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Nick Gentry was still sitting on the floor, his legs sprawled out. His crutch was half a dozen feet away. The Newf, whining piteously, stood over him.
Lissa opened the door a couple of inches.
“Are you OK?”
Gentry looked at her. Rage glittered in his eyes.
“Get the hell out of my face, Ms. Wilde.”
“Mr. Gentry. I didn’t mean to—”
“You have difficulty understanding English? Get away from me!”
Lissa stared at him.
That wasn’t rage she saw on his beautiful face—because why pretend that he wasn’t beautiful? He was, and what she saw etched in its classic lines was pain.
Despite herself, her heart twisted.
Yeah, well, so what? She’d always been a sucker for creatures that were needy and hurting…
Hell.
There was more than pain there. There was anger and the humiliation of destroyed pride.
She knew the look; she knew the anguish that went with it. She’d suffered it before, most recently, most terribly on the night Raoul had brought her dreams to a shattering end.
Of endless different emotions, humiliation was the one that could tear you apart.
She ran through what had happened again. Her, in the shower, the water pounding down. Gentry’s claim that he hadn’t burst in, he’d only knocked at the door she’d had trouble closing and locking. Well, he hadn’t knocked. He’d banged—but he probably had knocked, first, and she hadn’t answered—and hadn’t much the same thing happened downstairs, when the Newfoundland had burst through that door?
OK.
The probability was that she’d over-reacted. Gentry had seen her in the raw. So what? Bodies were bodies. She had breasts, hips, all the parts every woman had, and it wasn’t as if she’d never been looked at by a man before…
But not like he’d looked at her.
He’d been as shocked by the unexpected encounter as she’d been—and then she’d seen his shock turn to something else. Desire. Need. Hunger.
Lissa gave herself a quick mental shake.
Gentry was trying to get to his feet. He had both hands flat on the floor, but he couldn’t stand, not without some sort of leverage.
She grabbed the crutch and held it toward him.
“Here. Use—”
The Newf shoved his big body between them, looked up at Lissa and gave a soft but distinct growl.
Et tu, Brute? she thought, but what the hell, the dog was his, and good dogs were loyal. Besides, the dog made all the difference.
Gentry grunted, worked his fingers through the dog’s collar and slowly got to his feet. The expression on his face was thunderous, but she stood her ground and offered him the crutch again. He snatched it from her and jammed it under his arm.
“Mr. Gentry,” she said, “I, uh, I may have misinterpreted your actions. I mean—”
“I told you my men would want supper at six.”
His voice was flat. Cold. It had the sharpness of a boning knife.
