style="font-size:15px;"> “I’ve told you the truth,” she insisted, sounding earnest. “It was in my trash.”
So she wasn’t going to tell him. That only strengthened his convictions. If she couldn’t respond truthfully to a simple question, he didn’t need her complicating his life any longer. Best to cut all ties as quickly as possible. Prolonging this would only make things worse for him and his peace of mind.
“I don’t know how you got this number,” he told her gruffly, “but it hardly matters. I’ll get it changed right away.”
She drew her breath in. “All so you can avoid any calls from me?” she asked, her voice sounding shocked.
“Yes,” he said stoutly.
She didn’t understand. But that was for the best. If she ever tumbled to the truth—that she affected him as no one else had in years—his situation would be that much more precarious.
“Why do you hate me?” she asked, aghast.
“I don’t hate you.” He groaned softly, closing his eyes. “That’s just the problem,” he muttered under his breath.
“What?” she said.
He gritted his teeth and expelled a long line of swear words in an obscure dialect, just because it made him feel better. This woman was driving him around the bend. And that was odd. He didn’t remember trouble like this with women that he’d known before…before Laura. He’d always had friends and casual relationships. It seemed he’d lost the knack for free and easy dealings with the opposite sex.
Of course, Laura’s death and the accident that had scarred him had changed all that. For over a year after it had happened, he hadn’t been able to speak to anyone, even family members. He had waited to die, wishing for it. When that didn’t happen, he began to realize he was going to have to go on without her and without his face. And that was a problem. He didn’t have much appetite for it.
It had taken a long time, but slowly he had let others in—but only his immediate family and a few close friends. Most other friends had probably decided he must be dead himself. He didn’t really want them around and that had become obvious.
And no strangers. Never strangers.
Yet, once he’d opened up to his closest family members, he’d begun to see that there were still things he could do with his life, even if he didn’t go out into the world as before. Today, he had a relatively active professional life, thanks to the computer and the Internet. In the old days, he would probably have been locked away from all human commerce, but with the modern conveniences of semi-anonymous communication he was able to do quite a bit without having to come face-to-face with the people he interacted with. Mostly, he still only saw people he’d known all his life.
“That’s because you’re a coward,” his sister maintained wryly during one of their frequent arguments.
He didn’t take offense. She was probably right. Though he told himself he didn’t want to inflict his savaged visage on others, that was only a part of it. He didn’t want to see the reaction in the eyes of strangers. There was a certain vanity there, he had to admit. But he knew what the world wanted from him, and it wasn’t his scarred face.
He’d been through the fickle reactions of the public at large before and he knew very well how cruel they could be. His mother had been a beautiful film star. During her twenties and early thirties, people had flocked to see her films. She’d been in demand everywhere.
But unlucky genetics had been her downfall. She had lost her looks early. Even as a young boy he’d understood how the media had begun to rip apart her image as she had disappointed them. It almost seemed they took it personally that she wasn’t the beauty she once had been. As though she’d wasted their time and now would have to pay the price. He had been ten years old when she had taken her own life.
Yes, he knew what the public was like. And he didn’t see any reason why he should go out of his way to be accepted by them again.
But Isabella Casali was another matter. He couldn’t seem to put her off in a distant box the way he knew he ought to.
He came back to the conversation, knowing he needed to create a plausible alternative to her accusation of him hating her. “I hate talking on the phone,” he supplied quickly. “It’s not just you,” he added.
Despite everything, he didn’t want to hurt her. She was quite adorable and didn’t deserve it. This was his problem, not hers. If only he could explain to her…But that was impossible. “I don’t like talking to anyone.”
“Oh.”
She still sounded downhearted and that made him wince. Silently, he told himself to man up. He had to remain firm. It was the only way.
“Well, I won’t keep you much longer,” she promised, sounding wistful. “I just have one thing to talk to you about.”
He knew what that was. There was no point prolonging things. “The answer is no,” he said evenly.
“But you don’t know—”
“Yes, I do. You want permission to come in and scavenge my river valley hillside for your precious basil herb. And I won’t allow it. Case closed.”
He could almost hear her gulp and he grimaced. He hated doing this. He could see the look she probably had in her huge blue eyes and it killed him. But he couldn’t weaken.
“Please hear me out—”
“No, I won’t allow it. It’s too dangerous.”
It was her turn to make that sound of exasperation. “Dangerous? What’s dangerous about it?”
“You fell into the river, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but that was because it was the middle of the night and you scared me.”
He nodded. “Exactly. These things are always…accidents.” He should just hang up and he knew it. He tried. But somehow, it just seemed too cruel.
“Why?” Her voice sharpened, as though she’d suddenly found the hint of a chink in his argument. “Why are you so sure I’ll get hurt? Has anyone actually been hurt in that river?”
His throat choked shut for a moment. This was something he couldn’t talk about. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath to steady his resolve. The consequences were too risky to gamble with.
There was a part of him, in a deep, secret place, that halfway believed there was an evil force lurking by the river, waiting to trap another woman—especially one that he had some affection for—and pull her under the water as well. There was another, more rational part of him that contended the evil force was his own sense of guilt. Which side was right? It wasn’t worth putting it to the test.
“Isabella, I forbid you to go anywhere near that hillside. And the river. Stay away.”
“But—”
“Promise me.” His voice was harsh and stern. He had to make sure she didn’t feel she could come on her own.
She
