“Kazimir,” she murmured.
He lifted his head. Turned her to him. His eyes were deep and dark.
He kissed her. Lightly. Gently. Then he stepped back.
“I’m going to phone down for something to eat. And something hot to drink. Coffee? Tea?”
It wasn’t what she’s expected. He could see that in the widening of her eyes. Well, hell, it wasn’t exactly what he’d expected, either. That kiss outside the restaurant had put a knot of desire in his belly that room service wasn’t going to assuage.
But she was frightened. Shaken and shaking. She needed time to think.
So did he.
He had accepted the responsibility of bringing her to her bridegroom. His uncle. Jesus H. Christ, his uncle, who had turned out to be as dissolute as his own father, but with an added touch of viciousness that made his servants cower.
Was what she’d told him true? Was this all her father’s idea? Was she what she now seemed to be, a gentle woman with a sweet smile and a kind heart?
Or was she the arrogant bitch Zach had handed over to him?
She was beautiful. And bright. He wanted her. The understatement of a lifetime. He had never wanted a woman as he wanted her.
But what was truth and what was fiction?
That kiss. God, that kiss…
Anything was possible.
For all he knew, the kiss, the tears were all an act. Maybe she was trying to win him over. Or misdirect him. Get him in her pocket and then take off.
Food. Something hot to drink. And, more important, time to try to sort things out.
Kaz forced a smile as he reached for the phone.
“Go on,” he said briskly. “Change into something warm. A sweater. Pants. Heavy socks.”
Katie stared at him.
What was this?
That kiss. Had it meant nothing to him? Had it been to gain her compliance? She was twenty- one, yes, but the truth was that she hadn’t been kissed all that many times.
The truth was more embarrassing than that.
She hadn’t been with a man. Ever. She’d never had sex, never slept in a man’s arms. Not even when she was away at college, supposedly on her own because she’d known damn well she wasn’t really on her own, that her father surely had people watching her. “Looking out for her,” he called it, but she knew it was more like looking out for himself. She was, always had been, a kind of commodity to him.
That was what she was now.
A commodity. A thing he was gifting to someone with power and wealth in exchange for even greater power and wealth—
“Katie.”
She blinked. Kaz was watching her, his gaze intense.
“Get into some warm clothes. You’ll feel better, sweetheart. You’ll see.”
She nodded, went into the bedroom, closed the door and stripped off her boots, her gray dress, everything but her panties, and put on, instead, a soft cotton T-shirt, a heavy white fis
herman’s sweater that fell to her hips, black tights and soft knee-high black suede boots. She scrubbed her face, put her hair into a thick single braid that hung down her back.