A Facade to Shatter(7)

His bark of laughter surprised her. “Then why did you buy it in the first place?”

“I didn’t. It was a bridesmaid dress, and it was hideous.”

“Pink is not your color, I’m sorry to say.” His voice was too warm to take offense. “Definitely not.” She was slightly confused, given his reaction to her earlier, and more than a little curious about him. It occurred to her she should be apprehensive to be alone with a strange man, in his room, while she was naked beneath his sheets.

But she wasn’t. Paradoxically, he made her feel safe. As if he would stand between her and the world if she asked him to. It wasn’t true, of course, but it was a nice feeling for the moment.

“I’m afraid I couldn’t save the dress,” he said. “It tore in the drain, and the rest rather disintegrated once I tried to remove it.”

She felt heat creeping into her cheeks again. “You removed everything, I see.”

“Yes, sorry, but I didn’t want you soaking my sheets. Or getting sick from lying around in cold, clammy clothing.”

What did she say to that? Did you like what you saw? Thank you? I hope you weren’t terribly inconvenienced?

Lia cleared her throat and hoped she didn’t look as embarrassed as she felt. “Did you find your medal?”

It was the most benign thing she could think of. She’d tucked it into her cleavage when she’d returned to the ballroom. She would regret it if it were lost. Something about it had seemed important to her, even if he’d cast it aside so easily.

“I did.”

“Why did you drop it?” It seemed a harmless topic. Far safer than the subject of her body, no doubt.

“I have my reasons,” he said coolly.

Lia waited, but he didn’t say anything else. “If you intend to throw it away again, I’ll keep it.” She didn’t know where that had come from, but she meant it. It seemed wrong to throw something like that away.

“It’s yours if you want it,” he said after a taut moment in which she thought she saw regret and anger scud across his handsome face.

She sensed there were currents swirling beneath the surface that she just didn’t understand. But she wanted to. “What did you get it for?”

He shoved a hand through his hair. She watched the muscles bunch in his forearm, swallowed. He’d been in a tuxedo the last time she’d seen him, but now he wore a dark T-shirt that clung to the well-defined muscles of his chest and arms, and a pair of faded jeans. His feet, she noted, were bare.

So sexy.

“Flying,” he said.

“Flying? You are a pilot?”

“I was.”

“What happened?” His face clouded, and she realized she’d gone too far. She wanted to know why he’d reacted the way he had in the ballroom, but she could tell she’d crossed a line with her question. Whatever it was caused him pain, and it was not her right to know anything more than she already did.

“Never mind. Don’t answer that,” she told him before he could speak.

He shrugged, as if it were nothing. She sensed it was everything. “It’s no secret. I went to war. I got shot down. My flying days are over.”

He said it with such finality, such bittersweet grace, that it made her ache for him. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” His dark eyes gleamed as he watched her.

“Because you seem sad about it,” she said truthfully. And haunted, if his reaction in the ballroom earlier was any indication. What could happen to make a man react that way? She didn’t understand it, but she imagined he’d been through something terrible. And that made her hurt for him.

He sighed. “I wish I could still fly, yes. But we don’t always get to do what we want, do we?”

Lia shook her head. “Definitely not.”

He leaned forward until she could smell him—warm spice, a hint of chlorine. “What’s your story, Lia?”

She licked her lips. “Story?”

“Why are you here? What do you regret?”

She didn’t want to tell him she was a Corretti. Not yet. If he were here at the wedding, he was someone’s guest. She just didn’t know whose guest he was. And she didn’t want to know. Somehow, it would spoil everything.

“I was a bridesmaid,” she said, shrugging.

“And what do you regret?” His dark eyes were intent on hers, and she felt as if her blood had turned to hot syrup in her veins.