The Man Behind the Scars(31)

She thought of his autocratic behavior the day of the wedding, and how  hard she'd had to fight to keep from reacting as she'd wanted to react.  She tried to imagine a lifetime of that-years upon years spent smiling  when she wanted to scream. She wondered what it would be like when she  was older, when she didn't have this body any longer, when she'd lost it  to babies and gravity-when she was rendered wholly worthless to him.  She thought about what it would mean to love this man like this,  desperately and foolishly, and know that he would never, ever return it.  Not if he could help it.                       
       
           



       

And she couldn't do it. Not now that she knew him so much better, so  much more intimately. Not now that she'd seen him smile, heard him  laugh, seen that there was more to him than all his grim seriousness,  all his cold menace. She knew too much now. She knew him.

"No," she said. Her voice rang across the room, and she imagined she could feel it echo inside of her, like a church bell.

"This is not a debate," Rafe snapped in his arrogant way, turning back  to fix her with that intimidating scowl. "It is not even a discussion."

"You can make all the pronouncements you want," she retorted. "It's not going to work."

"Our agreement-"

"I don't care." She shrugged when he stopped talking and stared at her  as if she'd startled him. She felt a new kind of heat move through her  then. It warmed her cheeks and was like electricity in her veins,  crackling and snapping. Temper. Finally. "I know you feel things for me  too. You can't just pretend it isn't happening because it doesn't fit  into your narrow definition of what this is supposed to look like  between us."

"What I feel for you is no more and no less than the basest form of  lust," he threw at her with deadly accuracy. "And a great sense of  relief that I was not required to waste my time pursuing you in the  usual way, as I would have had to do if you were not so desperate nor so  shameless. You are a convenience, Angel. Nothing more."

She told herself it didn't matter what he said now, that he was striking  out deliberately. That it didn't have to hurt unless she let it. But  she felt dizzy and a little bit sick, and she knew that was cold  comfort, at best.

"I know that's not true." She hoped it wasn't true. She hoped. But she  stood straight, though her hands were balled into fists at her sides,  and looked him in the eye anyway. He stared back at her, so very grim,  with that visible current of banked fury pulsing just beneath his cold  surface. This, then, was that part of him he'd hinted at, that he'd  indicated lived below his surface. But she didn't think he was quite as  contained as he wanted to be. As he usually was.

There was a part of her that took that as a triumph.

"What is it you love then, Angel?" he asked, and she couldn't help but  flinch slightly at the sound of his voice. It was like a blade.  Whisper-soft and deadly, and it cut into her, deeper with every word.  "Is it this face? I know exactly how beautiful it is-how entrancing. Or  is it the monster beneath it, do you think? The one so terrible his own  family loathed him since he was a child. Who somehow lived when all of  his friends were blown to pieces all around him. Is it that you love? Or  is it, instead, my endlessly attractive bank account?"

"Stop it," she hissed at him, hurting for him in ways that made her hurt  too. He moved toward her again, as if he couldn't help himself, his  gait lacking his customary grace.

"What do you think, realistically, a man in my position would feel for  the woman he purchased? The one who introduced herself to him in the  first place by announcing that she was looking for a wealthy man to  marry?" He slashed a hand through the air, a greater show of temper than  she had ever seen from this watchful, still man, and it made her breath  catch. "It could have been anyone at all unlucky enough to be in that  ballroom. It happened to be me. You'll forgive me if love is not the  word that springs to mind!"

* * *

She seemed to sway slightly on her feet, and there were bright spots of  color high above her cheekbones, but she didn't back down. She didn't  crumble. She squared her shoulders, drawing his attention, as ever, to  her curvy little body displayed to such mouthwatering perfection in the  wine-red gown.

But then, he thought cynically, that was her job, wasn't it? To be a constant enticement? Always desirable?

Her chin rose as if she heard him. As if she was ready to fight him,  with her hands if necessary. He couldn't tell if he hated her for it or  admired her misplaced courage. He only knew that he could not tolerate  the din and clamor of the thunderstorm rolling around inside of him, and  it was her fault. It was all her fault.

He'd known from the start that none of this was fair to her, but he'd wanted her. And now look what he'd done.

"You are such a coward, Rafe," she said after a moment, biting out the  words as if she could not keep them in, and the thunder inside him  turned liquid, hot and dangerous, and he felt nothing for a long moment  but pure, scorching fury.

"Say that again, please," he invited her, not recognizing his own voice.                       
       
           



       

"A coward," she repeated, enunciating each syllable, her chin titling up again in defiance. "I mean it."

"Of course I am," he retorted, letting out some harsh version of a  laugh. That terrible heat pumped through him, making the control he had  over his temper slip more than it should. He was too angry to yank it  back again, and glared at her instead. "That is why I received the  Victoria Cross. They hand out the highest medal in the land to the  greatest coward, naturally."

If his sarcastic tone got to her, she didn't show it. If she was  impressed at all by the great honor he'd so reluctantly received, she  didn't show that either. Her blue eyes were darker than he'd ever seen  them, and even through his anger, there was a part of him that hated  that. That wanted the brightness back. That knew he was the reason it  had disappeared.

"You hide away in this remote place, stamping about with a chip on your  shoulder the size of the mountains across the loch," she said in a low,  determined voice. "You want to be the monster in the room. You want to  drown in your own self-pity. It lets you sit in your grand old house and  brood about how miserable you are, without ever having to put that to  the test."

"Because you, of course, never saw these scars, much less what lurks  beneath them," he seethed at her, more sarcasm dripping from his frigid  tone. "What a saint you must be, Angel, to be conveniently blind where  so many others have been unable to see anything but. I'm sure that is a  reflection of your goodness, and has nothing at all to do with how  wealthy I am."

"I don't care about your money!" she cried, throwing her hands out. "I don't care about any of this! I care about you-"

"Spare me the histrionics," he snapped. He had no memory of moving, and  yet here he was, towering over her, so close he could smell the faintest  hint of her delicate scent, and could see each ragged breath she took.  His body knew only that it wanted her. That he wanted her. Even now. He  should hate himself for that weakness. He knew he should. "As if I am  likely to believe anything that comes out of your mouth. You can either  do as I say, Angel, or you can leave. Those are your choices. This is  not a relationship. You are not my lover. At best you're an employee."

"I believe you mean I am a brood mare," she supplied, her face gone white.

"So far, you are not even that," he said viciously. "You have cost me a  great deal of money while giving absolutely nothing in return. I should  be so lucky as to have a brood mare."

Her eyes darkened even further, and seemed to stand out much too starkly  in her suddenly pale face, and Rafe knew he was the worst kind of  bastard. But he couldn't seem to stop. The rage in him grew with every  breath. The words she should not have said, the words he could never  believe and never accept, reverberated in his head-getting louder every  time, making him colder and colder with each rendition.

I love you.

Like a curse, those terrible words.

Everyone he'd ever loved was dead. And he was the only living common denominator. He knew what that meant. He'd always known.

"You're a liar," she whispered. "I was the one looking at your face  tonight as we danced. I saw what you felt. Why are you so afraid to  admit it?"

But he wasn't afraid, he thought, fighting back his anger, keeping all  that ugliness inside. He was empty. Why couldn't she see that? He had  been nothing but empty the whole of his life. The scars were a perfect  reflection of what he was already-what he had always been.