The Man Behind the Scars

“A kiss.” His voice was dark and disbelieving. Gruff. “This is no fairy tale, Angel.”

She felt her own eyebrows rise then, in cool challenge.

“Then you have no need to fear you’ll be turned into a frog,” she replied tartly. His mouth twisted, but his eyes burned hot.

“As you wish,” he murmured, mocking her—or perhaps both of them.

His hand moved from hers to hold her chin in an easy grip, as if her mouth was his already, before he’d even tasted it. And then he bent his head and captured her mouth with his.

It was a swift kiss, commanding and sure. Possessive and demanding, it seared into her like some kind of red-hot brand. She felt it storm through her limbs, lighting her up with that sweet and terrible electricity, making her lean closer to him, fascinated and captivated by the sure, carnal mastery of his kiss, the hint of more, of something dark and sweet and addictive—and then he pulled away.

Too soon. Much too soon—but then she remembered herself. Where they were. Who they were.

She felt herself flush with heat, and only just kept herself from squirming beneath that dark gray gaze. She felt out of control. Exposed. He let go of her chin and she staggered back against the pillar, unable to keep herself from raising a trembling hand to her lips like some kind of artless virgin.

Had that really just happened? Had he really just kissed her like that?

Was she really…shaking?

And looking at her, Rafe McFarland, Lord of All He Surveyed and soon to be her husband, finally smiled.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS the memory of that smile, so unexpected and curiously infectious, lighting up that scarred face and making it something new, that Angel found herself playing over and over in her head as she headed back home to London and reality.

That and the kiss that never failed, even in retrospect, to make her uncomfortably warm.

It was simple surprise, she told herself—at the depth of her own response. It was nothing more than surprise that he’d had so much passion in him, and that she’d met it. And how could it be anything else, when the only thing between them was money? His money. Her need of it.

And your body, a dark voice whispered inside of her. Isn’t that always the way this kind of arrangement goes?

“Here is my contact information,” Rafe had said, all distance and business, in the car he’d summoned to take them back to their respective hotels after Allegra’s engagement party had come to an end. He had jotted down a few quick lines on a card he’d pulled from somewhere. Angel had found herself admiring the bold, male handwriting, scrutinizing it as if it might give her some clue about the man. He’d handed the card to her when he was finished, his gaze once again dark and grim, no hint of that brief, flashing smile left anywhere on his ruthless face. As if she’d imagined it. She’d begun to wonder if she had.

He’d refused to take her details at all. Not even a mobile number.

“You may find that once you are back in London, and the royal Santina champagne has worn off, that you are less interested in going through with this after all.” His gaze had been level. Matter-of-fact. Somehow, that had made it worse.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” she’d said, stung. More offended, perhaps, than the situation warranted. After all, he was just being appropriately cautious—which perhaps she should have been herself. But in the dark, close confines of his car, she’d felt nothing but that current of reckless determination, driving her on, making this happen. Because it had to. Surely that was the only reason. Surely it was reason enough. “But I’m not drunk.”

“We’ll see,” he’d said, and his expression had been very nearly bleak then, and had made something turn over inside of her. “I wouldn’t hold it against you if, upon reflection, you decide that you must have been.”

She’d flushed, with something she’d told herself was temper. Simple temper, nothing more. “I’m not drunk,” she’d said again, distinctly. “But you can pretend I am, if that gives you the escape clause you clearly want.”

“Ring me when you arrive in London,” he’d said softly as the car glided to a stop outside her hotel. His gaze had challenged her. Dared her. And made her, somehow, unutterably sad. “Or don’t.”

Angel, naturally, had rung immediately, still fueled by that same temper. When the plane had landed in Heathrow and again when she’d reached her flat. To prove the point, she’d assured herself expansively, but to herself or to him?

“Oh, dear,” she’d said into his voice mail the second time, when she was safely home and just as determined, filled with something perilously close to righteous indignation. “It appears that two days later and without the champagne, I still want the marriage, just as I suspected I would. But I should tell you, Rafe—” and she admitted to herself, sitting there in her dark flat where no one could see her, least of all him, that she liked the way his name felt in her mouth “—that unlike you, I will hold it against you if you change your mind. Just to be clear.”