Lainie laughed and tried to put into words what kissing Christien was like.Except it wasn’t something easily explained.When he’d said “kiss me” she’d been tempted to throw everything away.To forget her responsibilities and be reckless for once in her life.He’d been so tempting and she’d been so tempted, but common sense prevailed and she walked away.She wasn’t sure how much longer her resistance would last.Her mind told her to stand strong.A relationship with this man would alter her life forever.Her heart said to grab what she could for the exact same reason.Either way, she knew she would never be the same again.
Do you feel it?he’d asked the other day.Do you feel what is between us?
She had felt it.This…connection…was the only word to describe what was between them, but even that didn’t come close.When she was with him, it felt right, like she’d been missing the other half of herself her entire life and had finally found it.It was as if she knew him, knew what made him tick, what he was thinking, what he liked and disliked.
Was he right?Had she known him in another life?
She shook her head and handed the waiter her credit card.Reincarnation only happened in the pages of books, not in real life.Lainie had to keep her head on her shoulders.Christien was wonderful and kind, but she had to stop him from distracting her.She had to think of her father and his needs and wants before her own.
While signing her receipt, she glimpsed the man from across the street out of the corner of her eye.He was still sitting at the table, his magazine forgotten, the corners of the pages lifting in the warm breeze.He sat back, relaxed, hands on a flat stomach, watching the women walk by.Their gazes locked, but his moved on almost immediately.
Maybe she was wrong.Maybe she’d never seen him before.Maybe this past weekend was getting to her, making her imagine things.
She and Erica walked back to the office with the larger-than-normal lunch crowd.The sidewalks were busy on this warm April day.
They paused at the corner to wait for the light to turn with a handful of people.Erica chattered about her weekend and the movie she and her husband had seen.Lainie turned to respond when suddenly she was shoved from behind.Her foot slipped off the curb.She cried out, catching a glimpse of a mini-van barreling down on them.
Tires squealed.Someone screamed.The driver of the van laid on the horn.Lainie’s shoulder slammed into the hood.The impact threw her backward.She landed on her side and slid across the road.The asphalt ate through her clothes.Her head hit the curb and everything went black.
Chapter Nine
France, 1307
Something inside Madelaine died the night Christien left her in the garden.
She’d walked back to her bedchamber and gone to bed a young girl.When dawn broke, the young girl was no more, replaced by a disillusioned woman who no longer believed in the hope that had once grown within her.
What is between us is not finished.His words were the comfort she sought and the hope she clung to that night.She naïvely believed he’d come for her and save her from the cruelty of her existence, but when she awoke the next morning she discovered Christien and his men had left soon after he’d walked away from her in the garden.He’d had no intention of coming for her.
She withdrew into herself, speaking when spoken to, carrying out the duties of a countess in a large, bustling castle, but she was a shell of herself.
In a way, she had Christien’s abandonment to thank for the change within her because deep inside, in the place she retreated to, she found the strength she’d been lacking.
Her husband’s threats meant little.What more could he do to her that he hadn’t done before?
When the count realized the hold he had over her was weakening, that his threats held no meaning, that he failed to reach the part of her where fear lived, he declared her ill.He called in a physician, forcing her to submit to a humiliating bodily inspection in front of him.
Instead of the mortification she would have felt weeks ago, she burned with an intense anger the likes of which she’d never experienced before.She used her anger to feed her strength, clinging to it like a person drowning, knowing if she let go, she would no longer exist.
She lifted her chin and stared at her husband, forcing all the coldness inside her to show through her eyes.He’d taken one look at her and winced, his black-eyed gaze unable to meet hers.
But it hadn’t taken long for her indifference to incite his fury.
“It seems, dear wife, the physician believes nothing is wrong with you.Physically.”He circled her, watching, waiting for her to show a chink in her armor, but she refused to give him what he was searching for.
She simply didn’t care anymore.If he killed her, ’twould be best.Her life had become an endless road of sorrow, fear and pain.To end it would be a blessing.
If Christien were going to save her from this, he would have done it long ago.The sad truth was she couldn’t count on him.She couldn’t count on anyone.She was on her own and in order to survive she had to become a different person.Not the naïve young girl who wrung her hands while waiting for someone to save her, but a woman who fought back.
She lifted her chin and looked her husband squarely in the bottomless pit of those black eyes and discovered something she should have seen a long time ago.Her husband had no soul.Those black eyes were merely the window to what lay inside him…nothing.With a shudder of fear—the first real fear she allowed herself to feel since her night in the garden—she realized a darkness encompassed him.Something sinister and evil.
His smile was cold and made his obsidian eyes gleam with anticipation.She’d seen that look many times before and it made her shiver inside.
“Brother Lucien believes you need help of a different sort.”
Her fear flared but she valiantly hid it.
His teeth flashed in an evil smile.“Of the religious sort.”
