"Exactly."

"So who did?

"That's a very good question. And I suppose it's the reason you want to talk to this lawyer, Claire Vincent?"

"Yes."

"She won't tell you who she's really working for. She can't, can she?"

"No, I'm certain she won't. But I want to talk to her anyway. Call it my sixth sense. I have the feeling there's something to be learned there."

She didn't doubt Wyatt's sixth sense, having seen evidence of it more than once. Primarily on the night he'd found her on that cold, dark beach. Because the odds had been astronomical. By all rights, he should never have even ended up on the right beach, much less actually tracking her to the dune on which she'd fallen.

Oh, no, she didn't doubt Wyatt's inner voice.

"No harm in trying," she said.

They pulled up to his place, and Lily blinked. Once again, Wyatt's wealth was made clear. The graceful, mellowed-brick old town houses in this neighborhood, some four or five stories tall and a hundred years old, were a far cry from the one bedroom/one bath cubbyhole she'd called home last winter.

He definitely didn't afford it on an FBI agent's salary.

He glanced over, obviously saw her wide-eyed stare. "I grew up here and inherited the house from my grandparents."

Grew up here in his grandparents' house. Well, they were making progress, weren't they? That was about as much personal information as he'd revealed in the past six months. At this rate, she might actually learn his middle name sometime before she died of old age.

This enigmatic thing was sexy, but it was also frustrating as hell. As someone who'd been living a secret life for months, she suddenly found herself damn well sick of mysteries and enigmas.

She reached for the door handle and yanked it open, stepping out into his driveway before he'd come around to open the door, as he always did.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Fine. Just anxious to get this over with."

He said nothing, merely reaching into the backseat and grabbing the small suitcase she'd brought with her. Clothes bought and paid for by this man. Just like everything else she owned.

Maybe it was being back here, in the city where she'd been so independent, overcome all the hardships of her youth to get her degree, then her master's, and land a job with the FBI. She'd never let anyone hold her back; she'd paid her own way.

Until now.

Following Wyatt, she quickly glanced around the inside of the house as they walked through the back door into the kitchen. As she could have predicted, it was immaculate-dark cherry cabinets with glass-front doors, a swirling brown and black marble countertop, state-of-the-art appliances. Perfect. Just like the man who owned it.

Her apartment's Formica cabinets had been chipped, the handle broken off the one under the kitchen sink so she'd had to pry it with her fingertips whenever she'd needed to get trash bags or dish detergent.

His floors were a deep, rich hardwood, highly shined. Hers had been linoleum, with a burned spot in one corner where she'd made the mistake of putting the hot oven rack.

She so didn't belong here. At the beach house, it had been easier to pretend, because she'd been hiding. But she no longer wanted to hide. She also most definitely no longer wanted to be kept. "This needs to be over soon," she muttered.

Wyatt put her bag on the table, then turned to stare at her, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the back of a chair. The immaculate suit didn't even shift out of place with the pose; it just moved with him as if it had been perfectly tailored. Well, it probably had. That was what perfectly tailored meant, right?

She shook her head.

"What is it?"

"Nothing," she said. "I'm just tired and ready to get on with things. Two weeks ago, I thought I'd be happy to never leave Maine. Your beach house. Now all I can think about is how desperately I want to get out of here, put all of this behind me, and go out there and actually live somewhere, in my own place, on my own dime, without being a drag on someone else all the time."

He straightened and stepped over, lifting a hand to her chin. Tilting her head up so she was forced to meet his eyes, he silently urged her to listen to him. He appeared understanding, not irritated that she was throwing his generosity right back in his face like some selfish teenager bitching because she got the wrong color iPhone for Christmas.

"Let's get one thing clear. I have more money than I could spend in my lifetime." he admitted. "My father was disgustingly rich, my mother's family pretty well-off also. And the day I turned twenty-five, I got the keys to a large trust fund."

Lily sucked in a breath, not because of the fact that he was a rich man, but because he was telling her so much, revealing more and more of himself

"I hate the beach house," he added, almost gritting out the words. "And I don't particularly care about this one, beyond the good memories of my mother's parents and the fact that it provides a place to sleep at the end of every long, fourteen-hour workday. But I feel no attachment to anything, Lily. I put no value on things or on dollars."

Spoken like someone who had never lived without them.

"If you can't handle having someone else cover your bills for a few months, then when this is over, you can go back to work and start giving me twenty dollars a week to pay me back. Now, could we please get past the money issue? Because you're going to be sleeping in my…" He looked away, frowning as his words tangled in his mouth. "Under my root and I don't want to have this discussion again."

All the rest of his words fell away as she focused in on just one part of that speech.

Sleeping in my… what? House would have been the easy word, the natural one. But he hadn't said it. He'd stumbled on his own sentence and come up with a clumsy alternative. Which meant whatever that first instinctive thought had been, he hadn't been happy about it.

She knew. Of course she knew.

"Am I going to be sleeping in your bed, Wyatt?" she asked, needing to stop dancing around this thing that was between them. Needing to know if he felt it, too, and what they were going to do about it.

He hesitated for a split second. Then, with a groan that said he just couldn't help it, tilted her head back farther and bent to cover her mouth with his in a deep, hard kiss.

Lily parted her lips for him, hungry and excited. She licked at his tongue, tasted him, begged him silently for more, then demanded more. He met every thrust, sliding his hands up into her hair to cup her head. She tilted one way, he another, so their mouths could meld more perfectly.

He tasted as she'd thought he would-spicy and hot. Intoxicating. And he felt better than absolutely anything she'd ever experienced.

Then he ended it, slowly, disengaging a little at a time until their lips were barely brushing, then weren't touching at all. He stepped back, stared down at her, studying her face with something like shock in his eyes. She saw worry there, too.

"Don't you dare," she warned him, her voice shaking with intensity. "Don't you tell me you're sorry. Don't ask me if I'm all right. Don't you even think about it. And if you apologize to me, I'm going to show you firsthand how much I've learned from Sarge."

He closed his eyes, dropped his hand, and sighed heavily. "I'm not going to apologize for doing something I've wanted to do for a very long time," he finally admitted. "But that doesn't mean I'm exactly happy with myself for having done it."

He didn't even give her a chance to argue about it. Instead, he simply turned and walked out the door through which they'd entered, leaving her standing alone in the middle of his completely unfamiliar house.