“There’s no need for you to stay here.” Suddenly he saw how simple it could be. She’d be away. He could keep her safe. Armand would simply have to alter his plan.

“There’s every need for me to stay. My life is lost here somewhere. How can I find it thousands of miles away?”

“When you’re ready to remember, you’ll remember. It won’t matter where you are.”

“It matters to me.” She drew away from him then, backing up until she was braced against the wall. Pride came back, as much a part of her inheritance as the color of her eyes. “Do you think I’m a coward? Do you think I’d turn my back and walk away from the people who used me? Has my father asked you to do this so I won’t ask any more questions?”

“You know better.”

“I know nothing,” she retorted. “Nothing except that all the men in my life seem compelled to shield me from what I don’t want to be shielded from. This morning you said we’d work together.”

“I meant it.”

She watched him carefully. “And now?”

“I still mean it.” But he didn’t tell her what he knew. He didn’t tell her what he felt.

“Then we will.” But she didn’t tell him what she’d learned. She didn’t tell him what she needed.

She did step forward, even as he did. She did reach for him as he reached for her. They held each other close, both knowing that so much lay between them.

“I wish we were alone,” she murmured. “Really alone, as we were the day on the boat.”

“We’ll go sailing tomorrow.”

She shook her head before she pressed her face harder against him. “I can’t. There’ll be no time between now and the ball for anything. So many obligations, Reeve.”

For both of us, he thought. “After the ball, then.”

“After.” She kept her eyes closed for only another moment. “Will you make me a promise? A foolish one.”

He kissed one temple, then the other. “How foolish?”

“Always practical.” Smiling, she tilted her head back. “When the blanks are gone and this is over, really over, will you spend the day with me on the water?”

“That doesn’t seem so foolish.”

“You say that now.” She linked her hands around his neck. She’d hold him there, if only for a moment. “But promise.”

“I promise.”

With a sigh, she melted against him. “I’ll hold you to your word,” she warned.

When their mouths met, neither of them wanted to go beyond the moment to that last day alone on the water.

Chapter 11

“So I told Professor Sparks that a man would have to be made of stone to concentrate on Homer when there was a woman who looked like Lisa Barrow in the same classroom.”

“Did he sympathize?” Brie asked Bennett absently as she watched the freshly cleaned chandelier being raised back in place.

“Are you kidding? He’s got the heart of a prune.” Grinning, he stuck his hands in his back pockets. “But I got a date with the divine Miss Barrow.”