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The woman before him blew out a breath as if something was hard. As if she was performing some kind of physical labor.
“How long do you intend to hide out here?” She threw the words at him in a tight sort of voice that suggested she was upset.
The Count could not think of any reason at all that she should be.
“Where else would I be?” He tilted his head slightly to one side as he regarded her, trying to make sense of all the emotion he could see swirling around her, written into every line of her black-clad body. Trying to puzzle out its cause. “And I’m not hiding. This is my home.”
She let out a sharp little laugh, but not as if she thought anything was funny. The Count found himself frowning, which never happened.
“You have many homes,” she said in a voice that sounded almost…gritty. “I enjoy the penthouse in Rome, certainly, but there’s something to be said for the New Zealand vineyard. The island in the South Pacific. The town house in London or the Greek villa. Or all those acres of land your family owns in Brazil. You have multiple homes on every possible continent, is my point, and not one of them is a sanitarium in a mountain tree house in Idaho.”
“A sanitarium?” he echoed. It was another word he didn’t know—and yet did, as soon as she said it.
But she wasn’t paying attention to what he did or didn’t comprehend. She was pivoting to take in the stark-white chamber, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Is this supposed to be some kind of hospital room?” she demanded. “Has this been a four-year mental health retreat from all your responsibilities?” Her blue gaze was even sharper when it landed on him again. “If you knew you were going to run away like this, why bother marrying me? Why not pull your disappearing act before the wedding? You must know exactly what I’ve had to deal with all this time. What did I ever do to you to deserve being left in the middle of that mess?”
“You’re speaking to me as if you know me,” the Count said in a low, dangerous voice that she did not seem to heed.
“I don’t know you at all. That’s what makes this so vicious. If you wanted to punish someone with the company and your horrible family, why choose me? I was nineteen. It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that they tried to eat me alive.”
There was something sharp inside him, like broken glass, and it was shredding him with every word she spoke. He found himself standing when he hadn’t meant to move.
“I did not choose you. I did not marry you. I have no idea who you are, but I am the Count.”
His hand had ended up over his chest and he dropped it, ill at ease with his own fervency.
“You are not a count,” snapped the woman he was realizing, too late, was far more dangerous to him than he’d imagined anyone could be. And he couldn’t tell if that was a kind of apprehension that worked in him then or, worse, something far closer to exhilaration. And she clearly wasn’t finished. “Your family has certainly flirted with this or that aristocracy over the years, but you are not titled. Your mother likes to claim that she is a direct descendent of the Medicis, but I’m not sure anyone takes that seriously no matter how many times she threatens to commit a murder over a meal.”
The Count’s head was reeling. There was a faint, dull pain at his temples and at the base of his skull, and he knew it was her fault. He should have had her removed. Tossed back in that cell, or dropkicked down the side of his mountain.
There was no reason he should cross the room, his bare feet slapping against the bare floor, to tower there above her.
There was no reason—but she should have been concerned. If she’d been one of his followers she would have thrown up her hands in surrender and then tossed herself at his feet. She would have sobbed and begged for his forgiveness.
This woman did none of those things.
She tipped her chin up and met his gaze as if she didn’t notice that he was significantly taller than she was. More, as if she didn’t care.
“I would be very careful how you speak to me,” he told her, managing to get the words out through the seething thing that had its claws in him and that broken glass inside.
“What is the purpose of this charade?” she demanded. “You know I’m not going to be fooled by it. You know I know exactly who you are. No threat is going to change that.”
“That was not a threat. It was a warning.” He realized he wanted to reach over and put his hands on her, and that threw him. But not enough to back away. Not enough to put a safe distance between them the way he should have. “There’s a certain disrespect that I confess, I find almost refreshing, since it is so rare. And suicidal. But you should know my people will not accept it.”
