The first floor, with the exception of the rear gallery, was an open space filled with furniture. Annabelle closed her eyes for a few seconds then opened them, trying to see the room as a casual observer would.

It was crowded, but what antiques shop wasn’t. Granddad had alternately cursed and blessed their many treasures, but Annabelle had never seen the jumble as anything less than heaven.

Lancaster County chests mingled with Philadelphia sideboards and an authentic Gruber Wagon built in Berks County took up a large area near the front of the store. Grandfather clocks made in Reading near the turn of the nineteenth century towered over the folk art made by an itinerant farm worker in the 1940s.

She had a couple of Benjamin Austrian paintings on the wall and several local landscapes that, remarkably, still looked the same as they had a hundred years ago.

Since it was Monday, and the shop was closed, she didn’t have to worry about visitors interrupting. But that left her with an hour to fill before Carmen Moran was set to arrive.

Carmen had agreed to come to the shop instead of interviewing Annabelle at her New York gallery because Carmen was traveling back from Ohio to visit family by car and it’d worked for her schedule.

That had suited Annabelle just fine. She loved the city but it’d been years since she’d been back.

Heading back to the front room and the CD player beneath the counter, Annabelle dug beneath the tasteful classical music she typically played when the store was open until she found what she wanted.

She smiled at the posturing cast of The Matrix. The obliviously cool Keanu Reeves. Sexy Carrie-Anne Moss. All that black leather.

Slipping the CD out of the case and into the player, she queued up her favorite song and cranked it.

Marilyn Manson blared from the speakers hidden throughout the shop. Closing her eyes, she let the hard-driving drums and guitar pound at her brain. She couldn’t help herself, her feet wouldn’t stay still, and she started to sway to the music.

Hairstyle be darned. They didn’t call it head-banging for nothing. Music had been one of the few normal teenage things she’d been into. And she couldn’t seem to cure the addiction to industrial metal she’d picked up when they’d lived in Germany for several months in her teens.

The music throbbed in her blood, lending itself to a total release of inhibitions. Thank God no one could see her—a grown woman dancing like she was a fourteen-year-old in the concert pit. Pins flew from her hair and she raked her hands through the mass to take out the rest. She’d fix it later. After she got this restlessness out of her system.

It felt good to let go. She’d been living in a fishbowl since breaking up with Gary. A young woman with no family, no boyfriend, and very few friends living in a tight community was cause for speculation.

If she hadn’t—

Someone started clapping.

Eight

With a gasp, Annabelle stumbled over her now schizophrenic feet, grabbing onto the nearest piece of furniture to help her regain her balance. She froze, lungs gasping for air, and scoured the room until she found the intruder.

Silhouetted against the front window, Jared Golden glimmered like a mirage in the morning sun.

He wore a denim shirt under a black leather jacket and a pair of jeans that clung lovingly to his thighs. He looked so different out of his tuxedo she had to wonder if she wasn’t seeing things at first.

Until he smiled.

Then a rush of heat swept over her, so devastating it threatened to make her knees buckle.

Elation rose before she could squelch it, followed by intense disappointment, embarrassment…and a little fear. He’d caught her with her guard down.

And he shouldn’t have been able to find her in the first place.

Old fears tried to swamp her.

After the murders, her grandfather and his lawyer had hidden her identity so well, not one of the tabloids or the news programs had been able to find her. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have panic attacks about being found. About having her identity, the one she’d built around herself, ripped away.

Damn, damn, damn that man.

How the hell had he found her? She’d used her personal credit card to charge the hotel bill, the card her lawyer had set up so that neither her legal name nor any other was attached to it.

He’d assured her it was perfectly legal and no one would be able to track her down through it.

Yet, here stood Joshua Golden.

Had he discovered who she was? Was that why he was here?

Don’t assume anything. He can’t know for sure.

Drawing herself up to her full height, she pushed her unruly hair behind her ears and stuck out her chin. No way would she let him see how flustered she was. After a deep breath, she walked to the CD player and turned down the volume. She wouldn’t turn it off because that would leave a silence to fill. And this was going to be bad enough.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

She’d meant her tone to be hard, unconcerned. And mentally smacked herself when it came out breathless.

That smile of his pumped her blood pressure even higher.

“I have something of yours.” His strong voice conquered the music and his smile had disappeared. Staring straight into her eyes, his intensity shuddered through her like an electric shock to her system.

She swallowed and wet her lips before attempting to speak again. His gaze burned as it followed her tongue’s path.

“You have nothing I want,” she answered, proud of her now-steady voice.

That made his lips quirk at the corners in a staggeringly handsome way. God, the man was too good-looking for her peace of mind. He had to go. Before she—

No, he just had to go.

“I thought I’d made it perfectly clear that I had no wish to see you again. In fact, I never gave you my name.”

Jared just smiled. “I know that. But I’m happy to report that I have a friend who’s a pretty decent investigator. You’d told me you were an antiques dealer so it became a process of elimination. Next time, maybe you want to pick Mary or Kathy. Belle was just too close to Annabelle.”

Okay. She could deal with this. She could deal with him knowing her name as Annabelle Elder.

What she couldn’t deal with was his presence here. In her shop. Her world.

With what she hoped was just enough haughty disdain, she lifted her chin and prepared to brazen it out. “If I ever decide to go incognito to another party, I’ll remember that. Now, I have a busy agenda today, so if you—”

“Actually”—he grinned, and that really was a crime against women—“I do have something that belongs to you. Two things, really.”

She frowned. Heat drenched her and her cheeks began to burn as he tugged on a small swatch of green silk showing just above his front jeans pocket. The bastard did have her thong.

“But I’m only giving one back.” He left the silk where it was as he reached into his shirt pocket with his other hand. The pin reflected the sunlight pouring through the front windows.

Holding her gaze, he walked toward the counter. Even though she stood behind it, she felt the need to step back, away from him. It was too easy for her to get lost in his warm—or perhaps lying—gaze. She resolutely held her position.

He set the pin on the counter and nudged it toward her with one long finger.

“The pin belongs to your grandmother,” she stated, hoping her voice sounded as hard as it did in her head.

“Not according to my grandmother.”

She frowned. “What do you mean? Are you telling me that’s not your grandmother’s pin?” She laughed, but it sounded like gravel grinding under tires. “So your little scheme was all for nothing.”

He never even blinked. “I never had a ‘scheme,’ Belle. I only wanted you. Naked and under me. Naked and over me. Naked and next to me.”

Oh, God, how could he make her thighs clench and sex contract by just talking? “I can’t believe a word you say.”

He shrugged. “I don’t really expect you to. But the pin is yours, regardless of the fact that it was stolen from my grandmother.”

Her fingers itched to reach for it, so she clasped her hands together in front of her behind the desk. “Please take it and leave.”

He shook his head. “We have unfinished business.”

“There is nothing unfinished between us.”

He smiled that smile again. “Honey, I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. I might have come, but I wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot.”

Pure lust swamped Annabelle’s entire body in a wave of remembered pleasure, even though she didn’t want to remember.

“I want you to leave.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Are you so sure about that?”

She gasped. “Can you really be so arrogant? You played me for a fool that night. You expect me to welcome you back with open arms?”

“Annabelle, I wanted you from the first moment I saw you, before I noticed the pin. And you wanted me.”

No way would she respond to that one. “Just leave, Jared. I don’t want you here.”

But she did. At least, her body did. Her body ached for him. And she couldn’t allow that.

He couldn’t be here. He made her want—Well, he just made her want so badly.

And she couldn’t. She couldn’t let herself be taken under by uncontrolled desire.

She turned from him and walked. Anywhere. She just had to get away from him. Her head was spinning and it was all his fault. She couldn’t have this. Not now, not with Carmen Moran on the way—