her blond hair pulled back into a neat French braid.
He hesitated, his gaze narrowing. “Have we met?”
She looked up at him, the magazine still concealing half her face. “I don’t think so.”
He stared into her eyes. “You’re her. You’re my dream girl.”
“Hardly,” she said, lowering the magazine and facing the man she’d never wanted to see again. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to ask someone else for assistance.”
But he didn’t take the hint. Instead, he pulled her pink scarf out of his shirt pocket. “Don’t you remember leaving this at my place?”
Mortified, Josie reached out and snatched it from him, all too aware of the stares from some of the staff. “Please lower your voice. This is not the time or the place to cause a scene.”
A wry smile curled up one corner of his mouth. “You call this a scene? I just want to talk to you.”
“Not here,” she insisted.
“Then where? I’m free all day,” he said.
“I’d rather not talk about it at all,” she told him. “We both know it was a huge mistake. So let’s just forget it ever happened.”
“Not an option.” He leaned forward, planting both hands on her desk, a flash of fire in his brown eyes. “Some guy walked into my life and pretended he was me. Now I want to know why and, like it or not, you’re my only connection to him.”
He was so close she could see flecks of gold in his brown eyes and the tiny scar near the corner of his mouth. The same mouth that had tasted her lips. Her breasts. The tender skin inside her thighs. For a moment, Josie found it hard to breathe. “The Adam Delaney that I know would never do anything like that.”
“Prove it.”
She stood up, ready to do battle. This man seemed to bring out the passion in her—a reaction she didn’t like one bit. “I don’t have to prove anything to you!”
“Then I guess you leave me with no option but to go to the police.”
“The police,” she echoed, certain she’d heard him wrong.
He gave a slow nod. “I’d rather not, because they’re going to want to know every detail about what happened between us. How you broke into my apartment in the middle of the night…”
“I had a key,” she protested.
“How you took all your clothes off before climbing into my bed,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “How you even brought a condom with you…”
“All right,” she cried, cutting him off, “I’ll meet with you. Just tell me where and when.”
He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost noon. Why don’t we meet for lunch at Spagli’s on Bannock Street? That’s not too far from here.”
Josie had no appetite, but better to get it over with as soon as possible. “Fine. I’ll see you there.”
He smiled. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Her fists clenched as she watched him leave. How dare he threaten to expose the most embarrassing moment of her life. She hated the fact that he had that kind of power over her—and hated even more that he seemed to enjoy it.
Josie had been tempted to go the police herself when he’d claimed he was Adam Delaney. The only thing that had stopped her was the very reason he’d cited. She’d be forced to tell them everything about the night she’d spent in his arms and she simply couldn’t bring herself to do it.
Besides, she wanted to talk to Adam first. Her Adam. There had to be a reasonable explanation for this mess. Something she had yet to find in her research. She had yet to find her boyfriend, too, and that bothered her.
Josie sat back down at her desk, hating the way that her life was spinning out of control, just like it had when her father had been arrested. Only she’d been a child then, and now she was an adult. Perfectly capable of handling this or any other situation.
She took a deep breath, then another, aware of the quiet whispers of the staff at the front desk. How much had they overheard? Josie had never raised her voice at work before, even when dealing with the most irritating of library patrons. She had always prided herself on her self-control.
Now this man who called himself Adam Delaney had made her lose that control. Not once, but twice. The first time had been Saturday night, when she’d come completely undone in his arms. Then today, when he’d threatened to expose their illicit night together.
Josie didn’t intend to let it happen again.
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