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“Yes. But almost every child runs away at one time or another.”
“Did you?”
She thought back. “No. But I considered it. Everyone in the family was so much more adventurous and exciting than I ever was.”
Humor lit those black eyes. “You considered running away to make yourself more exciting?”
“I did, yes. And I happen to know you spent most of your first thirteen years running wild all over Hartmore. You didn’t have to run away to be exciting.”
He actually leaned a fraction closer. He smelled of toothpaste and very faintly of cigar smoke. She’d never much cared for the smell of cigars. But on him, it worked.
On him, since those four days in March, everything worked.
And what were they talking about?
She remembered. “And about Geoffrey...”
“Yes?” Low and rough and so, so lovely.
“He has you and Eloise. And Brooke may be a mess, but she does love him. I think he knows that.”
“And he has you.” He said it softly.
“Yes. Yes, he does—and what exactly went on with you and my father in the study for all that time tonight?”
“Cigars. Brandy. A little fatherly advice.”
“Was it awful?”
“Not at all. I’ve always liked your father. He’s wise. And he’s kind.”
“What advice did he give you?”
“Sorry.” He touched her chin, a breath of a touch that sent darts of sensation zipping all through her. “I can’t tell you.”
“Oh. So what happens in the study stays in the study?”
“Something like that.” His index finger went roving along the ridge of her jaw, up under her hair. “You always smell of roses. And vanilla, too.”
Yearning made her chest ache. Heat pooled low down. “It’s my perfume,” she heard herself whisper, a lame response if there ever was one.
He gave a slow, lazy shake of his head. “No. Forever. Since you were a child. Do you know that any time I smell roses, I think of you?”
She stared into those wonderful, dangerous eyes of his. “What a beautiful thing to say.”
He traced the shape of her ear, tugged gently on a lock of her hair. All the breath seemed to have fled her body. She was absolutely still, waiting.
Hoping.
If she didn’t do anything to chase him off, would he make love with her tonight, kiss her and hold her and touch her all over?
He clasped her bare shoulder, his thumb flicking the pink satin bow that held up her nightgown. And then he leaned even closer. His rough cheek brushed her smooth one. She heard him draw breath through his nose, scenting her. “A little musky now. And creamy, too, beneath the roses and vanilla. That’s the grown-up Gen. The woman. My woman now.”
She drew a shaky breath. “Oh, Rafe...” She wanted—everything. His big body pressed against her, naked. Him inside her, moving, blowing the world away to nothing, shattering all the barriers.
They were frightening to her, the barriers. And they all began with Edward and the things Rafe wouldn’t tell her about the night of the accident, about the secrets of his heart.
But then, well, he had married her, and brought here to the one place she’d always wanted to be, brought her to Hartmore to live with him and Eloise—and Geoffrey, whenever he came home. And their baby.
Their baby would grow up here. It was her lifelong dream come true. He’d given her everything. Her heart’s desire.
She could wait—she would wait—until he was ready to tell her the dark things he was keeping from her. Until he was willing to forgive himself for whatever had happened the night Edward died.
He turned his head and his lips touched her ear, sending sparks across her scalp, down the side of her throat. “That first time I kissed you—really kissed you—at the villa?”
“What about it?” It was in the foyer. She’d pounded on the front door until he’d finally let her in. And then he’d asked her, please, to leave him. To go away and not come back. And she’d started shouting at him for shutting her out, for refusing to see her when he needed her most. For four whole months, he’d avoided her. When she’d gone to Hartmore for the funeral, he was still in the hospital recovering from his injuries. But he was conscious. He’d had visitors. Yet when Genny went to see him, he’d made the nurses turn her away.
For four months, he never let her near. She’d sent emails, messages, even letters—actual, physical letters on fine linen stationery. No reply. She’d called several times and not once had he called back.
Finally, when he’d come to Montedoro to see to the refurbishing of the villa, she had cornered him there. It had broken her heart all over again to see him—the angry, red scar, the deadness in his eyes, the slight limp when he walked. And then, when he’d ordered her to go, she’d snapped.
