He lay on his back with his ankles crossed, the remote propped on his chest, his hair inky against the pillow propped behind his head. He’d switched from monster trucks to bass fishing, and he looked perfectly relaxed, not at all like a man with rape on his mind.

Perfectly, totally relaxed …

Maybe it was a trick of the flickering light from the television, but she swore she saw the faintest smile of satisfaction lurking at the corners of those thin lips.

She squinted. Shifted the pillows ever so slightly. It wasn’t her imagination. He looked smug, not sinister.

He looked like a man who’d figured out the perfect way to get rid of an unwanted nuisance and come out a thousand dollars richer.

SHE GOT DRESSED IN THE bathroom the next morning and didn’t speak to him until they’d been served at a pancake place wedged between a service station and a thrift shop. Some of the diners were women, but most were men wearing caps that ranged from the trucker variety to sports teams. They eyed Panda suspiciously, but no one paid any attention to either her or her pregnancy bump.

He took a noisy slurp from his coffee mug, then dug into his pancakes, chewing without bothering to close his mouth. He noticed her staring at him and frowned. Her conviction that he’d been manipulating her last night wavered. She was almost certain he’d been deliberately trying to scare her off, but her instincts weren’t exactly foolproof these days.

She studied him closely, paying particular attention to his eyes as she spoke. “So, have you raped a lot of women?”

She saw it. A flicker of outrage camouflaged almost immediately by half-closed eyelids and a noisy slurp from his coffee mug. “Depends on what you mean by rape.”

“You’d know it when you did it.” She took the plunge. “I have to admit last night was interesting.”

His brows slammed together. “Interesting! You think that was interesting?”

Not at the time she hadn’t. But now? Definitely. “Maybe if you were a better actor, you could have pulled it off.”

He grew wary. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She ignored his scowl. “It’s obvious you want to get rid of me, but was that the best you could do?” Those sinister lips pulled tight, and his expression became so ominous she had to muster all the bravado she could find to set her elbows on the table and meet his gaze. “I’m not going anywhere, Panda. You’re stuck with me.” A small devil prodded her, and she pointed to the corner of her own mouth. “You have a little food right there.”

“I don’t care.”

“Are you sure? A fastidious eater like yourself?”

“If you don’t like it, you know what you can do.”

“Yes. Fly home and send you a check for a thousand dollars, plus expenses.”