Terrance stopped halfway out the door and grinned at her. "Be nice, girlfriend. This one's a keeper."
"Out," Phil growled.
"Oooh." Terrance shivered. "Me Tarzan, you Phil." He ran out.
Phil shut the door. "Now we can talk."
Vanda glared at him. "I'm not talking to you. You're acting like a caveman."
"I suppose you prefer those pretty little boys who are easy to control. Easier to control than your own anger—"
"My anger's just fine!" She grabbed Peter's costume off the desk and threw it at him. "Get out!"
He caught the thong with one hand and turned it over as he examined it. "Thank you, Vanda. It's just my size."
She snorted. "A man would have to be aroused to fill that up."
He lifted his gaze to meet hers. "Not a problem."
Her gaze flitted down to his pants, then jerked away. "What—Why did you come here?"
He walked toward her. "You left Romatech in a hurry. We were in the middle of a conversation."
Her eyes darkened to a stormy gray. "The conversation was over."
"You left your car behind."
"Like I had any choice! That damned Connor confiscated my keys." She blinked when Phil jingled the keys in the air. "You—You brought my car?"
"Yes. It's parked across the street."
"Oh. Thank you." She skirted the desk and approached him. "That was very kind of you," she grumbled.
"You're welcome." He dropped the keys into her outstretched hand. "Now, about my sponsorship…"
Her hand fisted around the keys. "There is no sponsorship. You can't force me to take anger management."
"I believe we can. It was the court's decision. If you want the lawsuits against you dropped, then you have to comply."
She tossed the keys on the desk. "Do I look like the kind of person who complies? Only cowards and trained monkeys comply. I'm a free spirit. Nobody's going to tell me what to do."
Phil couldn't help but smile. Vanda's words were almost identical to the speech he'd given his father nine years ago before he'd stormed out of Montana. "Then what do you plan to do about your anger problem?"
"I don't have an anger problem!" she yelled. With a groan, she pressed a hand to her forehead. "Why won't people stop trying to force me to do things against my will?"
"Believe me, I understand." Phil's father had tried to force him into a preplanned life. At the age of eighteen, he hadn't possessed the maturity or strength to fight his father. He'd simply left. Then his father had banished him from the pack. "Things don't always go the way we want them to. And it's very frustrating when there's nothing you can do to change it."
Vanda frowned at him. "Are you sympathizing with me just to get me to agree to the program?"
"I'm saying if you want to talk, I'll listen."
Her face grew pale and she tightened the whip around her waist with a jerky motion. "Why should I believe you care? You haven't bothered to see me in three years."
She'd counted the years? Phil swallowed hard. What if he'd misinterpreted things? He'd felt sure that Vanda had considered him nothing more than a toy to relieve her boredom. Good God, what if she had genuinely cared about him? No, this had to be more of her fun and games. "I didn't realize you wanted to see me."
Her eyes narrowed. "What do you need, an engraved invitation?"
"You opened a male strip club, Vanda. You're surrounded every night with available men. Nearly naked, vampire men." He tossed the costume onto her desk. "I really didn't think you were lacking for companionship."
She lifted her chin. "I get all the companionship I need."
He gritted his teeth. "Good."
"Excuse me for thinking you might want to keep in touch. I had thought we were friends."
"We were never friends."
She gasped. "How can you say that? We…we talked."
"You taunted me."
She stiffened. "I was nice to you."
He stepped toward her. "You were bored, and you tormented me for the fun of it."
"Don't be silly. It was just a little harmless flirtation."
"It was sheer torture." He advanced another step. "I hated it. Every time you touched me, I wanted to rip your little catsuit off and make you purr."
Her mouth dropped open, then shut suddenly with a snap. Her cheeks flushed. "Then why didn't you? Why did you let a stupid rule stop you? Ian didn't let anything stop him from going after Toni."
He grabbed Vanda by the shoulders so quickly, she gasped. "I would have taken you in a second if I had thought you actually wanted it."
Her cheeks grew a deeper red. "How would you know what I really want?"
He leaned close. "I was on to you from the start. You're a tease. You like to get a man hard, then leave him panting. You enjoyed watching me suffer."
"That's not true. I–I really liked you." She winced as if she'd admitted more than she had wanted to.
He brushed his nose across her cheek and whispered in her ear, "Prove it."
She trembled in his arms. He could feel her breath coming in quick puffs against his skin.
He moved his mouth closer to hers. "Show me."
With a small cry, she turned her head away from him.
Shit. He had been right all along. He'd been nothing but a game to her. He dropped his hands from her shoulders. "Admit it. You flirted with me because you were bored and I was safe. I desperately needed the job, so I was going to follow the rules no matter how much you tortured me."
She pressed a hand to her forehead. "I–I didn't mean…"
"To make me ache for you? Tell me, Vanda, did you ever feel anything? Did you really care about me, or were you just being a cold-blooded bitch?"
With a gasp, she pulled her hand back and slapped him. "Get out!"
He rubbed his jaw and smiled. "I guess you're not too cold-blooded."
She pointed at the door. "Leave!"
He considered taunting her some more. God knew she deserved it after torturing him for five long years. But he noticed her hand was trembling and her eyes glimmered with unshed tears.
Now he felt like a dog. He'd only wanted to turn the tables on her and give her a taste of her own "harmless flirtation." He hadn't meant to hurt her.
He trudged toward the door, where he paused with his hand on the doorknob. "You've always intrigued me, Vanda. From the moment I met you. I could never figure out why a free-spirited woman would confine herself to a harem. What were you hiding from? And why would a rebellious, beautiful woman flirt with the one man she considered safe?"
She folded her arms and gave him a wary look. "So now you want to analyze me, Doctor Phil?"
He smiled slowly. "I want to do a lot of things to you, Vanda. You see, with me, you made one big mistake. I was never safe."
Vanda stood alone in her office, blinking back tears. Dammit, she wouldn't cry. She was tough. But she'd made Phil suffer. She'd never intended to do that. How could a little harmless fun go so wrong?
She circled the desk and collapsed in her chair. He'd seen right through her. He'd known she was bored out of her skull. When she'd first joined the harem in 1948, she'd welcomed the peace and serenity. But over time, boredom had set in, and she'd been desperate for a diversion.
Poor Phil had seemed safe. It was against the rules for him to fraternize with her. He'd made it clear from the start that he would honor the rules.
And she'd tortured him.
She bent her head and rested it on her hands. The coffin tucked away in the shadows of her mind slowly creaked open. Mental pictures floated out.
Mama, who had died in 1935 when Vanda was eighteen.
Frieda, her youngest sister, who died four years later when they fled from the Nazis. Frieda, with her chestnut curls and big blue eyes.