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She gave the door a swift kick for extra emphasis. “I’m not leaving, Justice. Not until we talk.”
Not a sound. Not a reaction of any kind. It was as though the house slept. Daisy shivered. Almost like it was caught in some other moment in time or an alternate universe. Another dimension, maybe, like Brigadoon. Maybe it wasn’t time for them to wake up, yet.
Or maybe he simply wasn’t home.
She paced in front of the door, wondering what she should do next. And that’s when she noticed another oddity about the doorway, a reflective gleam buried in the trim work. She paused in her pacing and studied the anomaly. Son of a gun. A camera. Someone was watching and she’d bet her next four impressively large royalty checks she knew who it was.
Well, now. Wasn’t that interesting? She might stink at math, but she could solve this particular equation. She’d found the God of Geekdom hiding in an unmarked valley in Colorado, buried behind thick walls with a door but no handle, the place as unwelcoming as he could make it. Oh, she could add up those numbers to equal …
She marched straight up to the camera and tilted her face so she could glare directly at the tiny circle of glass. “Justice? You either open this door or I’m going to get on the phone and call every media source I can think of and tell them where you live. And then I’m going to get on the internet and post the location on every geek-site I can find.”
An instant later the front door emitted a persnickety click and eased inward a fraction. Daisy gave it a shove, not the least surprised when it opened to her touch. She stepped across the threshold into a chilly gloom that left her squinting. The door swung closed behind her and the dead bolt slammed home with a rifle-sharp retort, locking her inside.
“If that’s meant to scare me, you didn’t succeed,” she announced. Then in an undertone, “Intimidated me a little bit, maybe, but you didn’t scare me.”
Daisy glanced around the foyer, struggling to get a good look at her surroundings. Difficult, considering the lack of natural light. What was the deal with windows around here? The cold air contained a stale, dusty quality, as though the area was rarely used. Justice certainly hadn’t wasted any of his trillions heating this section of his homestead and she shivered in the confines of her thin coat, missing the Florida warmth and sunshine.
She took another step into the dimness. Without any carpeting to absorb the sound, the impact of her shoes against the slate flooring bounced in noisy protest off the featureless walls. She looked around, curiosity combining with nervousness. The huge entranceway lacked the usual bits and pieces most foyers contained. No tables or racks or mirrors or pictures or freestanding artwork. Just … emptiness. Well, and dust. She turned in a slow circle looking for a light switch and coming up empty. Okay, that was just weird.
What little she could see through the gloom of the surrounding rooms spoke of huge expanses of space as stark and empty as the foyer, though she could see their potential in the flow and symmetry of the overall structure. She particularly liked the liberal use of wood, not to mention the fact that the other rooms had honest-to-goodness windows, even if they were shuttered. Why in the world would he live in such a magnificent home and keep it closed up and empty? It didn’t make any sense.
Before she could work up the nerve to explore, she caught the hard clip of boots ringing against floorboards, the sound echoing through the painful emptiness. The footsteps moved in her direction at a steady, unhurried pace. For some reason that firm, deliberate tread added to the intimidation factor, his coming an inescapable certainty.
No turning back now.
A moment later his impressive form filled a doorway to her right, one draped in dense shadow. Everything inside of her blossomed to life, responding to the man instinct told her was Justice, even though she couldn’t see him clearly. She closed her eyes, fighting against an almost overpowering urge to race toward him and throw herself into his arms. To allow all she kept bottled inside to burst free, like spring sunshine burning away the ice damming a river’s reckless flow.
“How did you find me, Daisy?” His cold voice cut through the darkness with knifelike sharpness, confirming his identity. Not that she had any doubt.
She sighed. How like him to skip over the social niceties. “Hello, Justice. I’m fine, thanks. Yes, it’s been a long drive. Why, yes, I’d love something to drink.”
He didn’t respond immediately. And then, “You threatened to expose me to the media.”
“You wouldn’t let me in. It was the only leverage I had.” This was ridiculous. She crossed the foyer toward him, feeling the bond between them tighten and ensnare her with each step she took. “Come on, Justice. Get us something to drink and let’s sit down and talk. It’s important.”
The closer she came the more clearly she could see him. Dear heaven, but he’d changed during the months they’d been apart. An icy remoteness cascaded off of him in frosty waves. He’d become harder, more self-contained than ever. What had happened to cause such a change?
She didn’t dare touch him. No point in risking frostbite, though part of her longed to. “Are you all right?” she asked in concern.
“No.”
Another thought occurred, a horrifying thought. “Oh, Justice, are you ill?”
“My health is perfect, thank you.”
Then what in the world had happened to him? She stiffened. He couldn’t have turned into this glacial, winter-bound man as a result of their encounter at the engineering conference. In order for that to be the case, their night together would have had to mean something to him, impacted his life in some way. And though it broke her heart to admit it, she’d long ago come to the conclusion that those glorious hours had meant nothing to him. Less than nothing. Otherwise he’d have tracked her down. At the very least he’d have responded to the endless letters she’d sent him.
He lifted an eyebrow. “You wanted something to drink before you left?”
Daisy released her breath in a sigh. This was going to be even harder than she’d anticipated. “I would, yes.”
Justice led the way down a wide hall into a huge, impressive kitchen that looked like something out of a futuristic movie, though it seemed to be missing the normal collection of appliances. “Lights,” he requested and instantly a bank of recessed lighting flared to life.
She stared in wonder, impressed. “Is that how you turn on the lights around here?”
“Yes, if your voice is coded for computer authorization.” He paused a beat, his smile set well below frigid. “Which, yours is not. Water, tea, pop or something stronger?”
“Water’s fine.” She swiped her hands along the sides of her jeans, fighting nerves. “I wouldn’t have told, you know. Where you live, I mean,” she added for clarification.
He tapped a swift code onto a black glass plate affixed to the wall. With a soft hiss a pair of bottles slid out from a slot in the wood paneling. He handed her one, the temperature so cold her fingers went instantly numb. Twisting off the lid of the other, he stared at her while he took a long swallow. “I know you wouldn’t have told anyone,” he said.
“Really?” For some reason his certainty pleased her and she relaxed enough to smile. “How do you know?”
“Because Pretorius has jammed your cell signal. And he’ll continue to jam it until I tell him otherwise.”
Her smile faded. “When do you intend to tell him otherwise?” she asked warily.
“As soon as my uncle and I relocate. Until then, you’ll remain here as our guest.”
She paused with the bottle halfway to her mouth. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“But … but you can’t do that,” she sputtered.
“Watch me.”
Dear heavens, he was serious. She could see it in the hard glitter of his eyes and intractable set of his jaw. She’d never seen him look tougher or more formidable, cloaked with a dark, dangerous edge. She would have panicked if she hadn’t also seen something else. Something that actually gave her hope.
There in the tawny gold of his eyes, she caught the unmistakable flame of desire. He might fight it, he might deny it, he might have attempted to bury it beneath endless layers of ice, but she didn’t doubt for a minute he felt it.
Daisy decided to test the possibility. “What am I supposed to do while you’re keeping me here?” She caught it again, just the merest flash. But it answered her question without his having to say a word. “You can’t be serious.”
“You chose to come here. By doing so you assume the risk and consequences of your actions.”
She invaded his personal space until they were only inches apart. Not that he backed down. “And making love is the risk and consequence I assumed by showing up on your doorstep? Oh, excuse me. According to you we’ve never made love, have we?” She wrapped air quotes around the words, “made love.” “I seem to recall your telling me it was just sex.”
A cool smile snagged the corners of his mouth. “According to you, amazing sex.”
Her temper shot straight through the roof. “Oh! How dare you throw that in my face after all this time. And how dare you decide to keep me here against my will. Just because you haven’t gotten any in a while and I conveniently appear on your doorstep, you think you can toss me in your bed and have your wicked way with me?”
“Yes.”
Her mouth opened and closed, but she couldn’t seem to do more than make odd little choking noises. Finally, her vocal cords kicked in. “Yes? That’s all you have to say? Yes? Have you lost your mind?”
He went nose-to-nose with her. “Once again, yes! I lost my mind nineteen months, fifteen days, six hours, twenty-eight minutes and twelve seconds ago. And I want it back, which is precisely what you’re going to do. Having you here in my bed should return some modicum of sanity to me. It’s a perfectly logical solution to an utterly illogical problem.”
Daisy couldn’t recall Justice ever coming so close to losing his temper. Not to this extent. Always in the past he’d shown impressive self-control and restraint. Whereas she’d fly off in a thousand different directions, spewing emotional lava like a human volcano, he would pull tighter, deeper, one by one shutting off all those hot, torrid outlets until he had everything tamped down and safely buried.
Well, not this time. Not now. She knew that if she pushed so much as one more button, she could stand back and watch him blow. Her finger itched to try it, and yet, she hesitated. What would be the cost if she tipped him over the edge? What would it do to him to have that control ripped away? He’d hate it. Despise himself. And she simply couldn’t do that to him. If he ever opened to her, actually expressed those emotions and revealed his vulnerability, it would be his choice. She wouldn’t force it on him.
Daisy allowed the seconds to slip by, allowed the simmer and boil to cool. Allowed the volcano to slip back into dormancy. “You have a lot of nerve, Justice,” she told him quietly.
“You’re correct.” He wrapped control around himself like a blanket of snow. Even so, she could sense the heat of desire lingering beneath the ice. “That doesn’t change the fact that you’ll do whatever I tell you.”
For some reason his comment made her smile. “Anything?”
“Anything and everything,” he confirmed.
Her amusement faded and she lowered her gaze so she wouldn’t betray her reaction. She doubted she could conceal the intense longing that gripped her. The underpinning of desperation and want. It wasn’t fair. Not after what he’d done. Not after all the time and distance separating them. “I thought you didn’t want me.”
To her relief, Justice didn’t deny it. “Apparently, I was wrong. I guess we both were.”
“An affair, is that what you’re proposing?” She looked at him again, allowing a hint of her own yearning to slip through. “I stay here for however long it takes you to find a new place to hide—”
“I’m not hiding.”
Daisy couldn’t help herself. She laughed, the sound almost painful. “Oh, please.”
“I’m protecting my privacy. If the general public knew where I lived—”
“The general public couldn’t care less. Maybe the media would express some interest. But I suspect the only ones you need to worry about are other mad scientist wannabes.” She leaned her hip against the kitchen table. “So, what’s the real reason, Justice?”
He took a slow drink of his water, no doubt to give himself time to consider the most logical response to her question. He must have come up empty, because he asked instead, “How did you find me?”
She’d been waiting for that, wondering when he’d get around to it. “I had help, which is another reason you can’t keep me here against my will. Jett will eventually grow concerned and alert the authorities.”
“Jett.” His eyes flamed before he regained control. “Boyfriend? Husband? Lover?”
Two could play this game. She folded her arms across her chest and lifted an eyebrow. And waited.
“How did this Jett person find us, Pretorius?” Justice asked while his heated gaze remained locked with hers.
To Daisy’s shock, a disembodied voice responded. “I’m working on it.”
“Work harder. I want him traced and shut down.”
“You think I don’t know that? I know that. This Jett is good. Real good.”
“I thought you were the best.”
“Go to hell, Justice.”
Much to Daisy’s relief, a peeved tone rippled through Pretorius’s voice, confirming his status as a living, breathing human versus a machine. Even though Justice had claimed Pretorius was his uncle, she wouldn’t have put it past him to have considered that some sort of private joke. Of course, that would mean Justice would need to possess a sense of humor, something he’d probably worked long and hard to eradicate, along with every other emotion.
Well, except desire. That remained fully operational.
“I think I found how he traced us. Shutting him down. Okay, he’s cut off.”
Justice offered a wintry smile that perfectly matched the raw November day. “Is that it?” she asked. “We’re now invisible to Jett? You do realize that I got here with a GPS. I was tracked every step of the way.”
“It won’t take long to relocate.”
“I find that difficult to believe unless you already have a backup site ready to go.” The glitter in his tawny gaze confirmed her guess. “Okay, fine. You know something, Justice? You go right ahead. Keep me here until you and your uncle are ready to run to wherever your new cave is located. Then you can hang from the rafters in the privacy of your latest den of doom and gloom. Frankly, I don’t give a damn.”
“I already told you we’re not in hiding. And mad scientists hide in basements not in rafters.”
Okay, that was definitely a joke. Who knew? Not that it mattered. She brushed the comment aside with a sweep of her hand. “Whatever. That’s not why I’m here. You’re so worried about the hows and whys of my finding you that you’ve totally ignored the main question.”
“Such as the reason you wrote twenty-six letters and requested they be forwarded to me? Not to mention why, after all this time, you’ve gone to so much trouble to track me down? Those main questions?”
He’d received her letters and still never got in touch? Fury ripped through her. “Yes, those main questions,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Don’t keep me in suspense. What could you possibly have to say that we didn’t cover nineteen months and fifteen days ago?”
He wanted it straight? Fine. She’d give it to him straight. “You have a daughter.”
Five (#ulink_b04d6d48-fd92-5848-b67f-fc8a47dce585)
Justice had always considered himself a rational man. Intelligent. Sensible. Calm and collected. His emotions firmly within his control. But with those four simple words he discovered just how mistaken he could be. Only one other time had he experienced this severe a brain disconnect—the hours following his accident. He opened his mouth to say something, only to discover that every last word had emptied from his mind.
“Wha—”
“What’s her name? It’s Noelle.”
“Whe—”
“When was she born? Eleven months and a handful of days ago. Christmas morning, to be exact. If you need further exactitude, which I’m sure you do, they recorded the precise time on her birth certificate. I’ll arrange for you to receive a copy.”
“Ho—”
“How do I know you’re the father? Because you’re the only man I’ve slept with in the past three years. No doubt you’ll want a DNA test and I have no objection. I thought you should know about Noelle, so I’ve spent the past year and a half trying to track you down without success. But then, since you received all my letters, you already know that, don’t you?” She paused for a beat. “Are you listening, Pretorius?”
“Uh—” came his uncle’s disembodied voice.
“I thought so. I can hear the family resemblance. It only took Jett a few short weeks to find you.” She shot Justice a steely look. “I think that means my computer expert outcomputes your computer expert. Now. What were you saying about keeping me here?”
The logjam clogging Justice’s vocal cords cleared. “Son of a bitch!”
Daisy planted her hands on her hips, glorious in her outrage. “I trust you won’t use that sort of language around our daughter. She’s quite verbal for so young an age. She tries to parrot everything you say.”
“I want her.”
Something very much like hurt flashed across Daisy’s expression and her eyes darkened to the deep green of a mountain forest. For some reason it shredded his defenses and arrowed straight to the emotional core of him. How was that possible? How could a single look possess the power to stir a combination of guilt and defensiveness? He’d worked diligently for over a year and half to eradicate any and all reactions to her from his emotional makeup. And yet from the instant she appeared on his doorstep he’d discovered that he hadn’t eradicated anything at all. One glimpse of her elegant face glaring up at the camera and desire came storming back, eclipsing logic and self-determination.
It defied comprehension.
He hastened to amend his earlier statement. “I want both of you.”
