He was on his ass, and she was sprawled on top of him. He was tensed somewhere between lying down on the floor and sitting up.
“Yeah,” he muttered, pulling her tighter against him. She put her hands on his shoulders. He rose to a sitting position. Alice was in his lap, her legs bent and sprawled on either side of his hips, her black cocktail dress ruched up to her thighs, her pearls flung behind her shoulder. Her fingertips touched his jaw.
“It wasn’t that bad. You don’t have to look like that,” she said feelingly, and he realized belatedly she’d witnessed his naked alarm. “I mean . . . I thought it was going to be bad, too, to remember something about Addie, and to know I was remembering while I did it. Addie Durand is a completely different person. I thought it’d be like being possessed by someone else or something. But it wasn’t. It was—”
“Stop, Alice.”
“What?” she asked, appearing incredulous and hurt by his abrupt interruption of something that was obviously new and amazing to her.
“If you so much as mention a word of this to your pillow, let alone another human being, I’ll make you pay,” Dylan promised.
Alice turned, her mouth hanging open in shock. She’d realized he wasn’t addressing her.
“Thad,” she gasped. She tugged on her hemline, trying to cover her exposed legs.
Schaefer stood there at the end of the hallway, looking bewildered. Who knew how long he’d been there, listening to them?
Shit.
“Alice, are you okay?” Schaefer asked.
“I’m fine.”
“What did you hear?” Dylan demanded.
“Nothing.”
“What did you hear?”
“I told you. Nothing! I just walked up.”
“You’ve given me no other choice. If you speak of anything you’ve seen here tonight or reveal to anyone what you know about Alice and me, I’ll be forced to send you home immediately from Camp Durand. Your father wouldn’t like that much, would he?”
“Dylan,” Alice gasped, staring at him like she’d never seen him before, her eyes enormous. “What—”
“Do you understand me, Schaefer?”
“I understand perfectly.” He took several steps back, his gaze darting to Alice’s face and then back to Dylan’s. “And my father might not like it if you sent me home, but he wouldn’t be surprised that you acted like a ruthless son of a bitch. I know I wouldn’t be.”
“I’m glad to hear you’re not entirely an idiot.”
Dylan willed him with his stare to turn and walk away. Schaefer complied, if reluctantly. Dylan watched him as he grew smaller down the hallway, turned, and disappeared.
He became uncomfortably aware of Alice’s disbelieving gaze on his face.
*
ONCE she’d scooted off him, Dylan sprung up from the floor. She refused to take his hand when he offered it. Instead, she pushed herself onto her hands and knees and stood gracelessly. Once she’d gained her balance in her pumps, she stepped into him aggressively.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“No. And I’m not going to apologize, either,” he said in a clipped tone, and she sensed the residue of his cold, furious blast of anger at Thad. He smoothed his hand over his silk tie, straightening it, and then he hitched his jaw slightly, like someone readjusting his face after a fight. Despite her stunned anger, she recognized his edge—the thrilling paradox of the sophisticated executive and the street tough she’d been undeniably attracted to from the very beginning. A thrill went through her, amplifying her confusion and anger.
“You shouldn’t have threatened him like that.”
“He could very well have overheard what we were talking about. Would you like him shooting his mouth off to the others?”
“He wouldn’t have said a word if I asked him not to! Besides, he probably didn’t hear, and certainly couldn’t have understood if he did. How could he understand it, when I’m so confused?”
He shook his head once, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. “That kid is trouble.”
“Thad is one of the best counselors at Camp Durand! He’s smart and funny and a natural leader,” she spat. “Everyone loves him.”
He stilled and met her stare slowly. A shiver rippled through her.
“Everyone?”
Despite the sudden glacial quality of his dark eyes, she couldn’t look away. She grasped wildly for her resolve.
“Everyone,” she managed in a choked voice before she broke his hold and followed Thad down the hallway.
NINE
Dylan stood at the opened French doors in his den looking out onto the gardens and yard. The unseasonably cool weather continued. A fog had begun to rise over the distant limestone bluff. It was just past midnight. All was hushed and quiet on the Durand Estate. He could just make out the muted sound of waves hitting the rocky beach below the drop-off at the end of his yard.