“Anything. Anything at all.” She crossed to a chair near the desk and sat down. “I haven’t got over my fright yet. I — you — well, you can’t expect me to be calm after finding myself in bed with a perfect stranger.” Her lips trembled and her hands were clenched together tightly in her lap.
Shayne’s brows quirked upward, and his gray eyes were wary. He padded to the desk holding a bottle of Croizet, gave her a crooked smile, and said, “It must have been quite disconcerting, if you’re telling the truth.” He began pouring cognac into her glass, and added, “Say when.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw her stiffen.
“What do you mean?” she flared. “Of course it’s the truth. Do you think I intended to go to bed with you?” Her glass was full to the brim. He filled his own glass and said amiably, “It would be a flattering assumption. I confess no woman has ever been so smitten with my charms that she forced entrance to my bedroom, but I can be optimistic, can’t I? If I hadn’t opened my big mouth so fast there in the beginning, maybe—”
“You — you beast!”
Shayne lifted his glass, held one out to her, and said, “Skip it. Let’s drink to what might have happened.”
A flush spread over her cheeks and she lowered her eyes as she took the glass in a trembling hand. “I’d have known,” she stated flatly. “Before you spoke a word, I sensed it wasn’t Ralph. But I kept telling myself it had to be. Don’t you see? Even when you said ‘Hi’ in a voice that sounded strange, I was so sure in my own mind—”
“Your drink,” Shayne interrupted. “It’s spilling. Suppose we drink to your husband. Then,” he went on firmly, “you can start at the beginning and tell me how you came to mistake my apartment for his.”
She took a drink, sputtered and coughed, reached quickly for the ice water, and gulped a mouthful. She regained her composure after a moment. The cognac seemed to ease her tense muscles. “I don’t know,” she murmured, “just where to start, because I still don’t understand. I was definitely told apartment one-sixteen. And the key fitted. Everything here is just the way I expected it to be — the kitchen door there, the bathroom, and bedroom.” She looked around with, wide, wondering eyes.
“Someone told you that your husband would be asleep here tonight?” Shayne asked patiently. “Someone gave you a key to my apartment so you could slip in? Why? I don’t know anyone who’d play a trick like that. Was your husband supposed to be expecting you?”
“Oh, no,” she answered hastily. “He didn’t know. That was the whole thing, don’t you see?” She took a small sip of cognac, and set the glass on the desk. “That’s why I undressed so quietly in here. I didn’t dare turn on a light for fear of wakening him. I knew that if I could just, you know, get in bed with him before he knew I was there, he’d have to—” She paused, her face crimson. “Can’t you see I had to do it?” she burst out. “Because I know he still loves me. It’s just his crazy pride. I had to have a chance to break it down, and show him that nothing is really different — that he’s still my husband, and I’m still his wife. You do understand, don’t you?” she ended, leaning tensely toward him.