Her warm hands cupping my cheeks drag me out of the memories. “Oh, I’m so sorry you had to go through that. How old were you?”
I cage her hands under mine. “It was a long, long time ago. I think it started when I was four. But it’s in the past, and my bastard father is dead. We don’t need to worry about him anymore.”
There’s nothing more to say about him. Nothing I’m going to tell her, not with her history with her own father and my future with him.
I make a mental note to get one of my guys to research this dead woman. Any skeletons in her father’s closet are skeletons I want to line up in a neat little row to shove his way when the time comes.
27
VALENTINA
With sunlight shining in the room so brightly, I have to cover my face with my arm. It helps hide the heat in my cheeks as I remember how I acted last night. How I overreacted.
I risk a glance from under my elbow to stare at his bare back. He’s usually up and working well before I get up, but whatever happened last night took the energy out of him. His shoulders are wide and muscular, and my fingers itch to trace a path across them from the top of one shoulder to the other. His skin is darker than mine but not so dark that it looks like he spends any time in the sun. Right below his right shoulder blade rests a tiny brown splatter-shaped birthmark. I wonder if he knows it’s there or if anyone has bothered to tell him.
I lean in and press my lips to that spot, then freeze, realizing what I’m doing. It was one thing to touch him as part of our agreement, fulfilling my side of our deal, but it’s entirely another to crave his fingers on my skin and to want to press my lips all over him.
He stirs under me, and I scoot back in case he rejects me. He’s claimed my body in one way or another plenty of times, but I don’t think I can stand if he actually pushed me away.
“What are you doing, Angel?” he asks, rolling in the bed to face me. Before he’s even flat on his back, he’s drawn me into the curve of his arm. He smells even more strongly of the spicy ginger scent I associate with him now, and I press my face into his ribs and breathe him in.
“As much as I’d love to see what you’ll do next, baby, I have a meeting with the five in a few minutes. While I can keep them waiting, we have important business to handle.”
He pulls me in tight in almost a hug, then hops out of bed naked, heading toward the bathroom. My eyes burn with oncoming tears, and I stare at the partially open doorway.
What the hell? I don’t even know why I’m crying right now. He didn’t reject me. He just has work to do, and I can’t expect him to stay in bed with me all day.
I swipe at the tears and lie back on the pillow, trying to get control of myself. I’ve never been a crier. At some point, you learn tears don’t make anything better, so why am I all of a sudden a blubbering mess whenever I think about him being away from me?
I drag the covers over my head so he doesn’t see me when he comes out of the bathroom. When the water shuts off, I huddle deeper into the soft bedding and listen for the sound of his bare feet on the floor as he walks to the closet.
“Why are you hiding, Angel? Don’t make me climb under there and find out for myself.” His voice is deep and edges with steel that cuts so sweetly. I close my eyes and fall into it, calming myself. Then I throw the covers off and stare up at him. He’s naked, standing a few inches from the edge of the bed, his eyes locked on my bare skin.
I flush hot and look away, unable to keep my eyes on all of him. There’s too much to look at, too much to want to touch. “I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
He crawls across the bed until his knees brush my hip, then he drags my chin to the side so I’m meeting his eyes. “Don’t lie to me, Angel. When something is wrong, you better tell me, or I can’t do anything to fix it.”
Tears threaten to fall again. “What if you can’t fix it?”
“I can fix anything, Angel, even death.” His voice gentles. “Tell me why you’re crying.”
I slap my hands over my face, knocking his away. “I don’t know. It just started when you said you had to leave, and it won’t stop. I did this last night when you went to your business dinner too. This isn’t me. Sure, I cry, but not for no reason. Certainly not for no reason I can’t do anything about.”