A Facade to Shatter(35)

“Is everything okay?” she asked softly.

He spun toward her, his body alert with tension. Briefly, she wondered if she should run. And then she shook herself. No, she would not run.

Zach wasn’t dangerous, no matter that he’d told her he was in Palermo.

“You’re okay, Zach,” she said, moving cautiously, uncertain if he was still caught in the grips of a dream or an episode like the one in Palermo. “It’s me. It’s Lia.”

He scraped a hand through his hair. “I know who it is,” he said, his voice hoarse in the night. The tension in him seemed to subside, though she knew it was still right beneath the surface. “What are you doing outside in the middle of the night?” he demanded.

She ignored his tone. “I could ask the same of you.”

He turned toward the railing again, leaned on it. It was such a subtle maneuver, but it warmed her because it meant, on some level, at least, that he trusted her. After what he’d been through in the war, she didn’t take that lightly.

“I had a dream,” he said. The words were clipped and tired.

Lia stepped closer, until she could have touched him if she reached out. She didn’t reach out. “And it was not a good one,” she said softly.

He shook his head. Once. Curtly. “No.”

“Do you often dream of the war?”

He swung to look at her. “Who said I was dreaming of the war?”

She thought of the wild look in his eyes when he’d first looked at her, at the way he’d seemed to be somewhere else instead of here, and knew she was right. Just like that night in Palermo, though he had been wide awake then.

“Is it the same as what happened when I first met you? Or different?”

He didn’t say anything at first. He simply stared at her. The moonlight limned his body, delineating the hard planes and shadows of muscle. She had an overwhelming urge to touch him, but she clenched her hands tightly at her sides instead.

She would not reach for him and have him push her away. She’d done that too many times in her life, when she’d reached out to family and been shunned instead.

“You don’t quit, do you?” he asked.

“You can deny it if you like,” she said. “But I think we both know the truth.”

“Fine.” He blew out a breath. “It’s different than Palermo. When I dream, it’s much worse.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He laughed suddenly. A broken, rusty sound. “God, no. And you don’t want to hear it, Lia. You’d run screaming back to Sicily if you did. But thanks for trying.”

Lia bristled at his presumption. “I’m tougher than I look.”

He shook his head. “You only think you are. Forget it, kitten.”

Kitten. She didn’t know whether to be insulted or warmed by that endearment. “The photographer did bother you.”

“Yes.”

There was a warning in his tone. But she couldn’t leave it, not now.

“Why do you do these things if you’re worried about your reaction?”

He growled. “Because I have no choice, Lia. I’m a Scott, and Scotts do their duty. And you’d better get used to it because soon you’ll be one of us.”

It suddenly made her angry. Why should people do things that hurt them just to please other people? “So you’re saying I must put myself in situations that cause me stress for the sake of the Scotts?”

His eyes flashed. “Something like that.”

She lifted her chin. “And if I refuse?”

“Too late to back out now, babe. I told Elizabeth Cunningham you were my fiancée. Tomorrow, the papers will be filled with you and me. The whole city will be interested in the woman who captured my heart. And you will be at my side for every damn event I have to attend. Like it or not.”

A tremor slid through her. “You’re no different than my grandfather was,” she said bitterly. “It’s all about appearances. The family. What will people think? What will they do if they know we’re human, too?” Lia cursed in Italian. “We can’t have that, can we? Because the family reputation is everything.”

So long as you didn’t shame the family, so long as you kept your mouth shut and your head down, you could stay. But, oh, don’t expect them to care about you.

Don’t ever expect that. She put her hand over her belly and vowed with everything in her that her child would never for one minute think public façades were more important than feelings. It was untenable, no matter the importance of the family.