by Maisey Yates
And as for Rafe... Well, he would never see her. Just as he would never see anything ever again.
But she could see him. She needed to do that. Needed to put that part of her life behind her completely so she could move on. Her time of seclusion was at an end. And he was wrapped all up in it.
She was done hiding. But she had some ghosts to vanquish.
She took a fortifying breath and moved out of the shadows and into the light. She could honestly say it was the first time in five years she had done this. For the first time in five years, she wasn’t hiding.
She sensed that heads were turning, following her progress as she made her way through the ballroom. But she didn’t care. She wasn’t here for generic admiration. Or curiosity. She was here for him.
She had dressed up for him. Even if it was foolish. For one thing, he wouldn’t be able to see her. For another, she didn’t want him to.
It didn’t take her long to see him, though. Her eyes were drawn to him, like a magnet. He was near the center of the ballroom, standing and making conversation with a group of men in suits. He was the tallest. The handsomest. He had always been the singularly most beautiful man she had ever seen. And he still was. Except at thirty he was much more mature than he’d been at twenty-five. He had filled out, his chest thicker, his face more chiseled. Dark stubble sat heavy on his jaw, and she wondered...she wondered what it would be like to touch his face with it there.
She hadn’t touched a man since Rafe. She’d had no interest.
She needed to find some interest. Because she was going to have a normal life. After she claimed the inheritance she knew that she still had—untouched—in a trust at the bank in London, she was going to start her life in earnest.
Maybe go to school. Maybe start a shop of her own, since she had always enjoyed working in them over the past few years. Had enjoyed not being lonely.
Whatever she did, it would be her choice. And that was the point.
She didn’t know what answers she had expected to find here. Right now, the only clear answer seemed to be that her body, her heart, was still affected by him.
He excused himself from the group, and suddenly, he was walking her way. And she froze. Like a deer caught in the headlights. Or rather, like a woman staring at Rafe Costa.
She certainly wasn’t the only woman staring. He moved with fluid grace, and if she didn’t know better, she would never have known his sight was impaired at all.
He was coming closer, and as he did her heart tripped over itself, her hands beginning to shake. She wished she could touch him.
Oh, she wanted it more than anything. In that moment, she wanted it more than her next breath. To put her hands on Rafe Costa’s face one more time. To kiss those lips again. To place her hand over his chest and see if she could still make his heart race.
It was easy to forget that her stepmother had told her how Rafe had left, taking an incentive offered by her father to end his tenure there earlier. How he had thought nothing of Charlotte when he left. Nothing of all the promises he had made to her.
Yes, it was so easy to forget all of that. It was easy to forget that and remember instead the way it had felt when he had kissed her. Touched her. The way that she had begged him to use more than his hands between her thighs, more than his mouth. The way she had pleaded with him to take her virginity, to make her his in every way.
But he hadn’t.
For honor, he had said. And for her protection.
Except, really, he had never wanted her. At least, not enough to risk anything. So he had simply been toying with her.
She should remember that. Her treacherous, traitorous body should remember that well. But it didn’t. Instead, it was fluttering. As if a host of butterflies had been set loose inside her.
He came closer, closer still, passing through the crowd of people, everyone moving out of the way for him, as though he was Moses parting the sea.
Time seemed to slow. Everything around her. Her heartbeat. Her breathing.
Suddenly, he was there. So close that if she wanted to she could reach out and touch the edge of his sleeve with her fingertips.
Could bump into him accidentally, just to make contact. He wouldn’t know it was her. He couldn’t.
Suddenly, he turned. He was looking past her, his dark eyes unseeing, unfocused. But then, he reached out and unerringly grabbed hold of her wrist, dragging her toward his muscular body.
“Charlotte.”
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE.
Charlotte—for all intents and purposes—had disappeared five years ago. She hadn’t simply disappeared; she had gone off to marry another man.
The triumphant smile on her stepmother’s face was the last thing he had seen. The last thing he had ever seen. Beyond gray, amorphous shapes.
He mostly hung close to the walls in situations like this. He had a cane to help him navigate, but in a crowd this thick it was still difficult. Though, in a crowd this thick it was also normal to run into people. So there was that.
He could see sharp contrasts between light and darkness, but he couldn’t make out features or colors. Nothing subtle.
But when he had walked by her, he had caught her scent. And in that moment, he had seen so many things. Color and light bursting through his mind, vivid and sharp. Sun-drenched days in Tuscany, that had been hell on earth except for her. Soft, pearlescent skin that was too fine, too exquisite for him to touch. And yet he had. And that beautiful blond hair that her father had had a strange obsession with.
Glossy, impossibly long and always kept wound up in a bun so that no one could truly see it or appreciate it. Memory gripped him tight...
* * *
“Let down your hair,” he rasped against her throat as he kissed her, lying down on her large four-poster bed.
He begged her for that privilege, every night. The privilege of running his hands through her hair. Touching the silken strands, seeing her naked, her hair cascading over her pale body like a waterfall, light pink nipples just barely visible through the golden curtain.
She reached up, taking the pins out, obeying his command. In the past weeks since he had begun coming into her room he had asked her to do this for him every night, and every night she had complied. The fact that she never took it down before he appeared led him to believe that she enjoyed this game. Of his commands, and her acquiescence.
It was fine with him. He liked it too.
It was dangerous. This game. Easy to pretend that it was some sort of harmless assignation. That they might get caught, and might suffer a severe scolding. But Rafe was under no illusions. If he were caught with Charlotte, her father would have him killed. If Charlotte were found not a virgin, after her father had taken great pains to seclude her away from the rest of the world, Rafe would be killed. And possibly Charlotte, as well.
And so, he didn’t take her virginity. Rather, he pushed the boundaries every night. And every night she begged him for more. Every night, he declined. But he was becoming weak. He would not be able to hold out for much longer. And in truth, he didn’t intend to.
He simply needed to get to a place where he had shored up the assets he needed to be free of her father. He could hardly plunge Charlotte into a life of poverty after she had lived the cosseted existence of a gentleman gangster’s daughter. Michael Adair’s empire had the semblance of legitimacy, but it was anything but.
To most of the world he appeared to be a businessman. But that was only because the world didn’t look too closely. Not at fabulously wealthy, powerful men who could offer a great many favors, and do untold amounts of damage if they were crossed. It benefited no one to examine those things too deeply. And so nobody did.
Rafe knew all too well about the power men like Michael wielded. He knew too what it was to go from a spoiled, cushioned life to one of abject poverty. His father was not unlike Michael Adair. Oh, he might not be a criminal, but he thought nothing of using the people in his life until the
y were spent.
Until he had no more use for them but to grind them under his boot for fun. That was what Rafe remembered most about the father he hadn’t seen since he was five years old. How much he seemed to relish causing pain.
When he had kicked Rafe and his mother out onto the streets, the man had seemed to enjoy their distress. Or, if not that, then the fact he had the power to do so.
Power. Yes, men like that loved power.
And Rafe had spent many years with no power at all. Begging. Stealing. Doing whatever he could to help his mother survive.
He had begun doing odd petty crimes with a group of boys. Delivering packages that he never asked about the contents of. Things like that.
He’d ended up getting caught by the police and charged with running drugs, in spite of the fact that he was only a boy. And a boy who’d had no idea what he was handling at that.
It was through that arrest that he’d met Michael Adair.
It was only much later that Rafe had realized the man must have had a connection to the drugs. To the particular ring of petty criminals Rafe had been working with.
Michael Adair had not only given Rafe his freedom; he had also provided Rafe with an education, paying for him to attend one of the finest private schools in Europe. Rafe had accepted greedily. Uncaring of what it might mean in the future.
Michael had promised him someday he would collect the favor. And indeed, he had made good on that threat.
For years, he had done various errands for Michael in Rome. Until finally, he had been brought to the estate to apprentice under the man himself.
That was when he’d really gotten to know the man he’d aligned himself with. Had seen how hard he was. How entirely without morals.
Rafe had asked him once why he had shown such an interest in a young boy from the streets. Why he’d helped him at all, much less sent him to school and provided for him.
He’d said it was because he didn’t have a son. And he had thought perhaps Rafe was the protégé he needed.
Rafe might have been shocked or upset if he weren’t already the son of an amoral bastard. As it was, he just figured he might as well take advantage. At least this particular amoral bastard wanted to give him a hand up, unlike his actual father.
But after school he had started getting a deeper look at Michael Adair’s twisted empire. By then he was living at the estate and there was no leaving. Not without being killed.
The entire business made Rafe ill. Michael was ruthless. He didn’t care who was hurt by his business practices. And he was not above intimidation, or even murder to get what he wanted. He had a host of enforcers who meted out punishments on those who did not comply with his wishes. And Rafe could only count himself fortunate that he had not been forced to be part of that side of the business.
No, he was being taught the business. Because Michael had no son. And he wanted Rafe to be able to take control of the business portion, the front of house part of the empire.
But that did not mean that he found Rafe to be good enough for his daughter, and Rafe was under no illusions that it would be the case. Rafe had also decided that while he was content to get any education he could get from Michael, he was certainly never going to overtake the man’s evil empire.
No. He was going to escape at his first opportunity. And he was going to do it with Charlotte.
Then. Then he would make her his.
She shook her head, her hair falling around her in a silken wave. His stomach tightened. And he couldn’t breathe. He’d had more women than he could count. A side effect of being a young boy unsupervised far too early. One who looked much older than he was the moment adolescence had hit.
But none had ever affected him like this. None had ever made him feel as though his heart were being pulled out of his chest through his mouth. Had ever made him feel like he might die if he didn’t touch her. But also made him feel 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 aga
in.
“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.
