by Dani Collins
God, maybe he didn’t even feel that much for her. Maybe it was all about who her father was. Insecurity nearly drove her to her knees, but she made herself stand proud and state what she’d let herself believe.
“He hasn’t made any promises. He wants me for my body. It’s mutual.”
Dumbly she turned and walked out, floored by what her mother had said about Ryzard wanting to marry her. Was it true? Because if it was, her mother was right. It wouldn’t be love driving his interest in her. They had met only ten days ago.
She tried to swallow away the painful lump of confusion that lodged itself high behind her breastbone.
Ryzard set down his drink as she appeared and held out his crooked arm. “Ready? We’ll see you downstairs,” he said to the men.
“Tiffany,” the ambassador scolded, following her with a swish of skirts. “You can’t speak to your mother like that. She’s been telling me how worried she’s been for you, not just because you dropped out of sight with a stranger—I apologize if that sounds rude,” she added in an aside to Ryzard. “But since—”
“I know. The accident. I’ve been a great burden on them, but can you understand how sick I am of having that define me? I’m better now. It’s time for both her and Dad to butt out of my life.”
She yearned for everyone to leave her alone so she could lick her wounds in private. It pained her horribly that everyone could see how weakly she’d fallen for this incredibly handsome, indulgent charlatan who had soothed her broken ego and wormed his way toward her heart. All in the name of advancing his own agenda.
“Where is this rebellion coming from?” her father clipped in his sternest tone. “You were never like this before. Your mother and I can’t fathom what’s got into you. Letting you go to work has obviously put too much stress on you.”
“Letting me.” She jerked up her chastised head, filling with outrage.
Beside her, Ryzard took her good arm in a warm, calming grip. “If you’ll pardon an outsider’s observation? Every child has to leave the nest at some point, even one who was blown back in and needed you very badly for a time. Your daughter is an adult. She can make her own decisions.”
Despite that statement of her independence, she found herself letting him make the decision for both of them to leave. A crazy part of her even rationalized that even if he was using her, he was also helping her find the state of autonomy she longed for.
As they waited for the elevator, a jagged sigh escaped her. “I can’t do this, Ryzard.”
She meant the banquet, the evening, but he misunderstood.
“Don’t let this upset you. Listen, I visited Bregnovia after finishing university. I could have stayed. My mother wanted me to, but I chose to drift across Europe like pollen in the wind. I was making a statement. They had forced me to leave as a child, but they couldn’t make me stay as an adult.”
“And now you hate yourself for not spending time with them. You think I should go back and apologize?” She looked back down the hall, hating the discord with her family even as she dreaded facing them again.
The elevator car arrived and Ryzard guided her into it.
“I don’t hate myself as much as I should. Everyone does need to leave the nest at some point, draga. But be assured that your parents are operating from a place of love. Your father had some very pointed questions for me. He is the quintessential father who feels a strong need to protect his baby girl.”
With bloodless fingers clinging to her pocketbook, she lifted her gaze to meet his. “Did you tell him you want to marry me?” Her voice sounded flayed and dead, even more listless than the tone she had used to discuss her prospective marriage to Paulie.
Surprise flashed across his expression before he shuttered it into a neutral poker face. “He asked me about my intentions when I called. I said they were honorable. What else could I say?”
“You told me this relationship wouldn’t lead to anything permanent. When did you decide it could?”
He turned his head away, profile hard with undisguised impatience, then looked back, fairly knocking her over with the impact. “What are you really asking, draga?”
The car stopped and she swayed, stomach dipping and clawing for a settled state. “You weren’t ever going to marry, but then you realized exactly how useful my father could be. Is that right?”
“Yes.” No apology, just hardened, chiseled features that were so remote and handsome she wanted to cry.
“We talked about how much I enjoy being used, Ryzard.”
The doors of the elevator opened. His handlers were waiting, one reaching to hold the door for them.
“We need a moment,” he clipped.
“No, we don’t.” Her voice was strangled, but she stepped from the elevator into the bubble that was its own bizarrely familiar shield against reality. Her skin burned under the stares of his people, but she allowed only Ryzard to see how much that tortured her as she turned to glare up at him. “If this is what I’m here for, then let’s do it. I’m probably better on stage than you are. Smile. Nothing matters except how this looks.”
“Tiffany,” he growled.
Arranging the sort of warm, gracious smile her mother had patented, she sidled beyond his reach and asked a handler, “Where would you like me to stand in relation to the president?”
* * *
Talk about land mines. Ryzard felt as though he stood in a field of them as he welcomed his guests and waited for the misstep that would cause Tiffany to discharge. She was the epitome of class though, greeting people warmly as he introduced her, maintaining a level of poise that made his heart swell with pride even as his blood ran like acid in his veins.
We talked about how much I enjoy being used.
He struggled to hide how much his conscience twisted under that. Did she think he couldn’t see what this evening was costing her? He was so deeply attuned to her that he felt her tension like a high-pitched noise humming inside his consciousness, keeping him on high alert. It was fear, he realized with a thunk of dread-filled self-assessment. She would run given an opportunity, and that kept him so fixated on her he could hardly breathe, braced as he was to catch her before her first step.
He ought to let her go if that’s what she really wanted, but he couldn’t bear it when she hadn’t even given him a chance to explain. The way she’d thrown her accusation at him in the elevator had been a shock. He’d answered honestly out of instinct, because any sort of subterfuge between them was abhorrent to him.
But distance was equally repugnant to him, and she was keeping an emotional one that didn’t bode well for sifting through things he’d barely made sense of himself.
As for her pithy suggestion that all he cared about was his image, she was dead wrong there. He cared about her. Thinking about how much he cared made him feel as though the elevator’s cable had been cut and he was still plummeting into the unknown.
They didn’t have a chance to speak freely again until they were dancing after dinner. He kept his gaze off her, dangerously close to becoming aroused from holding her. Every primordial instinct in him wanted to drag her into the nearest alcove and stamp her as his own. The way they moved perfectly together no matter what they did seduced him unfailingly.
“Another one bites the dust,” she murmured.
“What does that mean?” he asked with a flash of his glance into furious eyes that scored him with disdain.
“You can’t keep your eyes off my mother. I told you she was beautiful.”
He realized he’d been staring at the distraction of white hair swept in a graceful frame around aristocratic bone structure. Mrs. Holbrook’s blue eyes stood out like glittering sapphires on the sateen of flawless skin as she watched them. Where Tiffany had a seductively full bottom lip, her mother’s was narrow and prim, but that hint of severity lent her countena
nce keen intelligence. She was the height of elegance when she smiled and scrupulously well-mannered. She had thanked him warmly for inviting them even as her gaze consigned him to hell.
“She’s not the one giving me a hard-on, draga. She’s keeping it from becoming obvious. I’m in danger of catching pneumonia from her glare. I take it she doesn’t approve of our affair?”
“I thought we were engaged.” Limpid eyes, as capable of beaming frost as her mother’s, glared up at him.
He involuntarily tightened his hands on her. “Not here, Tiffany. Not now.”
She snorted, lashes quivering in a flinch, but it was her only betrayal of how much his deferral stung. He silently cursed, realizing he was forcing the taffy apple upon her.
“We’ll talk upstairs as soon as I can get away,” he promised.
“Mom and Dad are going back to Berne with the deHavillands first thing in the morning. They want me to come, so it would probably be better if I stayed with them—”
“Like hell,” he said through his teeth. She was so stiff in his arms, he thought she’d shatter if he held her too tightly, but the idea she’d leave him made everything in him clench with possessiveness.
She showed him her good cheek, the skin stretched taut across it. Her voice wavered. “You were so appalled at the idea that Dad would use my accident for his own gain, but the minute you saw an advantage to your own precious country, you—”
“Enough,” he seared quietly through gritted teeth. “Marriage is not something I take lightly. Even thinking of marrying you is the breaking of a vow I made to myself and a dead woman. You have no idea what it costs me.”
With a little gasp, she stopped moving, forcing him to halt his own feet. He looked down at her, as appalled by what he’d revealed as she seemed to be.
“Luiza,” she stated under her breath, lips white.
He flinched. Hearing her say his beloved’s name was a shock.
“Da,” he agreed, nudging her back into dancing, feeling cold.
* * *
The air of thick tension surrounding them threatened to suffocate Tiffany, but she was a trained pony. The dance continued and her company smile stayed in place while all she could think about was the snippets of information he’d revealed about his tattoo, his lady liberty, his marriage to his country.
The rest of their waltz passed in a blur of tuxedos and jewel-colored gowns, glittering chandeliers and tinkling laughter. When he returned her to their table, her parents rose with their friends, ready to take their leave.
“Goodbye, Ryz—” she began.
“Don’t even think it,” he overrode her tightly.
“I have a headache,” she lied flatly. “I’d like to leave.”
“Then we will,” he said with equal shortness. “Let me inform my team while you say good-night to your parents.”
Seconds later he cut her from the herd and whisked her up to their suite.
“You’re not making friends behaving like this, you know,” she whirled to state as he closed the door behind them. “My father won’t have your back in any arena if you continue to kidnap his daughter.”
“I know your father hates my guts, but you will not let him separate us. If you’re angry with me, then you stand here and tell me so,” he railed with surprising vehemence, yanking off his tuxedo jacket to throw it aside. “Do not put yourself out of my reach. That is the one thing I will not tolerate.”
Deep emotion swirled from his words at hurricane force, buffeting her. She unconsciously braced her footing, absorbing his statement with a wobble of her heart in her chest that left all the hair standing up on her body. It wasn’t fear exactly. More of a visceral response to his revelation of intense feeling. Her body was warning her not to take his outburst lightly. He was startlingly raw right now, and anything but taking great care with how she reacted would be stupid and possibly hurtful to both of them.
She could hurt him.
A reflexive shake of her head tried to deny the thought. His face was lined with grief, emotions he felt for someone else, but a glint of something else in the stark, defensive gaze stilled her. A strange calm settled in her mind despite the racking pain of being used still gripping her.
The suspicion he feared being wounded by her was so stunning, she could only stand there hugging herself, not knowing what to say.
She had to say or do something. His hurting destroyed her. It was particularly intolerable because it had its roots in his love for another woman, but as much as she wanted to sublimate that knowledge, a masochistic part of her had to know the details. It was like assessing an injury so she’d know how to treat it.
“Was...” She cleared her throat. “Will you tell me about her?”
He turned away to the wet bar. Glass clinked as he poured a drink, drained it, then refilled his glass and poured one for her. When he brought hers across to her, his face was schooled into something remote while his eyes blazed with suppressed, but explosive emotion.
“Were you married?” she asked in a strained whisper. Did you love her? She couldn’t bring herself to ask it.
“Engaged. She wanted to focus on winning the war, not planning a wedding. She was a protestor, an idealist, but very passionate and smart. I met her when I came back for my mother’s funeral. I was beside myself, ready to seek retribution, but Luiza helped me develop a vision that people would rally behind. She was the velvet glove to my iron fist.”
“You said she was your country’s icon. That everyone revered her. What happened?”
He brought his glass to his lips, took a generous swallow then hissed, “She was captured and would have been used against me. She took herself out of the equation.”
Appalled horror had her sucking in a pained breath, one she held inside her with a slap of her hand across her mouth. Once you have paid the price of a loved one, you do not stop until the job is done.
She stared at Ryzard over her hand, brutally aware there were no words to compensate for what he’d just told her. She didn’t need the details. The horrifying end was enough. The truly shocking part was that he wasn’t twisted into bitterness and revenge by loss.
He was stricken with guilt and anguish, however. It showed in the lines that appeared on his face before he turned away again.
“I’m so sorry,” she breathed, reaching toward him.
He shrugged off her touch. “There’s nothing that can be done. We both know that death is final. Nothing in the past can be reversed.”
“No,” she agreed, staring at her mottled arm folded across her good one. “You can only learn to live with the consequences. And preserve their memory,” she added, feeling as though her chest was scraped hollow like a jack-o’-lantern. “That’s what you want to do, isn’t it? Achieve what she sacrificed herself for? That’s why you’ll do anything to bring peace to Bregnovia. You’re doing it for her.”
“I’m not the only one who lost people, Tiffany. I want it for all of us.”
She swallowed, understanding, empathizing, yet feeling very isolated. Her heart ached for him, but for herself, too, because she instinctively wanted to help him. Maybe he was using her, but as he kept demonstrating, his goal was noble. And she loved him too much to refuse him outright when his need and grief were very real.
She loved him.
Staring at the red flecks in the carpet between their feet, she absorbed the bittersweet ache that pulsed through her arteries and settled in her soul. Part of her stood back and mocked herself for having such strong feelings after a mere week and a half of knowing this man. Surely her mother was right and this was a type of Pygmalion infatuation. God knows it was a sexual one.
But when she compared it with what she’d felt for Paulie—exasperated affection and the security of friendship—she knew this was the deeper, more dangerous shade of love. The ma
ture kind that was as threatening as it was fulfilling because it made her needs less important than his. It gave him the power to cripple her with nothing more than his eternal love for another woman.
“I told myself if I couldn’t marry Luiza, I wouldn’t marry at all.” He drained his drink and set it aside, turning to push his hands in his pockets. “Then I met you.”
And realized how useful she could be.
“I understand.” She fought to keep her brow from pulling.
“Do you? Because I don’t. It wasn’t a vow of celibacy. I’m not dead. I gave myself permission to have affairs. That ought to be enough. With every other woman it has been.”
A strand of something poignant thrummed near her heart. She tried to quell it for the sake of her sanity, trying not to read anything into what he was saying. In a lot of ways what he’d offered her was more than she’d imagined she’d ever find, so she shouldn’t be yearning so badly for more.
“I realize you have to look out for your country’s best interest, Ryzard. You’ve been very kind and supportive of me—”
“Oh, shut up, Tiffany. Looking out for my country’s best interest is how I’ve been rationalizing your presence in the presidential bed, but even that doesn’t work. Do you think I can use you in good conscience after Luiza died as a pawn? Hell, no. But allowing you to push her out of my heart would be an even greater betrayal.”
She could see the tortured struggle in him. He might never love her, not when to do so would mean accepting the debilitating guilt that accompanied it. Who could accept such a deep schism to their soul?
As she absorbed that reality, her breath burned in her lungs like dry smoke.
“But each time you talk of leaving for America, I start thinking about a length of chain about this long.” He showed her a space between his hands of two or three feet. “With a cuff here and here.” He pointed from his smartwatch to her wrist.
