He set one mug of coffee down on the dresser. “If you change your mind, help yourself.” He walked over to the small desk, pulled out an old wooden chair and sat down. “Sorry, but I need to sit. I’ve been up watching you most of the night and I’m exhausted.” He took a sip of coffee.
“Watching me? That’s not at all creepy.” It was totally creepy. She took one step closer to the door.
“Wrong choice of words.” He ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes. “I’ve been up most of the night waiting for you to wake up. So you didn’t freak out. So I could explain...”
“Go ahead then. Explain.” Kira sat on the corner of the bed closest to the door, making sure she had a clear path, her hand inside the bag on her lap, her fingers wrapped around the canister of pepper spray she kept on her keychain. Just in case.
“Remember how I told you it wouldn’t have been right for me to have sex with you?”
She nodded.
“That’s because my being in that bar last night wasn’t a random coincidence.” He looked her straight in the eyes. “I’d followed you from your office.”
Kira didn’t wait to hear more. “That’s it.” She stood. “I’m out of here.”
Derrick stood, too.
The movement wasn’t in any way threatening, but when he reached for her Kira whipped out the pepper spray and held it few inches from his face. “Don’t.”
He stopped and held up both hands in surrender. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“No, you’re not,” Kira told him, standing tall and on guard, confident in her ability to protect herself thanks to several self-defense classes. “By the way, I’ve been taught that you should never trust a man who says ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ because that means he’s thought about it.”
“Or,” Derrick countered, his hands still raised up by his shoulders, “it means he realizes he’s bigger and stronger and he really doesn’t want you to think he’s going to use his size or strength to hurt you.”
He said the words matter-of-factly, but Kira could sense his tension.
“Who are you? Why were you following me?”
“I’m Derrick Limone.”
Limone. Why did that name sound familiar?
“I got a HIPPA form signed and faxed it down to your office, just like you asked. Then you wouldn’t take my phone calls. So late yesterday afternoon I rushed down to the city to meet you at your office to give it to you in person so you’d speak with me about my mother.”
His mother. “Daisy Limone.” Un-friggin’-believable.
“I missed my train,” he went on. “So I drove down from White Plains, in Westchester County, where I live and work. I drove past your office just as you and Connie were getting into a cab out front...so I followed it.”
“You followed it? You think that’s acceptable behavior to follow me after business hours? Why on earth would you do such a thing?” Because he was a total nut job!
“You wouldn’t take my calls.”
He said it like it made perfect sense. It didn’t. The man was obviously not right in the head. “Which son are you?” she asked. “The attorney who called me degrading names and threatened to sue me or the doctor who yelled at me and hung up on me?”
“The doctor,” he admitted, looking guilty. “But in my defense, you were giving me a pretty hard time.”
Not as hard as he deserved for not stepping up to take care of his mother like a good son should. His mother. Then it clicked. Him taking Kira to a rural location, his father knocking on the door. Her eyes went wide and she sucked in a breath. He didn’t! “I’m at your parents’ house? In West Guilderford?” Four hours from her home.
He just stood there.
“You really are insane.” She backed toward the door. “As in mentally unhinged and in need of inpatient psychiatric therapy. Immediately.”
“No. I’m not.”
“You kidnapped me!”
“Kidnapped you?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Let’s talk about that, shall we?”
He seemed way too calm for a man on the verge of being arrested. Because he’s insane! Run while you can!
Kira lunged for the doorknob.
Showing amazing speed and agility, Derrick lunged too, grabbing the pepper spray and putting his full weight against the door to keep it closed. “Not so fast,” he said, looking down at her while keeping his shoulder pressed to the door. “You are not leaving this room thinking I kidnapped you.”
“Let’s look at the facts, shall we?” Kira held up her right index finger. “One. You followed me out to the bar last night. Two.” She added her middle finger. Hmmm. How to tactfully put it? “You lured me out of that bar under false pretenses.”
He actually had the nerve to laugh. “I did not lure you anywhere. I offered to take you for coffee and something to eat—”
“We both know you only said that to appease Connie.” Kira waved him off. “I offered you sex and you accepted my offer without ever intending to follow through.”
“No. I offered you coffee and something to eat and I had fully intended to follow through with that, but you refused to get out of the car when we got to the diner.”
“Because I wanted...”
“You wanted what?”
Sex, damn it. She’d wanted sex not coffee and not something to eat.
Based on his slow, sexy smile, he knew exactly what she’d wanted.
That, and the fact he hadn’t given it to her, pissed her off. So she pushed his chest. “Go to hell.”
“Help me out here,” he said. “Are you mad because you think I kidnapped you or because we didn’t have sex?”
Both! “You’re an ass.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But I’m not a kidnapper.”
“Then how, exactly, did I wind up here at your parents’ house, with no recollection of how I got here? I don’t recall you asking. And I don’t recall agreeing to come.”
“That can easily be explained by the amount of alcohol you drank last night.” With a tilted head and raised eyebrows he simply said, “You passed out.”
No. Kira shook her head. No way. She had never in her life consumed enough alcohol to pass out. “Fell asleep, maybe. But I most certainly did not pass out. Okay, let’s say you’re telling the truth and I fell asleep in your car.”
“I
