Zane struggled to school his features... As his insides churned. And sweat gathered on his upper lip.
He’d woken up last night painfully aroused, the taste of her still on his lips. But as he’d lain in bed, staring at the ornate plasterwork on the ceiling of his bedchamber, he’d decided he didn’t want Catherine to leave. He’d told himself it was because this project was too important. And he’d convinced himself he could control the hunger for her like everything else in his life. But now he wasn’t so sure.
He’d decided to offer her the interview to re-establish clear boundaries. But now he could see he’d miscalculated. And he hadn’t been entirely honest with himself.
What was the real reason he wanted her to stay? Was it really the project? Or the taste of her that he couldn’t seem to forget?
And now this? Just when he thought he’d contained the problem, it had blown up in his face.
She was looking at him with sympathy and concern in her gaze. As if she could see inside his mind, and had already dragged out the answers he had no intention of giving her.
He wanted to halt her line of questioning, but in his arrogance he’d opened himself up to exactly this kind of intrusion. And now he could hardly shut her down without making it seem as if he had something to hide.
‘The custody arrangements were agreed in private.’ He swallowed, his throat raw as he tried to beat back the memories. ‘My mother was...’ He paused, knowing he would have to give Catherine something, even if every one of his instincts was rebelling at the thought of revealing even this much. ‘She wasn’t capable of handling me any longer. Like most teenage boys I was—’ scared, lonely, confused ‘—unruly,’ he managed. ‘I needed a firm hand.’ He shrugged, but the movement felt stiff and unconvincing, his back and shoulders stinging with the stark memory of the angry welts, the brutal pain that had been inflicted with so much relish. ‘My father was able to supply the discipline she could not.’
‘Were you happy here, when you first came to Narabia?’ she asked, her voice soft and unthreatening, but ripe with compassion.
He stiffened. ‘Of course,’ he lied again, disgusted with himself now, not just for giving her the opportunity to ask the questions, but also for nearly giving in to the momentary urge to tell her the truth. ‘But exactly how are my feelings as a boy relevant to this project?’ he countered, going on the offensive.
She stared at her notepad, and the flush of colour spread out across her collarbone. But when she raised her head, he could see the compassion was still there.
To his shock he felt the jolt of awareness.
What the hell?
Nothing could have disturbed him more.
‘Because in many ways your journey then is the same journey the outside world will experience now. Your story is the story of Narabia.’
‘How?’ he asked, disturbed now not just by the compassion in her voice, but the earnestness in her expression. She actually believed this nonsense.
‘You spent the first fourteen years of your life living in the United States,’ she explained, her tone rich with conviction. ‘When you came here you couldn’t possibly have been prepared for the immense cultural shift you would experience. Isn’t this project about giving the outside world the same unique experience you had sixteen years ago? The chance to uncover the same secrets, to explore the same mysteries you found when you first came here?’
Absolutely not.
The thought horrified him.
The last thing he wanted was for the whole world to know the circumstance of his arrival in Narabia. But he steeled himself against letting his horror show.
The whole purpose of this project was to exorcise the pain, obscure the sordid truth and lock his past away in a place where no one would ever find it.
But as she stared at him, willing him to open up to her, he couldn’t quite bring himself to stamp out the hope in her eyes.
‘What I think,’ he said, measuring his reply, ‘is that it would be unwise to make me the focus of this project, Catherine.’
‘Why?’ she asked, still earnest, still convinced.
And he knew he would have to be ruthless after all.
Something was happening here that was a great deal more disturbing than that damn kiss. Something that could be a great deal more dangerous.
‘Because people might question why you find my story so fascinating,’ he said. ‘Especially if they discover that your conduct here hasn’t always been strictly professional.’
Blinking, she stiffened, the earnest expression turning to shame and humiliation as the delectable blush bloomed in her cheeks like a mushroom cloud.
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ She was clutching her notebook so hard, he was surprised it didn’t break in two. ‘I see what you mean.’
He wasn’t sure she really did see, because there was nothing more he wanted to do in that moment than finish what they had started the day before. Did she know she wasn’t the only one struggling to maintain an appropriate distance?