Page 27

Chapter Thirteen

B ut that wasn’t good enough for her, was it? Oh, no. Not for Lexi Stoltz, the nurturer. The woman who steadfastly defended a father who’d apparently treated her like dirt, and was now soothing the damned soul of a man beyond salvation.

It wasn’t enough for her to have her precious normalcy. She had to inflict it on him, as well. And dammit, it was hard enough being near her when people were shooting at them. This bull was almost impossible.

He was afraid she had a repeat of last night on her mind.

But when she came down from her hour-long soak in the tub wearing sweats and a ponytail, he decided that theory might be off the mark.

She’d suggested he take a bath, as well, but he’d settled for a quick shower.

And when he’d rejoined her there was a fire snapping in the living room hearth.

He knew it before he got to the foot of the stairs.

He smelled the burning logs, heard the snapping and hissing of the resin.

And he smelled something else, too. Something spicy and Italian that made him hurry his pace. But he slowed it again when he saw the dancing candlelight in the living room. Half a dozen flickering tapers chased shadows up and down the walls.

He lifted his chin, swallowed hard. He didn’t want to go to bed with her again. Much as he’d denied it all day long, that first time had damn near shattered his sanity. It had been too intense. Too hot. Too frantic. And just too damned good.

He hadn’t stopped thinking about the way it had felt to hold her in his arms since. At least, not until he’d heard that voice on the lawyer’s answering machine. That voice had shocked him back to reality the way a pail of ice water would have.

How could he have forgotten so easily in Lexi’s arms?

It was wrong. And he wouldn’t let it happen again. He had to keep his focus, keep his hatred alive and burning.

She came in from the kitchen with a wineglass full of pale pink liquid in each hand. “Thought you could use a little relaxation, too.” She handed him one.

He took it, sipped it.

“Dinner’s almost ready. Pasta marinara.”

“You waxing domestic on me, Lexi?” His words came out sounding sarcastic and cold. She flinched and her lips thinned. But that wasn’t enough for the bastard inside him. “Look, I don’t know what you’re expecting this to lead to, but it’s not gonna be a repeat of last night. It can’t be that.”

The stricken look in her eyes faded fast. It was replaced by a look of fury. She snatched the wine glass out of his hand and, with a flick of her wrist, applied its contents to his face.

“It’s my house. If I feel like cooking, I’ll cook. If you don’t like it, you can always leave.”

Even as the last words left her mouth, she was leaving him there with wine dripping from his chin and burning his eyes. Maybe he was being just a little bit vain to assume seduction was what she had on her mind. But what the hell was he supposed to think?

He played with that idea for a while. Twenty minutes later she was back, a steaming plate of food in her hand, her wineglass brimming and the bottle tucked under her arm. There was more wine in her glass than there had been before, so she must be on her second. Or third.

She put the plate on the coffee table and sank onto the sofa, curling her legs under her body, drinking deeply from the glass.

“Don’t hit the wine too hard. We have to stay sharp.”

“You stay sharp,” she snapped. “And if you want to eat, do it in the kitchen. I know it’ll come as a shock, Romano, but I don’t want your company right now.”

He rose to the bait, though he should have known better. With a meaningful glance at the firelight and candles, he said, “You could have fooled me.”

“The fire and the candles are for my benefit, not yours. They soothe me when things are falling apart. You might recall I had a fire and candles burning that first night you showed up to rain chaos down on my life.”

She had a point. There had been candles glowing that night. And she hadn’t been seducing anyone then. He took a breath, thinking maybe he’d been mistaken.

“I’m sorry if I jumped to the wrong?—”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me. I really don’t.” She drained the wine, reached for the bottle, refilled her glass.

“Who said there was anything wrong with you?” She was going to get plastered if she kept it up. Her gaze seemed fixated on the dancing firelight, so he took the bottle and set it on the floor beside the sofa, out of her sight.

“Is there?”

He swallowed hard. She hadn’t touched her food. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

She met his eyes. She wasn’t drunk. If she was, he wouldn’t be able to see the hurt in them.

“You lie,” she said. “There are lots of things wrong with me. The SVT for starters. And then there’s the fact that I can never have children. I don’t suppose your background checks on me turned up that little tidbit, did they?”

Connor flinched when she said it.

She shook her head, heaved a long sigh. “This isn’t working. I can’t relax and pretend things are fine. My brain just isn’t buying it.” She closed her eyes. “Hand me that stupid book, and then please leave me alone while I read it.”

He pursed his lips and finally nodded. He was only just beginning to realize how much she dreaded reading her father’s diary.

Maybe she sensed something. Maybe … somewhere deep inside her, it was something she’d known for a long time but hadn’t acknowledged.

Now she’d be forced to see the truth, ready or not.

He should have been a little more understanding.

“Okay.” He took the book from the mantel, carried it to the sofa, set it down beside her. She didn’t even look at it. “Are you sure you’ll be okay alone?”

“I’ve always been okay alone, Romano.”

She’d said to leave her alone. He didn’t.

Not really. He left for a few minutes, long enough to eat a plateful of food and pour a glass of water, though he was dying to sample that wine internally.

When he finished, he went very quietly into the big foyer, where the stairs landed.

He sat down on the bottom step, his water in his hands, and he watched her.

She read, oblivious to his presence. Her hands trembled a little, then a little more.

Blinking as if dazed, she laid the book down, staring straight ahead.

What she was seeing, though, wasn’t in the living room with her.

It was in her mind. And whatever it was, it wasn’t pleasant.

Not with those tears springing into her eyes.

Not with her lower lip quivering that way.

Squeezing her eyes tight, drawing a deep breath, she seemed to gird herself. Then she looked at the pages again, and she read some more.

It was killing him not to go in there. At first, his eagerness had been based on his hope that there would be references to the formula in the diary.

But that concern had faded. Now all he wanted to know was what that book could hold that would hurt Lexi like this.

Because it was hurting her. Pain etched itself more deeply into her eyes with every page she turned.

Romano knew pain. He knew it too well not to see it cutting her heart to ribbons.

It was an hour before she stopped reading.

She looked shell-shocked when she closed the cover, laid her father’s diary on the table and got to her feet.

Her knees wobbled, but he was there before she could fall.

He grabbed her shoulders, and gazed down at her face.

He wanted to hold her. Lord, how he wanted to hold her.

“Let go.”

Two words. A harsh whisper wrapped in hurt and anger. He didn’t let go. He pulled her to his chest and slid his arms around her. He stroked her hair, wishing he could snap the band that held it captive. “What is it? What did he write that hurt you this bad?”

With anger that surprised him, she pulled free. Her eyes were tear glazed and distant when they met his.

“You don’t care. Why are you asking when you know you don’t care?”

Romano gave his head a shake. She bent over the coffee table, and when she straightened, she held the diary out to him. “Here. Take it. It’s what you came for. It’s why you stayed. Take it and read it. Maybe your precious answers are in there. I don’t know. I couldn’t … didn’t finish it.”

“Lexi …”

She pressed the book into his hands and turned away, her ponytail snapping with the motion.

Romano threw the diary onto the floor. “I don’t give a damn about the book right now.

” He touched her shoulder, and she stopped walking away from him but didn’t turn around.

“Come on, talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong, maybe I can help. ”

“I don’t need your kind of help. Just …” She drew a breath, tears shuddering on its surface like dew on a windblown leaf. “Just leave me alone.”

She walked up the stairs. He heard the bedroom door close, and that was all.

“Damn.”

His gaze was drawn downward, to the diary on the floor. He could go upstairs after her, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t tell him a thing. Or, he could leave her alone as she’d asked and read the book for himself.

He squatted on his haunches and picked it up.

Lexi lay face down on the bed, crying, heartbroken. He’d never loved her. Her father had never loved her.

No. Not her father. He hadn’t even been her father.

The words he’d scrawled in his poisonous ink about her and her mother were etched indelibly in Lexi’s mind.

I couldn’t stand the woman. Marrying her was the biggest mistake of my life. And I should have known all along the brat she carried wasn’t mine. Five years later, she died, weak, sickly thing that she was, leaving me to raise another man’s child.