“I didn’t demand that of you,” he pointed out.

She felt as if he’d thrown her on the mat and knocked every bit of air from her lungs. She didn’t recognize this man at all. “Which is what makes it so much worse.”

No response.

“I trusted you.” She curled her hands into fists. “My friends were right. I am naive. I should’ve heeded their warnings about you. Only their warnings about you being a dangerous man didn’t even come close to the real truth. I can’t believe you investigated me through my family and friends the week after we met! And yes, they all told me about the invasive phone calls, but I didn’t know you were the one who initiated it. God. If you thought I was such a sketchy person, why did you even want to get involved with me?”

“What did your friends say about me?”

Amery met his gaze after he’d sidestepped yet another question. “That you were a thug. Your past was suspect. No one knew anything about you until you just showed up in Denver ten years ago and set yourself up as a jujitsu master in a building you couldn’t possibly afford. Some suggested you got the building on the cheap from TP. In exchange, you owed him favors. Which he collected, demanding you root out vagrants and criminals in this area so he could buy other real estate cheap and then cash in on urban renewal funds to get them up to code.”

“Who’s your source?”

“Then someone else hinted,” she continued without pause, “that with your martial arts background, you hired out as muscle for the Russian mob and handled TP’s management problems.”

“Anyone tie me to the Yakuza?”

At any other time she would’ve laughed at his mention of the Japanese Mafia; now she just wanted to cry. “After we were attacked in the alley, the fact that you knew just how to ditch a gun put me in the camp that you were a street thug who’d made good. Your secrets, or maybe I should say your nondisclosure and layers of protection, made sense. I accepted them. I’d hoped that given time, you’d let me in.

“I did get to you a couple of times, but then those walls came right back up like they’d never been down. You know you got to me with your sexual expertise, with those times you were so sweet . . .” Don’t cry. Jesus. Keep it together, Amery. “I actually bought into your sincerity.” She closed her eyes. “God. Could I have been any more moon-eyed over you? Especially when you gave me that whole bullshit story about the stupid scar on my arm being the same symbol for your name and it being a cosmic sign.”

“Amery—”

“Now I have to wonder why you took it so far. Was I just a game for you? Toying with the . . . what did you call me? Wholesome? Toying with the wholesome North Dakota farm girl because she provided a different challenge than the usual skanks you met at the various clubs? Get her to open up, get her to sleep with you, get her to let you practice bondage on her, get her to spend all her free time with you until she’s crazy about you. Then act like it could be a long-term relationship by offering to lend her money to help her struggling business. I bought it all.

“And while I was beating myself up on the way over here, about why you didn’t trust me enough to tell me about your true station in life, I realized the Okada ‘reveal’ was part of your master plan. So you took it as far as you needed to. Go, you, Master Black, master manipulator. You win.”

“Part of my plan?” he repeated.

“It stings that I didn’t see the signs. Gorgeous penthouse. Check. Expensive cars. Check. Relationships with the bigwigs in this town. Check. Your devotion to an art not dependent upon income from it to thrive and survive. Check.”

“Not going to throw anything in about me being a spoiled rich kid who expects women to accept my sexual kinks?”

“No, but I’ll add that you discard your partners when you get what you want from them and they no longer please you,” she retorted.

“Where’d you hear that?”

Amery looked at him. “Deacon. He repeatedly expressed surprise that your current flavor of the month—me—had lasted an entire summer.”

“Deacon wasn’t speaking of my lovers, Amery; he meant that in the rope partner sense.”

“That’s comforting. Does Knox, closest thing you’ve got to a friend, know that you’re a closeted billionaire?”

“Yes.”

“Deacon?”

“Yes.”

“Your sister told me Naomi knew too.”

“Why do you think she stuck around as long as she did?” he said testily.

“You led me to believe she was some poor waif who used you and needed more kink than you could provide. I had no idea she was an international businesswoman you met at a social club.”

“She wasn’t an international businesswoman when I had her bound. And how did the subject of Naomi come up?”

“I figured out the meeting with the Okada VP was a setup when the exotic Asian woman started asking me personal things. I thought she might be your ex trying to get to you, given the hush-hush nature of the project and the last-minute meeting. Plus, the woman wore sunglasses until I asked her to take them off. When I saw her eyes I knew.”

“That’s the only way you’d know, because my connection to Okada is not common knowledge. And yes, that is intentional.”

“In this day and age where information can be at your fingertips in a nanosecond . . . why doesn’t everyone on the planet know who you are?”