The Man Behind the Scars

He was a stranger again. So quickly, so utterly changed. It made her heart hurt, and she wasn’t at all sure what she could do to make it stop. To make him stop. She was afraid that if she looked down, she would see that they’d somehow ended up standing on the edge of some dramatic precipice, with nothing to do but fall. And fall.

“You know exactly what I said,” she replied, unable to make her voice light, but somehow keeping it even. “I didn’t mean to say it, if that helps.” She shrugged, feeling helpless and powerless and not at all sure how to combat that. “It just slipped out.”

Like the tears. She wiped at her face, not knowing how to process the fact that she’d broken down like that, so completely, sobbing for the first time in all of her memory. So undone by the kindness in his gaze, the smile on his usually grim mouth, that she had only been able to weep in response. She didn’t know how to feel about any of this.

But it was painfully obvious that he did.

“We have a very clear agreement,” Rafe said, and something about his voice made her go very still. Too still. His eyes were frozen chips of gunmetal gray. His mouth was a flat line. “I am perfectly aware of what I purchased. You should be equally aware of what you sold.”

She felt as if he’d kicked her. Hard and directly in the stomach. For a moment, she wasn’t sure she could speak through the impact of it. It seemed to flare out, stealing her breath. She noticed her hands were shaking slightly when she went to smooth her skirt and she hated, suddenly, the fact that she was wearing a formal gown tonight. That here she was, playing dress up. Believing in magic and miracles. Giving in to hope, of all things.

She was furious with herself. And beneath that, something darker and far closer to despair turned over inside of her and started to grow.

“If you are going to call me a prostitute, Rafe,” she said matter-of-factly, fighting to keep the pain from her voice, the shock and the fury, and all that swirling dark beneath, “just come out and say it. Don’t hide behind vague euphemisms.”

“You sold yourself for money,” he said in that silky, insulting way of his. That dark eyebrow of his winged high, aristocratic censure of the first degree. She swallowed, and pretended she wasn’t affected.

“Am I not allowed to love you?” she asked, her voice too quiet, but at least it did not quaver. At least, she thought, there were layers to this betrayal of herself. Degrees. “I don’t recall signing anything that forbade it.”

His face darkened and his eyes grew even colder. She wouldn’t have thought it possible. She was torn between the urge to go to him and hold him, as if that might warm him somehow, and the urge to hide from this. From him. From her own limitless stupidity where this man was concerned.

“Do you think I don’t know what’s happening here?” he demanded. “I don’t want this kind of act, Angel. I told you before.”

“What kind of act do you think this is?” she asked, not sure she understood him. And not at all sure she wanted to. “What do you think I’m pretending?”

“I know what I signed up for, and it does not involve pretty tears and declarations of love,” he said bluntly. Cruelly. “It won’t work. Do you understand me? You can’t manipulate me with emotional fantasies. I bought you. I never forget that and neither should you.”

Every word was like a blow, all the worse after the sensual spell they’d been living in these past weeks, and Angel was so dizzy with the pain of it that she wondered for a panicked moment if she would topple over from the force of it all.

But she didn’t.

One moment passed, then another, and still she stood there, reeling but upright. She didn’t know if that was a good thing. Perhaps it would be better to fold—to give in. To let this particular storm pass over them and start again in the morning, when she could summon her usual airy manners and handle him the way she usually did. When she could make it all okay with a laugh and a smile.

But she couldn’t seem to make herself look away. She couldn’t quite bring herself to surrender. Not anymore. Not when so much was at stake. She’d had a glimpse of what they could have been, she and Rafe—and she wanted it.

Heaven help her, but she wanted it. She wanted all of him.

“I must have misunderstood,” she said, still managing to keep her voice relatively even, as if what he’d said only rolled off her back. “I thought we entered into a mutually beneficial contract. A marriage.”