THREE MONTHS LATER, Kendra had succeeded in convincing herself that what had happened at Skalas Tower was some kind of bad dream.
Well. She called it a bad dream in the light of day. What a nightmare! What a horror!
But the more unpalatable truth was that sometimes she woke in the night, convinced that she could feel all that thick, hot masculinity moving inside her again. Sure that if she blinked away the sleep from her eyes she would see his face, so stern and sensual at once, right there above her as he blocked out the world...
The way she felt in the dark had nothing to do with horror. She was wise enough to keep that to herself.
Because she had better things to think about than one evening of pure insanity three months ago. Such as finding herself a new life because, like it or not, she’d left the old one in tatters on the floor of Balthazar’s office that night, and there was no pretending otherwise.
Her father and brother had not been impressed when Kendra had returned that night without any good news to report. She had been similarly unimpressed to find them both waiting up for her, since the drive back out from New York City had in no way allowed her to settle down after...him.
“Well?” Tommy had demanded.
Angrily, as if waiting for his baby sister to return from this vile errand was beneath him.
When it was for him.
He had been swilling his gin and looking at her in disgust, neither of which was new. But after her intense, provoking experience earlier, something inside of her had... Not snapped, exactly. But she’d stripped naked in front of Balthazar Skalas. She’d argued for leniency and she’d bartered herself, all for the brother who was making no secret of how little he cared for her.
Why are you trying to help this person? an unfamiliar voice asked from deep down inside her. When he would quite clearly never, ever so much as consider doing the same for you?
Kendra had never thought about it quite like that before. Once she had, she couldn’t think of anything else. Why was she trying to prove herself to him? Or her father?
Why do you feel you have anything to prove?
She couldn’t answer that question, either.
It was as if letting Balthazar inside her body had changed her, profoundly.
Not simply the act itself, which she couldn’t quite let herself think about at that point—too overwhelming and raw, painful and then transcendent, all mixed in together—but the fact of it.
She didn’t feel like the same naive creature who had set off in her sensible shoes, so determined to fight off a dragon and save her family. She wasn’t the same. The dragon had eaten her alive and there was no pretending otherwise.
That had been the first evidence of how different she was after her encounter with Balthazar. The fact that she could see her selfish, petulant brother for who he was and feel no matching surge of need to prove herself any further.
“What exactly did you think would happen?” she’d asked as she stood in the door of her father’s study. And after matching wits with Balthazar Skalas, she’d rather thought her brother unequal to the task. “Did you really think that a man like that could be tempted into forgetting what you did to him?”
“I hope you’re not saying that you struck out, girl,” her father had grumbled from his favorite armchair. “That’s not what you’re saying, is it?”
Even then, Kendra had wanted badly to tell herself that he’d wanted her to succeed because he believed in her. And not because he’d wanted her to sort out Tommy’s mess.
But she’d lost her ability to fool herself that night.
“I tried my best,” she had said, because what else was there to say? Even if she’d told them what she’d done, they wouldn’t understand. They hadn’t been there. They wouldn’t get the weight of her surrender. That exquisite tension that had flared between her and Balthazar that she’d still been able to feel tight around her, like his hands around her throat. Or his palm between her legs. She’d shrugged instead. “I tried and I failed. I don’t know what he’s going to do now.”
“You frigid bitch,” Tommy had snarled at her. And even though their father had made a tutting sort of noise, Tommy hadn’t retracted it. He hadn’t backed down. Instead, he’d taken the tumbler he was holding and threw it so that it exploded against the stone of the fireplace. “I told you not to go dressed like that. Of course you failed. Just look at you! You look like a dowdy, frumpy, boring secretary. Who would want that?”
She’d stared back at her brother, seeing his sulky expression and remembering Balthazar’s beautiful, brutal masculinity. His grace and ferocity. Tommy had not done well by comparison.
“I can only wonder why you were pinning all your hopes on me if I’m so deficient,” she’d said calmly. Almost coldly. “There’s nothing more that I can do. And if I’m honest, I think I’ve already done too much—particularly if this is the thanks I get.”
Kendra had turned and marched from the room, paying no attention when she heard her brother’s voice raised in fury behind her. She had not glanced at her father again. She’d had the revolutionary thought, after everything, that what happened next to the pair of them had nothing to do with her.
Instead, she’d run up the stairs to her childhood bedroom, locked the door behind her, and then crumpled down on the other side of it. She’d hugged her knees to her chest, held herself tight, and tried to figure out what to do with herself now everything had changed.
Now that she had changed.
Now that she knew the things she knew. Now that she’d finally faced the truth.
Kendra had wanted to dissolve into sobs, but hadn’t. She’d breathed a little too heavily for a while, ragged and overwhelmed, and had eventually found her way into the shower. There she’d done her best to use up all the hot water on the eastern seaboard as she’d done her best to scrub off the evening she’d had.
She’d failed at that, too.
It was only later, when she’d tucked herself up in her childish canopy bed as if that could make her the girl she’d been again, that she’d finally allowed herself to go through the whole thing, step by step.
He’d braced himself above her, so fierce, almost furious.
And he’d called her a whore, so Kendra had been determined that he never suspect that she was anything but. She’d told herself that she was a modern woman, after all. She’d ridden horses her whole life. Surely, if she didn’t tell him, he would never know that she’d never let anyone close to her before. That she’d been too busy trying to be perfect in one way or another, and had never seen how a boyfriend fit into that.
It won’t hurt, she’d told herself. If it hurt as much as people claimed it did, no one would do it again.
Then Balthazar had slammed his way inside her, and it was as if he’d plugged her into an electrical outlet, the most fragile part of her first.
Her first reaction had been shock.
Her body had reacted without her permission, arching up in a way that could as easily have been surrender as a scream. She hadn’t known herself.
She’d hidden her face, bitten down on her own arm, and it was only when her teeth dug into her own flesh that she’d begun to sort through the storm of it all.
Pain wasn’t the right word. She’d felt everything, that was the trouble. The shock of his intrusion. The shape of him, lodged deep inside of her. Big, hot, long. There was a person inside her, and that notion made her want to cry even as it sent spirals of a different sensation dancing through her.
He’d told her to drop her arms, she’d obeyed, and again she’d been swept up in the certainty that if she let him see that this was her first time, if she let him know that this was anything but what she wanted it to be, she would die.
Die.
So instead, she’d dared him to do it faster. Harder. Deeper.
But when he did, everything had changed again.
And by the time they were finished, Kendra had learned a great many things about herself.
In the three months since that night, she’d had a lot of time to think about those things.
That she was not at all who she’d always thought she was if she could be so easily taken. Not just taken, but possessed, fully. A man who hated her could do those things to her body, and more astonishingly, her body could respond to him with pure jubilation.
No matter what she might have thought about the situation.
If that was true, and Kendra knew it was, then she didn’t know herself at all. And if she didn’t know herself at all, if she even now found herself something like hungry, constantly going over that night in Balthazar’s office in her head—
She’d concluded mere days after that fateful night that she needed to change her life entirely.
And so she had.
Her Great-Aunt Rosemary, the despair of Kendra’s haughty Grandmother Patricia, had taken herself off to the French countryside rather than settle down into marriage the way her parents would have preferred. She had never bothered to return to the family, but she’d left Kendra her cottage when she’d died the previous year.
On the off chance you are not like your mother or hers, Great-Aunt Rosemary’s will had read, I offer you a place to land.
Kendra had always meant to make it over to inspect her inheritance...someday.
Someday had turned out to be a lot sooner than she’d imagined.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” her father had thundered at her when she’d announced her plans to remove herself to the French countryside. At once. “What on earth do you plan to do in France, of all places?”
“Whatever I like,” she’d replied. “Would you like me to stay? That will only happen if you give me a job in the company.”
“Kendra. Sweetheart.” The unusual endearment had shocked them both, and her father had looked away. “I don’t see the company as a part of your future.”
She’d braced herself for the pain of that to swipe at her, but there had been nothing. As if she’d finally moved past it. “Then what does it matter where I choose to live?”
And that was how she’d found her way to her great-aunt’s lovely little cottage, suspended between the mountains and the sea. Nestled amid rolling vineyards on country roads, the cottage itself was a bookish girl’s dream. A few bright, happy rooms filled with books and art, paths through the fields to walk on, and more than a few trees with abundant shade if she wanted a break from the glorious Côte d’Azur sunshine.
She went down into Nice to do her shopping, and it was easy enough to drive down into Italy, or take the long train ride to Paris. She told herself it was the best few months of her life.
She wanted it to be. Desperately.
And if sometimes Kendra felt so melancholy that she almost got sick with it, she dismissed it as growing pains. She was lucky enough to be in the position to take a time-out to figure out what her life ought to be. Accordingly, she tried to imagine what her life would look like now if she took the family company off the table. If she stopped pushing so hard.
Maybe it was a good thing that she wasn’t working with her father and brother now that she’d lost a huge amount of her respect for them. But Kendra had always wanted to work. She had no interest in the kind of highly charged, gossip-soaked idleness her mother preferred—and no aptitude for it, if she was honest.
All the sorts of play jobs other women in her position had, she dismissed. Virtuous charities with flashy balls, prized internships only those with trust funds could afford to take, silly publicity positions that were usually about getting on the guest lists to highly photographed parties. None of that appealed to her. Kendra tried to encourage herself to think outside the box. She’d been so focused on getting into her father’s good graces that she’d never spent any time imagining what would happen if that...stopped mattering to her.
Because it didn’t. The further away she got from that night with Balthazar, the more angry she found herself.
Not at Tommy, who had never made a secret of who he was or pretended to be anything else. Not Balthazar, who was wholly and completely himself, always.
But at her father.
Her father, who had preferred that his daughter give herself to a man he considered an enemy than deal with Tommy’s behavior himself. Tommy had put the company, the family, and his own sister into peril—but that hadn’t inspired her father to handle him, once and for all. And at no time had Thomas Connolly thought, Maybe it would be smart to try out the one child who hasn’t caused me problems.
Kendra was humiliated she hadn’t seen all of this before. It wasn’t as if anyone had hidden it. She’d simply seen what she’d wanted to see. She’d believed that if she worked hard enough, there was a way for her to take her rightful place at her father’s side. All she had to do was prove it.
Now she thought that if given the chance, she’d burn the whole Connolly family down. Great-Aunt Rosemary had clearly had the right idea.
A darling little cottage tucked away in the south of France was the perfect opportunity for Kendra to uncover her heretofore unknown artistic leanings, she’d figured. She kept a journal. She tried a bit of creative writing. She took a painting class. A pottery class. She tried to learn how to play piano.
But by the end of her second month in France, neck deep in all things Provençal, it was clear that Kendra had no aptitude whatsoever for anything creative.
Not even the faintest shred of it.
And that was how she’d found herself at one of the local wineries nestled away in a glorious, sweeping vineyard down the road from her cottage. The owners thought it would be helpful to have an American on hand for the summer to help with tourists, and Kendra quickly found that her real aptitude was in customer service, of all things.
Because she was fantastic at it. And more, enjoyed it.
It was a beautiful summer afternoon. The breeze was scented with lavender and the hint of earth. Groups of tasters and merrymakers had come to enjoy the vineyard and its offerings, some coming up from the crowded beaches along this magical stretch of coastline, some engaged in winery tours, and some on self-guided explorations of the area. They sat in merry little clusters at the tiled tables out beneath bright blue umbrellas and graceful trellises wrapped in jasmine and wisteria vines.
Kendra moved from table to table, making sure everyone had the food they’d ordered from the small kitchen or the sommelier’s attention. She got to use the French she’d taken in boarding school and college or her English, depending on the group. And maybe there was something wrong with her, she thought when she ducked back inside to see if the kitchen was ready with the charcuterie platters one of her groups had ordered. There had to be, because most people surely didn’t find it easier to know themselves while they were interacting with strangers. Or not know herself, perhaps. But feel at ease with herself all the same.
Because to all the customers sitting at these tables, she was nothing but an American girl on a lark. Enjoying herself abroad, perfectly carefree.
And the more they treated her that way, the more she believed it was the truth.
No Connolly family power struggles. No demands she marry a member of her mother’s yacht club, the red-shorts-wearing hedge fund brigade. No contending with Tommy and his latest fiasco.
Carefree felt good.
Kendra had her back to the door when it opened again. She sang out a greeting in French as she picked up the two heavy plates of charcuterie that the chef arranged in glorious piles of the finest meats and cheeses, all arranged on their own private stones.
“Please take a menu and find a seat outside,” she said over her shoulder. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”
She turned as she spoke, her happy carefree smile on her face.
But it was not a new group of tourists.
It was Balthazar.
He did not speak. But then, he didn’t have to speak when all he did was reach up and remove the mirrored sunglasses from his face, letting that blazing dark gaze slam straight into her.
He was Balthazar Skalas.
That harsh look on his face was as good as another man’s shout.
Kendra would never know how she managed to keep holding those heavy platters aloft. Possibly it was that she was frozen solid. Turned to stone.
Incapable of anything but staring at the apparition before her.
One ice age passed. Then another.
“Excuse me,” she said in totally unnecessary French. “I must deliver these.”
She hardly knew what she was doing, only that it was critical she do it. She set off across the floor, then ducked out the door to the patio while he stood there beside it like a smoldering ember.
Outside, she smiled and laughed on cue. She set down the platter and then spent a long, long time telling the group at the table the involved history of every cheese, cured meat, and olive. Only when she’d exhausted that topic did she turn back and head inside.
Slowly, having half convinced herself that Balthazar was a figment of her imagination.
But no.
He was still there, in the exact same place where she’d left him. The devil himself, so incongruous in a French winery’s tasting kitchen that she almost laughed at the absurdity.
Almost. Because there was very little about Balthazar in his considerably mouthwatering flesh that made her feel like laughing.
Another eon or two dragged by as she stared at him. As he returned the favor with the full force of his stern regard.
It took everything Kendra had to fight off all the images that threatened to flood her then. The memories of what had happened between them.
“You must connect these dots for me,” Balthazar said. Eventually. His voice was as she remembered it. Dark. Stirring. Dangerous. “Tell me how a Connecticut heiress finds herself a waitress half a world away.”
“As it happens, I have an innate talent for customer service,” she replied, using her brightest, happiest tone, as if he was really interested in her answer. “That’s not something I knew before I came to France.”
“How can it surprise you?” His voice only got more lethal. More than that, it was a whole storm inside her, so that not only was she forced to remember every single thing that had happened that night in Manhattan, she could feel it. Her body was reliving it, one sensation after the next. “Look what you were willing to do for your brother. How could you doubt that it was a...talent, as you say?”
“I’m delighted you haven’t changed a bit.” She forced her usual happy smile. “Have you come for a tasting? I handle the food, but if you take a seat on the terrace, the sommelier will be with you shortly and can lead you on the journey of your choice through our wines. Today we’re featuring—”
“If I wished to sample wine, Kendra, I would not come here. I have my own vineyards.”
She rolled her eyes. “As one does.”
His face tightened. “I still do not understand. Are you hiding?” If possible, his gaze darkened. “Do you have some reason to hide?”
“This is the south of France,” Kendra said, frowning at him. “People do not hide here. They spend their entire lives concocting reasons to come visit. Then come back. Then find a picturesque cottage surrounded by sunflowers and lavender to grow old in. It’s paradise, Balthazar. Who wouldn’t want to live in paradise?”
“You surprise me. I would have expected you to stay tethered to the family apron strings, running errands for your father and brother. That is your role, is it not?”
She pulled in a breath, surprised at how much that hurt. When really, Kendra had been expecting something like that the moment she’d seen him.
“Don’t beat around the bush,” she said softly. “If you want to call me names, call me names.”
One of his dark brows rose. “Did I not do so?”
“I’m afraid I’ve stepped away from my former profession.” She managed to use her usual bright and shiny voice, and took some pride in the fact she could when he’d left her bleeding. If she didn’t show it, that was almost as good as not bleeding at all. “If that’s why you’ve come, you’re going to be deeply disappointed.”
Balthazar pushed away from the wall, then prowled around the small shop with its souvenirs and keepsakes along one wall, the refrigerated case filled with takeaway options, and the menu stand for table service.
Somehow, Kendra had never realized how small the place was before. How...close.
But then, Balthazar took all the air from the room.
“If you have business with my family, you know how to find them,” she said after a moment, though her pulse was drumming loudly in her ears. “I have nothing to do with this.”
“Perhaps.”
His back was to her then. His gaze was directed out the windows, down over the gentle slope of the vineyard before them. The view she’d loved, until now. Would she ever be able to look at it again without seeing him?
“Tell me this, if you please,” he was saying, low and commanding. “It has been some time since I saw you in New York.”
“Since you saw me,” she echoed, and even laughed. “How sanitized that sounds.”
Balthazar turned to her. She thought the way his gaze cut through her was stark. Brooding, even. But he didn’t speak.
“It was three months ago.” Kendra tried to summon her smile, but gave up when it didn’t materialize. She repressed the urge to rub at the nape of her neck, where she was certain every single fine hair was standing at attention. “But I feel certain you know that.”
“Indeed.”
And something in the way he studied her then made her feel as if she was trembling again, from the inside out. As if her own bones had betrayed her. She had the wild notion that she should leap across the room, slap her hands over his mouth if necessary, do anything she could to keep him from saying whatever it was he’d come here to say... But she didn’t.
“Three months,” he repeated, as if for emphasis. “And in that time, have you bled?”
She felt all the color and sensation drain from her. “What?”
“It is a simple question, if indelicate. Because we did not use protection, Kendra. And if you have not bled—”
Her pulse was taking over her body, beating at her. “Why are we talking about this? How is it your business? And anyway, I moved to a different country. It’s not unusual to miss one or two—”
She cut herself off, horrified.
The reality of what she was saying slammed into her anyway, flattening her. And then it was as if she was swallowed up in the ferocious blaze of his glare.
Balthazar did not move. He did not close the space between them.
And still Kendra felt as if he’d lunged at her. Or did she only wish he had?
Did she really long for his touch so much? But she knew the answer to that. She lived it every night.
“Is this your family’s latest attempt to force my hand?” Balthazar asked idly, though his gaze was afire with the darkest, harshest condemnation. With a bitter hatred that made her breath hitch. “This will not end for you the way you imagine, Kendra. I promise you that.”