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Everything is dark and cold—except his eyes.
At first his expression is as forbidding as the rest of him, but then, as he takes in my bare feet, his white shirt hitting my thighs, and his trench coat cinched around my waist, his gaze turns less icy and more ... heated.
It’s a quick change, like a block of ice unexpectedly bursting into flames. For a moment I stop breathing. It’s too difficult to pull in a breath with Max watching me as if he’s imagining stripping me out of his shirt, pushing me down to the thick wool carpet, and thrusting inside of me, quick and hard.
His cheeks turn red, his pupils dilate, the black swallowing the brown, and his chest expands in a rapid rise and fall. A prickly, electric awareness trips over my nerves and I’m caught in the dark deeds flashing through his eyes.
Max may dislike me in this reality, but he also wants me. He sees me and he wants me. His lips part. There’s a faraway look in his eyes and a needy tension in his shoulders that makes a long, delicious clench roll through me.
The awareness—the overwhelming, burning heat—nearly scorches my lungs as I draw in a slow, shaky breath. I think I have about a fifty-fifty chance of Max and I making love in the next fifteen seconds.
I take another look at his expression. Make that ninety-ten.
I have to admit, my body sways toward him. My skin is electrified from the inside out, and all I want to do is step forward and press my lips to his.
Would he mind it?
Would he welcome it?
That’s what my body is scrambling for, rushing over itself in a gurgling stream. But my heart? That’s telling me none of this is real, and even if it appears that Max wants me and loves me, he doesn’t really.
Still, he’s the only person in this world who can help me. And by helping me, he’ll help himself. In no time at all he can go back to who he was. A man who thought I was a thief and a liar. And who never, ever looked at me like he wanted to bend me over and make love to me like his life depended on it.
And that’s what I want, isn’t it? Max the way he was. My mom and sister back in Geneva. Dorene remembering me.
Right?
So I slowly step forward, lifting my hand toward him. I ignore the tingles running over my skin and the full ache rising in my core, and I say, “Max?”
What does he think of me? What will he say?
His attention snaps to my face and his eyes lose that soft-focus, burning heat.
Then he asks the one thing I didn’t anticipate.
“Who are you?”
His voice is cold and hard-edged. I flinch and drop my hand.
Who am I?
All that tingly warmth and glowy heat vanishes in a flash of cold. I snap back to the dark interior of the office, the cold draft running over my bare skin, and the oppressive smell of tobacco.
Max doesn’t recognize me?
He doesn’t know me?
Every single person in this world recognizes me as Mrs. Barone.
Does that mean he’s the only one who wasn’t affected by this wish?
I narrow my eyes on his hard, accusing gaze. Even if he wasn’t affected, he’s seen me cleaning his house for the past three years. He kicked me out of his home and threatened me with the police less than twenty-four hours ago.
Who am I?
“Well?” he asks.
Yes, all that soft, spreading warmth is definitely gone. I take another step forward and tilt my chin, lifting my face to the one dim stream of sunlight that found its way through the heavily curtained window. Perhaps he can’t see me well because this room is oppressively dark. Or maybe in this reality he’s terribly near-sighted and he forgot his glasses today.
