It was so hard, not knowing what to expect from her from one moment to the next. He felt like he could only be certain of her when he was making love to her, when she was entirely present in the moment with him, abandoning herself to pleasure.
To him.
“Do you remember who this room belonged to now?” he asked from behind her, his voice echoing off the bare walls of the large, mostly empty suite. She’d accused him of manipulation and lying when she’d realized he’d purposefully kept her from entering this room. That was before he’d told her the truth about her identity.
He was glad when she started slightly and turned her head, meeting his stare. She looked fully alert. Since Alice had come to Castle Durand, there were a few times when she’d go still in his presence, and it’d been like the ghosts of her past flickered in her eyes.
Is that what he was to her? A ghost?
“Was it Addie Durand’s room?” she asked slowly, her low hoarse voice causing his skin to roughen.
His heart knocked against his sternum, even though he knew his appearance remained calm. No matter how hard he was trying—no matter how much he understood—he couldn’t entirely adjust to Alice’s distant, disconnected attitude about Adelaide Durand. It was . . .
Eerie.
He nodded and stepped toward her. “It was originally the nursery, and it had just been remodeled as a bedroom before Addie was taken. Addie’s ‘big girl’ bedroom,” he added with a small smile. “Are you remembering?” he asked her again cautiously.
She shook her head adamantly. Her short dark hair was growing. Her spiky bangs fell into her eyes. She stuck out her bottom lip and blew up on her bangs to clear her vision. The uncontrived, sexy gesture distracted him.
Just like most things about Alice did.
“I don’t remember.”
Despite her quick, firm denial, he wasn’t entirely sure he believed her. “Then why did you come here?”
“I was curious,” she replied, eyebrows arching in response to his quiet challenge.
“And how did you guess this was Addie’s room?”
She shrugged. “You tried to keep me from it. And it’s the best situated in the house, so large and airy . . .” She faded off, glancing around at the ornate crown molding, the bluish-silver-colored silk wallpaper, and the enormous bay window with a built-in curving cushioned bench that looked down on the gardens and the sharp drop-off of the craggy limestone bluff to Lake Michigan. Because it was night, their reflections glowed brightly in the opaque black glass. The room was nearly empty, only a few of his personal items remained from his recent occupancy. “You and Sidney had suggested how the Durands prized Addie so much, always giving her the best,” she continued. “So I guessed the best bedroom suite had belonged to her. And it belonged to you. Alan Durand prized you, as well,” she added, once again meeting his stare squarely.
Slowly, she spun to face him. She wore only the fitted T-shirt she’d worn at the bonfire and a semitransparent pair of white cotton panties. Instinctively, his gaze dropped over her, trailing over her elegantly sloping shoulders, the full thrusting breasts that stood in such erotic contrast to her slender limbs, narrow waist and hips. His gaze lingered between her thighs. Alice dyed the hair on her head to an obscuring near-black color, but her true shade was a dark red-gold, a combination of her father’s blond and her mother’s rich auburn. Despite the tension of the moment, he felt his body flicker with arousal at the vision of the auburn triangle of hair beneath the see-through fabric. There was something about the contrast of Alice’s tough-girl strength and her potent vulnerability that lit a fire in him, something elemental and strong.
He dragged his gaze to her face.
“It must be strange for you, thinking of me living in Addie’s room. Here. In the Durand’s house,” he added, taking another step toward her. He was often approaching Alice like he might a half-wild animal, highly aware that she might bolt at any moment.
He was determined to catch her, no matter what move she made.
She shook her head. She wore not a trace of makeup. Without the heavy eyeliner and mascara she often wore to hide herself or intimidate—or both—her dark blue eyes looked enormous in her delicate face. God, what he’d experienced when she’d walked into that office last May, so awkward and yet so defiant in her inexpensive new interview suit. The truth had slammed home, jarring him, rattling him to the center of his bones, even though he’d taken great pains to hide his shock. He had seen those sapphire-blue eyes before. But even if it had been the first time Dylan had ever se
en her, he suspected he might have been nearly as shaken. No wonder she’d been drawn to the eye goop. Her eyes would draw men with the noblest intentions.
And the foulest.
“No, it doesn’t seem strange to me at all. I can see you in this room. Did Alan suggest you take it?”
“He did, yes. Just before he died.”
“You moved out of it”—her chin tilted and her eyes sparked in that familiar defiant gesture—“because of me, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t know what to expect. Sidney thought we should cautiously expose you to the surroundings,” he admitted. Sidney had suggested bringing her to the estate under the pretense of hiring her as a Camp Durand counselor when they discovered that—miraculously—she was a business major. In those circumstances, Dylan could determine what she recalled about living there—if anything—and see how she reacted to the environment. If not Dylan personally, then the two Durand security employees he’d ordered to covertly watch her while at the camp could give him insights as to her state of mind.
“I was familiar with Addie Durand’s habits,” he said slowly. “There are a few places that I worried might be more likely to trigger memories too quickly. This one, even though it’s been redecorated. Alan and Lynn’s suite. The den, the stables, the library . . . and the dining room. The entry hall, the kitchen, the living room, the terrace gardens, and the media room have been extensively renovated, so I didn’t worry as much about that. Most of the other bedrooms here weren’t used much—either by the Durands or me, so they weren’t of any concern.”
He hesitated. “I never imagined you’d inadvertently find your way into the dining room that first night at the castle. Or the stables the next day,” Dylan told her, choosing his words carefully. Alice had made it very clear to him that while she would discuss the details of Addie Durand, Addie’s kidnapping, and Dylan’s part in the tragedy, she wouldn’t talk about Addie and herself as if they were the same person. Currently, they were treading on volatile ground.
Her eyelids narrowed slightly, and he knew he’d made some kind of misstep, despite his caution. “You suspected I was going to be in your bedroom, even before I came here? And so you moved suites, in order not to trigger any . . .” She faded off uncertainly, aware she was skimming close to the fire. Her defiant expression made a quick resurgence. “I thought you said that you hadn’t planned for anything sexual between us . . . that it just happened that morning in the stables?”