LITMIR.BIZ

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Just a year older than Gabby. Sam bit into her lip, fought the wave of dark emotion, the fierce undertow of grief. She couldn’t think, couldn’t let herself be overwhelmed. Stay numb, she told herself, stay in control. Maybe if she hadn’t lost her parents and Charles both she’d be a different person today, but she had lost them, and she couldn’t change the past. She was who she was. She was what she was.

      A woman who worked for others.

      A woman who only lived for others.

      “It doesn’t look like a bad place.”

      “It wasn’t,” she whispered, hearing the catch in her voice, hating that she sounded so fragile, as if she could be easily broken. But she wasn’t fragile. She’d been toughened, by time and loss. She wasn’t going to break and she’d get through this. One way or another. She’d manage. She always did. That was the beauty of it. Pain didn’t destroy you. It just made you stronger.

      But it hurt like hell until you got to the other side.

      She felt Cristiano’s gaze rest on her. “How long has it been closed up?” he asked.

      “Years,” she answered softly, the white porcelain sink smooth beneath her fingers. “At least eight.”

      He wasn’t even pretending to look outside anymore. He was looking at her, only at her, and the weight of his inspection made her shiver. “How long have you been widowed?”

      Sam sucked in air, flinching at the pain. Talking about the Rookery was hard. Talking about Charles—impossible. Her fingers flexed convulsively against the sink’s edge. “Eight,” she said, looking anywhere but at him. Eight long endless years.

      To cover her anguish, Sam turned toward the cupboard, reached for a cup and saucer. Her hand shook as she set them on the counter.

      She could still feel the weight of his gaze, knew he was watching her, sensed he was remembering what Mrs. Bishop had said this morning about Sam being married and widowed in the same day, and she turned suddenly, faced him defiantly, daring him to speak about something so personal and private it still devastated her eight years later.

      Her gaze clashed with his but there was no pity in his eyes, nothing in his eyes, just intense focus.

      He continued to look at her with that same long, hard inspection and air bottled in her lungs. Holding her breath, she looked back at him and had never felt so vulnerable, as though she were full of holes and hurts.

      Holes and hurts and broken hearts.

      If only she could cry, she thought. If only she could let some of this pain out. But it was impossible. The pain was buried too deep, the loss too significant.

      Inexplicably emotion flickered in Cristiano’s hazel eyes. His hard jaw gentled a fraction. “You have lost a great deal in your life, haven’t you?”

      His sudden tenderness was too much. Sam felt a wall of ice inside her crack and fall, and behind that wall Sam glimpsed a child crying.

      She didn’t think she’d made a sound but Cristiano cupped her cheek, then gently sliding his hand down, over her jaw, toward her chin and across the front of her throat. “Hush,” he said. “Things always work out.”

      Tears flooded Sam’s eyes and reaching up, she caught his hand in her own and held it tightly. “You’re not helping,” she choked, even as her fingers curled into his. She didn’t understand it. She hated his power, feared his strength, and yet somehow she craved that power and strength, too.

      His head dropped and she felt his breath against her face. For a split second she thought he was going to kiss her and then the kettle whistled and he abruptly pulled back.

      Sam felt his hand fall away. She took a step in the opposite direction even as she felt a shiver race through her, awareness, tension, desire.

      “Your water’s boiling,” he said.

      She turned, searched for a towel or hot pad, something to grab the kettle’s handle with and when she turned around again, Cristiano was gone.

      Outside Cristiano returned to chopping wood. He’d been pouring his anger and aggression into splitting logs before he entered the cottage. He should have never stopped splitting logs. Shouldn’t have carried an armful into the kitchen, not when Sam was there, not when she looked so completely and utterly alone.

      He wished he hadn’t seen that…that he could go back and erase her expression from his memory, the one he saw as she stood at the sink staring out the window. She’d looked so lost.

      Goddamn it. She reminded him of Gabriela.

      He lifted the ax, swung it high overhead and let it slam down. The impact of metal against wood shuddered through him, rippling from his arms to his shoulders and through his torso.

      She wasn’t alone, he told himself, yanking the blade out and turning the log, repositioning it for another swing. She was young. She was an adult. She had friends. She didn’t need Gabriela. Gabriela was her job, not her life.

      But, maledizione! The look in her eyes. The grief.

      He swung the ax over his head again, a huge powerful arc before he brought it down, crashing into the wood. He felt a jolt through his shoulders even as the wood split and cracked. She wasn’t his responsibility, he told himself, tossing the split pieces into a pile at his feet as he grabbed another large log and placed it on the chopping block. She’s not my problem.

      But later, as Cristiano waded through the dense snowdrifts back to the cottage, arms loaded high with freshly cut firewood, he knew she was his problem.

      He’d destroyed her world, taken what little security she had away from her. At first she’d simply been a tool to get what he really wanted. But he couldn’t very well leave her alone in the world—no money, no protection, no stability. If he was going to provide for Gabriela, the least he could do was provide for the one person who’d given Gabby love and affection.

      Whether he liked it or not, Samantha was his responsibility, too.

      He dumped the logs by the hearth in the main room, and returned outside to get one last load so they’d have enough wood for the night.

      But wading back through the snow, he grit his teeth at the shooting pain in his right leg. His legs had been aching all day. At first this morning he’d thought it was the lack of sleep, but now knew it was the change of weather. Whenever there was a pressure change, his legs became hypersensitive—both skin and muscle full of stabbing pain, but he never complained, never told anyone that he hurt. He knew the dangers of his profession when he started out. He could blame no one but himself.

      He swore as he hit an unanticipated patch of black ice beneath the snow. His right leg caved, nearly giving out.

      Cristiano stopped, took a breath, steadied himself blocking out the searing pain. He made sure he’d found his footing before continuing on again. His rehab had covered numerous situations but walking on slick surfaces hadn’t been one. But then, Monaco and the Côte d’Azur were famous for sun, not ice, so learning to cope with ice and snow had not been a priority.

      Loaded down with more firewood, he turned, started back to the house and then was forced to slow, even rest, as he hit the same damn patch of ice. He had no traction in his shoes, and before his accident, ice wouldn’t have been a problem, but his legs weren’t the same. Nothing about his legs was the same.

      The doctors had said he should always use a cane, that his weaker right leg needed the support but Cristiano was damned if he’d advertise his weakness to others. He’d never let another man know he wasn’t as strong. His business was so competitive, so cutthroat, that one had to be tough—always. Not just physically, but mentally. So instead of leaning on a cane to support his weight, Cristiano had learned to compensate by walking more slowly, more deliberately. And usually it worked.

      Usually.

      Cristiano glowered as his right foot slipped again. Damn.

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