He walked up to her, reached out, and then dropped his hand. A hint of unease flashed across his face but he couldn’t seem to stop looking at her. “Gretchen. You look . . . lovely.”
She smiled at him, shifting when someone passed too close to them. “Hi, Hunter.” She didn’t know what to say. This hadn’t been a problem she’d had often. Normally words just ran right out of her mouth whether she wanted them to or not. A tall, slinky woman strolled past, her tight bandage gown glittering with sequins. “I seem to be underdressed.”
“On the contrary,” Hunter said. “You’re the most gorgeous thing in this room. You don’t need flash to improve your beauty. Just your smile.”
She couldn’t resist smiling at that. “You flirt.”
He flushed a little.
“Nice party,” she told him, stepping aside as another couple moved past them. The room was positively packed. “You did well.”
“I did it for you,” he told her in a voice so low she almost didn’t catch it.
She swallowed hard. “You did, huh?”
“All for you. Everything. I want to prove to you that . . . I can be who you need me to be.”
She shook her head. “Hunter, all I’ve ever needed was—” She paused as someone in the crowd called his name. “Maybe this is a bad time.”
“Not a bad time,” he told her with a growl, and then he was at her side, cupping her elbow and steering her through the crowd. “Come with me.”
They wound silently through the throng and escaped down a back hallway—the north wing. Hunter’s wing. At the sight of the familiar paintings hanging on the wall, she felt a sharp stab of longing. If they continued down a second hallway, they’d get to his room. Was his bed lonely without her? Was this thing they had too broken to be fixed? Had she been too hard on him when she should have been understanding as to what drove him?
Hunter stopped in front of the large windows at the far end of the hall, where the corridor split and branched toward Hunter’s suite of rooms. From here, the wintry gardens were visible and the evergreen bushes were peeking out from under a blanket of snow. His hand lifted as if he wanted to reach for her and he just as quickly drew back.
“You’re well?” he asked in a clipped voice, clasping his hands behind his back and glancing out the window.
“Actually, no,” she told him. When he turned to her with a stricken look, she said, “There’s this guy who kind of broke my heart. He lied to me and sabotaged my work just so I could stay around him a bit longer.”
The look on his face was tense, his expression intent as he focused on her. “And would you have gone out with me? Not knowing me? Not knowing who I was except for this?” He gestured at the deep gouges scarring his face. “How am I supposed to believe that? People turn away at the sight of me.”
His sadness and pain broke her heart. “Oh, Hunter. Just because most people are shallow assholes doesn’t mean that I am.”
“But how would I know this?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” she said briskly. “We’ll never know that, because you manipulated the situation and lied to me. You messed with my career. You can’t just make up jobs to bring people into your life.”
“You can still have the money, you know,” he told her quietly. “I never meant to force you to choose between your happiness and me.”
She threw her hands up in the air. “It’s not about the money, Hunter. When will you get that? It’s about you and me and trust. How can I trust that you’re not pulling strings behind the scenes again anytime something goes my way?”
“How can I trust that you truly want me for who I am and not what I am?” There was a wealth of pain in his voice.
“Oh, Hunter. You have to have faith in me.” She moved forward and gently cupped his cheek, feeling the grooves of the scars.
He closed his eyes as if in ecstasy, his hand moving to hold hers there. “I love you so much, Gretchen. Please don’t leave me again.”
“Then trust me.”
His eyes opened. “It’s hard for me to trust.”
An amused smile curved her mouth. “I get that you’re damaged, but how do you think I feel knowing you’ve been manipulating things since day one?”
He flinched, and she could feel it against her palm. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“I know. And that’s why I’ve come back.” Her thumb lightly stroked over the jagged scar that twisted at the corner of his mouth. “It was the only way you knew how to reach out to me. I forgive you for that.”
He leaned in and kissed the heel of her hand.