How sterile had her life become? In the six years since she had been taken from the asylum, she had fought just to live, day by day. To get up in the morning, to make friends, to learn how to defend herself, to find a balance in her life when sometimes she feared there would never be balance.
Now here she stood in front of the only man in those six years whom she had been able to touch, who had touched her. She had gone out several times in the past year determined to find a lover and had always chickened out. Until last night. Last night she had gone to his bed, and she still hadn’t repaired the wound she had suffered from it.
“You can’t deny it, Risa.” His voice was lower, warmer. It throbbed with knowledge, with a false arousal she knew he couldn’t actually feel. He couldn’t want her now. Not after last night.
“Don’t do this to me,” she whispered, feeling the tears building in her throat, nearly strangling her with their strength. “Please, Micah. Don’t hurt me like this.”
Too much was building inside her, too much information she couldn’t handle, that she couldn’t deal with. The Whore’s Dust making her hurt for sex, making her willing to beg to be touched. A contract on her life. And now Micah, a man stronger, more arrogant and dominant, than any she had ever known, and a fascination she couldn’t seem to break away from.
All this for the ugly little girl who couldn’t get a boyfriend when she was a teenager and couldn’t get a lover now unless he had an agenda that required he force an interest in her. A man who hadn’t been able to achieve his satisfaction with the ugly woman she had become.
She covered her mouth with her hand and turned away from him, all but running from him. She was running away. She was hiding because she was weak, because she couldn’t face the truth of what she or her life had become.
“Risa, dammit,” he cursed as the door slammed closed behind her.
She pressed her back to it as her legs gave out and she slid to the floor. As she hugged her knees to her chest, the tears began to fall. She couldn’t hold them back; the pain was too intense. It dug inside her soul and sent a wash of ugly black emotion tearing through her.
For the first time in her life, she hated. Hated with a vicious, horrible strength that frightened her. And the awful truth of it was, there was no one she hated more than herself. She hated her weakness, she hated the helplessness she felt against the events transpiring against her, and she hated the face that Jansen Clay had always assured her was so ugly. So ugly he couldn’t pay a man to fuck her. And God forbid, he had once said, that she would have children and pass that ugliness on.
God forbid that Risa should ever believe that she deserved the things other women did.
FRUSTRATION ATE at Micah as he paced the living room in the apartment across from Risa’s. Morganna was in the apartment with her, giving him a chance to gather his control after she had run back to her bedroom. She was running away from him and running away from the danger. She had to face both. She would face him, and she would do it soon, he assured himself.
He was willing to let her bury her head in the sand for the moment, because he understood that the implications of the danger she was in were overwhelming. But tonight she would face him, and she would face the fact that there would be no turning away any longer.
“I have her psychologist’s report here.” Kira Richards was sitting on the floor in front of a long coffee table scattered with files. “This is a mess, Micah,” she sighed. “Her father did a job on her before he ever allowed her to be raped.” Micah flinched at the word but turned back to Kira and retook his seat on the couch.
He hadn’t had the reports before meeting with Risa last night. There hadn’t been time. They knew Orion had accepted the job. Moving quickly had been imperative. It was still imperative, but for different reasons.
Micah had read the files when he stepped in the room. He’d spent over an hour reading them as he waited for the delivery time that the restaurant had quoted for the food. Blanchard’s, one of his favorite restaurants, didn’t deliver fast; they delivered good food instead.
That extra time had given him the chance to go over the files, pages and pages of childhood events that Risa had told the psychologist about, as well as the psychologist’s diagnosis.
“How did she survive this?” Kira whispered as she read one of the papers. “He told her she was so ugly he couldn’t imagine her passing it on to her children?” Horror crossed her face as she lifted her gaze to Micah. “She remembers when he helped drug her, that he laughed that he’d never be able to sell her. He was lucky to pay someone to fuck her? She had no boyfriends when she was younger, and only a few friends.” She shook her head. “Her psychologist is amazed she doesn’t have to put her on drugs. According to her report—”
“According to her report, ‘Risa is sound mentally, physically, and psychologically, with only a few issues that need to be worked out. Most important is that of her worth to herself as well as to others,’” he quoted. “I read the report.” He may not totally have agreed with it. Risa was wounded, but she was strong. Healing her would require more than dealing with a few issues.
He forced himself to calm as he checked his watch again. He wanted to be there when dinner was delivered. He was going to make certain she ate. She had lost too much weight in the past year. She was still healthy, but he knew it wouldn’t take much longer before that changed. She hadn’t eaten before the meeting this morning, and she definitely hadn’t eaten afterward.
“Risa is our best chance to catch Orion.” Jordan spoke up from where he sat at a bank of security monitors. “If she cracks emotionally or mentally, then there’s a chance he’ll take her and we’ll lose her.”
“She won’t crack.” Micah was going to make sure of it.
“Micah, you might not be able to stop it,” Morganna said softly. “She’s twenty-six; she’s had a lifetime to believe the crap her father filled her head with. With the addition of the Whore’s Dust and now Orion, she may not come out of this without scars none of us can fix.”
“There will always be scars.” He flashed her a harsh look. “Her soul is scarred from the inside out, Kira. No one can change that. That doesn’t mean she can’t be happy. It doesn’t mean she’s not a beautiful, vibrant woman.”
Kira knew that Risa wasn’t ugly in any way—she had pretty eyes, a beautiful smile when she bothered to smile—but she wasn’t exactly pretty, either. The girl leaned a bit to the plain side. Her features weren’t distinguishing. She was a woman who would easily be overlooked unless you knew her. But the more Kira got to know her, the more she saw that there was a uniqueness to Risa that made her very pretty.
Kira watched as Micah picked one of the eight-by-ten black-and-white pictures that had been snapped of Risa during their surveillance of her in the past week. Black-and-white did nothing to compliment her, but Micah’s expression was…entranced?
“Her eyes sparkle when she finds a reason to be happy,” he murmured. “And even saddened, there’s a light in them that assures me she will fight to live.” He touched the face in the photo. “Why do you think she doesn’t see herself as pretty?” He lifted his gaze back to Kira as he frowned. “Her smile is filled with warmth, and even in these pictures you can see the need for laughter, for passion, lighting her features.” He tossed the picture back to the table. “How could a father be so vile, Kira? So evil?”
Kira almost smiled. When she looked at that picture, she saw it, too. She saw the life on Risa’s face that Micah had picked up on. She saw the curiosity in Risa’s eyes; she saw the latent passion. She had missed it all before, and seeing it gave the girl a prettiness that couldn’t be denied.
Hell. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder; she had always heard that. In this case, perhaps it was more true than she had ever known.
CHAPTER 7