Someone Irresistible (29 page)

His jaw twitched but he didn’t move.

Facing him squarely, she repeated, “Close the door, Nathan. I will tell you what I can, but it must be private.”

For only a slice of a second, Mimi thought surprise lit his brow at her commanding direction without the customary female timidity. Then he inhaled sharply and reached for the knob, doing as she bid. But he didn’t move away from it.

In a steady voice, she decided to get to the heart of the matter so that she’d know where to begin in explaining everything.

“You must first tell me what happened tonight—”

“Why don’t you start by telling me who betrayed me two and a half years ago,” he cut in ruthlessly as he began to step toward her, his demeanor menacing. “Was it you directly? Your father? Your loving husband?”

She’d had enough. “Damn it all, Nathan, what
happened
tonight?”

That she cursed in front of him stopped him short. His dark brows lifted and his head jerked back with his first look of true astonishment.

She held up her hand, palm out to imply a truce, briefly closing her eyes. “You
must
tell me this first. I appear to be as confused as you.” She lifted her lashes to meet his hard gaze once more. “No lies.”

The honesty implied in that one simple phrase got him. He quickly looked her up and down, then murmured in a tone of steel, “I was saluted, naturally, honored by Sir Richard for my marvelous find, though apparently you and your father already knew I would be. I suppose you’d like me to thank you?”

Her forehead creased in frown. “What are you talking about?”

He chuckled bitterly and raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m talking about the sculpture and its perfect teeth that only you, your father, and Professor Owen are aware of, Mimi. And oh, yes, the American, too, Colin Smith.”

That bewildered her more than ever, and her legs began to shake. “I don’t understand.”

“Where’s my fossil, Mimi?”

Drawing a long breath for strength, her mind churning with horrible possibilities, she clasped her hands together behind her to reveal, “I put the original jawbone in the box that you took to the banquet—”

“What!”

He jerked forward, taking another long step toward her, and she took one away from him in a manner of defense, the back of her knees hitting the edge of the settee. She grasped the cushioned arm to stop herself from falling on it.

“I put it in the box,” she said again, eyes wide. “You should have seen it when you opened it.”

He shook his head, one corner of his mouth turned up wryly. “If I had seen my jawbone, Mimi,” he replied as if speaking to a child, “I certainly wouldn’t be here demanding it now.”

That stung her, but instead of a nasty retort, as calmly as she could manage, she tried another approach. “Then what
did
you see inside, Nathan? Flowers? Table linens?
Dried fish
? I’m aging quickly from this conversation going nowhere, so don’t keep me guessing. Explain it to me.”

Her caustic comment didn’t faze him in the least as his eyes spilled over with loathing. It was enough to make hers fill with tears that she hoped he’d never notice. But her tactic worked.

“All right, Mrs. Sinclair,” he soothed dispassionately. “Let me tell you about the banquet.” Turning, he walked to the brown table and leaned his hip against it casually, crossing his arms over his chest, gazing at her flatly from across the room.

“I opened the box tonight, that you’d so carefully wrapped, taking pride in showing your work to all. I was not to be disappointed. Inside was a marvelous likeness, a sculpture of that which was lost to me nearly three years ago, only the teeth were too good, too perfectly imbedded. Even Richard Owen noticed and made comment of it.” He snorted sarcastically. “That’s when I realized I’d never told you in detail about the two curved teeth shooting up from each side of the lower jawbone—two teeth that I’d mentioned only in passing but which you’d conveniently formed to perfection. These weren’t teeth like other dinosaur’s, these were imbedded in the sockets of the jaw. I’d thought you’d done a brilliant job, Mimi, until I realized you’d simply copied the original.”

Mimi fairly gaped at him. No longer able to balance herself on trembling legs, she lowered her body swiftly and indelicately to the settee.

It didn’t make sense. None of this made sense. The fossil hadn’t been inside when he’d opened it? That was impossible. Even Justin had known, or had at least guessed, what she’d planned to do the day she’d met him in the park. She’d placed it there herself two days ago, tying the ribbon, making sure nobody touched it until she gave it to Nathan

earlier today.

Except her father, who’d perhaps seen it the evening before last when he’d come to dinner. Had he been alone with it? And long enough to switch the fossil for the sculpture sitting in her studio? Could he have possibly known her intentions, been so calculating? It was the only explanation. But why? And with her questions came the stunning realization of what Nathan was actually telling her tonight. His priceless jawbone had disappeared once more, because of her, and this time she had no idea where it was.

Oh, God, Papa, what have you done now?

Nathan continued to watch her, his palms resting on his thighs, eyelids narrowed to tiny slits. Finally, he remarked tightly, “Now you’re telling me you actually placed this same original jawbone, a dinosaur fossil of immeasurable worth, into a box one could easily misplace? Or
drop
?”

That pulled her from her troubled musings, irritating her a little.

“You weren’t going to let it out of your sight, Nathan. And of course you noticed how well it was packaged.”

“That’s irrelevant,” he barked. “You know its value. What you did was stupid.”

“Stupid, maybe, but I did it for you—”

“Don’t,” he interjected softly in warning, stiffening so quickly the muscles in his neck visibly flexed. “Don’t say that to me. If you cared, you would have returned it to me long before tonight.”

The harsh lines of his face that creased from tension, those words that implied so much hurt, nearly made her break down into uncontrollable sobs, because, through every remark, through every anguished breath, she knew he was right. She wanted so desperately to run to him, to comfort, to love him and prove it. Instead, she gripped her hands even tighter and swallowed thickly to stay her worries, and prevent her tears.

“You don’t understand anything,” she breathed.

“You’re absolutely correct in that assertion,” he agreed immediately.

“I understand very little. All I know is that you supposedly exchanged a sculpture you made for my priceless fossil, which you’ve had all along, and then at some point unbeknownst to you, the fossil was switched for the sculpture!” He threw his arms into the air, palms up, in feigned amazement. “So where do you suppose it is now, Mrs. Sinclair?”

His sarcastic manner made her mad and she snapped at him. “Stop calling me that.”

“Why? Because you don’t like being reminded you were married to a cheat?”

That brought her to her feet again. “Carter wasn’t a cheat.”

He snickered bitterly. “Stop defending the man, Mimi. He cheated me out of three years’ wages and funds for my museum project, out of prestige that was due me. You, your husband, and your whole bloody family ruined my name and then laughed at me. I hope you’re all goddamn proud of yourselves.”

Mimi just stood there, stung by his rancor, anger filling her in places where only sadness had been. “I never did anything to you. And what I find so appalling, Professor Price, is that you have no idea, even after everything we’ve shared, what I feel for you.”

He gradually stood, though his cold gaze never strayed from hers.

“What you feel for me?
Feel
for me? I know my future as a respected scientist was stolen by you, or someone close to you, to your
knowledge
, Mimi, on the night I gave in to your wonderful kiss. Until that night I had never been so taken with a woman. I was possessed by the passion, as you knew I’d be, falling for your flirting tone and beautiful eyes, leaving my fossil unattended just long enough for someone you know to steal it.” He closed his eyes with finality. “God, and to think I trusted you,” he whispered. “I was stupid and foolish and arrogant. But no more. No more.”

He could never know how deeply his words sliced through her heart, how she would give everything she valued to return his dignity to him, his honor that was so rudely and horridly stolen from him on that night long ago. But nothing she could possibly say would make it better now.

Nothing.

“What do you want from me, Nathan?” she whispered.

He raised his lids and considered her once more, his eyes radiating anger and frustration and even loneliness that was positively palpable.

“I want you to tell me the truth,” he demanded, his voice deadly calm. “All of it.”

The house had become acutely quiet; the only sound to be heard was the scratching of a low tree branch on the window behind the settee.

The wind had picked up with the coming of a steady night rainfall, and low clouds made the gas lampposts on the street shine brightly through the panes, creating a patchwork of light on the wooden floor.

Instead of ignoring these things, Nathan noticed each one, noticed everything without so much as an effort to do so. His skin crawled with nervous energy, his sharpened senses screamed of being trapped in his body of fire, of rage and bitter remorse. It was all he could do to lean

against the table and not move, not break things, not go to her and shake her until she confessed what he more than suspected.

Mimi had betrayed him. Certainly then, perhaps even now, and the thought nauseated him. He had loved her in bed, had divulged intimacies he’d never shared with another, and all along she’d been involved in his ruin. He’d known the possibility had existed, and it was entirely his fault for not heeding his own warning. Tonight, after what had turned out to be a spectacular professional success, he wanted to wrap himself in his pity, his outrage and hurt, and never see her again.

But as with all things between him and the Widow Sinclair, it would never be that easy.

At last Mimi stood with determination, wringing her hands in front of her, shoulders back, head held high, as she glided to the window to gaze into the night. Dull lamplight illuminated her shiny blond hair that she’d pulled severely away from her haunted face, which looked years older than twenty-three. Nathan grew fiercely mad at himself for sympathizing with her feelings, although there was no denying that he felt a very odd passion for the unfairness caused her in her past, that he felt something beyond the superficial for the woman herself. But then, she’d made sure of that.

He should have known better.

“I’m fully aware of what you wanted from me initially, Nathan,” she finally said very softly.

He grunted. “I’ve never wanted anything more from you than the return of my treasure. That’s what I wanted initially, Mimi, and that’s what I want now. I never would have come back to you if it hadn’t been for the jawbone.”

She smirked, though she never looked his way. “Men can be such idiots.”

Women and their ridiculous pronouncements. “Explain that to me.”

Closing her eyes briefly, she shook her head. “Do you remember the first time we met?”

Her tactic mystified him, cornered him, but he refused to appear the idiot she proclaimed him to be. “I remember vaguely.” He pinched the tabletop with his fingers in spiraling agitation. “What does a moment ten years ago have to do with this discussion?”

She once more gazed out into the soggy night. “I remember it more than vaguely. It may have occurred ten years ago and be only a moment in time to you, but I remember the event as if it happened yesterday.”

The event? He couldn’t imagine why she should remember any of it, but then, that was irrelevant. “Again, madam, what does our meeting

have to do with this discussion?”

She remained silent for several seconds, her delicate brows pinched in thought, her eyes staring vacantly outside.

Nathan feared he might be nearing the point of insanity. He suddenly wanted to throttle her, or walk out of her life for a final time with good riddance—forgetting the jawbone, forgetting what they’d shared in bed, forgetting that she’d told him she loved him and that he had, for a few brief hours, believed it. He simply couldn’t take any more.

But it was the vision of her at the window, the faint light on her hair, her beautiful body wrapped tightly neck to toe in a black crepe gown, the shadow of cascading rain upon the glass reflecting on her clear, pale skin that kept him entranced. They looked like teardrops, and the picture of her so alone squeezed his heart in a manner he’d never felt before. The woman had bewitched him, and with enough skill to keep him standing before her like a puppy on her firmly held rope. What Nathan desperately wished he knew was if she’d captured him by design, had planned to do so from the beginning, or if it had simply happened by chance. But he refused to ask her. In light of all that had occurred between them, either answer would hurt too much.

“I had always adored sculpting,” she revealed at last in a breathless, faraway voice, her arms crossed over her breasts as she hugged herself.

“Even as a little girl I’d wanted to sculpt beasts like my father instead of statues and pottery and bird fountains. But of course nobody took me seriously since I was a girl, and girls aren’t supposed to have ambition above themselves. Even my father laughed when I brought my desires to his attention. I thought—of all the people who recognized my talent, he would be the one to support my wishes because he realized just how much dinosaurs fascinated me.” She smiled sadly and dropped her gaze to her feet. “How could they not? I’d grown up with them, studying their design and strength in his workshop with complete amazement. But Papa was the first to lecture me on propriety and the fact that ladies did not stray from convention. And of course it was accepted that I would marry and become a doting wife, mother, and household manager, accepting with grace, if not joy, my station in life.” She paused, sighing as she closed her eyes, lifting her face to the ceiling.