“I guess I’m confused, then.” He pulled his hands back and frowned. “Why are we here?”

“What do you mean, why are we here?” Don’t get annoyed, Bianca. You know he’s not Sherlock or Watson or even Harriet the Spy’s kid brother.

“Why did you call me, Bianca? Why did you want to meet?” He looked annoyed. “I thought it was because you’d realized you made a mistake.”

As if. “That I’d made a mistake?” My jaw dropped. “You think I called you because I wanted to have sex with you?”

“Yes, no, not just that, obviously. I know you need support over what happened to you, but I don’t have any answers for you, Bianca. I don’t know why Mattias kidnapped you. I don’t know why he let you loose. I don’t know why he had Steve on the island with you. Maybe he wanted to scare you or kill you. Maybe he’s worried you’ll take some of his money. Maybe he didn’t like the fact that you were nosing around his company and asking questions you shouldn’t have been. Maybe he didn’t like the fact that you went to a shareholders’ meeting to meet him and ended up settling for me instead.” David’s voice rose and his expression turned angry. His words were tripping over themselves, and with so many contradictions in what he was saying now to what he had said before, I knew that he would be of no use. David didn’t want to help me. He wanted to bed me.

“He told you about that?” I bit down on my lower lip. When had David realized that I’d gone to the shareholders’ meeting to meet Mattias?

“Do you think I didn’t know?” David’s lips thinned. “Do you think I couldn’t tell that you were more interested in meeting Mattias than actually dating me?”

“It wasn’t like that, David.” My breath caught. I’d never had any clue that David had been onto me. Not once. He’d hidden his knowledge well. I was starting to wonder what else he’d been hiding.

“It doesn’t matter.” His tone changed as the waiter walked back with our appetizers. “What’s done is done.”

“I didn’t mean to use you.”

“You didn’t though, did you?” His expression changed. “You might be beautiful, Bianca, but your beauty isn’t enough to make me lose my head.”

I started then to realize that maybe David wasn’t as innocent as he had let on. Maybe he’d spoken to Mattias and told him things that had made him kidnap me. Maybe after all this, it was really about the money. Maybe my perfect charade hadn’t been so perfect after all.

“Shall we eat?” He nodded toward the food

My stomach churned. This was the last place I wanted to be right now. I’d made a mistake. Another big mistake. I shouldn’t have come here. Now more than ever, I needed to speak to Larry. David wasn’t going to lead me to Maxwell any more than he’d led me to Mattias. If history was any indicator, David would be on the phone to warn Maxwell that I was trying to find him. I needed to learn to be smarter. I needed to keep my mouth shut. I was wasting precious time and energy with David. Time I should have spent trying to figure out where Larry was. Larry was the man with the key to answers I needed. I’d been making fun of David’s lack of detective skills, but maybe I was the one that was about to fail the academy.

Chapter Five

Dinner ended awkwardly, but I didn’t care. I left the restaurant eagerly¸ but my journey home wasn’t as satisfying as it used to be after a long night out. My home used to be my refuge, my comfort in good times and bad. Now it was just a place to rest my head. Even when all I wanted to do was walk into my apartment and head to my bed, I hesitated. My keys were in the lock, but I didn’t want to turn them. Some part of me was scared to open the door. My body was on edge; the hairs on my arms standing at attention, the voice in the back of my head telling me to go somewhere else. My apartment was no longer the place I could seek solace. It was a place I wanted to hide from. It held too many secrets, had seen too many things. And I didn’t feel safe there anymore. It doesn’t matter how many doors I lock or how many windows I close, I know that someone can still get inside.

My fingers trembled on the keys, their grip tight but unwilling. I took a deep breath and shook my head, annoyed at myself for being so silly. Nothing was going to happen to me. Nothing at all. I opened the door and stepped inside quickly, shutting it behind me. Only two seconds later did I feel the hand on my mouth.

“Be quiet, Bianca,” he whispered in my ear, and I froze, my body relaxing against my will, melting back into him and letting him know how much I’d missed him.

“Jakob?” I said finally as I turned around to face him.

His blue eyes were angry as he stared at me. “Why did you have dinner with David?”

“So much for the pleasantries,” I grumbled. “ ‘How are you, Bianca?’ ‘I’m fine. How are you, Jakob?’ ‘I’ve been better.’ ‘Oh, me too.’ ”

“Stop muttering to yourself.” He grunted, but I could see a hint of a smile on his face.

“What are you doing in my apartment? How did you get in here?” I glared at him. “And is this the first time you’ve been in here?”

“Tell me why you had dinner with David.” He glared back at me and his eyes dropped to my lips. I couldn’t stop myself from taking him in wholly. It hadn’t been so long since I’d last seen him, but it felt like months and months.