“You, Indiana. I studied you.”
Indy felt as if she was coming apart. She found her hands in fists as she stared mutely back at him while all the implications of what he’d just said pounded through her.
And made her pussy ache all the more.
“Don’t be silly,” she managed to say softly. She wished she weren’t sitting on the bed, wearing nothing but cutoff jeans and a tank top. She wished she was swaddled in protective gear and far, far away—where you would only wish you were here, a voice inside chided her. “This is shallow water, Stefan. No need to study a puddle. It is what it is.”
His gaze seemed to sharpen on her at that but he stayed where he was, lounging there with his back to the windows, the very picture of a certain insolent ease. If a person ignored the heft and majesty of his body, that was. Which Indy didn’t think she would ever be able to do.
“What fascinates me is not that you would say such a thing, which of course is false,” he said after a moment. “But that you appear so invested in me believing it.”
Her heart was starting to hurt her. “You don’t have to believe it. But I wouldn’t want to disappoint you any further. Because that’s where this is going. You know that, right? You can imagine me to be anything you want, Stefan. I can’t stop you. But that doesn’t make it real.”
Stefan considered her for a moment, and she wanted to do something. Anything. But she felt pinned into place by that gaze of his. “You are so dedicated to performing this party girl persona. Even when it doesn’t suit you.”
“It’s not a performance. It’s my life.”
“You’re very easy to track, Indy.” It was official. She hated when he called her that. Though she refused to ask herself why. “You put it all out there, all over social media. This party, that party. Hints of new lovers everywhere you go. Suggestive photos in dark clubs. Naked flesh on sunny, topless beaches, all of it calculated to show off your beauty and your inability to stay in any one place for long.”
She forced herself to uncurl her fists when her fingers began to cramp. “I am who I am. I post what I feel like posting. You could always not look at it if you don’t like it.”
“And yet, if all of this were true, surely you would have developed a drug habit to go along with it as so many do. How else to fuel all those late nights and erotic dances? It is common enough. Yet instead, though you spent more time committed to your strip club than your college, you graduated a year late with suspiciously average grades. And with a hefty savings account and investment portfolio. These things do not match.”
“How are average grades suspicious? They’re just average.” But her mouth was dry. “I’m not embarrassed by that.”
“Your bank account demonstrates that you are not average. You were able to not only save, but invest to a profit. It suggests you deliberately downplayed your abilities in the classroom. I cannot be the only person who has noticed this, surely.”
But no one else had ever looked at her this closely. Indy had made sure no one could. And she felt as if he were clawing her open. As if he were digging his hands deep into her chest and pulling her wide. She had to look down at her own front to make sure that wasn’t really happening.
It wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t. Indy sighed as much in relief that she was still in one piece as anything else. “I’m good at being naked, Stefan. But as I said, not so good at studying.”
“Then why didn’t you fail out?” He sounded so calm. So reasonable. It was maddening. “Why did you continue your studies at all if it meant so little to you?”
“Now you sound like my father.” She managed a frosty sort of smile. “Which is not hot, by the way.”
He didn’t laugh at that, but the look on his face felt about the same. “You are the one who said you did not have daddy issues. Or was that another lie?”
She made herself laugh to try to break the tension. Before it broke her. “I’m not a liar, for God’s sake. I was a middling student. I was a much better dancer. I had some regulars who gave me great tips and suggested I bank what I could. It’s not a mystery, Stefan. It’s not a clue to my wounded inner child. And as I already told you, I stopped doing it because it stopped being fun. Or I thought it would stop being fun eventually, whatever.”
“What is this ‘whatever’?” he asked, sounding irritatingly patient. “I have known many strippers over the years. Very few of them invest. This is what you did while paying for the school where you were pretending to be terrible student.”
“I don’t know what part of me not liking school you’re not getting.”
His blue gaze was bright then. Knowing in a way she not only didn’t like, but felt rush through her like a cold chill.
“Is it that you don’t like school?” he asked. “Or is it that your sister is the scholar and that means that you cannot be?”
It would have been better if he’d hauled off and hit her. It would have shocked her a lot less than...that. Indy moved then. She crawled over to the side of the bed, wishing her head weren’t spinning. Wishing her belly weren’t knotted up tight.
Wishing this had stayed as simple as it had been that night in Budapest.
Live. Love. Leave.
“My sister?” She could barely get the words out. “Why are you talking about... How do you even know about my sister?”
“I know everything about you,” Stefan said, mildly enough, which only made it worse. Because it was so matter-of-fact and everything inside her was
