Jo polished off the rest of her sandwich and pushed away from the railing to amble down the veranda a little way before turning. ‘I don’t mean to give up without a fight.’
He turned to face the house again, presenting her with his good side. ‘I can understand that.’ But didn’t she resent being piggy in the middle between the two older women?
‘Why do you keep doing that?’
A chill fluttered through him. ‘Doing what?’
‘Keeping the right side of your face towards me? Isn’t it tiring?’
CHAPTER FIVE
IT WAS REALLY starting to bug her, the way Mac tried to hide his scar. Jo understood physical self-consciousness all too well, but Mac couldn’t spend the rest of his life trying to hide one side of his face. It just wouldn’t work.
‘The way you’re going, you’ll give yourself whiplash.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
How cold he could sound when he wanted—but she knew better. Mac wasn’t cold. He was... Well, he was hot. But that wasn’t what she meant.
He was devoting his life to making Ethan Devlin’s life better. Those weren’t the actions of a cold man.
‘Really?’ she said, walking around to his left side and deliberately surveying his scars. She’d noticed them before, of course, but scars didn’t make the man, and she’d had other issues with Mac that had nothing to do with what he looked like.
The scars were red and angry. She sucked in a breath. Heck, they must hurt!
The pulse at the base of his jaw pounded. He held his body taut, as if it were taking all his strength to remain where he stood, and let her look at him.
He finally turned to glare at her, eyes flashing and lips pressed into a thin line. ‘Satisfied?’
She stared back at him and had to swallow. Mac, when he was riled like this, was pretty virile. She had a feeling that the glare, the set of those shoulders and the angle of his jaw were all supposed to have her shaking in her boots. Uh, no. Though it certainly had her pulse racing. She moistened her lips. What it really made her want to do was run to him—not away from him.
Lord, wouldn’t he laugh if he knew?
‘I don’t precisely know what you mean by satisfied, Mac.’
He swung away to stare out to sea, presenting her with his ‘good’ side again. ‘Satisfied,’ he growled, ‘as in have you had your fill of looking at it?’
Oh.
He kept his gaze firmly fixed in front of him, but she had a feeling he didn’t see the glorious view—the cobalt sky, the indigo and aquamarine of the sea, the white foam of the surf and the golden beach, all at their most vivid at this time of the year before the sun bleached everything pale with summer intensity.
‘Doesn’t it sicken you to look at it?’
Her head rocked back. ‘Of course not.’
He turned to glare, a blast of arctic chill from frigid eyes. ‘When you first arrived you said these scars shocked you to the core. Those were your exact words.’
She drew herself upright. ‘I wasn’t referring to your scars, you stupid—’ She bit back something rude and vulgar. ‘I was referring to how much you’d let yourself go!’
His jaw dropped.
She reached out and poked him in the shoulder. ‘Don’t you dare accuse me of being so shallow.’
His shoulders unbent.
She frowned and adjusted her stance. ‘Does it sicken you whenever you look in a mirror?’
One of those lovely shoulders lifted. ‘I’m used to it.’
‘But what? You don’t think anyone else can get used to it? You don’t think anyone else can see past it?’
He didn’t say anything.
‘I’ve met beautiful people who’ve proved to be spiteful or selfish or snobs, and suddenly I find their allure loses most of its gloss. I have friends who may not fit society’s rigid ideal of beautiful, but they have such good hearts I think them the most beautiful people in the world.’
‘Jo, I—’
‘No! You listen to what I have to say! If you value yourself and others only through physical beauty then you deserve to suffer every torment imaginable at the thought of losing your so-called pretty face. But, as far as your face is concerned, I think it’s as pretty as it ever was.’
He stilled. He stared at her for a long moment. ‘You really mean that?’
She did.
He dragged in a breath and then turned to lean against the railing, his left side towards her. ‘I’m sorry I insinuated...’ He glanced at her. ‘That you were shallow. I didn’t mean to.’ He paused. ‘I agree that a person’s attractiveness is more than how they look, but...’