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“On the contrary! I’m offering my support. A warrior needs her strength. Shall we approach the buffet?”
“You’re not clever,” she murmured. But he was. He always had been. So she took his arm and dipped her head so he would not see her smile.
“I saw that,” he whispered, and the softness of his words slipped along her skin. Disturbed, she concentrated on the quick glimpse of her slippers afforded by each step.
“She reminds me of you,” he said softly.
“Who?”
“Miss Cain.”
Her eyes flew wide in disbelief. “You’re mad.”
“She’s mischievous and bright. Happy.”
His words bored a hole through her breastbone, then sunk deep to settle in her belly and burn. She was relieved that they’d reached the buffet. She did not have to speak as he served her bits of the delicacies laid out on impossibly long tables. “Duck is a favorite, if I remember correctly?” he asked as he offered a large serving. Yes, he remembered correctly. She wouldn’t let that thrill her.
When they reached their seats, there were introductions to be exchanged among the other guests. Pleasantries and idle chatter, nothing she had to turn her mind to. So she could think on his ridiculous assertion that Lucy reminded him of Kate.
Did he really still see her that way? How could he? Was it because he was unchanged? In his severe black suit and white cravat, Aidan looked . . . My God, he looked beautiful. Not so much like an angel as he’d once looked though. Now he looked dangerous as Lucifer.
Had he always had that knife’s edge to his gaze? She wouldn’t have known. In the past, when he’d looked at her, his eyes had been too full of love to leave room for anything else.
And just like that, she saw him. Really saw him. His short, slightly wavy hair and his shockingly green eyes. His wide mouth and straight nose and hard-hewn jaw. She saw the changes in him too. The touch of gray in his hair and the faint lines that creased his forehead and the corners of his eyes.
He had aged, matured in the years she’d been gone. Grown into his tall frame and wide shoulders. He was extremely attractive. Impossibly, even more attractive than he’d been as a young man. He glanced her way and caught her looking, and he smiled. He smiled, and it was as if there were a lamp inside her and someone had just struck the flame.
Panic welled in her chest and threatened to strangle her.
That had been the feeling curling inside her since yesterday. Attraction.
“Katie.”
She jumped nervously at the rich sound of his voice.
“Are you all right?” The last of the other guests at the table had departed. When she only stared mutely, Aidan waved a servant over and took a glass of red wine from the tray.
He held it out toward her, his mouth a line of concern.
“Thank you,” she stuttered, and reached for the glass. The crystal chimed a pretty note when her fingers struck the rim, and a tiny wave of wine sloshed over the edge. The red stain spread in a slow circle over Aidan’s white shirt cuff. Kate stared in horror.
What was she doing? What would people think?
“It’s fine,” Aidan said in a rush as he reached for her hand. “It’s nothing.” His fingers curled over her own and she thought she would dissolve into tears right there at the table. His touch felt wonderful. The heat of his skin seeping into hers. The soft rasp of his fingertips sliding across her knuckles. Wonderful.
Jerking her hand away, she stood on shaky legs. “I must go. Excuse me.”
Aidan frowned up at her. “What? Why?”
“I’m sorry.” She turned and fled before he could even stand, rushing past the swiveling heads of the other guests. She tried to appear calm as she hurried toward the door, tried to pretend she didn’t see the startled looks of her neighbors, but her composure was completely destroyed.
First he’d brought pain back to her life, now his presence was eliciting other emotions as well. She hadn’t expected this, not at all. And she could not afford it.
She reached the front door, but only managed three steps past the frame before his alarmed voice stabbed into her.
“Katie—”
Feeling a hand close over her shoulder, she stopped, embarrassed to be running away again, humiliated that she now saw hiding as her greatest hope.
