Kimberly’s heart pounded painfully in her chest. And she tried to smile but feared it came out looking more like the complete shock currently assailing her. Why on earth hadn’t she said who’s there first?

But it was too late to lament the mistake—she had to stay sharp, no matter how tired or unprepared for this she might be.

“Hi there.” The clod wore a big, goofy grin.

“Hi.” Smile. Try to smile.

“Hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time, but—”

It was late, however, and smiles were getting hard to come by. “I’m sorry, but actually, you did.”

Though her visitor didn’t look the least bit discouraged. “I was hoping I could entice you into a nightcap.”

Where’s Max? She wanted to ask, but held her tongue—she didn’t want Carlo to think she was intimidated by this situation.

Still, this was not the plan. Not the plan at all.

“You know, Carlo, I’m really tired and about to turn in. So I’ll see you tomorrow—”

“Wow, look,” he said then, completely ignoring her.

She followed his eyes to the jewelry that still lay strewn across the bed. Apparently, this was the one thing Carlo liked gaping at more than her. But even that didn’t last for long—he quickly shifted his hungry gaze from the jewels back to her face, and then down at the silky little robe she wore.

He cast a flirtatious grin. “This is like kismet. Did you know I was coming?”

She swallowed nervously. This was bad. Really bad. Not only did he think she had the jewelry out because she wanted to show it to him, but he also thought she was wearing a tiny, sexy robe because she wanted to show herself to him. She supposed it was no wonder after her performance over the last twenty-four hours, but still—this wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

“Have you seen Max?” she asked.

He shook his head, offering a lecherous smile. “Don’t worry about Max, beautiful. He’s not here.”

Oh God. That was the last news she wanted to hear. It was just the two of them, no Max, no protection. And no video camera rolling. This was really, really bad.

But she could handle it. She would handle it. She was a trained professional, after all.

More teasing—she would simply consider this more teasing for the big oaf. She would show him the jewelry, then insist on putting it away. She would promise to give him a closer, longer look at it tomorrow and imply that it would include a closer, longer look at her, too. She hated to play it this way, but she didn’t see that she had any other choice. To totally refuse his advances might make him hesitate tomorrow when they wanted him to steal the jewelry.

“Put it on for me,” he said.

She lifted her gaze to him. Hid another nervous swallow. Smiled. “Put…what on for you?”

“Your jewelry. I want to see it on you.”

“Oh Carlo—now? When I’m in a robe? That seems silly.” She’d decided on a small attempt to dissuade him, but added a giggle to keep him happy.

In response, though, he stepped forward, closer to her. “Silly? For me to want to see these gorgeous jewels gracing your gorgeous neck, your gorgeous wrists? Come on, Kimberly, I want to see you in them.” His voice held sex.

She tried not to hear that, though, as she took a step back, toward the bed, toward the jewels. She still didn’t like doing this—not at all—but if she appeased him a bit, it would be easier to get him to leave, easier to promise there would be more tomorrow. Tomorrow, when Max would be in the closet and everything would be how it was supposed to be.

She plucked a flamboyant three-strand diamond choker from the velvet box, then immediately realized—damn it, she couldn’t put it on herself without the aid of a mirror because the clasp was too complex and the piece too short to maneuver with any ease. Still, she attempted it anyway, opening the clasp, then putting the choker around her neck and trying to fasten it without seeing. She failed.

And Carlo immediately said, “Let me help you.”

He stepped up and easily attached the ends of the choker behind her neck while she held up her hair. The touch of his fingers, the warmth of his breath on her neck, made her skin crawl. And when he’d finished and stepped away, she breathed a huge sigh of relief that he hadn’t exploited the opportunity to take the touching any further.

“But wait,” he said then as she turned to face him. “The bracelet, too.”

Oh brother. That quickly, he’d noticed a matching bracelet lying on the bed. Kimberly sighed and reached for it, thankfully able to put this one on herself, even if it took a little one-handed coordination.

After which she turned back toward him again, just letting him look at her, feeling horribly on display, and horribly uncomfortable about this whole scenario. Where in the world was Max?

“Beautiful,” Carlo said of the jewels. “Exquisite.”

She still tried to smile, but it was getting harder all the time. Dear God, the little robe she wore over her bra and panties could fall open any second, and then what? Well, desperate times called for desperate measures. “I’m glad you like it, Carlo,” she said. “And I’ll tell you a secret. If you come back tomorrow, I’ll put it all on for you. And I won’t be wearing this silly robe with it, either. How would you like that?”

His eyes brightened. “Oh, I’d like that a lot.”

“Good.” Her smile came more naturally this time, since it appeared he was going to leave peacefully.

That was when Max appeared in the doorway across the room. About time.

His dark eyes instantly blazed with anger. “What the hell’s going on here?”

Carlo swung to face him, his own gaze wide, his complexion suddenly ashen. “Look, this isn’t like it seems, Max buddy. Honest.”

“How is it, then?” Max took a menacing step forward.

“I was just, uh, taking a look at Kimberly’s jewelry.” Carlo’s expression softened as he reminded his host, “You said I should, remember? Those pieces in particular fascinated me and I couldn’t truly see how they looked without her putting them on.”

“And as for why my wife is standing there with barely any clothes on?” His gaze narrowed on the other man.

But Kimberly took this one, at the same time trying to save her own skin. “Carlo knocked on the door while I was changing clothes, honey. I mistakenly thought it was you. Nothing to be alarmed about.”

“Nothing to be alarmed about,” Max repeated evenly, as if weighing her words, deciding if he believed them.

“Nothing happened, nothing at all,” Carlo added. He help his hands up in front of him as if to wipe the whole situation away. “I would never betray your hospitality, Max. You’ve been so good to me, taken me into your home, given me your friendship, and I would never try to—try to…”

He finally gave up on finishing his pleas as Max stood looking back and forth between them, as if mulling it all over. Finally Max took a deep breath, let it back out. “All right then. Guess maybe I overreacted and that we can just chalk this up to bad timing. Let’s just forget about it, okay?”

“Really?” Carlo asked, almost as if in disbelief. “Me and you, we’re cool?”

Max nodded, looking more relaxed about it all now. “Sure. But…I think it’s time we all say goodnight.”

“You’re right, it’s late,” Carlo agreed, heading toward the door. “Goodnight. And I’m sorry to have caused any…confusion.”

Max waited patiently, his heart still beating double time in his chest, until the door closed—then he turned to face Kimberly. Dear God, she was lovely, the diamonds shimmering at her throat, the silk robe she wore gaping open just slightly, enough to reveal a shadowy bit of cleavage.

But at the moment, how good she looked was completely secondary to his anger.

“What were you doing? Are you crazy?” He kept his voice to a heated whisper. “We had a plan, a specific plan, and we had that plan for a reason, Brandt. Can’t I depend on you to do anything the way it was planned?” And yes, it was a direct jab harkening back to the Carpenter case, but he didn’t care—he was too mad to care right now. Even when he saw the rage flare in her eyes.

“For your information, I didn’t go against your precious plan,” she said, keeping her voice low, as well—even if it was filled with venom. “He just came in. I was changing clothes, there was a knock on the door, and I threw on this robe and opened it, expecting it to be you.”

Max hoped she didn’t think that was a good enough explanation. “So when it turned out to be him, you just thought ‘let’s have a practice run’ and yanked open the safe for him?”

“Of course not! Before he arrived, I was practicing with the jewelry like you told me. He saw it and asked me to put it on. What was I supposed to do?”

“Try telling him ‘some other time.’ Like when I can be in the closet, damn it.”

She let out a huff. “It wasn’t that easy, Tate.”

“What if he’d taken the jewelry, Brandt? What if he’d gotten away with it, without us getting it on video? What if …” Max had fully intended to go on berating her, but his next thought silenced him unexpectedly and came with the strangest sensation in his chest—like something inside him was shattering. “What if he’d…forced you to…without me here to stop him?”

He lifted his gaze back to hers then, taken aback to see how upset she looked as she mumbled, “What do you care, anyway?”

At this, Max took a deep breath, let it back out. He didn’t think anyone had ever said anything so insulting to him in his entire life. “You might think I’m a Class A jerk, Brandt, but I’m not that bad a guy. You may have ruined my entire career once upon a time, but I don’t hate you. You and I, we…” He ran a hand back through his hair. “Well, you should know me well enough to know I would never want anything bad to happen to you.”

He’d said more than he’d planned—but still hadn’t told her the way he really felt. At the moment, he was pretty sure he’d die if anything ever happened to her. And even though it wasn’t his fault, he should have been there to protect her.

That was when one shiny tear rolled down her cheek in the moonlit room. The diamonds and the teardrop shimmered in startling contrast against her silken skin. And he hated that he’d made her cry. He hated it.

“That’s always what it comes back to, isn’t it?” she said in a voice so soft he barely recognized it. “Our history. Our past. What I did to you. You can’t find a way to look beyond it. You can’t even try to forgive me.”

“Kimberly,” he whispered, taking a step toward her, narrowing the gap between them, “you have to understand how I felt then. I had worked my whole life to get where I was—it was everything to me. To have the rug pulled out from under me like that, to lose it all in under two minutes flat—I was devastated.”

“That’s how you felt then,” she said, peering cautiously up at him. “But how do you feel now?”

Good question. One Max didn’t know the answer to.

So he didn’t reply. He simply stepped up close to her, because the one thing he did know was that this was where he wanted to be—close to her. And he realized that her robe had come untied, falling open, and that whatever she wore underneath was scant and lacy and pale. He met her gaze, soft and without distinct color in the dim night air.

“Look how beautiful you are like this.”

Her voice was barely audible. “Wh-what?”

“All dripping and shimmering with diamonds and tears. I’m sorry—sorry to make you cry.” Then he attempted a gentle smile. “They look good on you.” Although he felt the need to add, “The diamonds. Not the tears.”

“They’re fake,” she reminded him, sniffing. “The diamonds. Not the tears.”

“They’re still beautiful. Especially beautiful on you, babe. What man could resist you?”

“You do pretty well,” she muttered.

And he immediately shook his head, unable to believe she really thought that. “Not so well,” he told her. “Have you forgotten already? My lust by the pool?”

He watched as she bit her lip. Maybe she had forgotten. But she was clearly remembering it now. He reached up to wipe a last solitary tear away with the back of his thumb. He didn’t want to see anything on her face but the longing he knew she felt for him.

Lowering his hand to her hip inside the robe, his fingertips met with soft lace, his palm with her flesh—a mix of sensations that sent his desire skyrocketing. Then he indulged the urge to let his touch slide higher, moving it slowly up over the curve of her waist, stopping it next to her soft, full breast. “Did it feel good today by the pool, Kimberly? Me touching you.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Does this feel good?” He reached out his thumb to stroke her nipple through the lace of her bra. It beaded instantly.

“Yes.” Her voice came out heated and trembling now.

And he knew he’d gone too far.

And he also knew he was just about to go much further.

He leaned close to her ear. “Let me do things to you, Kimberly. Let me take you to bed. Let me make you pant and moan and scream all night long.”