“I was under no illusion you would have given them a holiday so that you could wallow in your grief,” she said, her breathing quick and shallow, betraying her fear when her tone of voice did not.
“I opened my best bottle of champagne that night.”
She shifted, and he had a feeling she was looking directly at him now. Looking him full in the face, when before she had not been. “So did I. Do not think you have a monopoly on despising that man.”
“Probably the last remaining thing we have in common, cara mia.” She stiffened beneath his touch.
“It would not surprise me.”
Her pulse was racing beneath his thumb, and he knew that his own heart was pounding just as hard. He was angry with her. So angry. He wanted to destroy her. Destroy her in the way he had been destroyed by the loss of her. By her betrayal.
But he also wanted her. That protection he had extended to her, the virginity he had preserved, simply so that she could throw it away to another man, so that she could marry another, galled him.
It had been his by rights. And out of some misguided sense of chivalry that he no longer possessed he had not laid claim to it.
“Is your husband here?” he asked.
She hesitated. “No.”
“I believe you and I have unfinished business.” He changed the way he held her, yet again moving his thumb up to her mouth, to trace her plush lips. “Do you not agree?”
He heard a faint sniff, and he imagined her tossing her head back, her expression haughty. He had seen her do it many times before. Years ago. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Charming. But I think you do.” He moved his fingertips to the edge of her mouth, then back down the side of her neck, coming to rest on her pulse. “This feels just as I remember it. I make your blood run faster. This makes me wonder if I still make you wet.”
She gasped, and he waited for a slap across the face that didn’t come.
“I’m frightened,” she said, her voice breathy.
“I don’t believe that. A woman who would dare set foot in London, into a place where you had to know I would be, so soon after her father’s death... Well, I don’t believe she’s afraid of anything. No. I do not believe this is fear, Charlotte.”
“What you believe or don’t believe doesn’t automatically become truth.”
He chuckled. “See, that simply isn’t true. I’m richer than your father ever was. People do my bidding, not because they fear me but because of what I can do for them. What I wish often becomes truth easily enough.”
Five years. Five years since he had touched a woman. Longer since he’d had sex with one. There had been no one else from the moment he’d met her. And he’d held back out of deference to her innocence.
Now it had been five years since he had touched her.
“I can make you want me,” he said.
And he hated that, for the first time in years, he doubted himself. Because as certain as he was of a great many things, he could not be certain that she would want a scarred, blind man in her bed.
“What exactly are you proposing?” she asked, her words cool.
“I’ll make it very clear. I don’t care what you’ve been doing for the past five years. I don’t care that you married Stefan. I don’t care what you do tomorrow, for that matter. I care about tonight. Tonight, I want to make sure we finish what is between us. Tonight. I want you in my bed.”
He jerked back when trembling fingers touched his lower lip. The shock of it immobilized him. It had been so long since he had been touched. So he stood, absolutely still as she traced his lower lip, his upper lip, mimicking what he had just done for her. She traced his jaw, and then moved her fingers featherlight down the side of his neck, where they came to rest on his pulse.
“Unless you’re afraid of me,” she said, “then it appears I still have the same effect on you that I once did.”
He held her chin, keeping her still. “That may be. But one thing has changed. I do not love you, Charlotte. Quite the opposite. If I take you to my bed, you will be giving yourself to a man who hates you. Though, I wonder if that matters? Because it certainly doesn’t matter to me. I find that I want you regardless.”
“One night?” And this time, a slight tremble worked its way into her words.
“Just one,” he responded.
She let out a long, slow breath that echoed in the corridor around them. “Okay. One night.”
CHARLOTTE WAS CRAZY. She supposed that was what years in isolation would do to a person. Not that she had ever been isolated truly. She had made friends wherever she had gone, but it was always on the internal understanding that she wouldn’t be in one place for long. And, of course, she had been unable to share the truth behind her circumstances, no matter how wonderful her new friends had seemed.
It was too dangerous for them. Too dangerous for her.
That always put distance between herself and her friends, no matter how much she wished it wasn’t there.
But her old life—no matter how far she ran from it—always had claws in her. She had spent five years looking over her shoulder. Five years fearing that one day her father’s men, or Stefan’s, would show up at the door of her home, or one of the shops that she worked in. Five years living abroad, traveling from place to place. Hiding.
But now her father was dead. And the last remaining claw stuck deep into her flesh was Rafe. Yes, she had come to London tonight to catch one last glimpse of him before moving on. But perhaps, this was better. Perhaps, this was what she needed.
She had been prepared to give him her virginity five years ago. He was the man she had meant for it. Perhaps, it was fate. No matter what the ensuing years had brought.
Yes, Rafe had hurt her. His abandonment had wounded her deeply. But, in the end, there would have been nothing he could have done for her. And she could not have gone back to him while her father lived.
If her father had known where she was, he would have come for her. And he certainly would have killed Rafe.
Her fantasies of him had been wound around anger, grief and sadness for the past five years. And, yes, she had blamed him for some things. In the dark of the night, when she lay there, feeling like there was a heavy weight resting on her chest, she had internally raged at him for not saving her. For not climbing the tower and carrying her away with him. Off to live in a forest somewhere. Where mice and birds would build them...a house or something.
Not a care. No contact with the outside.
But this was the real world. It wasn’t a fairy tale, and she knew that none of that was actually possible.
It made for a lovely fantasy. But in the end, she’d had to escape the tower on her own. In the end, it had been up to her to save herself. Bringing anyone with her would have only put them in danger.
So, it didn’t matter that Rafe had left. It was better. Better for him.
And she still hurt when she thought of him.
So maybe this was what she needed to do. Maybe this was the grand letting go that she required. Maybe. Just maybe.
Whether this was the road to salvation or perdition, she imagined it remained to be seen. Either way, she was on it.
In his limousine.
It had been a great many years since she had traveled this way. Even tonight, dressed in a gown