Page 23 of What a Lord Wants

He bit down a curse. “That isn’t it, and you damn well know it.”

“Do I?” With that challenge hanging between them, she swept past him to fetch her coat and move toward the door. Heavens, how she shook! She could barely make her trembling hand lift it from its hook. But she refused to break into sobs.Never. Never in front of him.

His angry gaze followed her as he watched her leave, his arms folded arrogantly across his chest in a stance so imperious that he could have learned it from the king himself.

“You were hired to be a model,” he called out to her. The aggravation in his voice was cutting. “How did you think you were going to be treated if not as an object to be painted?”

She paused in the open doorway and lifted her head with all the pride she could still muster. “Because I thought—”

That I could feel alive, push down the pain, and forget for a few precious hours every day…That you would understand the fear…

Instead, she choked out, “Because I thought you were different. But it turns out that the joke was on me, because you’re no different after all. You’re just like all the rest.” Desolation pierced her. Oh, what a fool she was! Why did she think he would understand, or even care? “Just another man who thinks he has a right to use women for his own gain.”

Stunned at her unexpected accusation, he stared back speechlessly, but she knew she’d startled him from the way his arms fell to his sides.

In the silent stillness that froze both of them as they stared across the studio at each other, her heart pounded brutally. How did he not hear it? How could he simply stand there, not saying anything, when her world was shattering around her?

Dear God…unbearable!

Without flipping up her hood, unable to tolerate even a few seconds’ delay, she rushed out into the rain.

“Eve!”

She ran, not bothering to dodge the puddles filling the cobblestone alley, not caring that her unbuttoned coat and half-fastened bodice did nothing to stop the rain from soaking her clothes and drenching her hair as the drizzle changed into an icy shower. Every breath of cold air burned her lungs. With each step that took her further away, she felt a thousand pinpricks into her skin.

She was grieving, as hard as when her mother died. The darkness raced toward her again, to devour her—

“Eve, wait!” He grabbed her arm.

She whirled around with a pained cry and steeled herself for a new attack—

“Don’t go.”

Regret pulsed from him, stunning her so much that she stepped backward and smacked against the bricks behind her.

He closed the distance between them, placing his hands on the wall on either side of her, as if afraid she might run away again. “I’m sorry.”

Her breath caught in surprise.

“You told me that you’d never posed before, and I should have been more understanding. I upset you, and for that I apologize.” His shoulders sagged beneath a long, hard breath. “I was angry with someone else, and I placed that anger on you.”

Her heart thumped painfully, and she whispered, “Yes, you did.”

With a twist of his lips at that, he stroked his knuckles over her rain-streaked cheek and repeated ruefully, “Yes, I did. And I am very sorry for it.”

She lowered her face so that he wouldn’t see the pain there. Even after all the hours they’d spent together, he still hadn’t understood what coming to the studio meant to her.

“I treated you like a stage prop. It’s what artists do with models, I’m afraid.” His eyes were just as keen as before as they studied her, searching for understanding. “In that, Iamno different from others who have treated you badly.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” She forced down the icy shivers that shuddered through her. Thank God for the rain! It fell onto her face and hid all traces of tears.

He rubbed away a raindrop from her cheek, only for a half dozen more to immediately replace it as the rain grew harder around them. “Then what did you mean?”

“That I…needed to be here…with you.”

He frowned. “Are you in trouble?”

Shaking her head, she blinked rapidly, but not to chase away the raindrops. “I need to be here because I need to feel…” Alive, electric—to simplyfeelanything.