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“Have you done with the sartorial critiques?” My voice dripped with sarcasm.

His jaw clenched and he narrowed his eyes. “You have a lot on show, Beauchamp.”

“And your point is?” I put my hands on my hips.

“My point is… My point—” He ran his hands through his tousled hair but was lost for words. “Fine,” he spat finally, his voice still laced with disapproval.

“Don’t police what I’m wearing!” I glared at him. If he wanted a fight, I was ready.

“Hold your horses, Beauchamp.” He held his hand up in submission and gave me a half smile. “I’m sorry. You look lovely.”

Ignoring his sweet comment, I exhaled and decided to change the subject. “What else did you pick up from Webster, if anything?”

Tristan’s demeanor changed in a moment as he pursed his lips in distaste. “He’s pissed off that he’s taken so long to come back here. He was stuck in Spain working as a dogsbody for a small-time gangster. He’s been keeping a low profile so as not to get caught. And whatever’s in the house… he’s worried someone else will come for it or they already have.”

“Annoying that he didn’t think where exactly it might be… or what was in the shoebox,” I said.

“I suspect he’s forgotten where it is and he’s relying on getting into this room to see if he can remember. Though that’s just my assumption,” Tristan muttered.

I looked around the room. Where could one hide something for so long?

“Whatever it is, it can’t be very big,” I murmured. “Perhaps it’s under the floorboards.”

Tristan shrugged. “I’ll take another look.” And he disappeared.

Whoa!

He reappeared almost instantly, standing directly in front of me, startling me so that I stumbled back. He reached out and caught me before I fell, surprising us both. He dropped his hands as if I’d burned him.

“What the—” he murmured.

“How did you do that?” I said, sounding breathless as the shock of his cool touch raced through my body, waking everything in its path.

“I don’t know.” His eyes were wide and incredulous. “I didn’t think about it. It was instinct—to stop you falling. There’s nothing under the floorboards.”

His eyes blazed, wild and bewildered.

Butterflies filled my stomach and my heart rate climbed.

“Hold out your hand,” he murmured.

I did, palm up, my heart in my mouth. Tentatively, he reached out to touch me, but he couldn’t. His fingers slipped through mine and I felt nothing. His gaze flicked to mine, bemused and regretful.

“Well, it was a nice thought,” he said.

“We’ll have to save it for my dreams.”

“Yeah,” he huffed.

“Weird that you could touch me just now.”

“Yeah. Probably because I didn’t think about it.” He shrugged, but I saw the sadness behind his nonchalance and I pursed my lips, sad that he was sad.

“Oh, Emily, what I wouldn’t give to be alive,” he whispered, his look intense. He raked his hand through his hair and stepped away from me, walking to the window.

I closed my eyes once more in an effort to recover my equilibrium and calm the hell down. I hadn’t thought that maybe he might regret knowing me as I reminded him of all that he’d lost. The thought was depressing.

The doorbell rang, distracting me, and I wondered who it might be.