LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      IN THAT MOMENT, standing in the doorway of Javier’s gym, Sophie glimpsed the anger and pain resonating from his eyes and knew she had made the right decision to come to him.

      For the second time in one night she had found courage she’d never known she possessed.

      His revelations about his treatment of Benjamin had shocked her to her core but not, she suspected, for the reasons he’d wanted her to be shocked.

      There had been fleeting remorse when she had questioned him about the contract. Only fleeting, but she had seen it.

      Javier wanted her to hate him, she’d realised as she’d sat frozen on the empty bed.

      He hated himself.

      When he’d looked at her and made the cutting comment about his father killing his mother...

      It had been a veiled warning to her that had suddenly made sense of everything: his distance, his solitary life, his brusqueness...

      Javier had built the steel heart to protect himself, believing he was protecting others from himself.

      Was it coincidence that he didn’t drink?

      His father had been a violent alcoholic whose drunken outbursts and hair-trigger temper had seen an early, ignominious end to his dance career.

      By contrast, his mother’s career had soared. Today, over twenty years after her death, she was still regarded as one the most dazzling ballerinas to have graced the world’s stages.

      Clara Casillas’s dazzling star had been snuffed out when her husband had locked her in her dressing room after she’d performed in Romeo & Juliet and strangled her with his bare hands. Javier and his twin had been thirteen.

      What kind of life had they had with a father like that, even before he’d so cruelly taken their mother’s life?

      It twisted her heart to imagine the cruelty Javier had been on the receiving end of and witness to.

      His heart had been so damaged that he’d remorselessly used his oldest friend to his own advantage and cut his own twin from his life.

      If she had any sense she would cut and run, flee from this beautiful villa and keep running as far as she could from him.

      But how could she do that and live with her conscience?

      Javier was trying to protect her from himself. That in itself proved the father of her child was not irredeemable.

      Buried deep inside him was a good man fighting to get out.

      And here, in his private gym, he’d been fighting his demons with a punching bag, his bare torso glistening with perspiration, evidence of the exertion he’d used.

      He would never use her or any other person as his punching bag. That was a certainty she felt right in her marrow.

      She was not ready to wave the white flag.

      She stepped over to him.

      ‘I thought you might be thirsty,’ she said softly, holding the glass out.

      His throat moved.

      The fleshy lips pulled into a tight line before he took the glass from her and, his eyes holding hers, drank the water in four huge swallows.

      The knuckles holding the glass were red.

      ‘Shouldn’t you wear boxing gloves?’

      His shoulders rose in a shrug, the light brown eyes still not moving from hers.

      She longed to touch him. She longed to gather this great bear of a man into her arms and caress all the demons out of him. To make love to him with his eyes holding hers. To free him.

      She settled on removing the glass from his hand, putting it on the ledge beside her and taking hold of his hand to gently rub the raw knuckles.

      The tension coming from his unresponsive fingers made her want to cry.

      She sighed. ‘I’m sorry for pushing things but, Javier, please, try not to see me as your enemy or as some fragile creature who needs protecting from you. I’m tougher than you think and you’re not going to scare me away. It’s not going to be easy but we can make our marriage work but only if you meet me halfway. I’ll stop pushing for more than you can give if you stop pushing me away at every turn. How does that sound?’

      The hand she held flexed imperceptibly. Slowly, as if they were being wound by an old unused lever, his fingers closed around hers before his other hand buried into her hair and he brought his forehead down to rest against hers.

      His features were taut as his eyes bore into hers. ‘I am afraid I will hurt you.’

      The raw honesty in his voice punctured her heart.

      Sophie swallowed back all the emotions racing up her throat and rested her palm against his cheek. ‘The only way you can hurt me is if you don’t give us the chance our child deserves.’

      That was who she was fighting for. Their innocent child.

      ‘That is not the kind of hurt I am talking about.’

      ‘I know.’ She brushed her lips to his. ‘And I know you will never hurt me or our baby in the way you mean.’

      ‘How can you be so certain?’

      ‘Because I would feel it.’

      ‘Feelings cannot be trusted.’

      ‘Sometimes feelings are all we can trust.’

      The fingers gripping her hair tightened as he breathed in deeply.

      It would take no effort to hurt this woman, Javier thought. No effort at all.

      How could she trust he wouldn’t abuse his disproportionate strength and power against her as his father had done, first to his brother, who he had revelled in abusing with the form of corporal punishment he’d malevolently deemed to be necessary and corrective, and then on that fateful night when he had used his strength

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