Disillusioned (Swept Away, #2)(20)

“I’m not trying to be funny, but do you think I would tell you that?” Don’t quit the day job to become a detective. Oh, wait, you don’t have a day job.

“Don’t you trust me, Bianca?”

“Oh yeah, I trust you. I trust you like the Israelites trusted Moses.”

“What?” He frowned. “What does that mean? They trusted him, right?”

“If you don’t know, then you’ll just have to read your Bible.” I gave him a small smile to hide my annoyance. Did I trust him? If he thought that, then he was dumber than he looked. However, I knew that I couldn’t play him by being sarcastic and rude. I had to soften up with him.

“Do you ever think about us?” He leaned forward and grabbed my hands. The light of the candle made a shadow of his face on the wall behind him, and it struck me how calculated everything about him was. And also how dark and mysterious he was. What did I know about David? We’d dated for a few months, but everything had been predicated on my wanting to get closer to his brother. I didn’t know David. And suddenly it struck me that that had been poor detective work on my part. In my haste to get to Mattias, I might inadvertently have missed out on access to more clues and information.

“Us?” I resisted the urge to pull my hands away and squeezed his fingers, letting them entwine with mine. This would make David think I still trusted him because he was obviously the cocky kind of sucker who believed his charm and good looks would win out in every situation. And this would also teach Jakob to spy on me. I looked around casually to see if anyone was paying attention. Who in the room was passing information on to Jakob?

“You know, you and me and when we dated.” He grinned boyishly and his eyes darkened as he studied my face and the top of my chest. “I’m so sorry that I cheated on you. It wasn’t because I didn’t like you, but I had needs and, well, I wasn’t strong enough to say no.”

“It’s fine, you did what you had to do.” And sticking your dick in another girl was what you thought you had to do. And I’m cool with that because I’m not sure I could look myself in the mirror knowing I slept with you.

“It’s you I think about, though,” he whispered. “When I’m in bed with another girl, it’s your face I see. It’s you I want to be with. It’s you I’m entering and making come. It’s you calling out my name.”

That’s not creepy at all, David. “I see.” I licked my lips nervously. Did he seriously think that would make me feel better? Hey, Bianca, yeah, I cheated on you, but I was thinking about you every single time. Let’s go back to my place now and make up for lost time.

“I can still remember your taste.” He sucked on his lower lip and stared at me. “So sweet and—”

I’m going to throw up. “We don’t need to talk about this.” My face reddened as I thought about the nights we’d spent together. A part of me felt icky knowing that I’d done physical things with both him and his brother. I didn’t want to analyze it too closely. It wasn’t as if I’d known they were related, and at least I hadn’t had sex with David. That would have upped the creepy factor 10 percent at least.

“I guess I’m confused, then.” He pulled his hands back and frowned. “Why are we here?”

“What do you mean, why are we here?” Don’t get annoyed, Bianca. You know he’s not Sherlock or Watson or even Harriet the Spy’s kid brother.

“Why did you call me, Bianca? Why did you want to meet?” He looked annoyed. “I thought it was because you’d realized you made a mistake.”

As if. “That I’d made a mistake?” My jaw dropped. “You think I called you because I wanted to have sex with you?”

“Yes, no, not just that, obviously. I know you need support over what happened to you, but I don’t have any answers for you, Bianca. I don’t know why Mattias kidnapped you. I don’t know why he let you loose. I don’t know why he had Steve on the island with you. Maybe he wanted to scare you or kill you. Maybe he’s worried you’ll take some of his money. Maybe he didn’t like the fact that you were nosing around his company and asking questions you shouldn’t have been. Maybe he didn’t like the fact that you went to a shareholders’ meeting to meet him and ended up settling for me instead.” David’s voice rose and his expression turned angry. His words were tripping over themselves, and with so many contradictions in what he was saying now to what he had said before, I knew that he would be of no use. David didn’t want to help me. He wanted to bed me.

“He told you about that?” I bit down on my lower lip. When had David realized that I’d gone to the shareholders’ meeting to meet Mattias?

“Do you think I didn’t know?” David’s lips thinned. “Do you think I couldn’t tell that you were more interested in meeting Mattias than actually dating me?”

“It wasn’t like that, David.” My breath caught. I’d never had any clue that David had been onto me. Not once. He’d hidden his knowledge well. I was starting to wonder what else he’d been hiding.

“It doesn’t matter.” His tone changed as the waiter walked back with our appetizers. “What’s done is done.”

“I didn’t mean to use you.”