“I saw you the other night. Dancing on the beach.”
She just stared at him. How could he have recognized her? The beach had been draped in shadow. She’d known him, but surely that was different. She had long practice in recognizing Liam, especially on a beach, where he seemed to belong.
“How…when did you realize it was me?” she whispered.
“Just now,” Liam said. She felt his warm breath mist her lips. “I knew you once I fully saw your beautiful face.”
What sort of a game was he playing?
She backed out of his embrace, experiencing an overwhelming longing to get back on track…to return to a place of control. Something told her it was downright dangerous to allow Liam the upper hand in this business endeavor…to get the upper hand, period. He probably didn’t think twice about saying she had a beautiful face or touching her as if it were as natural as breathing. Liam had always been a ladies’ man. The idea of him treating her in the same way he did other women panicked her.
This time when she attempted to put her large, solid desk between them, he didn’t stop her. She impatiently dried her tears with a tissue and pulled a checkbook from her desk drawer.
“What are you doing?” he asked, sounding bewildered and a little irritated.
“We haven’t yet discussed salary,” she said as she wrote rapidly. She ripped out the check and held it up for him to take. “This is your retainer. I’ll pay you twice that amount when the investigation is complete.”
It annoyed her that he didn’t take it because her hand shook slightly, making the check tremble in the air. Erma had taken her off her guard by switching on that light, but Liam had shocked her to the core by embracing her. She’d thought she knew what she was doing by making this proposal, but apparently Liam wasn’t something to be quantified and controlled.
“How will you know if I’ve investigated the matter fully or not?”
“I’ve heard about your work ethic from Mari. I’ve read about your career. You’ve been a champion for victims of crime…for discovering the truth. If there’s anything relevant to be found, you’ll do your best to uncover it once you take this check.”
“Chances are I won’t be able to uncover anything. I want you to know that up front.”
“I understand. I still want to try,” Natalie stated, her firm tone belying the fact that she couldn’t meet his eyes.
Liam stared at the check uncertainly.
He’d run the gamut of emotion in the past few minutes, and now Natalie had the nerve to make him feel even more. He’d leaped at the opportunity to see her face, then experienced a rush of guilt for his curiosity…his hunger. It wasn’t seeing her scars that made him feel guilty, it was her palpable vulnerability.
The bone structure of her face was as finely made as her body. Natalie’s wasn’t a run-of-the-mill beauty, but the haunting kind. There were several smaller scars near her temple, but the most prominent was a half-inch-thick one that ran all the way from her eyelid and disappeared below her hairline. It only seemed to highlight the perfection of everything else about her.
It saddened him, that scar—saddened him on a bone-deep level. It was a reminder of the months and probably years of pain that a young, innocent girl had endured.
But his sorrow didn’t blind him to the beauty of the woman beneath that scar. In fact it only added to it.
His father had caused this; he’d been responsible for making this exquisite woman shrink into herself like she’d thought her face would actually harm an onlooker.
Seeing that had hurt him in a way he couldn’t quite put into words.
For a few tension-filled seconds Liam considered telling her to keep her money. Natalie Reyes was far, far from being the devil, but somehow making this pact with her intimidated him.
Accepting that check sealed the deal.
For sixteen years, Liam had struggled to create a cohesive image of his father. He’d loved his dad like crazy. All four Kavanaugh children had. He’d been charismatic, fun…someone he’d always respected. It’d been a trial for Liam to come to terms with the drastically different pictures of his father that he’d received after the crash: the laughing, powerful patriarch…the selfish, heartless drunk…
Who the hell was Derry Kavanaugh?
Part of him had always been curious about what had happened that night. He shared that same internal pressure as Natalie Reyes. Problem was, he’d been disillusioned by his father once—when he was fifteen years old. Taking that check from Natalie would set him on a path where he might discover even uglier truths about his dad.
He hesitated on a knife’s edge. Why did he waver now when he’d dived headfirst into drastically more risky and dangerous situations in the past?
The image of Natalie sitting behind her desk, cloaked in shadow, penetrated his awareness. For some stupid, incomprehensible reason, he wanted to walk behind that desk and undo the knot at the back of her head. He wanted to fill his hands with that glorious spill of hair he’d seen on the beach and here in her office the other night.
It irritated him, this dichotomy of feelings she inspired in him. He wanted to shake her sometimes. He also wanted to protect her. Most of all, he wanted to tear through her facade so he could lay bare that woman he’d glimpsed on the beach.
He must be losing his mind.