"I am sorry you cannot accept my rejection of you for what it is. That is, that you cannot see beyond your pride, to the many reasons we could not be together." Her voice quivered slightly on the last word. "And I am sorry it taints your view of the situation we are in."

He chose to ignore that final part. "Oh, please. If you think I'm nursing a broken heart, don't waste your time feeling sorry for me. It's Carrie I'm smarting for."

Bella snorted derisively, than sobered. "What are you talking about?"

"I think you know." He folded his arms across his chest. "I knew you were going to make a move on him. I had a sick feeling about it when I left you at his place. How could you do it? When you saw how torn up Carrie was, how could you do that?"

"How could I do what?" Bella raised her hands in the classic pose of innocence. "I think you have finally lost your mind, vampire."

"Stop trying to play dumb! You know exactly what you did. You've been fucking Nathan!" Max rounded the island and stepped so near to her he had to ball his hands into fists to keep from touching her. This kind of closeness was dangerous. He could lose his temper and grab her, or lose his willpower and—

No. You went down that road before and it sucked.

"You think I am sleeping with your vampire friend?" She had the nerve to laugh at him, as though the idea was ridiculous. Placing her palms flat on Max's chest, she gave him a shove. "You dare to accuse me of this when last night I could smell her all over you?"

Ouch. But what he had been doing didn't matter, Max reminded himself. It was Bella's immorality they were talking about. "Listen, what Carrie and I do is our business. But you knew how messed up she was when she left Nathan, and you still moved in for the kill. For your information, she was really hurt when she found out about the two of you. She could have slept with me to get her mind off it. But she didn't."

"When she found out about us?" Bella snorted again. Max wanted to hit her. "How, exactly, did she find out?"

The uneasy feeling that maybe something was amiss, maybe some critical piece of information had slipped through their keen investigative fingers, crept into the back of his mind. "I don't know. When she called, I guess."

Bella only nodded.

In the eerie quiet of the kitchen, even the buzzing of the fluorescent lights could be heard, layered with the drumming of water dribbling into the sink and the ticking of the sleek steel clock on the wall. From the rest of the house, not a sound.

So, where are Nathan and Carrie, genius?