She tightened her hold on her clutch purse, staring straight ahead, the city lights flashing in her face as they drove.
Rafe pressed a hand to her shoulder. “Just checking to make sure you were still there.”
“I don’t believe for a moment that you thought I had gone.” As if she was going to silently fling herself out onto the London streets and tuck and roll in her beautiful red gown.
“No,” he said. “I can hear you breathing. I can almost hear your heart beating. Tell me, Charlotte. Are you nervous?”
“I told you I was,” she said. “I told you I was frightened.”
“You are not frightened. You know I won’t harm you. I had a great many chances to do that. A great many times when I was alone with you, and I still possessed my sight. When I could have done anything to you, and by the time you had screamed it would’ve been too late for your father’s guards to rescue you. I would say that with your father gone you have absolutely nothing to fear from me. Any leverage that you might have been has long since ceased to be.”
What a strange thing. The introduction of the thought that he might have harmed her back then to escape working for her father. Or that he might have threatened to harm her. It had never occurred to her then. Never occurred to her that he might be using her. Because she had been so young. Because she had trusted him implicitly.
But he hadn’t harmed her or held her hostage then.
And, in order for him to wish her harm now, it would have to be personal. He would have to want some kind of revenge against her. And for what? He was the one who had left her. And, if it had demonstrated anything it was that his feelings for her had never been all that strong.
His refusal to take her virginity had been all about him hedging his bets and saving his own skin. It had nothing to do with honoring her. With protecting her, as he had pretended it did all those years ago.
“I don’t think you’re going to hurt me,” she said, her throat tight, speaking nearly impossible. “What would the headline say, after all? It isn’t as though people didn’t see us leave together. Nobody knows who I am, but if they found my body in a hotel room, they would connect me to you soon enough.”
She looked over at him, saw his lip curl upward. He was still touching her. Still maintaining contact. “Please. I’m not going to kill you. That is more your father’s style than mine. Such displays hold no interest for me. I have built my empire on the rock. Not the sand.”
“Excellent. So when the rains come down your house will stand firm.”
“That is the hope,” he said, his tone caustic.
It all seemed so absurd suddenly. That she was in this dress, in this limo, with Rafe. She could hardly figure out how she’d gotten there. Just a few hours ago she’d slipped the dress on, ready so sneak quietly into the ball, see him just for a moment and then leave. But he’d...sensed her.
She hadn’t counted on that.
She should know that anticipating Rafe was impossible.
“What is it you want with me?” she asked.
“I should think it is quite obvious. I want no more than to claim what I want. What I have always wanted. I want your body, Charlotte. I want all that was kept from me five years ago. Weeks of foreplay only to have my prize stolen from me. I did not take kindly to it then. I don’t like it now.”
She frowned. “How was I stolen from you? You left.”
“I left? Is that the story then?” He chuckled, hard and dark. “I was certainly shown the way out.”
“I was told one morning that you had gone, and that I would be sent to marry Stefan. That my father knew about our relationship and that he had offered you a bargain to leave. And that you chose the money he gave you over me. That you chose your freedom. I was hurt, Rafe, but I could understand. I know how my father is. I know what a wonderful thing it would be to be free of him. If I could’ve been free of him so easily, I would have done so. I’m not going to say I wasn’t angry. But I accepted it.”
She looked over at him, his face illuminated as they passed a lit-up storefront. His expression was blank.
“I did not leave you,” he said finally.
“You didn’t?”
“No. I was...told that you left. I was told you had gone to marry the man of your father’s choosing. The path of least resistance.”
She laughed. But there was no humor in it. “I suppose the fact that either of us believed anything relayed to us by Josefina or my father makes us fools. They were master manipulators, always. And that wasn’t even a very master manipulation. It was just two vulnerable people ready to believe the worst, I suppose. Ready to believe the worst of the world and all of the people in it.”
“Why would you ever believe anything else?”
Silence stretched between them.
“I do want this,” she said, curling her hands into fists. “Do you?”
The streetlight caught his exquisite face, highlighting his razor-sharp cheekbones, the curve of his lips. Her heart stuttered.
“I have wanted little else for the past five years. I have amassed a great fortune, Charlotte, and there are two things that I have never been able to obtain in spite of my newfound wealth and power. My sight, and you. You, I can have. You, I will have. Seeing as I cannot have the other.”
The car pulled up to a beautiful building, all ornate stonework, well lit, exquisitely visible even in the dark.
“We have arrived,” he said. He removed his hand from her shoulder, and the two of them sat in the car and waited. The driver opened the door, and Rafe got out, his hand resting on the car as he walked around to the curbside, his cane sweeping the ground.
Her heart folded up like it was made of paper. Fragile and easily torn. Of all the misunderstandings between them, this was not one of them. Rafe had lost his sight, and though she had known it for a while now, it still hurt her. It wounded her that he was hurt. That he had lost something of himself.
And the fact that her father and stepmother had lied to them both...
Yes, she and Rafe did deserve this night. Whatever else lay ahead, they deserved this.
Her door opened, and she looked out to see Rafe, extending his hand to her. She hesitated, but only for a moment. And then she curled her fingers around his, and he lifted her from the limousine. She landed against his chest, her palm spread over his muscles, her hand over his beating heart.
It was raging. Just as hard as her own.
“Rafe...”
“We must go inside,” he said. “Now. Otherwise, I’m likely to take you up against the side of the building.”
For a moment, Charlotte couldn’t quite work out why that would be a bad thing. “Okay,” she said, her voice thick.
With a firm hand, Rafe led her into the building, and the two of them walked across the small gilded space to an elevator with golden doors. They swung open, and she followed him in, having to take two steps to his one.
Clearly, this was his domain. There was no hesitation in any of his movements. The only indication that he wasn’t able to visualize his surroundings in the quick sweep of his cane across the floor.
Suddenly, her breath was coming harder, faster. She hadn’t seen this man in five years. It had taken two weeks of physical intimacy to build up five years’ worth of fantasies. And now she was here. Now she was here, but he wasn’t her Rafe anymore. Wasn’t a man in indentured servitude to her father, but one of the most powerful businessmen