The Man Behind the Scars(7)

She cleared her throat. "Oh, I have expectations," she said, and he  wondered if it cost her to keep her voice so even, her gaze so light on  his that he felt an echoing brightness inside of him. "But I feel  certain you can meet them. You need do nothing more than sign the  cheques to win my eternal devotion."                       
       
           



       

In Rafe's experience, few things were ever so easy.

"Since you have been so forthright, let me share my expectations with  you," he replied then. He held her close, so close she could do nothing  but stare directly at the scars that told the world who he was-the scars  she would spend a lifetime staring at, should this odd, very nearly  absurd conversation turn into some kind of reality. "You understand that  I must have heirs."

"You great men always do," she said knowledgeably, her eyes bright with  some kind of amusement. Then she laughed. "Or so I've heard. And seen in  films."

He pulled the hand of hers he held to his chest, and understood, in that  moment, how much he wanted this. Wanted her. More than he could  remember wanting anything-anyone-ever. Because this is so convenient, he  told himself. I need do nothing at all but accept. He told himself he  believed it.

But he knew the truth. It beat in him like a drum, thick like desire and  as damaging, making him think he could have a woman like this, that  what lived in him would not destroy her as it had destroyed everyone  else he'd ever loved or wanted to love. That her need for his money  would protect her, somehow, from his need for her.

She should be so lucky, he thought grimly, but he did not let her go.

"You are a beautiful woman, as we've agreed," he said in a low voice,  his eyes hard on hers. "I imagine begetting the next generation will be  no hardship at all for me-but you may have more difficulty with it." He  let that sink in, and when he spoke again, his voice was gruff to his  own ears. "I will try to be sensitive to your revulsion, but I am,  sadly, only a man."

Was that a faint hint of color he saw, moving across the golden skin at  her neck, her cheeks? Another quick shadow chased through the blue of  her eyes.

"You are too kind." He felt himself stiffen as her gaze traced over the  path of his scars again, sweeping across his face, impossible to ignore.  He couldn't decipher what he saw in those marvelous eyes then, darker  than before, and continued on.

"I don't like anything fake." He shrugged. "Thanks to my scars, I am  unable to hide from the world. I dislike it, intensely, when others do."

"I've never been very good at hiding anything," she said after a moment.  That smile spread over her mouth then, as tempting as it was  challenging. It made him want to know her-to figure out what went on  inside that head, behind that pretty face. You play a dangerous game, he  warned himself. "What you see is what you get."

He doubted that too.

"Most importantly," he said, hearing his voice move even lower, and  feeling her shiver slightly, as if in reaction, as if she felt him deep  inside of her, or perhaps that was only his own fervent wish, "I am not  open-minded. At all. I will care, very much, if you take a lover."

Again, that electricity, stretching between them, burning into him,  making him forget where they were. Who they were. Who he was, most of  all. She made him forget he was a monster, and he found he didn't know  how to handle it. Or what it meant. And he squashed down, ruthlessly,  the seed of hope that threatened to plant itself inside of him. Hope was  pointless. Damaging. Better by far to deal in reality, however bleak,  and weather what came. Better to banish what if altogether. It never  brought anything but pain.

"No seas of lovers then," Angel replied, the faint huskiness in her  voice the only indication that she was affected by this bloodless talk  of sex. Perhaps she, too, was fighting off the same carnal images that  flooded his brain. "And here I thought we would have a modern sort of  marriage. I hear they're fashionable these days, all adultery and  ennui."

There was a certain cynicism in her voice. He wondered what marriage  she'd seen too closely and found so wanting. Not that it signified.

"They may be," he said darkly. He stopped dancing then, pulling them  over to the side of the great ballroom, though it took him longer than  it should have to let go of her. He wanted her that badly. It should  have horrified him. "But I should warn you, there are two things I will  never be, Angel. Modern or fashionable. At all."

* * *

He was warning her off, Angel realized, in a sudden flash of  understanding. He had backed her into one of the grand pillars, and she  felt it hard and smooth against her back with a sudden rush of sensation  that was as much exhilaration as it was wariness. He was big and dark  and entirely too dangerous, and she told herself it was reasonable  nervousness that kicked to life in her veins, sending that wild shiver  throughout her body. Nerves. Nothing more.                       
       
           



       

"Do we have a deal?" she asked softly. "Or will you keep growling at me  until I run screaming into the crowd to find myself a more malleable  rich man to proposition?"

His mouth softened, and she saw that flash of arrogance again, reminding  her of how powerful he was. He was not, she could see, at all concerned  that she might run anywhere. She would have found that somewhat  offensive, had she had any intention of moving.

"Is that what I'm doing?" he asked, all aristocratic

hauteur, eyebrow crooked high in amazement. "Growling?"

She reached over and laid her hand against the hard plane of his chest,  carefully and deliberately. He was warm to the touch, and she had to  fight back another shiver. Of nerves, she told herself again. This  situation was extreme, even for her.

"We're talking about a marriage of convenience," she said. With some  urgency, as if that might dispel the lingering darkness that she sensed  hung between them. "Yours as well as mine. I don't expect you to sweep  me off my feet while quoting Wuthering Heights."

His mouth crooked. It wasn't a smile, not really, but it made her feel absurdly glad, even so.

"You are so reasonable," he murmured. He reached up and took her hand,  but kept it where it was, trapped tight against his chest. Was that his  heart she felt thumping so hard, or was that her own pulse? "One is  tempted to think you've had a run of convenient husbands."

"You will be the first," she assured him. "But who knows? If it works  out, it could be the start of a long and profitable line of husbands. I  can collect them, one by one, and live on their tireless support until  I'm a doddering pensioner."

"That is a lovely picture indeed," he said in that low voice, and it  licked at her, making her think about the begetting of heirs and all  manner of other things he made seem far more enticing than they should  be simply by talking about them in that voice of his. And the way he  looked at her, a dark fire in those deep gray eyes, made her chest feel  too tight, her skin too small for her bones. "But let's concentrate on  the one in front of you."

"Yes," she agreed, though something was happening to her. She couldn't  look away. The hand that he held, flat against his wide, distracting  chest, wanted … wanted. She felt light-headed. "Does that mean we're  agreed? One perfectly convenient marriage, made to order right here in  the middle of the Palazzo Santina?"

For a moment he only looked down at her, his scarred face harsh and his  remote gray eyes cold, and she was suddenly much too aware that he was a  stranger to her. A complete and total stranger, who she had asked to  marry her in the middle of a crowded ballroom, in a country not her own,  on what amounted to little more than a whim. How insane was she? How  could this be anything but a disaster?

"Yes," he said. "We are agreed. We can marry as soon as you like."

Again, some sense of deep foreboding moved through her, shaking her. She  would be far better off with some older, much less dangerous man, she  thought in a sudden panic, someone she could manipulate with a smile and  bend to her will. That would not be this man. That would not be Rafe.  She knew it as well as she knew her own name. If she had any sense of  self-preservation at all, she would call this off. Now.

But she didn't move. She didn't say a word. She had no idea why not.

"You look terrified." That single brow rose, pointedly.

"Not at all," she said, shoving the foreboding aside. Better to be  practical, especially in her dire circumstances. She tilted her head  back, invitingly, and gazed up at him. "But I feel the occasion calls  for something, don't you? Something to mark such a momentous decision.  How about a kiss?"