“You didn’t date? Didn’t sleep with him?”
“Paulie dated. He sowed enough wild oats for the both of us. He took me to the Friday night dances, and on Monday I would hear what had happened at the parties he went to after he dropped me at home. He came here and had affairs.”
“And you put up with that?”
She sighed, hugging herself. “I believed him when he told me he was getting it out of his system. He swore that once we were married, he would never stray. I still believe he meant it. He encouraged me to do the same,” she offered with a shrug, “but like I say, no one offered and I told myself it would be romantic to wait.”
“Did you love him?”
She sighed, chest aching as she admitted what she’d never told anyone. “I adored him like a best friend. That’s a good foundation for a marriage, right?” She had needed to believe it, but hearing it now only made her hug herself tighter.
She tried to stem the emotions swelling in her, but the rest of her feelings, the churning doubts and anger and grief, gathered and poured out. “I miss him like crazy. He’s the one person who would have been right beside me through all of this, keeping my spirits up, saying all the right things. But I don’t know if I’d even be speaking to him because I’m so angry. I hate him for dying, really truly hate hi—”
A sob arrived like a commuter train with a whoosh and a suck of air. She held herself steady as grief rose and peaked. She blinked and trembled until she could assimilate it. After a long minute, she found control again and managed to continue.
“I hate him for getting behind the wheel that night. I hate Christian for giving him the car. I hate myself for thinking one spin up the drive when we were all so drunk would be okay.”
Something tickled her jaw, and she realized a tear had bled down her numb cheek to burn her chin. She swiped it away and sniffed back the rest.
Through blurred eyes, she saw Ryzard looked gray, but she was coming back from a dark place. The whole world looked dull and bleak.
“I’ve never admitted that to anyone,” she confessed. “I think it needed to come out. Thank you.” She rubbed her arms, becoming aware she was frozen and achy.
Ryzard’s long legs and wide chest appeared unexpectedly before her. He drew her into his arms even as she drew a surprised breath. His expression was stark and filled with deep anguish.
“Don’t say anything,” he said heavily, overcoming her automatic stiffening and pressing her into the solid strength of his body. “Just be quiet a minute.”
He smoothed hands along her back to mold her into him, warming her. It wasn’t a pass. It was comfort. After a hesitant moment, she let her head settle into the hollow of his shoulder and closed her eyes. He stroked her hair and she let her arms wrap around him, hugging him so the bruise that was her heart still ached, but felt covered and protected by the shield of his solid presence.
“Sometimes anger and hatred are the only things that get you through the injustice,” he said so quietly she wasn’t sure she really heard him, but the tickle across her hair told her his voice was real. “I envy people of strong faith. They never seem tortured by the why of it.”
She swallowed, floored to realize they were sharing a moment, something so deep and personal it didn’t need a name of a lost one for her to know he understood her utterly and completely. He suffered as she did.
Her hand moved on his back, soothing the tension in the muscles alongside his spine. She relaxed into him and they held each other for a long minute.
Gradually she realized he was becoming aroused. He wasn’t overt about it, but she knew and an answering thread of response began subtly changing her own body. Her internal organs felt quivery and her breasts grew sensitive. Awareness of their stark physical differences expanded in her mind along with how intimately they’d fit themselves together last night.
As heat suffused in her, she tried to pull away and keep her head ducked so he wouldn’t see how she was reacting.
He kept her close and tilted her face up. His mouth twitched ruefully, but his eyes remained somber. “You see?” he murmured. A sensation of pressure made her think he might have stroked his thumb over the scar tissue on her cheek. “We’re a good fit. You should let me give you the after-party you deserved before your wedding.”
“Tempting,” she said, backing out of his hold because a resurgence of warmth that had its feet in embarrassed longing tingled through her. “But I’m not a charity case you need to offer a pity lay. Give me your email and I’ll let you know if my father learns anything.”
“My desire for you has nothing to do with my political agenda,” he dismissed with a heavy dollop of annoyance. “I want you.”
She snorted. “Why?”
“Because, Tiffany, if you had any experience with men, you would know that last night was remarkable. There are people who have been together years and not been so attuned to each other.” He flinched a little as he said that, but she was too busy reacting to his outrageous claim.
“That’s not what you said this morning.” She tried to sound unaffected, but she was still feeling unfairly spanked. It reflected in the raspy edge on her tone and filled her with debasement long after the insult had landed. She couldn’t even look at him.
“I was under a wrong impression and behaved unpleasantly. I apologize.”
She eyed him, skeptical.
“I don’t apologize often. I suggest you accept it.”
“No doubt,” she allowed with a twitch of her lips. His arrogance ought to turn her off, but he seemed to have a right to it. His inner strength was as compelling as his obvious physical virility. When it wasn’t turned against her, that combination was lethally attractive.
“Come here,” he cajoled in a smoky invitation, even though he stood within touching distance and only had to reach out if he really wanted to.
“Why?” She stayed where she was, but everything in her gravitated to him.
“I want to kiss you. Show you how good we are together.”
“Seduce me?”
He offered a masculine smile so tomcattish and predatory, it made her stomach dip in giddy excitement. “I would very much like to make love to you again,” he said.
An image of her naked body, the one she avoided in the mirror every day, flashed in her mind. She drew the lapels of her robe together and shook her head.
“Find someone else. I’m not playing hard to get. I just don’t see the point.”
Rather than argue, he pursed his mouth in regret. “I’ve damaged your trust in me.”
“There wasn’t much to begin with,” she assured him with a tight smile.
“And the claws are revealed once again.” He seemed more amused than irritated. “You trusted me enough to share your—what does your American singer call it? The wonderland that is your body.”
“Yes, well, I was pretending to be someone else,” she dismissed with false breeziness, inner foundations unsteady as she recalled how completely she’d deluded herself into believing what she’d done was okay.
“Do it again,” he commanded.
“Ha!” She couldn’t help it. The man was so lofty and single-minded.
“I’m serious,” he insisted. “Put on your mask. We’ll go downstairs and find that woman capable of such delightful spontaneity.”
“It’s—no. I can’t.”
But she couldn’t think why. At least, not fast enough to have an answer ready when he demanded, “Why not?”
“Because...” She searched for a reason.
“We could dance again. We both enjoyed that. Of course, we could do that here.” He glanced to where the balcony doors stood open. The music from the band below drifted in with the sea-scented air and the swish of waves on the shore.
The mood and music came across as a lazy, exotic throb.
“No,” she said firmly, smart enough to be wary of his power once he got his hands on her. The way he’d felt her up on the dance floor last night had obviously been a spell of some kind.
“Downstairs it is. Shall we say one hour? I can shave and change in fifteen minutes, but you women need twenty just to find a pair of shoes.”
“He said,” she mocked, “demonstrating his vast experience with the opposite sex.”
“I won’t apologize. We’re adults. We can enjoy each other if we want to.” He moved forward to set a brief but profound kiss on her startled mouth. “Sure you don’t want to stay in?” he asked in a private tone that made her blood flutter in her arteries.
Oh, she was tempted, but she shook her head. “I’m not sure I even want to see you again.”
“Meet me downstairs, Tiffany, or I’ll come looking for you. But I don’t want to waste time searching. Set your watch.”
She shook her head. “I don’t like people thinking they can talk to me. I’d rather leave it on Do Not Disturb.”