When she’d first seen him, she stood at the top of the stairs for several moments, gazing at him with her heart in her eyes, scarcely hearing the conversation going on below.

He was devastating in any century. Even when she’d thought him mentally unhinged, she’d found him dangerously appealing. In his natural element, he was twenty times as irresistible. Now that she knew he was a genuine sixteenth-century lord, she wondered how she could have ever believed otherwise. He dripped regal authority as blatantly as he wore his sexuality. He was a man who thoroughly enjoyed being a man.

Ecstatic that he was alive and well and that she’d arrived in time to save him, she’d rushed down the stairs. Then Drustan’s father, Silvan, the man she’d mistaken for Einstein, had mentioned something about her being pregnant, flummoxing her. Confronted with a possible pregnancy before even latching her lips to the rim of a cup of Starbucks, she’d stood, stupefied.

It’s not enough just to buy condoms, Cassidy; you have to use them.

And then Drustan had tossed his silky mane over his shoulder and looked right at her, and although his eyes had flared as if he’d found her attractive, there had been no spark of recognition.

She’d expected it.

She’d known he wouldn’t know her. Still, her heart had not understood how awful it was going to feel when he turned that silvery, sexy gaze on her, as distant and cold as a stranger.

Rational or not, it had hurt, and then he’d made that wise-ass comment about women vying for the pleasure of his bed.

Then, as if he hadn’t poked every one of her raw nerves already, he’d turned his back on her, dismissing her.

It was at that point that she’d reacted blindly. She’d blurted out the one thing she knew would make him turn back around and look at her again. She’d sacrificed long-term goals for instant gratification.

She was appalled by what she’d done. It was no wonder her mother had so stridently counseled against being emotional. Emotion apparently made fools of even geniuses.

She needed him to listen to her, and he wasn’t going to be in any mood to hear her now. By telling him they’d been lovers before telling him the whole story, she’d irritated and provoked him.

“Let me in.” She pounded on the door. “I need to tell you the whole story.” But they were still arguing so loudly that she might as well have been whispering.

Brushing leaves from her gown, she rose to her feet. She scowled at the door. Since no one would answer and the argument showed no signs of abating, she tipped her head back, eager to see the castle in daylight, but she was too close to it. She felt like a flea trying to get a good look at an elephant while perched upon its forehead. Curious, she decided she may as well take a short walk.

Tucking her bangs behind her ear, she turned around.

And froze.

Her heart slammed into her throat. Impossible, her mind wailed.

But there he was, plain as day. Sinfully, heart-stop-pingly sexy Drustan.

Sauntering up the steps toward her, clad in leather trews and a linen shirt, casually unlaced, revealing a mouth-watering amount of hard, bronzed chest. Although the brilliant morning sun was behind him, shadowing his features, his smile was dazzling.

Yet, behind her in the castle, Drustan was yelling. She could hear him.

According to her understanding of physics, both of them couldn’t exist at the same time. But obviously they did. What would happen if they met? Would one of them just blip out of existence?

If Drustan-behind-the-door was the one that didn’t know her, she reasoned, then Drustan-on-the-steps who looked so happy to see her must be her Drustan.

What was she going to do with two Drustans?

A kinky part of her proposed something unmentionable…and rather fascinating. Really, if they were both him, it wouldn’t be like she was cheating on anyone.

Blushing, she ogled him from head to toe. Her Drustan didn’t scowl at her. He arched a brow in that oh-so-familiar way of his and grinned, opening his arms wide.

She didn’t hesitate.

With a shriek of delight, she launched herself at him. He caught her midleap and pulled her legs around his waist, just like in her century.

He laughed when she covered his face with little kisses. She had no idea what she would do with two of them, or how it could be possible, she knew only that she’d missed him more in the past twelve hours than she’d ever missed anyone in her entire life. “Kiss me,” she said.

“Och, English, I’ll be kissing you most thoroughly,” he purred against her lips. Clamping her head between his hands, he slanted his mouth hungrily over hers.