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He didn’t want to think about that, but he couldn’t help himself. If she was doing this for him, then it meant she cared about him. And he didn’t like that thought, not one bit. Because why would she?
No one had ever cared about him all that much, not even his mother. And he sure as hell never had any kind of caring from his father, not that he’d wanted it anyway and definitely not from that old bastard.
Rafael put his hands on the stone of the parapet, ignoring the bite of ice against his palms, and leaned against it, trying to deal with the unease that gripped him.
Perhaps she didn’t care that much about him. Perhaps she only thought she did. She was, after all, young and inexperienced, and their physical chemistry was intense. Maybe she’d mistaken passion for caring.
Anyway, it could have been worse. She could be in love with him and that was something he could never accept. Not when love was so destructive and caused so much pain.
After all, what is there to love about you?
He crushed that thought. This wasn’t about him, this was about Lia. This was about making sure that whatever she felt for him didn’t become something more. Luckily, he had a solution.
Whatever she felt for him, he’d simply ignore it and then it would die.
What about if she gets bitter like your mother did?
Then he wouldn’t give her cause for bitterness. He’d pay attention to her, take care of her, he’d make her happy.
Can you, though? Can you make anyone happy?
The ice in the air around him had somehow crawled into his veins and had begun to wind through him.
He ignored it. Of course he’d make her happy. He’d give her everything she could ever need. A beautiful home and a child. Support for whatever career she wanted to take on. Company when she needed someone to talk to. Great sex to keep her satisfied.
He’d be an exemplary husband since wasn’t that what husbands did?
Rafael took a breath and shoved himself away from the icy parapet, conscious that no matter what he’d just told himself, the cold hadn’t touched the strange heat inside him. It kept building, kept burning.
Perhaps if he did some work, that would help. That would keep him on track and stop his mind from going on this endless track, this second-guessing himself when he never,eversecond-guessed himself.
He turned back to the door, only to see it opening and a small figure standing in the doorway. She was wrapped up in that throw, her black hair spilling over her shoulders, her skin pale and bare and so very unprotected.
More heat flooded through him, along with an unfamiliar protectiveness.
‘Rafael?’ Lia wiped snow from her eyes. ‘Are you okay? What are you doing out here?’
Instantly he was moving, striding through the falling snow to where she stood. ‘Go inside,’ he ordered. ‘You’ll catch your death.’
‘But, what about—?’
‘Inside.’ He put his hands on her hips and gave her a gentle push so that she took a few steps back into the warmth of his office, then followed her in, closing the door.
She frowned, one hand clutching the throw around her, the other reaching to brush the snow from his shoulders. Then she went up on her tiptoes and brushed it out of his hair, too.
‘Me?’ she murmured as she did so. ‘What about you? And what were you doing out on the terrace in the middle of a blizzard, idiot man?’
Something in her tone gripped him and held him tight. She sounded as if she was already his wife and had been for years, a warm tenderness in the words that he didn’t know what to do with.
It made him feel off balance and he wasneveroff balance.
He was always the one in charge, the one who made the decisions. He was the CEO, the Prince Regent. He was never in doubt, yet today this small woman had turned everything he thought about himself on its head.
Rafael took her wrist in a firm but gentle grip and pulled her hand away from him. ‘I needed some air. What are you doing here? I thought you were asleep.’
‘I was, but I woke up and you weren’t there.’ She didn’t pull out of his hold, merely standing there and looking up at him. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Of course. Why would I not be?’
