Kiss an Angel(112)

“Your breast . . .” He drew a ragged breath. “There’s a welt. It’s—the skin isn’t broken, but there’ll be bruising.”

The mattress moved as he left her, only to come back much too soon. “This’ll feel cold. It’s a compress.”

She winced as he laid a wet towel over the seared skin. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing time to pass.

As the towel warmed from her skin, he removed it and replaced it with a fresh one. Once again, the mattress sagged as he sat next to her. He began to speak, his voice soft and rusty.

“I’m not—I’m not poor like I let you think. I teach, but—I also buy and sell Russian art. And I do consulting work for some of the biggest museums in the country.”

Tears leaked through her lids and onto the pillow. As the compresses began to do their work, the pain subsided into a dull, aching throb.

His words were awkward and halting. “I’m considered the leading authority on Russian iconography in the—in the United States. I have money. Prestige. But I didn’t want you to know. I wanted you to think of me as an uneducated roughneck living a hand to mouth existence. I wanted to . . . scare you away.”

She willed her lips to move. “I don’t care.”

He spoke rapidly now, as if he had only a short period of time to get everything out. “I have a—a big brick house in the country. In Connecticut, not far from the campus.” With a feather-light touch, he replaced the compress with a new one. “It’s filled with beautiful art, and there’s—I have a barn in the back with a stable for Misha.”

“Please leave me alone.”

“I don’t know why I keep traveling with the circus. Every time I do it, I swear it’s the last time, but then a few years go by and I start getting restless. I might be in Russia or Ukraine, maybe in New York—it doesn’t seem to matter—I just know I have to go back on the road. I guess I’ll always be more Markov than Romanov.”

Now that it no longer mattered, he was telling her everything she’d been begging him for months to reveal. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

His hand cupped her waist in an oddly protective gesture. “It was an accident. You know that, don’t you? You know how sorry I am.”

“I want to go to sleep now.”

“Daisy, I’m a wealthy man. That night we went to dinner, and you were worried about the bill . . . There isn’t—you don’t ever have to worry about money.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I know it hurts. It’ll be better tomorrow. You’ll be bruised and sore, but there won’t be any permanent damage.” He faltered, as if he realized what a terrible lie he’d just told.

“Please,” she said tonelessly. “If you care about me at all, leave me alone.”

There was a long silence. Then the mattress moved as he bent forward and brushed her damp eyelids with his lips. “If you need anything, just turn that light on. I’ll be watching for it, and I’ll come right away.”

She waited for him to move. Waited for him to leave so she could shatter into a million pieces.

But he had no mercy. He turned back the top corner of the compress and blew softly, sending a soothing ripple of cooling air across her skin. Something warm and damp fell onto her skin, but she was too numb to even wonder what it was.

He finally rose from the bed, and for several moments the trailer was filled with the familiar sounds he always made when he changed from his costume into his work clothes: the thud of his boots hitting the floor, the faint rustle of sequins as he removed his red sash, the rasp of the zipper on his jeans. An eternity passed before she heard the door close behind him.



The growl of a tiger met Alex as he left the trailer. He stood outside and gulped the air. The colored lights shone and the pennants snapped, but he was unable to see anything except the obscene red welt that marred her fragile skin. Tears stung his eyes and his lungs burned. What had he done?

He moved blindly across the grass to the tiger’s cage. The performance was still going on inside the top, and the backyard was deserted except for a few of the clowns, who gave him wide berth.

His timing had been off all night. Why hadn’t he ended the act right away? He should have signaled Digger to send in Misha and brought the whole thing to a close. But he’d been too caught up in rage. Instead, his pride had demanded he do one more trick to try to redeem the performance. One more trick, as if that would make everything all right again.

He blinked his eyes hard. Her skin was so pale and fragile. The welt marred her breast and passed over the sweet, flat belly that held her child. Their child. The child he’d told her they were getting rid of. As if Daisy would ever be able to do anything like that.

As if he would ever have let her do it.

The ugly, hateful words he’d spoken rang in his ears. Words she’d never forget or forgive. Not even Daisy had a heart big enough to forgive him for what he’d said.

As he reached the cage, Sinjun regarded him with unblinking eyes that seemed to peer into the deepest recesses of his soul. What did the tiger see? He stepped over the rope and curled his hands around the bars. The cold, empty place inside him was gone—he knew that now—but what had taken its place?

His gaze locked with the tiger’s, and the hair on the back of his neck prickled. For a moment everything stood still, and then he heard a voice—his own voice—telling him exactly what the tiger saw.