From the first, when he’d found her in the park. She had not been pretending then. She hadn’t even known who he was. Had she?
Of course not.
He’d gone back to the first meeting at the school. Aside from what he’d come to acknowledge was a natural attraction between them, she had not seemed happy at the time.
So, why had she done it?
He analyzed their conversations. Separating out things she said, some he now knew had been outright lies, but others that gave him cause to wonder…
She hadn’t been all that good of an actress, really.
Most unsettling was that he’d made love to her. If her intention all along had been to extricate Allison Meadowbrook from their betrothal, then kissing him, and dear God, pleasuring him, inviting and allowing untold intimacies between the two of them, had, in truth, worked against her.
He forced the images away.
Only… there was one particular that he could not dismiss: she’d said she loved him.
Why was he even thinking of this? Loving her back wasn’t possible.
None of it mattered. Not now.
He didn’t even know her, and now he never would.
Still, he wondered where was she now? Standing in a classroom, teaching a group of faceless students?
And then he pictured her that last morning in his study. Staring up at him, begging him for what?
Forgiveness?
Her eyes had been swollen, her cheeks tear-stained.
He’d damn near given in and kissed her, but if he’d done that… He wasn’t sure he would have stopped. He’d wanted to strangle her and kiss her at the same time.
Even now, her expression when he’d pushed her away haunted him.
Yes, she’d lied; she’d betrayed him. But he wasn’t his father, by God.
He didn’t hurt women.
The fact that she’d ruined everything didn’t give him the right to hurt her.
He could hate her all he wanted, but endless time and isolation forced him to reconsider everything. He hadn’t fallen in love with Allison Meadowbrook, but was it possible that he’d fallen in love with her imposter? He pictured her eyes, and her mouth, remembering her laughter—her tears, and everything in between.
She’d not been faking when they were alone together. Not when they’d gone riding or hiking, and most assuredly, not when they’d made love.
Hunt dropped onto his haunches but didn’t sit. The floor was cold. The air was cold. Everything in this stinking place was cold.
He closed his eyes and remembered the sounds she’d made when they’d been alone on Cliff Terrace—her courage when they’d climbed out of the clove—and the connection he’d felt each time his gaze met hers across a crowded room.
Not to mention, the heat of her body when she’d received him. He couldn’t convince himself that she’d feigned all of it. But how much had been real?
She knelt before me. This was the memory that diluted her betrayal. She’d not lied in everything. She, Priscilla, had been there all along.
And that woman had been very real.
The clanking of the door outside his cell interrupted his thoughts. In his first days, each time he’d heard someone entering, his heart had leaped hopefully. Since then, he did his best to ignore it.
The guards performed periodic inspections. On occasion, it was to move one of the other inmates to another part of the prison or to mete out some sort of punishment.
