The Man Behind the Scars

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?”