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Outside the hospital walls, everyone allowed her to keep to herself, spending her days painting. And most tried not to stare when she went to the grocery store. Tried and generally failed.
Cade was different. He’d looked at her with desire. He’d said the words: “I want you.” But now that he’d seen the scars, what did she have to lose by telling him the whole story?
“I was in foster care,” she said. “With my sister. It was our third family. The first two didn’t work out. My sister—she was too much to handle. This third couple had grown children and a big ranch outside of town. They owned horses and when we arrived…I thought it was heaven. They took us in when I was sixteen. Natalie, my sister, was seventeen. Not that it matters.”
“It’s your story. The details matter,” he said. “So you were sixteen and in foster care?”
She swallowed. Anyone else, any other time, she’d worry about the fallout of sharing this much. But wasn’t that the point of this weekend? Anything she did, anything she said, it was all temporary. She could embrace a freedom she never allowed herself, and for once, she wouldn’t have to worry about the consequences.
“After a few months with our new foster father, it became clear that nothing we did was good enough. Everything about having us there made him angry. I know Natalie was difficult, but that feeling that no one wants you, that you’re an obligation…it hurts. I think Natalie became immune to their attempts to make her ‘part of the family.’ I tried. I really wanted them to like me. But nothing worked.”
“He did this?” Cade demanded. “Your foster father?”
She nodded. “One day, while I was cleaning out one of the horses’ hooves, our foster father came up to me. He stared screaming about what I’d done wrong, cleaning the hoof the wrong way. Usually Natalie would be there and interrupt, draw his anger away, and they’d shout at each for a while. But this time, my sister had snuck into town to meet her friends. I think he knew that, and it made him furious. He grabbed a knife that I’d left out and swung it at my face…over and over…”
His jaw tightened with each word out of her mouth. “You don’t have to keep going.”
Her hand went to her jagged scars. She wanted to paint the full picture for him. Beyond this room, she could count on one hand the number of people who’d listened to her story. She needed the man who looked at her and saw beauty to understand how that label had been ripped away from her. “I’d like to finish.”
He nodded. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“Once my foster father realized what he’d done, I think he tried to clean up the cuts himself. I don’t remember. But when Natalie came back late that night, she saw them and called nine-one-one. The doctors tried to repair the damage, but he’d cut too deep. And I was left with red, ugly scars.” She stared at the carpet. “Here, in Vegas, I can hide behind a mask. But back home? Away from fancy parties and nightclubs? I can’t hide.”
“Lucia, look at me.”
She lifted her head.
“You don’t need to hide behind a mask. You’re—”
“Stop. If I’d turned around in the restaurant and you’d seen my face, you would have walked away. Maybe not right away. But you would have found a polite way to leave.”
“No, Lucia.” He clasped his hands in his lap, interlacing h
is fingers. “I would have stayed.”
Cade looked away, his gaze fixed on his hands. He would have stayed because he’d wanted her from the moment he’d spotted her studying a painting. Her curves, her long hair, and her vulnerability had drawn him in. Knowing why she’d felt the need to hide didn’t change the fact that one look at her, standing with her back to him, had sparked his desire.
He only wished Natalie had told him the fucking truth about Lucia. Maybe then he would have been better prepared to make her feel protected and cherished the way she’d needed from the first moment.
Natalie had offered him a few details into her and her sister’s childhoods, but nothing like this. If he’d known, he would have seen the mask for what it was from the start—a defense against a world that judged her by the way she looked and found her damaged.
He glanced back at her. Even if he’d known the truth, would he have done the “right” thing? With Lucia, the lines blurred. Their wild night didn’t feel wrong.
“So now you know all my secrets,” she said.
And I should tell you mine. I should tell you who sent me.
But if he told her now, she’d question his every word and action. And he had a bad feeling she wouldn’t believe him when he said he’d broken the rules when he’d accepted her challenge. He’d wanted to make her fantasies a reality. Hell, he still did.
Wasn’t there a way to give her what she wanted and live up to his promise? Not just help her fulfill her fantasies, but make sure she explored every inch of them in complete safety.
Come Monday, they could go their separate ways. He’d talk to Natalie and tell her to keep her mouth shut. Lucia never needed to know he’d been sent here.
“You don’t have to stay,” she said. “You don’t owe me anything.” She lifted her water glass to her lips.
No, he owed her the truth, or at least the part he could give her.
“A scar doesn’t change the fact that you’re the only woman who can drive me wild simply by eating a chocolate-covered berry.” He stood and shed his robe, then took the robe’s cloth belt. He tossed the strip of fabric onto her lap, and then he turned and headed for the bed.
