She shook her head and laughed, hoping to give the impression that he was making too much of it. ‘If you must know, some insect bit me.’ She huffed another laugh in the hope that he’d forget.
Dante didn’t forget anything, and his frown deepened as he traced the scar with the pad of one finger.
‘This is it, isn’t it?’ he said, lifting his head to stare into her eyes. ‘This is your problem. Did someone do this to you? No,’ he murmured after she had been silent for a while. ‘It’s worse than that, isn’t it? Has someone intimidated you into silence, Karina?’
She wasn’t looking for his pity. Everything she’d done in her life she’d done with her eyes wide open. ‘Who’s going to hurt me?’ she scoffed. ‘Have you forgotten I’m armour-plated?’ She hastily pulled the remnants of her shirt back over her shoulders and crossed her arms over her chest to hold the two halves together.
Letting her go, Dante stood back as if he was disappointed. ‘You will tell me eventually. But for now it’s time we returned to our work.’
She wouldn’t be so sure of that, Karina thought as he opened the door for her. She’d buried her secrets deep where not even Dante could find them.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHEN THEY GOT back to the ranch Dante dismounted and handed the reins of his horse to a waiting groom. She did the same. Unbuckling his leather chaps, Dante handed those over too. Down to snug-fitting jeans and a tight black top that moulded to his powerful body perfectly, he was a riveting sight, but he had become distant with her. She guessed her inability to confide in him had set their tenuous personal relationship back, and it was crucial now to restore communication between them.
She quickened her step to follow him across the perfectly manicured lawn. Everything inside the house was plain and good. There was no flash, no show. And no children, she discovered when they stepped inside. No staff either, by the look of things. Just the scent of freshly cut flowers and beeswax, contained with a heavy, but not oppressive silence.
‘I’ve given everyone the day off,’ Dante explained.
So they were alone. Had he planned this? She was instantly tense, imagining the interrogation she might face at any minute. ‘What fabulous flower arrangements,’ she commented, for want of something to say.
‘It’s the first thing I do each morning,’ he said, turning to give her a look. ‘Right after I muck out the horses.’
She relaxed into a laugh. Dante had always known how to reach out and touch her when no one else could.
‘Coffee?’ he said, heading for the kitchen. They had missed breakfast for the second day in a row.
They walked past the foot of the grand staircase, an elegant sweep of highly polished mahogany with a scarlet runner down the centre held by gleaming brass rods. There was a grand piano tucked neatly beneath the curve of it.
‘You play?’ she asked with surprise. The lid was up and there was music on the stand. ‘Before you arrange the flowers, I’m guessing?’
Dante’s tension also eased into a smile. ‘I play whenever I get the chance,’ he admitted. ‘I just don’t broadcast it.’
‘The team would mock?’ she suggested.
‘They’d only do that once,’ he commented dryly. ‘My mother insisted I learn,’ he explained in a rare moment of openness. ‘She said it would relax me.’
‘And does it?’ She ran her fingers across the keys.
‘It helps,’ he said tersely, as the bell-like sounds faded into silence.
‘You’re full of surprises.’
‘And you’re not?’ he challenged, flashing her a sharp look.
Her cheeks blazed red as the man who looked like a barbarian but who now turned out to have all the sensibilities of an aesthete continued to stare at her. Would the surprises never end where this new Dante Baracca was concerned? She was certainly getting to know him all over again.
‘Before breakfast I have another idea, Karina.’
Thrown off balance, she hesitated. ‘What idea?’
‘I need to unwind,’ Dante admitted as he rolled his powerful shoulders. ‘You do too.’
Unwind how? She followed him across the hall and down a corridor into an impressive leisure facility where there were marble floors and glittering fountains, and beyond the fountains an enormous swimming pool. ‘You want to have a swim?’ she queried. The time issue made her frown as she asked the question, along with a far more personal concern.