“I’ve never felt beautiful.” She toed a pebble. “I was the messy one, always grass-stained and needing my hair combed. After my kidnapping, the press called me ‘the fat one,’ because I comfort-ate. I starved myself in retaliation and cut my own hair and looked like a Goth for years, dark circles under my eyes, makeup smudged and face pale from not sleeping properly. It took ages after I got my panic attacks under control to look as healthy and happy as my sister.”
She squinted as she looked up, startled to find she had his full attention. That wasn’t pity in his expression, though. He was engrossed, which made a squiggling sensation tremble in the pit of her stomach.
“You asked me that night in Paris, remember? You asked if I was as beautiful as my sister. I thought it was funny to say yes because I was impersonating her. The only time I feel beautiful is when I look like her.” She knew better intellectually, but deep down, she still had a lot of demons.
“You were stunning when you were pregnant. You’re beautiful now. When I saw your sister in Berlin, I thought she was beautiful because she looked like you.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t even know—”
“I knew. I could tell the second I saw her. I just didn’t believe it. I thought—”
“What?” She held her breath, brimming with dread and hope, not sure what she wanted to hear.
He grimaced. “I thought I’d been a fool. That the way we’d reacted to each other had been a one-off thing.”
She swallowed. “It wasn’t?”
His gaze slammed into hers, pupils expanding the way a cat’s dilated before it pounced. Lines of tension pulled the rest of his face into the harsh countenance of a barely restrained barbarian. “Clearly.”
She stood on a tipping point, vibrating under the strain, drawn, drawn, drawn. The pull in her chest was nearly irresistible. A prickling wash of sensations made her hyper aware of everything around her, the pale heat of the sun, the scent of the grass, the dampness in the air and, most especially, the way he was looking at her mouth. At the way such a tiny expression of interest from this man could send wildfire through her whole body.
She tore her gaze from his, seeing only a blur of green and blue.
“Please be careful, Xavier.” She scraped at the hair tickling her cheek, shaken. “My self-esteem is full of holes. Don’t give me hope if there is none.”
“For what? You don’t want to be married to me. You said so.”
“I don’t want to be married to a man who doesn’t want me.” She had to press her lips tight so they wouldn’t tremble. Meeting his gaze was hard. She couldn’t hide the struggle, the longing, that was eating her up. “If you do...”
“I don’t want to want you,” he ground out.
She jerked back as though he’d struck her. He winced.
“I mean I can’t afford to want you. My father followed where sexual interest led. It was a disaster. I didn’t expect this,” he grated. “I wouldn’t have come.”
She breathed through each of the blows, eventually able to ask, “That’s all you feel?” The question was too revealing. She regretted it, even before he answered.
He took a long time, then, “Don’t hope, bella. You know my views on love.”
His gentle reply broke her chest open, leaving her heart pulsing like an open wound. This was what she had been avoiding accepting. This was why she couldn’t bear to look into her future. He was never going to love her.
Engulfed in agony right to the backs of her teeth, she nodded dumbly. “Will you listen for Tyrol when you go in? I want to see the bridge.”
She didn’t notice the hand he reached out as she walked away.
CHAPTER TEN
HE HAD HURT HER. He hadn’t wanted to. Cruel to be kind, he had thought, and he had regretted it immediately. What could he do, though? Admit that what he felt was not purely sexual. Even if he was capable of love, which he wasn’t, they had no future. He couldn’t lead her on.
He hated that he’d returned her to that stiff wariness, though. The woman who had texted without hesitation for the weeks they’d been apart suddenly had a full schedule and little to say. By the time they were at a dinner hosted by the bride’s parents the next evening, the tension between them was palpable. Her family smiled around it.
Angelique hadn’t arrived yet, Henri was there with his wife and twins along with her mother, and Trella spent most of the evening needling Ramon.
Xavier tried to intervene at one point. Ramon wasn’t above getting personal in retaliation and neither was Trella. It was escalating, but the bride, Isidora, tugged him aside. She was a stunning woman with auburn hair and a smile that put anyone at ease.