He heard the seeds of hysteria and immediately shifted to the side, even as she continued to batter his shoulders. “It’s not—”
He stopped, not sure what to say. It wasn’t important? The problem was it was important. More important than anything in his entire misbegotten life.
Clumsily she squirmed away, bringing her knees high and cowering against the headboard as if she expected him to leap on her. With shaking hands, she wrenched her dress together.
“You took advantage.” She sounded as if she loathed him. Even on the first night, she’d never spoken to him with such rancor.
“Sidonie, please…” All gifts of eloquence had abandoned him. Rolling out of the bed, hoping some physical distance would soothe her, he reached for her. She flinched away as though avoiding a blow.
“I’m so stupid,” she said in a broken voice, then set a great crack in his heart when she wiped her eyes with shaking hands. Sod it to hell and back. She was crying. He felt like the lowest worm ever to crawl upon this foul earth.
“You’re not,” he said, even as his belly cramped with sick shame and misery. In an attempt to ease her grief, he dared to touch her arm.
That was a mistake, too.
She recoiled and scrambled from the bed. Panting as if she’d run a mile, she stood in the center of the room. She looked young and afraid and heartbreakingly vulnerable. Not at all like the siren who had measured the heights of pleasure only seconds before. The mirrors reflected a woman with eyes huge and dark as bruises. A woman who stood proudly even as her mouth twisted in humiliation.
“Bella.” He stepped nearer even as reason told him she’d interpret any approach as threat.
“Don’t bella me.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you.” He was a blundering clodpole with no idea what damage he did. Why couldn’t she be an easy woman? Except if she was, she wouldn’t be Sidonie Forsythe and he’d rapidly reached the conclusion that Sidonie Forsythe was the only woman he wanted.
“No, you meant to seduce me before I realized what you were up to,” she said sourly.
He bit back another protesting Italian endearment. They both knew she’d fathomed his scheme.
She didn’t wait for his reply. She cast him a hate-filled glare. “The pity is I always succumb. You touch me and my mind turns to custard. I don’t know how you manage it, but it’s jolly clever.”
Her knuckles shone white as she clutched her bedraggled dress and backed toward the door. His great seduction had disintegrated into complete disaster. She blasted all stratagems to dust.
“Tesoro…” Then he remembered she didn’t want his endearments.
“Don’t try and bamboozle me with cheap flattery.”
How to make her believe that calling her his beauty and his treasure was the truth? “Where are you going?”
She inched toward the door. “Away from you.”
“It’s the middle of the night. This is the only warm room in the house.”
Her jaw hardened with purpose and she regarde
d him as if he were a snake. Frankly he didn’t feel much above one. “I don’t care.”
“Sidonie,” he said as evenly as he could. “I swear I won’t touch you.”
“After tonight, I don’t believe your word.” She was almost at the door.
He stifled the urge to excuse himself. He’d promised to await consent before he took her. He hadn’t really infringed the agreement. Except excuses were dry legalities. Ruthlessly he’d sought to quash her resistance.
“I’ll go,” he said grimly. Dear God, another night on the cot in the dressing room. He’d limp like an arthritic octogenarian tomorrow.
“No.” She tugged on the door until it slammed open against the wall, making the mirrors rattle. Her repeated image wavered around them.
“Don’t be silly.”
Her glare should have blasted him to ashes. “I’m not being silly.”