so protective that...he would rather cut off his own hands than do her harm. And it was that need, that need that overrode all else, that gave him the strength to resist her, night after night.
He leaned in, sliding his fingers through her hair, lifting the silken strands to his face, and inhaling deeply.
Roses. Lavender. And something he couldn’t name. Something that belonged only to her...
* * *
Rafe dragged himself back to the present. And to the feel of the woman he was currently holding on to. Soft. She was so soft. It had to be Charlotte. It could only be her.
Of course, it had been five years since he had touched a woman, so perhaps, his memory was faulty. Perhaps, they were all this soft. But he didn’t think so.
Michael Adair was dead. And he had been on Rafe’s mind this morning. Perhaps, that was why his body was playing tricks on him now.
Or perhaps, it was why Charlotte had resurfaced.
“Come with me,” he said, his voice hard.
He held on to her with one arm, casually sweeping the ground in front of them with his cane in his other hand.
She said nothing. Didn’t protest. Didn’t speak at all. Frustration bubbled up inside him. And he wished...oh, how he wished he could see her face. Yes, his other senses had been honed quite a bit since the accident. But in this moment, though, senses could not replace his sight. Not by a long shot.
He took them out of the ballroom, into some kind of alcove. Perhaps no one was around, it didn’t seem as though anyone was. But if they were, he doubted they would have the balls to interrupt them. Something else Rafe had honed over the past five years was a fearsome reputation. He was a man who took no prisoners. He acted ethically. He was bound and determined that he would. That he would never bear any resemblance to Michael Adair, or to any man like him. But he was also determined that he would never go back to the streets he had come from.
It was power that insulated a man. He knew that well. The only reason he had been at Michael’s mercy in the first place was because he had been vulnerable. Because he lacked resources. Because he lacked power.
He had made a vow that he would never return to that place. Never. There was no longer any vulnerability inside of him. And truly, his blindness—nature’s last gasp at ensuring he wasn’t all powerful—had only spurred him on to work harder.
It was an accident he wished hadn’t happened. He didn’t want to give it too much credit in his life. However, he was also certain enough that it had made him work harder. That it made him yet more determined to appear capable, infallible.
He was also certain that early on it had caused a great many to underestimate him. So when his corporation gobbled up theirs, when his success put them out of business—his electronics manufacturing conglomerate slowly and steadily taking over the world—they simply hadn’t seen it coming.
Something he found deliciously ironic.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked. “Has your husband set you free? Or has he simply let you out for the night?”
“I...I...”
Was it her? Was that her voice? It had been so long. And memory was not infallible. If this was simply something conjured up out of his darkest desires, out of need he should no longer feel, his rage with himself would know no bounds.
“Charlotte Adair.” He said her name like a curse. “Is that your last name anymore? After marrying Stefan did you take his last name?”
“I think you must be mistaken,” she said, her voice a low whisper.
He slid his hand up her arm, following the line to her collarbone, up the side of her neck and to her chin, where he gripped her between his thumb and forefinger. “I am never mistaken. You would do well to remember that.” He leaned in, and he could smell her again. Lavender. Roses. Charlotte.
His heart beat her name over and over again.
It had to be her. No woman had affected him like this in the past five years. No woman had affected him at all.
And then he’d walked through that ballroom and caught her scent, touched her skin. It was like being born again.
“If you lie to me, I will make you pay. There will be no end to what it will cost you.”
She began to tremble beneath his touch, and he slid his thumb upward, along her lower lip, heat and arousal tightening his gut.
“You cannot lie to me,” he whispered, his mouth now so close to hers he could feel her breath. “You might have a husband, but believe me, there is no man on earth who knows you as well as I do.”
She was burned into his memory in a way no one else could be. Because losing his head over Charlotte had nearly cost him everything. Had been a turning point in his life. He could not walk away from it, not really. He bore the mark of it.
Not just his vision, but the ugly scars on his body from where he had fallen off the balcony.
From where he had been pushed.
“My...my father is dead,” she said, the words rushed. “I’ve come to London to sort out some of his business.”
He laughed, the sound cold and hard even to his own ears. “Silly girl. Did you think for one moment that I would be unaware of your father’s death? I nearly gave my staff a holiday. In celebration.”
He slid his hand down her throat, holding it gently, feeling the flutter of her pulse beneath his thumb.
“I was under no illusion you would have given them a holiday so that you could wallow in your grief,” she said, her breathing quick and shallow, betraying her fear when her tone of voice did not.
“I opened my best bottle of champagne that night.”
She shifted, and he had a feeling she was looking directly at him now. Looking him full in the face, when before she had not been. “So did I. Do not think you have a monopoly on despising that man.”
“Probably the last remaining thing we have in common, cara mia.” She stiffened beneath his touch.
“It would not surprise me.”
Her pulse was racing beneath his thumb, and he knew that his own heart was pounding just as hard. He was angry with her. So angry. He wanted to destroy her. Destroy her in the way he had been destroyed by the loss of her. By her betrayal.
But he also wanted her. That protection he had extended to her, the virginity he had preserved, simply so that she could throw it away to another man, so that she could marry another, galled him.
It had been his by rights. And out of some misguided sense of chivalry that he no longer possessed he had not laid claim to it.
“Is your husband here?” he asked.
She hesitated. “No.”
“I believe you and I have unfinished business.” He changed the way he held her, yet again moving his thumb up
