“I get the feeling you don’t read a lot of gossip news.”
“No,” she said.
He sat down in the chair opposite her, affecting a casual posture. He was a professional at pretending not to care, particularly at moments when he cared quite a bit. “Then you won’t have read about my escapades. They’re legendary. There isn’t a woman I can’t seduce. No supermodel with sex on her mind I’ve ever refused. I always leave them wanting more, as I rarely stay with a woman for more than one night. I have no shame. No morals to speak of whatsoever.”
He watched as the color in her cheeks rose, turning a dark pink that matched the embroidery on her dress. “Is that so?” Her voice was husky, her eyes focused somewhere on the wall behind him. He couldn’t work her out. Was she simply uncomfortable in his presence, angry and biding her time, or did she feel the insistent tug of attraction just as he did?
He had been with a great many women. And while he wasn’t particularly proud of that behavior when he stood back and took stock of it, it could not be denied. With his vast experience it made no sense that he would be tempted by this woman. She was not sophisticated. She was beautiful, but a great many women were beautiful. Beautiful without being too sharp, too fearsome and too wild.
She was like the wind, bottled up and stitched into a gown. He had to wonder if she had allowed for herself to be harnessed and was simply waiting for the right moment to free herself again.
“Yes. The media always said I had no shame. I imagine that I must have some, though I have not felt any in quite some time. It’s very liberating,” he said, not sure why he was adding this to the conversation, “to feel no embarrassment. To feel no compunction about simply acting on your impulses because you have accepted that you are capable of nothing else. Still, I didn’t imagine that I was absent of shame entirely. That isn’t true of anyone except for sociopaths. And I never thought that I was a sociopath. Then my brother and I, and his fiancée, Francesca, flew to Monte Carlo for a bit of fun and games. Kairos, being Kairos, was having fun in a very dignified manner. Largely he was meeting with world leaders in a more casual environment. I was there to have real fun. And so, it turned out, was Francesca. While Kairos was out I threw a party in my suite. I invited every beautiful woman I could find, every man interested in engaging in a bit of gambling and debauchery. There was a lot of alcohol, as there invariably is at these things. It turns out, the right amount of alcohol is all it takes for me to lose my last vestiges of shame. It was at this party that I proved the media right.”
“What did you do?” Her question, confused, mystified, enhanced by those wide dark eyes, shamed him in a way nothing else ever had. She truly couldn’t guess. Couldn’t even fathom the betrayal he was about to uncover for her.
Yes, if she was going to be his wife, it was best she understood now. Just who he was. Just what he was.
What your parents always knew you were.
“I screwed my brother’s fiancée. I wouldn’t even have remembered if it had not been for videos of the event. Not only did I humiliate my brother, but I made both Francesca and myself porn stars. That did not go over well with her family, if you were wondering. Nor did it go over well with mine.”
Those wide eyes now registered shock, horror. He was torn between the disappointment of watching her understand, of seeing her accept the reality of what he was, and a strange fascination that he could still shock someone. That she hadn’t somehow sensed upon their first meeting that he was flawed in a very real and insurmountable way. In a way he had fully embraced. He was not a man capable of doing things by halves. And since he could not be good, then he had purposed to be debauched to his very core.
He had a feeling that if he tried to explain that to Zara she would look at him as though he had grown another head. He was struck just then at how different their lives had been. He lived in a different world. The moment he’d gained control of his life, he’d made it exactly what he’d wanted. One filled with parties, as much human contact as he wanted. A different woman every night, helping to fill the void that might have been tempted to widen inside him if he allowed it.