It happened so quickly that she never had warning. The fluorescent overhead lights flared on, and her eyelids shut automatically at the unexpected intrusion. Still stunned, Natalie struggled to blink as a spasm went through the muscles of her left eyelid. It drooped involuntarily.
“Ms. Reyes,” Erma called out in surprise. “I didn’t realize you were in here!”
“Turn out the light,” Liam barked.
Natalie caught a fleeting image of a shocked-looking Erma standing just inside the open door of her office. She glanced up. She clamped her eyes closed, but not before the image of Liam Kavanaugh’s hungry stare was stamped permanently in her mind.
The light switch clicked, and the room was suddenly dim again.
“Are you all right, Ms. Reyes?” Erma asked, sounding anxious and contrite at once.
“Yes. Yes, of course. I’m fine,” Natalie murmured, barely holding down a rising tide of emotion. “We’ll be out of here in just a moment, Erma.”
“No problem. Like I said, I’m sorry for interrupting. Are you sure you’re okay?” She felt regretful for the anxiety in Erma’s voice. Natalie’s mother had been a cleaning lady and she was always extra considerate and respectful of Erma, knowing from experience how exhausting and solitary the work could be.
“I’m fine, Erma,” she said, using all her effort to keep her voice even. She kept her face averted. “Really, I am.”
Natalie heard the door shut. She jerked her arm, suddenly wild to get away from Liam, all of her usual tight control evaporating to mist. A sound of misery escaped her throat when instead of releasing her, he embraced her.
Chapter Two
“Calm down,” he said near her ear. “It’s okay.”
The unexpected eruption of emotion that shuddered through her flesh mortified and bewildered her. Plenty of people had looked at her face before. Plastic surgeons and doctors had scrutinized it, photographed it and even written medical journal articles on it. Townspeople constantly cast curious, furtive glances her way at the grocery or drugstore.
Why was she crying just because Liam had seen her scars?
Maybe it was because none of those other people pinned her with such a piercing, honest gaze that made her feel so exposed.
“Just leave, please,” she muttered as she tried to pry herself out of his arms.
“Okay. Okay, I’ll go. But give me a second.”
Natalie paused in her struggling. Her breath seemed to burn in her lungs at the sensation of his long, jeans-covered thighs pressing against her own. It was a new experience for her, to be held against such a virile man. Her thoughts seemed to flit around her head like panicked moths trying to escape from her skull.
He cradled her jaw. She went entirely still when he brushed the pad of his thumb along her cheek. The movement mesmerized her, and she stared fixedly at his chest, afraid to raise her gaze, but never so aware of another human being in her life.
“The bright light hurts your eye?” Liam stated more than asked.
“You don’t have to feel sorry for me,” she blurted out angrily.
“I wasn’t feeling sorry for you,” he said, sounding slightly insulted. “I asked you a simple question. If we’re going to be working together, I want to know.”
“The muscles are weak in my left eye,” she murmured after a moment, contrite for her defensive reaction. “It tires easily. It’s sensitive to bright light.”
She sensed his nod of understanding. He resumed stroking her with his thumb.
“Is that why you prefer going to the beach in the moonlight?”
Her head jerked up, but she instantly regretted her move. His mouth was only inches from hers.
“What do you mean?”
“I saw you the other night. Dancing on the beach.”
She just stared at him. How could he have recognized her? The beach had been draped in shadow. She’d known him, but surely that was different. She had long practice in recognizing Liam, especially on a beach, where he seemed to belong.
“How…when did you realize it was me?” she whispered.
“Just now,” Liam said. She felt his warm breath mist her lips. “I knew you once I fully saw your beautiful face.”
What sort of a game was he playing?
She backed out of his embrace, experiencing an overwhelming longing to get back on track…to return to a place of control. Something told her it was downright dangerous to allow Liam the upper hand in this business endeavor…to get the upper hand, period. He probably didn’t think twice about saying she had a beautiful face or touching her as if it were as natural as breathing. Liam had always been a ladies’ man. The idea of him treating her in the same way he did other women panicked her.
This time when she attempted to put her large, solid desk between them, he didn’t stop her. She impatiently dried her tears with a tissue and pulled a checkbook from her desk drawer.
“What are you doing?” he asked, sounding bewildered and a little irritated.
“We haven’t yet discussed salary,” she said as she wrote rapidly. She ripped out the check and held it up for him to take. “This is your retainer. I’ll pay you twice that amount when the investigation is complete.”
It annoyed her that he didn’t take it because her hand shook slightly, making the check tremble in the air. Erma had taken her off her guard by switching on that light, but Liam had shocked her to the core by embracing her. She’d thought she knew what she was doing by making this proposal, but apparently Liam wasn’t something to be quantified and controlled.
“How will you know if I’ve investigated the matter fully or not?”
“I’ve heard about your work ethic from Mari. I’ve read about your career. You’ve been a champion for victims of crime…for discovering the truth. If there’s anything relevant to be found, you’ll do your best to uncover it once you take this check.”
“Chances are I won’t be able to uncover anything. I want you to know that up front.”
“I understand. I still want to try,” Natalie stated, her firm tone belying the fact that she couldn’t meet his eyes.
Liam stared at the check uncertainly.
He’d run the gamut of emotion in the past few minutes, and now Natalie had the nerve to make him feel even more. He’d leaped at the opportunity to see her face, then experienced a rush of guilt for his curiosity…his hunger. It wasn’t seeing her scars that made him feel guilty, it was her palpable vulnerability.
The bone structure of her face was as finely made as her body. Natalie’s wasn’t a run-of-the-mill beauty, but the haunting kind. There were several smaller scars near her temple, but the most prominent was a half-inch-thick one that ran all the way from her eyelid and disappeared below her hairline. It only seemed to highlight the perfection of everything else about her.
It saddened him, that scar—saddened him on a bone-deep level. It was a reminder of the months and probably years of pain that a young, innocent girl had endured.
But his sorrow didn’t blind him to the beauty of the woman beneath that scar. In fact it only added to it.
His father had caused this; he’d been responsible for making this exquisite woman shrink into herself like she’d thought her face would actually harm an onlooker.
Seeing that had hurt him in a way he couldn’t quite put into words.
For a few tension-filled seconds Liam considered telling