I wanted to believe it—I so desperately wanted to believe it—and yet how could I? I shook my head. “Bullshit, Evan. You promised my uncle that you wouldn’t do this. And you were damn sure willing to keep that promise—until you realized that I inherited the notebook.” I saw him flinch and knew that I’d struck a sound blow. “Kevin was right,” I said. “You’re only interested in yourself.”
“Do not—do not—bring that bastard into this conversation.”
“I’m not even going to have this conversation,” I said wearily. “Just get the hell out.”
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not going anywhere. Not until you listen to me.”
“I said to get out. I’m not kidding. Do you know how many panic buttons are hidden in this apartment? If you think I won’t push one—”
He tightened his grip on my arms, and I remembered the man I’d seen in the alley. The man who had so efficiently and ruthlessly pressed a knife to another man’s throat.
The truth was, unless he let me, I couldn’t push any button at all. I couldn’t run. I couldn’t call for help. I could do nothing but submit. And though I knew that empirically I should be afraid, I wasn’t. I was pissed off, sure, but I wasn’t afraid of this man. Not even a little.
“Push them all,” he said gently. “Kick me out, scream for Peterson. Do whatever the hell you have to. But listen to me first.”
I glared at him.
“Please,” he said, but it was his tone more than the plea that melted me.
“All right,” I whispered. “Talk.”
He released my arms, then took a step backward. “I need to show you something. Come with me.”
I followed, feeling lost and defeated and just wanting to get this over with. In the living room, he went to the briefcase he’d dropped beside the couch. He bent down, opened it, and pulled out a letter. “Recognize it?”
I shook my head. “Should I?”
“Alan gave it to me. It’s the letter Jahn left for me.”
“Oh.” I wanted to ask what the hell that letter had to do with anything, but I kept my mouth shut. Obviously that’s where we were heading, and Evan was going to get there on his own sweet time.
He handed it to me. “Read it.”
I took it tentatively, feeling strangely vulnerable.
It took me a second to get the letter out of the envelope. My hands were actually shaking. I didn’t yet know what Jahn had said in this note, but I knew that it was important. And, somehow, it affected me.
I unfolded the paper and read the words written in Jahn’s familiar scrawl: I had my reasons.
I read it again, then looked up at Evan. “What does that mean?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “It means he’s not holding me to my promise to stay away from you. What I don’t understand is why.”
His words seemed to ricochet through my mind. “But—wait. Where does it say that? How do you know?”
“I know,” Evan said.
“How?” I repeated.
He turned so that his back was to me and moved toward the wall of windows and the gray of the lake and sky. “Because that’s what it has to mean.”
I shook my head in confusion. “I don’t get this at all.”
He turned to me, capturing me in the wild gray of his eyes. “That’s what it has to mean, because anything else is unacceptable. I was fine until I touched you, Angie. Fine until we crossed that line. But now that I’ve felt your skin against mine—now that I’ve tasted you—there is no way I can keep that promise. So that is what Jahn’s note has to mean. It’s a Get Out of Jail Free card, sweetheart. And I took it—took you—because I wanted you. It has nothing to do with the goddamn notebook.”
“Oh.”
I sank down to sit on the couch as I tried to organize my thoughts. At the moment, I didn’t exist as a rational being. I was only emotion, and that emotion was joy.
Joy, yes. But confusion, too. “But at Destiny—you put me off. I mean, not only did you put me off, but you put on that whole show with that redhead.”
I heard the jealousy in my voice, and from the way the corner of his lip twitched, I knew he heard it, too. “I don’t get involved with the girls at the club,” he said, as my body sagged with relief.
“Never?”
“I believe I’ve mentioned that I have a code. And not sleeping with my employees is high up on my list.”
“Does that little redhead realize that?” I asked cattily, then immediately wished I could pull back my words when Evan chuckled.
“Careful,” he said. “Green isn’t your best color.”
“Dammit, Evan, I—”
“Hush.” He moved to sit beside me, then gently stroked my cheek before tucking my hair behind my ear. “Christy was putting on a show. For your benefit, actually, though she’s done it before. Sometimes I find it beneficial for colleagues to have a certain impression of me.”
“And she knows it’s all a show?”
“She does,” he said, then gently kissed the tip of my nose. “And so does Maria.”
“Who’s Maria?”
“Her lover.”
“Oh.” I grinned. “Oh,” I repeated as what he said sank in. But then I thought about it more, and had to press. “I still don’t understand why you did that. The whole show to turn me off. All the fighting to push me away. You’d read the letter by then. You had your Get Out of Jail Free card.”