“Son of a basket weaver,” I swore, opening my hand to find blood seeping through the gloves. Ben, almost beyond the booth, froze for a moment and glanced back at me, but Naomi jerked his arm, and with one last unreadable look, he followed.
“Did you cut yourself?” Imogen exclaimed, hurrying over to pick tiny little fragments of glass from my hand.
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. The oddest emotions were swirling around inside of me—fury and pain in a tight little core, all coated with happiness from the introduction of the potion into my bloodstream. “Yes, I did. Isn’t it glorious? Look! I’m bleeding all over the place! Ben has broken my heart, left me for another woman, and destroyed my entire life. It’s all so wonderful, I could dance!”
And I did, severely hampering Imogen’s attempts to peel off my gloves in order to see how badly injured I was. It took a combination of her, Peter, and Kurt before they could get me to sit still long enough to clean up my hand. Three hours later I was still a bit giggly, although two pots of strong coffee and a measure of my own despair that would have dropped an elephant had helped work through most of the artificial happiness.
“You’re sure you’ll be all right by yourself?” Imogen asked as she hesitated in the door of my mother’s trailer. “I worry about you being alone. Perhaps you could stay with me. Günter would not mind, I’m sure.”
I had no doubt he’d mind very much, but I wasn’t about to say that. “I’ll be just fine here, thanks.”
Imogen frowned. “Speaking of him, I wonder where he is? I haven’t seen him since this morning. I shall go look for him. You get some sleep, dear Fran. And about Benedikt . . .”
Her expression said it all. I smiled wearily and waved her off before staggering to bed, where I lay tossing and turning for another couple of hours. I’d just fallen asleep when the weight of someone sitting on the edge of the bed had me grumbling, “Please, whichever one of you it is, not tonight. I’m really not up to randy Vikings.”
“I’m delighted to hear that. How about a randy Dark One?”
I rolled over and clicked on the light, my eyes already narrowed into a glare directed at the man who sat next to me, looking perfectly normal, perfectly ordinary, just as if he had a right to sit there and be so sexy, it made me want to rip off all his clothing and lick every inch of him. “You slimy, scummy strings of spit! How dare you come in here? How dare you sit there with your shirt open so I can see your chest? Get out! Go back to your precious Beloved.”
“I am with my precious Beloved,” he said calmly, trying to take my hand.
“Ow! Stop that, you’re hurting me,” I snapped, pulling my hand back. He shifted his grip to my wrist, slowly uncurling my fingers to reveal the bandages Imogen and Peter had applied.
“You did cut yourself. I thought so.”
“Take your hands off me, you slimy, scummy—”
“Strings of spit, yes, I know. Nice alliteration, by the way. Stop fighting me, Francesca. I wish to see your injury. I won’t hurt you.”
I stopped struggling with him at that, not because he had ordered me to do so, but because the sight of his head bent over my hand as he gently removed the bandages made a sob of misery catch painfully in my throat. “Why are you here?” I asked, my voice sounding thick with unshed tears.
His fingertips softly caressed the lacerations on my palm and fingers, causing no pain but generating a heat that seemed to spread up my arm. “I had to come. I couldn’t stand the look in your eyes.”
“Oh, you couldn’t? How thoughtful of you. I wonder that you didn’t think of that the second you jumped Naomi’s bones. How long was that after I broke things off, Ben? A month? A week? A couple of minutes?”
He looked at me with an unreadable expression. “Are you finished?”
“Yes. But only because . . .” My gaze dropped to where he was still holding my hand. A lump in my throat ached. “Only because I told you to go find someone else.”
“I don’t recall you ever saying that.”
“Not in so many words. But it’s usually what a breakup means.” Anguish caught on the lump in my throat, and I looked up at him, tears burning in my eyes. “I never so much as looked at another man.”
“I know.”
I stared at him in confusion as he brushed away one errant tear with his thumb. “How do you know?”
He was silent for the count of five. “You are my Beloved, Francesca. No, do not get your hackles up. I’m not going to debate the wisdom of that, or the fact that you are bound to me without your consent. I am simply saying that you are my Beloved, and as such, I am responsible for your welfare. I know that you have seen no other men because I was told so.”
The meaning of his words sank in. “You had someone watching me? Like a private detective?”
“I asked a friend to make sure you were in no danger,” he said carefully.
“And that friend just happened to report on my dating habits? Or lack thereof?” I couldn’t decide if I was furious at such a high-handed manner or touched. Both, I decided.
“Naturally, he was interested in the people in your life. That would include any romantic or sexual partners, had there been any.”
I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. My emotions had been through such extremes, I just didn’t think I could feel any more pain.I was wrong. “I’m sure that suitably flattered your ego to know that no other man could live up to your standards. Just out of curiosity, how long have you and Naomi been together?”
His eyes darkened. “Six months.”
“Happy anniversary. Now get the bloody hand grenades out of my room.”
“Bloody hand grenades?” One corner of his mouth quirked up as he looked at me. “You still don’t swear.”
“No, I don’t, and give me back my hand.” I tried again to pull it back. His fingers held firmly to my wrist.
“Not until you touch me.”
I goggled at him. I outright goggled. “You think I’m going to give you a hand job? Are you delusional? Insane? Have such an inflated ego you think you can get away with any amount of crap?”
The other side of his mouth quirked up. I told my Inner Fran to stop noticing his mouth, and remember that it had only taken him six months to replace me. “I was going to suggest my chest, but if you wish to touch me elsewhere, I would not object. Francesca, I did not betray you. I realize you believe I did, but appearances are misleading. Touch me.”
“No.” I jerked my hand back, staring in surprise at my fingers. There were faint red marks on them, but the cuts from the glass vial had healed over. There was no pain, only a little sense of tightness when I wiggled my fingers. “You healed my hand.”
“Of course. You are my Beloved.”
“Stop staying that,” I snapped, glaring at him again.
“Touch me, Francesca.”
“Since when did you start calling me that instead of Fran?” I snarled, holding my hand tight against my chest when he reached for it again.
He brushed a strand of hair back from my temple. I wanted simultaneously to leap on him and strangle him. “It seemed fitting when I saw you standing like an avenging angel at the foot of Naomi’s bed. I realized then that you aren’t the Fran I remember. Now you’re a woman, one who I fervently desire to know better.”
“I was a woman when I met you!”
“No.” His hand dropped to my lips, his thumb brushing across my lower lip. “You were sixteen, just budding, but your petals were not yet unfurled.”
I batted away his hand. “You leave my petals and bud out of this!”
He laughed, the sound of it triggering memories so sweet it brought tears of purest pain to my eyes. “Ah, Francesca, what would I do without you?”
“Evidently fall in with the first blond hussy you can find,” I said, shoving him off the bed. “Go away, Ben. I gave you your freedom. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you in my life. Just go away and—”
He sighed even as I was talking, and before I could stop him, he sat on the edge of the bed again and took my bare hand, placing it between his shirt and chest, right over his heart. Ben had always been the only person other than my mother who I could touch without being swamped by thoughts and emotions. He had some sort of an ability to dampen them, to shield me so that I wasn’t overwhelmed. He shielded me now as my fingers lay against his skin, slowly merging his mind with mine. I didn’t want to see what was in there, didn’t want to feel his emotions for Naomi, but even as I tried to pull back, some horrible masochistic part of me had me looking deep into the darkness that raged within Ben.
My gaze met his. “You haven’t betrayed me.”
“No, I haven’t.”
I stared at him in incomprehension. “But . . . I broke things off. I told you I didn’t want to be with you any more.”
“That’s what you said. But what I heard was a plea for two things: time to finish finding out who you were, and romance.”
“Romance?”
“You said you wanted to fall in love, not be told you were in love. I realize now that what is perfectly natural to me—finding a Beloved and being bound to her—was overwhelming to you, and made you feel as if you had no choice in the matter.”
“I didn’t. You and Imogen and everyone said I had to save your soul—”
He stopped me with a touch of his finger across my lips. “We were wrong. We didn’t take into account the fact that you were so young, or, for that matter, your temperament. You never were one to take being led well.”
“No, I wasn’t. I still don’t like it.”
“When you railed at me, declaring that you would make your own life, that you would not allow fate to rule you, I knew that you needed both more time and for me to court you.”
I gave a grim, mirthless laugh. “That’s a very antiquated notion, Ben. People don’t court anymore. They meet at online dating places, and run background checks, and get married and divorced.”