and gold yarn so muted it had surely been washed out by decades of wear in a castle somewhere.
Whatever charm the man lacked in demeanor had been infused into his home. The place was utterly breathtaking. Massive and yet somehow intimate. Nothing like the cool, distant man.
Two sofas faced each other in the center of the room. The silver coffee service sat on the cocktail table between them. As Bella settled onto the edge of one of the sofas, she shifted her gaze and full attention to him. Not an easy feat with so many striking pieces of art she’d only just noticed on the walls.
“Please, have a seat,” he said, his voice as terse as it had been when he answered the door. “Do you take cream or sugar?”
“Black is fine, thank you.”
She wondered if there were half a dozen housekeepers and a couple of cooks hidden somewhere in the house. God only knew how many gardeners the property required. She glanced around. Surely a member of staff lurked about someplace. She couldn’t imagine Devon Pierce using his skilled surgeon’s hands to perform such a menial task as preparing coffee.
Former surgeon, she amended. Though his license and hospital privileges and credentials remained in place, he did not routinely practice medicine.
He placed a cup and saucer in front of her, the rich black coffee steaming. Vintage china, she noted. His wife must have been a collector. He poured himself a cup and sat down on the sofa opposite her.
“Victoria tells me you’re very good at solving mysteries.” He sipped his coffee.
“I’m very good at seeing the details others often miss.” The coffee warmed her. From the moment she’d stepped into the house, she’d felt cold. Liar. Meeting the man she’d been cyberstalking had sent her temperature rising. Foolish. “I spent seven years with the Alabama Bureau of Investigation. I never failed to solve the case I was assigned.”
He seemed to consider her answer for a time, his eyes probing hers as if he intended to confirm every word by looking directly inside her soul.
“You graduated from the prestigious University of Alabama with a psych undergraduate degree and a master’s in criminal justice,” he continued. “Two years as a victim counselor with Birmingham PD and the FBI wanted you but you chose the ABI over the better opportunity.”
There it was. That arrogance she instinctively understood would be a part of his personality. She had zero tolerance for it. “The FBI isn’t better, Dr. Pierce. It’s merely larger with a broader jurisdiction. The work I did for the ABI was immensely important. Had I chosen the FBI, I would have spent a great deal of time working toward the opportunity to be a field investigator. Instead, I went straight to the work that I wanted to do—solving crime in the field.”
He set his coffee aside. “I appreciate a stellar résumé, Ms. Lytle, and yours is quite good. But I always look at the person behind the credentials. The heart of the person begins with their roots.”
For the first time since she was eighteen, Bella felt the heat of shame rush along her nerve endings. The idea that this man held that much power over her further flustered her. “Not everyone is born into the perfect scenario for who and what they want to become, Dr. Pierce. Some of us had to fight our way out of where we were before we could reach where we wanted to be.”
“Your father murdered your mother when you were ten and your thirteen-year-old sister shot and killed him in self-defense,” he stated as if she had said nothing at all. “According to the police reports, he was coming at you next and your sister protected you.” He studied her a long moment. “The reports also said that the two of you couldn’t keep your stories straight. In the end, you seemed to agree with whatever your older sister said.”
The blast of a shotgun echoed in Bella’s brain followed by screaming...so much screaming. She gathered every ounce of self-control she possessed to prevent her hands from shaking when she carefully set the cup and saucer on the table. “That’s right.” She held his gaze without flinching. “My father was an alcoholic with a mean streak a mile wide. It would have served my mother far better if she had blown his head off long before he decided to wash his hands of the three of us. My sister was forced to protect us when our mother failed.”
Unfortunately, their mother had been weak. Bella blinked once, twice. So weak.
He stared at her for a long time. Pierce was forty-five, ten years her senior, but he didn’t look more than forty. His dark brown hair was thick and trimmed in a distinguished yet fashionable style. A few strands of gray had invaded the lush color at his temples. Blue eyes, the color of the sea. Chiseled jaw with a nose that was ever so slightly off center, probably from the car accident when his wife was fatally injured. He’d suffered a broken nose, a fractured jaw and collarbone as well as a gash in the head. Despite his rigorous work schedule, he kept his tall, lean body in excellent condition. She imagined the female nurses and doctors on his staff spent plenty of time discussing the handsome administrator. Particularly since he was single.
Sadly his personality reportedly left a great deal to be desired.
“You narrowly avoided foster care,” he went on with his well-prepared monologue of her early history, “but an estranged aunt, your mother’s sister, came forward to whisk the two of you to Mobile. At sixteen, your sister dropped out of high school and took a job at a local hair salon. She married and had three children by the time she was twenty. If I counted accurately, she’s on husband number five now. You didn’t appear very happy in school either. The school counselor documented bruises on several occasions. She listed you as withdrawn and lacking the ability to make friends. Child services were called to your home on more than one occasion.”
The shame faded and fury took its place, igniting a blaze that rushed through her veins. “My aunt had rigid religious and disciplinarian views. As for the other, most children go through times in school when making friends is difficult.”
Bella had nothing else to say about that part of her life. Her aunt hadn’t really been the problem. It was her husband. Bella was fairly confident he got off on beating her and her sister. The slightest infraction required a trip to the woodshed. After her sister left, Bella had tolerated his beatings for a couple more years. Eventually, she’d had enough and she’d got her hands on the ax and threatened to kill him the same way she and her sister had killed their mean-ass daddy. From that point forward, they’d had an agreement of sorts. He didn’t touch her and she didn’t cut off his head in his sleep. He never touched her again.
Funny how the tendency to choose the wrong kind of man seemed to run in families sometimes. Her mother, her aunt and then her sister. The three looked right over a nice guy and went for the jerk every time.
Bella never intended to allow a man to rule her. Never. If Dr. Pierce was under the impression that his extensive knowledge of her past would somehow put her off, he was mistaken. Her past wasn’t something she cared to discuss and, frankly, it still embarrassed her to some degree, but this man would need a lot more than humiliating backstory to undermine her determination or her confidence.
Pierce stared at her for a full minute before he spoke again. “My wife died six years and five months ago. My hands were inside her body when her heart stopped beating. I did everything humanly possible to stop the hemorrhaging but I couldn’t. She died on the operating table in a hospital that didn’t have the proper equipment or the necessary staff. The only surgeon within an hour of the hospital couldn’t get there fast enough because of the record-breaking snowstorm that had hit the area. I was the only chance she had of surviving and I failed. I have no idea why someone would use her to
