She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘You said I could go through any door—take any seat—’
‘Not in the middle of a storm!’
She stilled. Eyes turning wide. Those tight muscles... The rasp of his breath... Her eyes ran over him again.
‘You’re...’ she pressed her open palms to his chest ‘...you’re trembling.’ Instantly she pulled her hands away and looked down at the wetness coating her fingers. ‘You need to take this off.’
Her hands travelled to find the hem of his jumper and—
His fingers, a steel band around her wrist, halted her attempt to lift the wet wool away from his skin.
‘What happened?’ she repeated her earlier question.
‘Youhappened,piccolina.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, her brain doing somersaults to try and make it make sense. ‘Have I done something wrong?’
Quick as the lightning flashing above them, he released his hold on her. Stepped back.
‘Why are you so afraid?’ she whispered, her heart pounding.
‘I’m not afraid.’
She heard it. The lie. He was terrified.
‘You have no reason to be angry with me, Raffaele. Or furious,’ she whispered. Quietly. As if trying not to poke at whatever beast he was containing inside the hunch of his powerful shoulders.
‘What is it?’ she asked again. ‘What’s turned you into such...’
‘A mess?’ he finished for her roughly. His Adam’s apple was moving heavily up and down the length of his taut throat.
‘I wouldn’t choose those words,’ she rejected. ‘You don’t look amess. You’re...’ She reached up and stroked her hands along the rigid lines of his shoulders. ‘You’re a barely contained mass of energy.’
But she wasn’t scared of his power...of his barely contained emotion. She dropped her hands to her sides. This wasn’t anger. She could sense it in the heavy air surrounding them.
Her brows knitted. ‘It’s not the storm you’re afraid of, is it, Raffaele?’ Her insides twisted. Her brain flashed with every conversation they’d had since leaving the farm. ‘Were you afraid for me?’
Her mouth ran dry. Goosebumps rose all over her skin. She felt exposed. Naked. She ran her fingers over her arms and folded them across her chest.Shehad scared him.
Flora retreated into her head. Into her body. Back to the place she always went when she got it wrong...hurt those she loved.
Loved?
She swallowed down the pain in her throat. Looked at the man watching her every movement with such intensity she felt it.Inside.
How could she even consider that what she felt might be love when he didn’t want her?
He wanted the baby.
He didn’t even want to take her to bed.
She pressed her fingers into her arms to centre herself. She’d thought they had a connection. Talking over breakfast, dinner, lunch...
‘Why? I thought—’ She’d thought she understood the rules, but this wasn’t the game she’d thought she was playing. Not this game of...offear. ‘I thought we were becoming friends. Finding some sort of common ground—a companionship. Of sorts...’ She sniffed. ‘Some kind of a foundation for marriage as we won’t be having sex—’
A growl interrupted her. A deep, wordless roar of denial. She ignored it. Ignored him.
‘You couldn’t find me,’ she continued. ‘And you were afraid of where I might be—what choices I’d made during the storm. You wereconcerned,’ she sneered, but it bit at her, the hotness of tears.
