The Man Behind the Scars

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.”

And she did want this. Him. Of course she did. He was the answer to all of her prayers, she reminded herself fiercely and repeatedly. She would be rich and a countess to boot! All of her problems would be solved! Not bad for a wild fantasy on a plane ride and a single dance at an engagement party, she told herself. Not bad at all.

And if there’d been a gaping sort of hole inside of her, far too black and bitter for her to look at directly, she’d ignored it. Fiercely and repeatedly.

“I’m afraid I have urgent business I must attend to for the rest of the week,” Rafe told her in that stern, aristocratic voice when he finally returned her calls, right when she was starting to believe that perhaps she’d fantasized the whole thing after all. Just made it up to take away the pain of Chantelle’s latest and greatest betrayal, the way she had when she was a little girl—telling herself stories to make her nights alone less frightening while Chantelle was out with “friends”. “I’m afraid I did not factor the possibility of a fiancée into my schedule.”

That word. Fiancée. It made a chill sneak down her back and she wasn’t sure why. What she was sure about was that she didn’t want to know.

“Are you sure this isn’t simply a test?” she asked, keeping her voice light.

She knew it was. She knew he was still making certain. Making absolutely sure that she’d meant every single word she’d said in that ballroom. Making her question herself and decide if this was what she wanted. If he was what she wanted.

Not to mention, deciding such things for himself. After all, he was bringing far more to this devil’s bargain than she was. It was difficult to imagine, standing by herself in the middle of a flat in a neighborhood she doubted he’d ever visited or could locate on a map, why a man like him—an earl, of all things—would bother. There had to be any number of willing would-be countesses scattered about the country, no matter what he thought. Angel couldn’t possibly be his only option, the way he was hers.

She hated how that made her feel. So … needy. Desperate. Two things she’d never felt before, not about a man. There was nothing about the feeling—itchy and unpleasant—that she liked.

She moved restlessly around her small, serviceable flat, her gaze skipping over all the detritus of this life she’d been so desperate to call her own, that she was now equally desperate to get rid of. All the books she’d hoarded, kept away from Chantelle’s hoots of derision as she’d called Angel Lady Muck—each of them an escape, a fantasy, the education she’d denied herself. Surely wanting to leave the life she’d made, whatever might have become of it, spoke of deep deficiencies in her character. It had to. But then, what part of her behavior over the past few days did she think offered a counterargument?

“Not at all,” he replied coolly, snapping her back into the conversation. “But it is, of course, a period for reflection and research. I suggest you avail yourself of it.”

“Reflection and research?” she echoed, and then laughed. Keep this light, she reminded herself. Easy. She ran her fingers over the spine of one of her favorite books, an old classic involving titled gentlemen, intricate revenge plots and all manner of epic adventures. “I think you’ll find I’m an open book. Written in very simple and easy-to-read sentences.”

“But I am not,” he replied, with what might have been dark humor, had he been another man. There was a pause, and she wondered where he was. What he was doing. What sort of room he stood in, having this bizarre conversation with a woman he hardly knew. Did he regret this already? Did she? Why couldn’t she tell her own feelings where this man—this situation—was concerned? “You may live to wish you’d taken this more seriously, Angel.”

“Yes, yes,” she said dismissively, her voice far more blasé than she actually felt. “Marry in haste, repent at leisure. Etcetera. I promise to think hard and deep about the ways in which your money could alter my life for the better, for as long as you think it necessary.”

“You do that,” he told her in his serious way, his voice all cool command and dark authority over the phone. And, she thought, somewhat disapproving too. She didn’t like how much that bothered her. “I will send for you on Monday morning. We’ll discuss the ramifications of this arrangement then, in detail and with my solicitors.”

“And what if I want to speak to you before then?” she asked, more to see what he would say than from any current burning desire to have access to him. And in any case, it was only Tuesday morning now. Monday was a long way away. It was going to be difficult, she thought, to have a savior in hand yet still out of reach. To be still smack in the middle of her life, with her problems, while the new and far better, far easier life dangled just beyond her fingertips.

She might very well go mad.

“You seem remarkably adept at leaving extraordinarily long voice-mail messages,” he replied silkily, and she felt it like the sharp reprimand it was. “I imagine you will have no trouble whatsoever leaving more if you feel it necessary.”

She stood there near the front window of her flat, the phone in her hand, for a long time after he ended the call. She stared out toward the street, her heart beating hard and too fast, seeing nothing at all but the future she’d conjured up out of sheer bloody-mindedness, pure shamelessness … and her big mouth.

Maybe she’d taken this whole make-your-own-fairy-tale thing a bit too far.

She imagined that was a common enough reaction when you suddenly found yourself in an actual palace, stepsister to a real, live Cinderella. And when faced with Allegra’s happily ever after, complete with an island kingdom and a handsome Prince Charming, it was perhaps understandable that Angel had conjured up fantasies of modern-day princes who would dance off into bliss and happiness with a common girl like her, all choirs of tweeting budgies and swelling, rapturous soundtracks. But that was the shiny, happy Disney version, wasn’t it?