The room had French doors that led out to a balcony that looked out over the sea, so he opened them and stepped out.
The cold, whipping air and the salty tang of sea hit him like a blow—a welcome one tonight. The little tempest that raged out there felt like solace against his bare skin.
He understood her loneliness. There was something exhilarating and wonderful about the thrashing sea below, but it served as a reminder to him how different her new life was. How he’d plopped her here, yes, to save her, but alone with no one to talk to and with nothing to do but learn how to haunt a house.
She was too skinny. Too…fragile seeming yet. She wouldn’t crumble, she had too much spine for that, but she wasn’tthriving. He told himself that wanting her to thrive was for Alex and Alex alone, but he knew better.
The thought of her being punished foreating too much—in apalace—boiled his blood. Knowing some of the details of the way King Enzo had abused her—and he had no doubt that only scratched the surface—enraged him.
He had once been enraged on behalf of a woman. And his obsession had led him to a violent outburst that would have resulted in another man’s death. Would have, if not for Alexandre.
All these years later, that fire still burned within him—twined with the relief he had been saved from the dangerous poison that had held him in its grip.
He had never allowed himself to dance near that flame again. He skated along, not letting himself get hooked into all that could devolve into the desire to destroy.
But he didn’t have a choice now. He’d been named Evelyne’s savior, her protector. Just like he’d once named himself a young woman’s protector.
He could not sink into those old depths of disaster, but he had yet to figure out a way to extricate himself from this, theflameof all Evelyne was.
You don’t want to.
He’d seen desire in her eyes, the heat of chemistry. He’d felt it echo through him, a bit like a bomb detonating. Just as he’d known might happen.Wouldhappen.
He had learned how to handle his…appetites, desires. It was easy now, to keep thepersonalout of any sexual encounter. Enjoy it for what it was.Enjoyhad become the cornerstone of his life. A surface level amusement with everything. Nothing mattered enough to obsess over. Nothing mattered enough to fan the fire of vengeance that lived in him—a seed of disaster always searching for a little bit of water and sun.
Nothing could besurfacewith Evelyne. Everything about her was personal. Deeper. A constant, dangerous pitfall. Because he remembered all the times she’d attempted to flirt with him in the past.
All the times he’d been tempted to fall for her alluring smiles and sparkling wit. He’d known then, even as a young man, to keep his distance from Alex’s enticing sister.
She would be a vine that grew and choked out all reason and restraint.
Heknewthis, deep in his bones.
He breathed in the cold air, hoping it would somehow cool him. But he stood, shirtless and vibrating, heated all the way through.
He heard a noise somewhere underneath the roar of surf and wind. A kind ofsqueak. He looked toward where he thought it might have come from.
And then there she was, illuminated in a warm cast of light. As though his traitorous thoughts had conjured her, there on the terrace down the way. It was not her room she stepped out of. He did not know what room housed those terrace doors, but not her bedroom, even though she was dressed for bed.
Because she was far closer than a full house-length away.
She wore a robe, but it was open, revealing a brief, silky nightgown. The breeze fluttered over the fabrics.
He knew it was silk because he’d had to handle procuring her wardrobe himself. He’d handled every inch of her life these past few months himself. Because no one but him could know she was here.
And helikedit. He had been avoiding accepting that realization, but he could not push it away in this moment.
He liked being her only point of contact. Helikedbeing her savior, and he damn welllikedthe way she looked at him.
Even when he shouldn’t. What did that make him? No better than the controlling, abusive men in her life thus far. She deserved better than that, but he did not know how to give it to her.
He saw her mouth move but could not hear what she said over the sound of ocean and wind and storm. When he shook his head in signal he could not hear her, she held up a finger, then disappeared.
The storm outside echoed in him. It was not a good-night gesture. It was ahold ongesture.
And he had nothing to hold on to when he heard the door behind him open. He turned slowly to watch her enter his bedroom. She moved through the room, her robe still open, the nightgown brief and flirting with her golden thighs. Her feet were bare, her hair down and wild around her shoulders.
She looked more nymph or siren or something from some old painting. Dangerous, seductive, a cautionary tale. He knew all the cautions, wanted to heed them, and yet…
