Page 104 of Modern Romance June 2025 1-4

Even as I say it, I realize how foolish it is. He doesn’t even need to aim that smile at me.

After all, if he is prepared to assume an identity not his own, how shocking can it really be that he intends to rifle through everything he finds, private or not?

“I will have to have a word with Tess,” I say coolly.

“What will you instruct her?” he asks, as if this is a matter of great interest to him. “You will perhaps tell her not to obey…her boss? The name on all her pay stubs? What reason will you give for such an extraordinary instruction?”

There is nothing to say to that, so I do not attempt it.

He only nods, as if he expects nothing else. As if that is close enough to obedience. “There is a charity event tonight, is there not? The sort of place, I imagine, that people in our line of work can easily pick up new clients. New clients with deep pockets to fund ongoing retainers, yes?”

There is a particularly challenging sort of gleam in his gaze, now. I feel vulnerable and naked about all of this. I don’t want him to see the vulnerability and I certainly don’t intend to use the wordnakedin his presence. But in all these years, no one has strayed close to the truth. No one has even questioned it, not really. At most, clients might question what they consider my gatekeeping of the great man himself. Luckily, in today’s world of technology, it is not so difficult to send people on endless loops without ever getting anywhere.

And without ever having to meet the people we’re speaking to.

I can’t say I like the fact that someone called my bluff. Yet what Ireallydon’t like is feeling as if this man has peeled me open. As a child I learned that any hint of the real me was a weapon used to hurt me. Any whisper of my real feelings an invitation to attack me. I’ve made certain never to let anyone in, ever. No one gets to see inside. Not ever.

That this man even knows the way I operate at charity events in New York City that I know he has never attended with me makes me feel things I vowed I would never feel again.

I don’t like any of it.

It’s one thing to slide in and take over the role of a fictional person, surely. That’s a con man move, there’s no doubt about it, but it’s not…this. It feels as if he’s trying to get inside me, too, and I really, truly don’t like it.

I tell myself I don’t like it, again and again, because it seems as if that flush on my face has found its way inside, winding its way down deep.

I don’t likethat,either.

“What I do or don’t do to drum up clients for this firm could not be less your business,” I tell him. “And are you going to tell me your name?”

His gaze heats a bit as he regards me. And I do too, in a response I can’t seem to control—and worse, I think he knows it. “You know my name. Feel free to use it.”

I don’t want to. Everything in me revolts at the very idea, but then again, as he keeps pointing out, I don’t have a lot of options.

Or really any options.

It occurs to me then, as it must surely have already occurred to him, that if he really wanted to he could fire me from my own firm.

I’m not sure why that didn’t occur to me immediately. But now it’s all I can think about.

“It seems to me that it is exactly the sort of event at which I should make my first appearance in New York,” he is saying, sounding perfectly unconcerned, as if he’s wholly unaware of the riot going on inside me. And if it were any other man, I might think he really didn’t know. Or care.

And I can’t say that I think hecares.But I feel certain that he knows.

That in some way, it’s deliberate.

It’s that thought that gets through the haze.

If it’s deliberate, then it means that he wants me unsettled and chaotic and veering from disbelief to temper and back again. And that’s good information to have. Because that means what he wants is to direct my attention elsewhere. He wants me to be constantly on the wrong foot, worrying about what next bomb will drop.

You’re actually good at this,I remind myself.If he wants to be a mystery, well, let him. Mysteries are what you do.

So I smile at him. And I must get it close enough to my usual level of professionalism, because his head tips back slightly. I’ve surprised him, and this, I like. I like it a lot.

“I disagree,” I tell him with a shrug. “It’s a tiny little charity event, all things considered. Local to New York and really more of a trade thing, despite the fancy dresses and wildly expensive tables. I can’t think of a single reason why the great Luc Garnier would grace it with his presence.” And I lift a hand when he looks as if he’s going to speak. “No need to get yourself in a lather. I’m not saying that the idea is a bad one, I’m saying the event isn’t worthy of hard launching Luc Garnier in the flesh to the world.”

“First,” he says with a certain silken menace that I feel all over me like a shivery weight, “you can be certain that I’m neverin a lather,whatever that might mean. Second, it would surely seem like a stroke of eccentricity, which seems to be the hallmark of the man.” He inclines his head at that, as if anticipating my next words. “Me, I mean.”

I take the opportunity to study him, now. I take a breath, as deep as I can manage. Then I let it out slowly.

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