“When I said that I didn’t know you in college that wasn’t exactly the truth.” When he pulled back a little, she hurried on. “I knew your roommate, Jim, pretty well. He helped me through the loss of my family.”

And it was the night that I went looking for him that I found you and a little piece of myself, she didn’t say the words that balanced on the tip of her tongue.

“Anyway, it wasn’t like you weren’t a living legend in out dorm or anything,” she tried for nonchalance but failed miserably.

“We lived in the same building?”

She nodded¸ unsure if he was upset about this revelation.

“Same floor actually. Not surprised you don’t remember me, I didn’t exactly run in the same crowd.” She sighed. “Anyway, I had seen you around”—understatement—“and, like nearly every other girl I knew, had a mild crush on you.” Even bigger understatement.

She tried to smile and failed. “This doesn’t make things weird now, does it?”

“Weird? A little.” When she tried to wiggle out of his arms, he tightened his hold. “It’s weird that you were right there and I never noticed.”

“Yes, well, you had other things to keep you busy,” she replied tartly, remembering the trail of hearts Falon left in his wake that year. Including hers.

“I’ll admit to letting off a little extra steam my senior year,” he answered. Amusement at her obvious jealousy danced in his toffee eyes before being replaced with something darker.

“What is it?” She was almost too afraid to ask. She didn’t want to watch him shut back down.

“Just remembering … my grandfather asked me to take a position in his corporation that year. He said that he wanted to make up for the mistakes of his past and wanted me to take my rightful place in the company.” He released a bitter laugh. “I turned him down flat. I was so determined not to become a man like him.”

“What kind of man is he?” She had been wondering since Falon first mentioned the man and couldn’t help asking.

“A man who would disown his own flesh and blood for not living up to the pompous standards he sets.”

The venom in his voice made her wince. There was yet another secret there and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know all of the details. Instead, she kissed a trail up the column of his throat delighting in the rough texture of his stubble as her lips found their way to his. She would worry about the implications of what he was saying later. Right now, she just wanted free his mind of everything but the feel of her skin on his.

***

Her hair dripped onto the tiles of the bathroom floor as she rushed to silence her phone. Falon was still sleeping in the other room and she didn’t want to wake him just yet. She still needed to figure out what she was going to do. What had started as a challenge of her own perceptions of the young man Falon had been had grown into something that, frankly scared her shitless. She could see now that her actions weren’t solely to prove to him that he wasn’t this block of ice, but that she was proving to herself that she wasn’t that undesirable creature he had made her believe she was all those years ago.

The fact was she had changed nearly as much as he had. She wasn’t that wide-eyed little girl half in love with a man she didn’t know anything about. Life had taught her a few valuable lessons and she had a feeling that the events of nine years ago weren’t as simple as they appeared.

Glancing at the name flashing across the screen of her phone she figured answering now would save her hours of harassing calls. Not wanting to risk ruining it she turned it on speaker.

“Hey.” She tried to keep her voice low.

“Hey yourself.” Marcy’s voice bounced off the walls of the posh bathroom.

“Shhh.” She huddled over the phone trying to block the noise with her body.

“I take, by the volume of your voice, you’re not alone.”

“Falon is sleeping in the other room.” She blushed while glaring at her friend through the phone. “What do you need at seven in the morning, Marcy?”

“Oh, just enjoying a nice cup of coffee and a beautiful sunrise.”

“Seriously, cut the crap, Marcy.”

She heard her friend sigh into her phone. “Okay, I was just wondering if the mission was accomplished. Did you bring that man to his knees, begging you to put him out of his misery? Did you finally get the Big Bad Wolfe back for the way he treated you all those years ago?”

She was about to answer when she heard the soft sound of fabric rustling. Afraid to look toward the half-open door she already knew the worst had happened. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to meet Falon’s arctic glare. From just the look, she knew he had heard every incriminating comment Marcy made.

“What? Wolfe got your tongue?” Marcy’s joke fell flat.

“I’ve got to go.” Sarah’s voice sounded hollow as she ended the call, her eyes never leaving the cold accusation aimed her way.

“Falon, I can—”

“It was all a game, then?” His harsh question made her wince. “What was it, Sarah? Did I turn you down for a date in college? Did you spend hours in your little box of a dorm room pining after a man you could never have?”

“No, Falon. I—”

“Enough.” The command rippled across her skin and she knew whatever tenacious relationship they forged the night before was over. “I don’t want to hear your excuses. Just know this, Sarah. I came here to do a job, and that job comes first. Doing you? That was just icing on the cake. I never intended to keep you. This was just a temporary thing, a way to burn off steam built up by dealing with idiots who can’t control their own finances.”

With that parting shot, he left her shivering in the middle of a hotel bathroom feeling cheaper than she ever had in her life. He was right to be angry with her. This whole thing started with her wanting to prove to the both of them she was a woman worth wanting. She hadn’t planned on their emotions coming into play or breaking a man she thought infallible.

Quietly she gathered her clothes, putting them on as quickly as possible. She knew attempting to talk to him now would be useless. She could only hope time would make him more receptive to what she had to say.

***

Falon heard the door quietly click shut and threw his fist into the wall. The pain radiating up his arm barely registered over the tight ache in his chest. When he was pulled from sleep by the hushed sounds of Sarah’s voice from the bathroom, a few erotic thoughts pulled him from the mattress.

He was fully prepared to make his dirtier fantasies come true while covering her body in soapy water when he heard another voice coming from the steam-clouded room. Not wanting to eavesdrop but unable to walk away once he heard his name mentioned, Falon stood in shock just inside the half-opened door. What he heard pulled him down from the high realizing he wanted to be with Sarah had given him. Hearing she had just played him for some petty college-age revenge burned a hole in his now vulnerable heart.

It hadn’t been real. Not of what she said or did was been because she felt anything other than an obvious deep-seated anger directed at him. Falon reacted the only way he knew how. He cut her deeper than the wound she had delivered to him. As the words left his mouth, a part of him wanted to frantically draw them back and beg her to forgive him. As he watched her crumple under his verbal barrage, the satisfaction he usually felt when besting a foe was absent.

Lying in the cooling bed that still smelled of Sarah and their lovemaking, he pushed his tenderness for her behind the cold wall of his resolve. She had used him, lied to him, she didn’t deserve his sympathy. He squeezed his eyes shut trying to dispel the image of her standing in the bathroom, dripping water onto the cold tiles, looking at him like he was crushing her world.