over arms tucked behind her back. “I did hear role-playing is huge in Japan, but I wouldn’t have thought you’re the type who’d be into it. But then, maybe you’re just that. Someone who became a billionaire so young must lead a very stressful life. Maybe it’s your preferred method of defusing the pressures.”
Her every calm syllable, her steady gaze, made everything inside him churn.
His lips twisted grimly, mocking his runaway reaction, conceding her effect. “Your on-the-fly performance is impressive. But then, you always were the most spontaneous, undetectable imposter I’ve ever encountered.”
Only one delicately curved auburn eyebrow rose this time, and what seemed so much like real interest entered her gaze. “Have you encountered that many?”
“Hundreds. And I’ve seen through each of them at a hundred paces. It was only you who took me in, all the way. But I’m now immunized for life against falling for your charades again.”
She shook her head as if she’d had enough of playing his game. Then suddenly she tilted it at him, her gaze shedding its mockery, becoming smoldering. “You don’t need an outrageous approach to hook me, Mr. Kuroshiro. I’m already interested.”
That was something he hadn’t expected her to say. Not that he’d expected anything. He was flying blind here.
“You are?”
“Every female with only a brain wave would be.” She sighed. “Pity you’re engaged.”
“Does that even matter?”
“I guess it wouldn’t to someone like you. Even if I suspect that such a someone doesn’t exist, that you’re one of a kind. I expect you’re bound by no rules and consider no one in your decisions.”
“You already know this about me.”
“You mean this McPherson woman knows this about you.”
“Will you keep pretending you’re not her for long?”
She sighed again. “I already told you I’m interested. And since being engaged doesn’t deter you, it’s something actually in your favor, since you must only want something intense...and transient. The only kind of liaison I’m open to.”
“So Hiro hasn’t reserved a place in your bed yet?”
“Hiro, like everything else in my life, is of no concern to you and is off-limits to discussion. I do as I please, and no one has any claims on me.”
“I bet Hiro doesn’t know this part. Or he does, and you’re still dangling the bait. And while you wait until he swallows the whole fishing rod, you welcome diversions?”
“Why not? I’m a free agent so far.” She uncoiled to her full statuesque height. “But I’ve had enough of indulging your role-playing fetish. Let’s revisit this when you decide to talk to me, not your imaginary character.”
Without lingering one more second, she turned away. He watched her receding, a flame-haired goddess of the night dissolving into her domain, his thoughts tangling.
Had he made a gigantic fool of himself? All evidence said so. His instincts, however, still screamed their contradictory verdict.
Exasperation rumbled from his gut as he lunged after her, grabbed her by the waist and slammed her against his length.
A gasp swelled in her chest as he stabbed a hand into the heavy silk at her nape, tethering her head. In the golden illumination of fire-lit lanterns, her eyes held his in utmost composure, belying her ragged moan at his roughness. And he crashed his lips over hers, swallowing the intoxicating sound.
Her lips parted wide under his onslaught, letting him plunge into her depths, her flesh softening to accommodate his impacting hardness. Her surrender blazed through his nerves. But it was certainty that singed his every cell.
This. This was her unforgotten feel and taste, her inimitable delight. This was her.
The beast that had been perpetually clawing inside him finally tore free. It devoured her, everything inside him roaring with remembrance. Of every minute of deprivation of the five years after she’d left him. Craving more. Needing closure.
Then it swelled. Disgust. With himself. Over the only weakness he’d ever suffered, this susceptibility to her. It towered, then crashed, made him tear his lips from hers, push away from the body that had seemed to melt into his every recess.
Stumbling back at the abruptness of his withdrawal, she leaned against the nearest wall, the only discernible reaction to his explosive kiss her faster breathing.
Then, through those lips he’d just ravished, her voice washed over him, calm, collected...but hers at last.
“What gave me away?”
“Everything.”
The word boomed in the silence of the garden house. Its reverberations hung in the charged air between them, dripping with bitterness, heavy with five years of unresolved anger.
Not even a blip in her gaze or posture demonstrated any agitation. Only a slight tremor of her now-swollen lips betrayed any reaction to his fury. One that stilled at once, making him think he’d imagined it.
Which he probably had. Meeting him hadn’t fazed her at all. And why should it have? She’d come to the ball knowing she’d see him. It was he who’d gotten the shock of his life.
Then, as calmly, she said, “We both know that can’t be true. Not even I recognize the woman who looks back at me in the mirror as myself.”
She was right. Even on such close-up inspection, there wasn’t the least trace of his treacherous lover in her. He’d changed his looks to eliminate perfect resemblance to his old self, but she had totally different facial features and bone structure. Even her complexion looked different. Hannah had had alabaster skin, the kind he’d thought would burn, not tan. But this Scarlett’s tan looked effortless, her skin even, velvet honey. And the deep shade of burgundy of her hair looked natural, too, when Hannah had been an equally convincing platinum blonde. All those changes were certainly artificial, even if their result looked 100 percent real. The only changes that could be natural were her body’s. Maturity and heels could account for the appreciation in her curves and height.
But all in all, this woman bore no resemblance to the one who’d been in his bed every day of those five months, whose every inch he’d memorized and worshipped.
He cocked his head at her, drenching her from head to toe in disdain. “I assume this is my money’s worth? This total and undetectable transformation?”
Her expression remained tranquil, assessing him back. “I wouldn’t call it undetectable. At least, not anymore. You detected me.” She let out a conceding sigh. “I did have some incredibly costly surgeries to reconfigure my face from the bone structure up. And though your money did foot the bills, along with the other cosmetic and stylistic measures needed to complete the transformation, not even all that cost anywhere near fifty million dollars. The whole thing cost around two million. A couple more financed the creation of
