Secret: My Roommate is a billionaire!!!

Maybe look for a new job, too. Despite what she told everyone else, she wasn't sure she could return to Toronto, knowing she might run into Noah---even though the city had a population of two and a half million so the likelihood was pretty slim.

Otto raised a finger in the air to stop her from yelling. He glanced about the shadowy living room, his eyes roaming toward the dark kitchen behind him. "I have a proposal."

Iva put a hand on her hip and arched one eyebrow.

His eyes flickered over her hip and then away. "I'm going to suggest that we share the house. It's big enough for both of us. There's a guest room downstairs including its own en-suite bath."

"I already claimed and unpacked in the master suite," Iva interjected.

And you shall have the master suite!" he said, his voice rising like a television announcer. He picked up his suitcase that Iva hadn't noticed sitting near the front picture window, hidden in the folds of the thick draperies.

Iva gulped. He was truly going to stay here. Here. In this very house. With her. "You're kidding," she whispered.

He gave her a smile. "I'll take the downstairs and you can have the upstairs. Evenly split."

"What about the kitchen? I have food in the fridge and cupboards already. I need to eat." Iva thought about the five pounds she'd gained in the past five days of grief binge-eating. Maybe she should actually halt inhaling so many meals for awhile.

"And you shall have kitchen privileges," he added.

"So generous, aren't you, Mr. Otto?" Iva retorted with a huge dose of sarcasm.

"Done, then. And please call me Otto, not Mr. Otto."

"But isn't your surname actually De-Peyster?" Iva asked sweetly.

He grimaced. "A name I've been straddled with my entire life. My great-grandfather's mother had an attachment to that name, but I do not. While I'm here I'm Otto Bergmann."

Iva's eyes narrowed. "Bergmann? So creative. Where did that come from? Britney said you wanted to be incognito this summer, but a pseudonym of Bergmann portends nefarious activities. Believe me, I

shall endeavor to learn why."

He gave her a grin. "And I'm sure you shall Miss Remington."

Holding her head high, Iva ascended the staircase, one hand gripping the banister. Despite her grungy clothes and tangled hair, the last exchange with Cillian Otto De-Peyster/Otto Bergmann reminded her of a conversation out of a Jane Austen novel.

Once inside her room, she firmly locked the door. "What have I done?" Iva muttered after she pulled a clean nightgown over her head and slipped between clean sheets. "I'm sharing a house with a man I thought was a rapist an hour ago."

Quickly, she threw back the covers and stomped over to the door, double checking that it was locked. Then she took one of the replica Victorian chairs with scrolled filigree encased in a rich maroon velvet and stuck it firmly under the door handle. "There, Mr. Otto Bergmann. You can go jump off the Alex Fraser Bridge for all I Care."