“But your eyes…”
She frowned and looked up at him. “What?”
“When I found you, your makeup was all smeared like you’d been crying.”
Her lips firmed. She hated showing any sign of vulnerability around people she didn’t trust, and she trusted no one.
She wanted to deny it and say something snarky to put distance between them, but as he called her out, her emotions ganged up on her and her throat burned. This caring side of Giovanni didn’t match the annoying, do-anything-for-a-punchline asshole she’d always known.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she repeated, two tears slipping past her lashes and disappearing in the tacky pattern in the carpet.
His hand tightened on her arm. “Why are you crying?”
She shrugged. Her body ached, she was wet and cold and exhausted. She had no place to go, no one that wanted her.
Suddenly overwhelmed by her bleak circumstances, she sucked in a breath that jerked about her lungs like an inside-out sob. She looked at him with such desperation, truly believing this wasn’t his fault, but desperate to find someone who could make sense of her life for her.
“Do you ever hate who you are so much, that you wonder if the world would be better off without you?”
His brows drew together and his grip softened, his thumb rubbing ever so subtly over her arm where he held her. “Yes,” he rasped and her gaze jerked to his eyes, finding nothing but sincerity in the dark depths.
“But you’re always laughing.”
He lifted a shoulder. “It’s a defense mechanism. It mutes the doubt and disappointment I battle on the inside.”
Stunned that he’d share such a personal thing, she wondered if he was lying. But as she held his stare she found nothing but sincerity looking back at her.
“I imagine,” he said, softly. “It’s the same as being a bitch. If you reject people first, they can’t reject you.”
Was she really that transparent? She shivered, her cold dress clinging to her.
Giovanni walked over to the bed and retrieved the crumpled T-shirt. “Here. You can wear it.”
She took the bunched-up cotton and stared at it, confused and exhausted. “Why are you being nice to me?”
“Because it occurred to me, that maybe it’s been a long time since anyone has.”
She looked up at him through a wall of tears, fighting back the lump of unwanted emotion in her throat. Her chin lifted. “I don’t need your pity.”
He sighed, the delicate moment over. “And there’s the Erin we all know.”
He walked back to the bed, this time climbing under the covers and sorting through the chips and candy. It was as if she disappeared and he no longer saw her.
Invisible, she returned to the bathroom to change clothes. Leave it to her to find an ally and destroy the connection in under a minute.
What the hell was that? Giovanni despised when women cried, but seeing Erin Montgomery cry was the worst freak of nature he’d ever imagined. She was too tough for delicate emotions. How was he supposed to hate her if she got all soft and weepy?
A faint sniffle came from the bathroom and he glanced at the door, doing a double take when he glimpsed a flash of pale flesh through the crack. He leaned to the right, catching more than a hint of her naked curves.
Jesus, she was built like a brick shit house. Tapered thighs, darting hips, narrow waist, and those tits. Her nipples had been hard as rocks since she took off her coat. The white T-shirt slipped over her head, sliding over her body and covering her curves, but not before he caught sight of the bare flesh between her thighs. He should not be looking at her.
The door opened and he grabbed the first thing next to him—a bag of M&Ms—and focused hard on the ingredients.
The bed dipped under her slight weight and the candy and chips rolled into his thigh as she lifted the covers. They sat in silence. He feared moving the slightest muscle with Erin being like a grenade with a loose pin. Who the hell knew what might set her off.
He’d only complimented her crumb cake and the chick went bonkers.
“Are you going to eat them?”
Without looking at her, he handed the chocolate-covered peanuts over to her. The tear of the bag and the crunch of her bite the only sound. Several more rattled out of the package and clicked into her palm.
“I’m tired,” he announced. “I think I’m gonna get some sleep.” He scooted under the covers, setting an avalanche of junk food into motion. He stared at the horrible drapes covering the front window by the door, listening to Erin crunch away.
He couldn’t get comfortable due to his body’s response to seeing her naked. He was pathetic. She was just flesh and bone, nothing he hadn’t seen before. Besides, she was mean.