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Alex knew he should have given her time to adjust to the reality of his scars, but he felt too raw. He hated being looked at, despised the flicker of pity that inevitably crossed every person’s face when they saw him in the light. So he made sure very few people did.
In the nearly two years since the fire, only a few trusted business advisors and staff had been able to look him in the eye. He didn’t give anyone else the chance, not if he could help it. He entered his office from a private entrance, and, while there, he rarely left. Everything he could do from his office by phone or email, he did, and when he wasn’t doing business he was keeping to himself, either in Athens or here, travelling by private jet or yacht to avoid the inevitable whispers and stares.
He had a few trusted staff who had seen his face and wouldn’t talk, but he’d never had many friends and so he had even fewer now. As for lovers? What a joke. All in all, it was a lonely life, but it was the only one he could bear to live.
And yet he’d known this moment would come, when the woman who would be his wife would look on his face and shudder. He hated it with an intensity that made his fists clench before he made the choice, very deliberately, to flatten them out. He would not be that kind of man. Not like his father. It was a choice he made every day, deliberately, calmly, because he had to.
‘I... I have to think,’ Milly stammered, her gaze still tellingly transfixed by the scars that crisscrossed his entire right cheek, starting in his hairline and coming down to the corner of his mouth and quirking his lip upwards in a horrible half-smile he couldn’t ever change. There were other scars too, ones she might not have noticed yet, cording the side of his neck and making a patchwork of white lines across his shoulder. ‘It’s such a big step...’
‘Well, don’t think too long,’ Alex returned in a deliberate drawl, making sure to keep her gaze even though everything in him demanded he turn away. Hide. ‘Because if you refuse, I’ll have to ask someone else, and as quickly as possible.’
‘Do you have an alternative?’ She sounded more curious than offended—or relieved.
He didn’t, not yet, but he just shrugged. ‘I have some possibilities.’ None of the women of his acquaintance would agree to marry him looking like this, and he wouldn’t want them anyway. Shallow, vapid creatures, caring only for appearances and wealth, and he had only one of those attributes.
No, he realised he wanted her, because she seemed sensible and trustworthy, and he had a feeling they could get along tolerably well, which was all he could ask for. All he would ever let himself want.
‘Why me, though?’ Milly pressed.
Looking at her, Alex knew he was fooling himself if he thought he wanted her just for those modest qualities. No, there was more to it than that. He wanted her, wanted her in the way a man wanted a woman. Desire was dangerous and foolish, and it made him feel exposed in a way he hated.
‘You’re here. You’re suitable. You need the money.’ He bit each word off and spat it out. She flinched a little, but then she nodded.
‘At least you’re honest. I...appreciate that.’ She sighed, turning away from him to stare out at the water. ‘I love it here,’ she said softly, and he tensed.
‘That’s a good beginning.’
‘Is it? It doesn’t seem nearly enough.’
‘But if you don’t want love in your marriage, why not this?’
‘I feel as if I’m signing my life away.’
‘You’d have every freedom.’
‘Except the freedom to marry someone else.’
‘True.’ He paused. ‘I would not countenance divorce. A child needs both parents.’
‘Nor would I,’ Milly returned sharply, with more force than even his tone had possessed. ‘My parents are on their third and fourth marriages. I would never get divorced.’
Alex inclined his head. ‘Yet another point upon which we agree.’
‘I still don’t know you. I don’t know if you’re kind, or trustworthy, or good.’ Her voice throbbed with emotion. ‘Shouldn’t I know those things?’
Yes, of course she should, and he knew he couldn’t promise her any of it. He wasn’t kind. He hadn’t been trustworthy. As for good... ‘I suppose you’ll have to take my word for it.’
‘And if we marry, and I discover your word is worthless? You...mistreat me...or lock me away...’
‘Mistreat you?’ He couldn’t keep the offence from his tone, or a deep-seated conviction from shuddering through him. It was as if she were looking into his soul, and yet not seeing anything at all. ‘I would never hurt a woman.’ He’d never meant anything more, and yet she still seemed uncertain as she turned back to face him.
‘I don’t want to think you could do something like that, of course, but I don’t know you, Alex. I don’t know you at all.’
‘Then ask me,’ he bit out. ‘Ask me whatever you want.’ He stood there, bracing himself for whatever questions she fired at him, but she remained silent, gazing at him in helpless frustration.
‘You make it sound like a job interview.’
