The room was chilly. She wrapped her arms around herself. Already the magic she and Liam had created was fading, bowing to reality. Was this what other women had to deal with… this clutching terror, this unfathomable sadness?
Those hypothetical other women had choices she didn’t have. Because sometime in the near future, once a few remaining complicated matters were cleared up, she wouldn’t be needed here any longer. Her task would be complete.
She could go home. Back to the place she belonged, just as Liam belonged here.
Damn it. She wouldn’t feel sorry for herself. She’d gone into this with her eyes wide open. So had Liam.
The gulf of a hundred years separated them, and that was the least of the barriers between them. She’d done the best she could to foul things up for Liam. He could never accept the full truth of her reasons, intellectually or emotionally. His future would always be her past.
But there was now. She could make the most of now. Liam had stamina—a heroic amount of it, and the night was still young. For an egocentric scoundrel he was a surprisingly considerate lover.
If it were only sex she’d have nothing to regret.
She started back toward the bed, slipping the chemise from her shoulders. She would wake Liam in the best way she knew how, and do a little more forgetting in his arms…
But she found him staring at the rosette on the ceiling, the bedsheets tangled around his hips.
“You’re awake,” she said awkwardly.
“Always the keen observer.” He stretched, a flex and crack of muscles that Mac watched with fascination. Yes, where he was concerned she was a very keen observer. Not that she wanted to be too obvious about it.
She sat down on the opposite edge of the bed, unexpectedly shy. He resumed his rapt study of the ceiling fixture.
“I’ve been thinking, Mac,” he said.
She pulled her muslin wrapper over herself like a blanket. “Oh?”
“Yes. About what’s to be done with you after I deal with Perry.”
“Deal with Perry,” she echoed warily.
“I want you out of the way, where you can’t be hurt. I’ve already made certain that he can’t get anywhere near Caroline. But you…” He rolled onto his side and propped himself on his elbow, frowning. “You’ll have to leave town, Mac.”
“While you kill Perry?”
He flinched almost imperceptibly, and that gave her hope. “You know I can’t let him go,” he said.
His words effectively banished any hope of renewing their physical communion. The atmosphere in the room distinctly favored war, not love.
“You can’t do it, Liam,” she said, holding his gaze.
He sat up against the headboard and folded his arms across his chest. “Did you think that because I slept with you I’d be taking your orders?”
“No. But I had hoped maybe…” She twisted a handful of sheet in her fingers. “I thought you might finally be willing to consider me a friend.”
His silence made the laugh that followed all the more cutting. “A friend? That’s a conversation we’ve had before. I’ve a much better use in mind for you.”
” ‘Use’ is the operative term, isn’t it?” she said bleakly.
He wasn’t angry. To the contrary, he had become absorbed in studying her anatomy. “I think you enjoyed my use of you. As I enjoyed yours of me.”
She couldn’t deny it, or the way her body responded to the growing heat in his stare. Her long hesitation must have encouraged him. He reached across the bed for her, almost lazily, so sure of himself and his sensual power.
“Come, darlin’,” he said. “It’s not a fight I’m after. You’re not my enemy.”
She let go of the sheet and slid off the bed and out of his reach. “That’s reassuring. I’m not your friend and I’m not your enemy. What does that make me, Liam?”
For a time he lay stretched across the bed, unmoving, as if he were giving her question due consideration. “It makes you a woman. Isn’t that enough for you?”
“Not by your definition.” She fought her anger even as she felt it filling the places in her heart that were so easily hurt by his scorn.