Defying Her Billionaire Protector

‘From an explosion?’

‘A suicide bomber.’ He twisted his head around to see her face. ‘A twelve-year-old boy.’

‘Mio Dio...’ she breathed, her expression horrified. ‘That’s awful.’

‘That’s the modern face of war.’ He kept his voice hard, unaffected, emotionless. Because that was what he’d learned to do as a soldier. Control his emotions, follow orders, focus on the job and divide those he encountered into one of two camps—ally or enemy. Except that last part hadn’t always been easy.

Marietta pressed her palm against his bare back, the contact so unexpected he nearly flinched.

‘I’m so sorry for all the terrible things you must have seen, Nico,’ she said, in that soft, sympathetic voice that seemed to curl around him, through him.

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; Her hand moved, stroking over his skin, setting fire to a host of nerve-endings which all led like a series of lit fuses to one place. His groin.

‘Marietta,’ he growled, ‘what are you doing?’

Marietta wasn’t sure she knew the answer to that question. She only knew that she’d felt compelled to reach out in some way, and that once she’d touched him—once she’d made contact with all that smooth, hot skin and sculpted muscle—she hadn’t been able to draw her hand away. Hadn’t wanted to.

He moved with lightning speed. Before she understood his intent he was leaning over her, one hand clamped around her wrist, imprisoning her hand above her head. His expression was dark. Almost angry.

Her heart thumped in her chest.

‘You don’t want this, Marietta.’

‘Want what?’ she whispered—but she knew what he meant. Of course she did. She wasn’t naive. He hadn’t carried her all the way down here just to have lunch on the beach.

But something had changed since they’d got here. Something had caused him to withdraw, have second thoughts.

It felt like a rejection—and it stung.

‘Not what—who,’ he said harshly. ‘You don’t want me, Marietta.’

She pushed up her chin, feeling reckless and bold. Angry even. How dared he tell her what she didn’t want? ‘Why?’

He breathed hard, his nostrils flaring. ‘I’m not the kind of man you want to get close to.’

‘Why?’ she challenged again, her blood thundering in her ears now. ‘Because you’ve seen some terrible things? Experienced some terrible things? Things you don’t think I could possibly understand?’ She struggled to free her wrist. ‘Let me go, Nico,’ she demanded.

He did, and she levered herself upright, forcing him back from her. ‘Do you think you’re the only one with scars?’ She leaned forward over her legs, exposing her back. ‘The one under my left shoulder blade is from the accident,’ she told him. ‘The rest are from surgeries—failed surgeries—and every one of them represents a shattered hope. A shattered dream.’

She dropped back to her elbows, locked her gaze with his.

‘I lay in the wreckage of that car for thirty minutes, with two dead friends and another friend dying beside me, before the emergency services arrived.’ She hiked up her chin, swallowed down hard on the lump in her throat. ‘I haven’t been to war, Nico. I haven’t seen or done the things you have. But I do know something about death and survival.’

Her blood continued to pound, flushing her skin, making the pulse in her throat leap. The after-effects of the wine combined with her anger and the sight of all that potent, half-naked masculinity before her spurred her on to more recklessness.

She reached out and laid her palm against his chest, her fingers nestling in the fine covering of crisp hairs. ‘Maybe I don’t know what kind of man is hidden away in here. But whoever he is—whoever you think he is—he doesn’t scare me.’

Deliberately she glided the tip of her little finger over his nipple and heard the sudden sharp hiss of his indrawn breath. But his big body remained taut and rigid, unmoving except for the powerful rise and fall of his chest beneath her hand. She searched his face, looking for signs of desire—for the flash of hunger she’d seen there last night—but the seconds stretched and nothing happened.

The flush receded from her skin and her insides turned cold and then hot again with a horrible, humiliating thought.

She snatched her hand back.

Dio. Had she read this all wrong? Had she imagined something that wasn’t really there?

The moment seemed to click into slow motion. Nico’s eyes narrowed, his mouth opening as if he was about to speak. But she gave her head a violent shake and fell back onto the cushions, squeezing her eyes closed. She couldn’t look at him. He was too perfect. A man like him could have any woman in the world. Why would he take her? Unless...