Forbidden Stranger Read online

  He sighed. “That’s not true.”

  “You told me we shouldn’t do this. You made it really clear that you thought it was a bad idea. What changed your mind?” Her voice wasn’t sultry or seductive. She sounded genuinely curious.

  “What difference does it make?” The words came out clipped.

  Nina’s mouth thinned. She got off his lap. “You’re right. It doesn’t make any difference. I’m going to get some fresh air.”

  Ewan didn’t try to call her back. He leaned into the couch cushions, eyes closed, feeling his arousal dimming. It took a few selfish, self-involved minutes to get himself under control, but then he was up and off the couch and ready to head outside after Nina. Not to stop her, but to be there in case something happened.

  The ping from his personal comm gave him pause. When he saw that it was Zulik, he took the call. The doc’s face swam into view, then went fuzzy. Cleared, then blurred again.

  “ . . . canceled . . .”

  Frustrated, Ewan wanted to shake the device in his hand, not that it would do any good. “What?”

  “The weather,” Zulik said. “What’s going on over there?”

  “Rain. Storms. Why?” Frowning, Ewan went to the front door to look out the side window. No sign of Nina.

  “You haven’t been paying any attention to the outside world at all, have you?”

  Ewan looked at the screen. “Not much, no. Why?”

  “Three category seven hurricanes, two earthquakes, and a tsunami,” Zulik told him.

  No wonder the weather on the island had been so bad. Ewan grimaced. “I didn’t know.”

  “I won’t be able to get to you tomorrow, obviously. Even your private airtranspo won’t be allowed to travel through the path of a hurricane, no matter if I could get to where it launches from. Sorry, Donahue.” Zulik paused. “How’s everything with Nina?”

  “No problems.” Ewan moved toward the kitchen to look out the back window into the garden.

  “Where is she?”

  Ewan didn’t look at the screen. No sign of her out back. “She went outside to get some exercise. We’ve been cooped up here for the past couple days.”

  “You let her go out there alone?” Zulik demanded.

  Ewan shot the other man a dark look. “You don’t ‘let’ Nina Bronson do anything.”

  “You’ve been warned, repeatedly, about what could happen—”

  “I get it, all right?” Ewan snapped. “We can’t nudge her memories, we can’t simply tell her the truth about what happened, because she might have a catastrophic mental failure. I get it, Zulik! You think I don’t want the best for her? You think I’m not fucking terrified that something’s going to go wrong and I won’t be able to help her?”

  “I know you care,” Zulik began, but the screen fuzzed out again. “ . . . Two more enhanced.”

  “What?”

  “Two more soldiers have died,” Zulik said.

  “Suicide?”

  That was it. Zulik disappeared. Ewan swiped at the screen, but that’s all there was, static and then darkness. Outside, thunder boomed. He opened the back door to find the rain still hurtling from the sky. A flash of lightning lit everything with the starkness of a photo flash.

  Across the garden, he saw her.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  She wouldn’t sleep with him again. That should be easy enough, right? She didn’t have to give in to every impulse she had. She could resist. It was only sex.

  Wasn’t it?

  Disgruntled with herself for caring so onedamned much and at Ewan for being exactly the sort of dick he’d promised he wasn’t going to be, Nina kept up the pattern of stretches and positions she’d been working on. She didn’t care where she’d learned them or how long she’d known them. This felt like her normal, and she needed that. Desperately.

  The rain had already soaked her to the skin, but other than having to push her hair out of her eyes, she didn’t mind. The chill was a relief, something to focus on as her body warmed through the exercises. She breathed. Moved. This wasn’t a cardio workout, but it did work up a sweat.

  The ground had turned to sandy, gritty mud. It covered her shoes. They’d be ruined. Nina didn’t care. She had to do this. Working her body was a comfort. The wind, the rain, the cold, didn’t stop her.

  Lightning could, though.

  When a fresh crack of blue-white light forked the sky, Nina jumped and muttered a low curse at having to go back inside. She wasn’t dumb enough to tempt electrocution. She finished the set she’d been doing and swiped water from her eyes.

  Across the garden, she could see the back door standing open. Ewan’s silhouette inside gave her pause. She wasn’t sure she was angry with him. After all, she’d been the one to make sure he understood she was fine with this being a rumpy pumpy sort of weekend and nothing more. She had no business getting bent out of shape when he insinuated that he was in agreement.

  What difference did it make, she asked herself, why he’d changed his mind?

  “Shit,” Nina said out loud, into the rain. “Shitdamnpissfucktits.”

  The curse she and Al had used frequently slipped out of her, and she wanted to laugh because it was ridiculous. All of this. It couldn’t be true.

  She loved Ewan Donahue.

  How had that happened to her? Love? For what reason?

  Because he was kind. Funny. Smart. Generous. Sexy.

  Untrustworthy.

  Nina took a step toward the house. Lightning again lit the sky, followed by a crash of thunder. The rain came down so hard it slanted sideways, stinging her exposed skin.

  She was in love with Ewan Donahue, but who the hell was Al?

  * * *

  Running.

  Nina and Al are running along a path alongside the water. It rushes, leaves caught in the current, bumping along over rocks they use to leap across. Path on the other side, soft and easy on the knees as they push their bodies.

  They can talk while they run because even as they exert themselves, they manage each breath. Sweating, hearts thudding, they run and run and run and talk and talk and talk.

  And then, there is a gap in the ground and they jump.

  Land.

  On the other side, they are laughing and running and Al turns to face Nina as she runs backward, all the while they circle each other until again, there is a place to jump and this time the landing is soft as Nina’s ankle twists and she ends up on the ground.

  With Al on top of her.

  Nina shook her head. The rain had not let up, but the lightning had ceased, at least for the moment. If there was any thunder, she couldn’t hear it over the roar of the ocean all around them and the pounding of the rain against the rocks. She tipped her face to the sky, opening her mouth for a gulp of freezing water.

  Who was Al?

  A friend, she thought and moved toward the house and Ewan’s shadow. No. More than a friend. A memory of white-blond hair, ice-green eyes. Soft lips. A lean, muscled embrace.

  She and Al had been more than friends, at least once, but Nina couldn’t remember more than that. For now, she wanted to get inside, out of the weather. She didn’t want to talk to Ewan and held up her hand as she pushed past him, through the kitchen door.

  “No,” she said when he made as though to speak. “Not now.”

  * * *

  Ewan did not try to get Nina to talk to him. She went upstairs, and in minutes he heard her shower running. She’d been using his for the past couple days, and this return to her own space sent a message louder than the thunder outside.

  Before meeting Nina, Ewan hadn’t been the sort of bro to take a lot of responsibility for the fuckups in his relationships. Sure, he’d known he was most of the one at fault. More than one casual girlfriend—and none of them were more than casual—had told him he was hard to get close to. Ewan had believed that love was a construct of emotion, ephemeral and insubstantial. Love was an emotion, and like all emotions, it wasn’t meant to last.