“No,” he ordered firmly, glancing at her sideways. “You stay right where you are.”
That put her back up a bit and sparked a sense of rebellion in her soul.
“Much as I appreciate your warm and welcoming hospitality,” she began with a touch of sarcasm, taking a step toward the door, “I think it’s time—”
“No.”
He took a step closer and his hand shot out and circled her wrist. “You’re staying right here until I permit you to go.”
“Oh, I am, am I?” Her lower lip jutted out and she pulled hard on his hold but he wasn’t letting go. “Your rules are on the medieval side, you know. These days one doesn’t take orders from another person unless they are being paid money.”
He pulled her closer, his face half turned her way. “Is that what you’re after?” he asked harshly. “Is it money you want?”
“What?” She stared up at him, shocked by the very concept. “No, no, of course not.”
“Then what do you want here?” he demanded.
She swallowed hard. Somehow this didn’t seem to be a good segue into asking for monthly access to his hillside. “N…nothing,” she stammered.
“Liar.”
She gasped. He was right but she didn’t like hearing it. “You…you wouldn’t understand,” she stammered senselessly. “But I meant you no harm.”
He gave a sharp tug to her wrist, pulling her up close. “Harm.” He said it as though it were a pointless word. “All the harm’s been done years ago,” he added softly.
She winced at the bitterness in his voice. It was clear something about his life just wasn’t going well. The gloomy, bleak atmosphere was only reinforced by his dark attitude. Negative people usually turned her off but there was a lot more here than a bad mood. She felt it like a vibration in the air, and her heart began to beat just a bit harder.
He felt her pulse quicken under his hold on her wrist and he knew what he had to do. Slowly, very deliberately, he turned and faced her, the light from the lamps and the fire exposing his horrible scars.
Was it pride that kept him from showing this to anyone who didn’t know him intimately? Was it conceit, arrogance, egoism? Was it really that hard to think that his face, which had once been considered quite handsome, was now so repellent, people turned away rather than be forced to look at him?
It was probably all those things. But he’d known from the start there was something deeper and harder to face than that. He knew very well there was a large measure of guilt mixed into his motivations. His scars were retribution for his sins, but, even more painful, they were his own fault. That was the hardest thing to live with.
He’d spent years now, hidden away, traveling in limousines with tinted windows, moving anonymously from one house to another. It was a strange, lonely existence, and he was sick of it. But in order to change things, he would have to get used to people seeing his face, and he wasn’t sure he could do it. Or that he deserved to.
But tonight, he wasn’t going to dodge anything. It was high time he accepted his fate and learned to live with it. He was going to stare directly into her huge blue eyes and read every scrap of emotion that was mirrored there. No more avoidance. His jaw tightened and he steeled himself. And then he presented himself to her, scars and all.
Her eyes widened as she took in the totality of his face. The shock was there. He tensed, waiting for the disgust, the wince, the hand to the mouth, the flood of pity, the eyes darting away, looking anywhere but at him. He’d seen it before.
The only mystery was—why did he still let it bother him? It was time to harden himself to it. And so he stood his ground and met her gaze.
But things weren’t going quite as he’d expected. The quality of her surprise was somehow different from what he was used to. No curtain of instant distance appeared, no revulsion, no reserve tainted her manner.
Instead of dread, instead of a cold drawing away in repugnance, a warm, curious light came into her eyes. Rather than pull away, she was coming closer. He watched in astonishment as she actually cocked her head to the side, then reached out for him.
He didn’t move as she edged closer and touched his face, her fingertips moving lightly over the scar, tracing its path down his cheek and into the corner of his wide mouth.
“Oh,” she said, letting it out in a long sigh.
But there was no pity. Maybe there was a hint of sorrow. But other than that, only a touch of confusion along with much interest and curiosity. It seemed almost as though she’d found a wonderful piece of statuary with a tragic flaw that deserved a little exploring. And she felt no inhibitions in doing exactly that.
CHAPTER TWO
ISABELLA was moving in a haze of unreality, as though she really had stepped into a fairy tale. She saw the jagged, fascinating scars, the tragic flaw that split his face in two and made her heart ache with compassion, but there was so much beside that. There was power and presence in the man, and, even more, there was overwhelming beauty in him. His shirt was open, exposing the tanned skin of a hard, sculptured chest, and his wonderful male heat filled her with a strange sense of longing that scared her more than anything else had—and at the same time it tugged at her with an impossible attraction.
He reached out as though to steady her, his hands gentle yet firm on her shoulders, and she felt herself melt into his touch, wanted to lean closer yet. She had a sudden, wild desire to press her lips to the pulse she could see beating hard at the base of his throat. She stared at it, irresistibly drawn.
But she recoiled in time, shocked at her own impulses. What next—was she going to offer herself to the man outright? She gasped softly, then began to think she ought to pull away. Ought to—but couldn’t quite summon up the will.
Max couldn’t have been more amazed if she had kissed him. The moment crystallized in time, her body arched toward his, her fingertips on his face, his heart pounding, his gaze locked on hers. Something twisted in his chest and he realized he was holding his breath. He was feeling something new and strange and he didn’t like it at all. But she’d touched him. No woman had done that since the accident. No woman had wanted to. That lit a fire inside him he hadn’t known he was capable of feeling. Whatever else this young woman was, she was unique in a way he’d never seen before. She didn’t make him feel like a freak. He savored the moment.
And in the same instant he became aware that Renzo had come into the room at last and was now lurching forward as though he was prepared to push this woman back away from his prince. It all seemed to be happening in slow motion. And it all seemed to be so very beside the point, but it had to be dealt with, and so he did.
Turning to block Renzo’s ridiculous protective lunge with the position of his body, he pulled the young woman up against him and out of Renzo’s reach. Looking down, he sank into the clouds in her dark eyes, searching for the mysteries they might contain. She seemed to hold worlds he’d never visited deep inside her. Those worlds were suddenly the most interesting places he’d ever had a glimpse of. He suddenly found it very hard to pull away from her gaze. Or maybe, the truth was, he didn’t want to.
Who was she? Where had she come from? Should he get away from her as fast as he could—or should he find a way to keep her here? He knew what his instincts were telling him. But he knew from experience that his instincts could lie.
Renzo still hung at his shoulder. “Sir…”
It took Max a moment to respond. He was still looking deep into the young woman’s eyes. “I thought I told you to get Marcello,” he said without turning.
“But, sir…” Renzo was blinking rapidly, obviously upset by this strange behavior.
“Go.”