ll just have to talk you into every night each day at a time.” He reached up the back of her head firmly, his gaze on her a smoldering demand. “I want you with me tonight. I want to go out on the boat and spoil you a little, and make love to you a lot. I want to watch the fireworks with you and fall asleep under the stars with you in my arms. Do you think you can manage that?”

She stared at him, her lips parting in bemused arousal. “How do you do that?” she whispered. She felt his little smile like a tickle in her lower belly.

“Is that a yes?” he murmured.

Of course it was. She was beginning to wonder if she’d lost the ability to even say no in his presence.

Harper returned to the sedan a few minutes later, having emptied her clothes from San Francisco and replaced them hastily with clean ones and a few more toiletries.

“Did you bring a swimsuit?” he asked her when she returned, and they resumed their journey via limo to his home.

She glanced over at him and saw his nearly imperceptible smile. “Of course I did. You didn’t think I was going to wear that itsy-bitsy one from before, did you?”

He shrugged as if he didn’t see the problem. “I liked that swimsuit.”

She snorted with laughter, her anxiety fracturing, her happiness swelling when he grinned full out and reached for her, bringing her against him.

Even as she drowned in the bliss of the moment, a flickering, dark thought took shape. Jacob hugged her closer, and it faded.

But maybe it burrowed into her unconscious, like a persistent worm.

How had it happened, that she’d fallen to this dangerous depth, when she was so unsure of him? How was it even possible that he could disarm her so completely, when she’d only known him for such a short period of time?

Admit it, Harper.

Why was she having so much difficulty acknowledging her growing, unsettling suspicions to herself?

Because what you’re considering isn’t a remote possibility, that’s why. Because to actually believe you’ve known Jacob Latimer in some other time or place—in some other life—is to admit that you’re losing it.

It was just her confusion and longing making her consider such bizarre possibilities. Everything was blending together: her grief over her parents’ sudden death, her ruminations about her childhood, and Jacob’s inexplicable, powerful effect on her.

The present loss was making her relive the past one.

It hit her then, how odd it was that he’d told her she reminded her of someone else, when she’d been making similar connections, impossible comparisons. For the most part, her musings seemed totally wrong, nonsensical . . . just plain crazy.

She rubbed her cheek against Jacob’s chest and stared out the window, tears filling her eyes. Jacob pulled her closer against him. The pain of what she’d done so long ago had dulled over the years. But at that moment, the memory of that childhood ghost—that beautiful, brave boy—rose and stabbed at her brutally.

He’d vanished from her life. But unlike in the case of her parents, Harper herself had been the one responsible for that loss.