“Christie was never satisfied with how she looked after that first operation. I suspect she already knew she’d blown it and ruined what she’d been given naturally, but wouldn’t stop. Could never go back. But, oh, how she tried.”
Grace understood exactly what he spoke of—she’d seen it in far too many cosmetic surgery patients, which was exactly why she’d specialized in reconstructive surgery instead.
Mitch turned sideways in the chair, leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, hands locked and head down. “Her vanity astounded me at times, but that’s what I got for only dating models when I was a bachelor. I was just as vain about my women as she was about her looks. Until Mia came along.”
He glanced up, a look of shame and regret coloring his eyes.
“At least you saw it, Mitch, saw the superficiality of it all. You became a parent, rose to the occasion. But last night you said Christie wasn’t able to.”
“God, no. Christie kept having more surgery, especially after Mia. I already told you that part but, damn, I just kept hoping she’d come to her senses before it was too late. And, honestly, it already was too late. She’d ruined her face, striving for perfection. Had at least three nose jobs.” He scrubbed fingers through his hair. “I lost count.”
He hung his head. Things went silent for a few moments. Grace didn’t dare utter a sound, so as not to stop him. He needed to get this nightmare off his chest, and if all she could be for him was a friend and a sounding board, she’d gladly be that.
She studied Mitch, a gorgeous man on the outside, one who’d once been just as superficial as his wife, but who’d grown up when he’d become a father. She had to respect a man who learned the importance of being a parent, and the true priorities in life. They went much deeper than the skin. Oh, God, if only she could believe that about herself.
“After that, Christie was a stranger to me.” He broke into her thoughts. “And she looked like a plastic doll instead of a woman. I had to let her do her thing or I’d have lost the mother of my child and my wife altogether. I thought I’d taken the high road, was doing her a huge favor by not throwing her out.” He cleared his throat, stared at his shoes. “But the joke was on me. She left. Me. For Rick. The guy who kept whittling away at what was left of her natural beauty. My so-called best friend.”
Grace stifled the gasp in her throat. Poor Mitch. He’d done the right thing and been double-crossed. This amazing surgeon before her was as broken as she was. She wanted to rush to his side and hold him, but that might send a message that she wasn’t prepared to follow through on. Moisture formed in her eyes and she bit her lower lip instead of physically offering him comfort.
“Obviously I couldn’t work with Richard as my partner any more. I sold him the business and left Hollywood.” He looked up and noticed her tears. She saw how they took him aback, his thick lashes dipping and lifting in quick succession. He took a breath and let it out in a long and tired huff.
“If I have any feelings left for Christie, they are for who she used to be, that person in the picture, long before I realized how self-centered and selfish she truly was. That woman is long gone, probably never really was, and I can assure you I’m over her.” He waited for Grace to look at him again. His eyes had softened, and the tension etched in his forehead had disappeared, as if telling his story had freed him. “Believe me, Grace, I am completely and truly over her.”
“I believe you.” She put her cup on the counter and took a couple steps toward him, taking his hand and squeezing it. The warmth from their laced-together fingers traveled up her arms.
“I need you to believe something else, too.” He rose to be closer to eye level with her.
She tilted her head upward, delving into his steady gaze. How much more could there be to his heartrending story?
He lightened the grip and gently held her hands, then stared into her eyes until she thought she might faint from the powerful jolt it sent through her. She’d never noticed how his green eyes were outlined in a ring of dark hazel, and how his thick, short lashes clumped together in an almost sawtooth fashion. She could gaze into his eyes for hours and hours and never grow bored.
“Since I’ve met you …” He pulled her close and wrapped his arms tightly around her. She welcomed the warmth and strength of his chest. “I’ve come back to life.” The words vibrated in his chest as he spoke with his jaw beside her head. “I trust my instinct again, and know that you are good and true, and beautiful inside and out.” He kissed the top of her head then took her by the arms and moved her away enough so he could look into her eyes again. A tender smile gently curved his mouth.
“You’ve restored my faith in women.”
Now he’d gone too far. “Oh, go on.” She couldn’t help herself, a tiny bubble of joy and disbelief slipped from between her lips. He’d practically claimed she’d saved mankind.
“I mean it, Gracie.” He tilted her head so she could see the sincerity in his eyes, those beautiful dark-as-the-forest eyes. She stilled, taking in every word.
“Because of you I believe in love again.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
MITCH CUPPED GRACE’S face and planted a kiss on her. She knew she should fight it, but though it had only been twenty-four hours since the last time, she’d already missed the feel and pressure of his lips. She’d missed the smooth glide of the inside of his mouth and the velvety feel of his tongue as he searched out hers. His flavor was passion and the faintest bit of winter-green mixed with the herbal hibiscus she’d just sipped.
He tasted so good. She could kiss him for hours.
He’d bared his soul to her. Accused her of changing the world for him, as if she were a superhero or a goddess. Only the intimacy of sex would bring them closer, but she couldn’t let herself think about that, getting naked, baring it all in front of him; she didn’t want to ruin the moment.
The kiss took on a life of its own. Needful. Intense. Frantic. The towel dropped from her shoulders, and she didn’t care. His mouth and strong jaw took control. She answered his delving tongue with explorations of her own, and he obviously liked her nipping and tugging on his lips.
His hands grazed her hips and squeezed. A tiny moan escaped her throat, filling the otherwise quiet room with another heady sound besides their fierce kisses. His breathing went ragged; she nearly panted as her body came to life. Every nerve ending lit up, pulsing across her skin, leaving trails of tiny goose bumps. Warm jets of need invaded her secret lair. The weight of her robe became heavy and intrusive. If only she could take it off.
“I need you,” Mitch said, pulling her hips close to his. His thickening length pressed against her, nothing but his clothes separating them. She parted her robe to bring him closer.
He was as emotionally damaged as she as. She knew the whole twisted tale. They were two wounded people with the chance to share a blissful timeout from the rest of their lives. Maybe together they could forget.
Could she trust him?
Why did she have to carry her brokenness on her skin? She wanted to scream out for the thousandth time at the sick bastard who’d meant to hurt her sister.
“Grace.” Mitchell must have sensed her change. The inner turmoil threatened to ruin things again and again. No man could put up with it for long. He’d quit kissing her, loosening his hold, looking puzzled. “Have I done something?”
“No. This is good.” All she wanted to do was go back to their kissing, back to forgetting everything else, if her mind would only cooperate, but he wouldn’t let her.
“What’s happened? I told you I wanted you and you tensed up. I don’t want to push myself on you, but you’ve got to know how much I want—”
“Nothing’s happened. Please, Mitch, kiss me.” She stepped back into his arms, but he wouldn’t hold her. Oh, no, now she’d blown everything.
His gaze penetrated her eyes, as if searching for the truth. His stare slowly traveled down to her neck. He lifted the hair from her shoulder, folded down the collar of her robe w
here she knew a scar peeked above, and moved in for a kiss. She tensed again.
He stopped. “Is this what you’ve been seeing Leo about?”
Surprised, she nodded.
But she couldn’t bear it. Soon he’d notice the extent of her scarred flesh. She had to think fast. She wanted nothing more than to make love with Mitch, for once to leave her mind out of it, let her body take control. But she couldn’t let him see her for the first time like this, not under the glaring kitchen light.
Maybe in the dark …
She stepped back, shook her head, so her hair covered her neck again, then managed a smile. “Why don’t we go into the bedroom?” Without waiting for an answer, she took his hand and led him across the kitchen, down the short hall to her room. She opened the door, smiled over her shoulder at the man she planned to lure into the dark. At least there, in the dark, she wouldn’t be able to see his reaction when he realized how scarred she was.
She wanted this time with Mitch more than she could ever remember. Once outside her room, seeing the heat still in his eyes, she breathed a sigh of relief, knowing it wasn’t too late.
Grace drew Mitch over the threshold, using only her fingertips. Once he was inside she closed the door and turned off the lights. But before she could remove her hand from the switch plate, his covered hers. Her fingers went still as he turned the lights back on.
Caught and cornered, she looked pleadingly at him.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“What don’t you want me to see?” A surgical scar? Mitch guessed. Was that what Leo had been fixing? “How shallow do you think I am?” He glanced toward her neck, remembering how she always kept it covered. Her motionless stare registered dread. He moved her thick, silky hair away again, and tried to pull the white spa robe from her shoulder. “Do you think a little scar can scare me off?”
Wild hands stopped him. He froze. She’d invited him into her bedroom, yet now he’d stepped over the line? He shook his head, confused but desperately wanting to understand.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” she said.
With tears brimming, she looked defeated and distraught, not anything close to the way a woman seducing a man would. The sight of her, nearly begging him to stop asking questions, made him feel queasy. What had he done but follow her into her bedroom and turn on the lights? Hadn’t she invited him inside?
He pulled back his hands, holding up his palms, making a physical promise not to touch her right now. “Tell me,” he whispered. “Tell me what I don’t know.”
She swallowed and looked down. All he wanted to do was hold her, tell her everything would be all right, but he wouldn’t dare touch her again until he knew she wanted him to. Her obvious despair tore at his emotions.
She worried her mouth, as if fighting to hold in the explanation he demanded. Yet he had no intention of leaving without one.
Her eyelids closed halfway. She stared into nothingness. “I was burned by acid.”
The words trickled out without a hint of animation.
Yet she may as well have hit him with a sledgehammer. Her matter-of-fact statement nearly threw him off balance. He leaned against the wall for support. Anger and pain twined and exploded in his gut. Something told him not to show the feelings roiling through him, that she needed him to be restrained. He fought his instinct to grab and hold her with all his might, to honor hers.
“Go on.” His voice was measured.
“Twelve years ago my sister started college, and immediately fell in love with the wrong guy.” She stood perfectly still, reciting her history. “Hope realized it too late, after the guy became obsessed with her. He questioned everything she did, was jealous of anyone else she spent time with, and essentially became a paranoid freak. She kept it to herself, until one night when we had an online video call and I could see how stressed out she was. I begged her to do something about it.”
She stared toward the distant corner, numbness in her eyes, as though she was exhausted from reciting the events that had happened years before.
“I was already home for summer break and knew Hope planned to break up with Tyler just before she came home from university. She thought everything had gone well, until one day he showed up at our house, demanding to see her. To talk to her.” Grace lifted her arms, the first body movement since she’d started opening up, and used air quotes around “talk to her,” said it in a clipped, angry manner—the first sign of emotion since she’d begun.
“I didn’t trust him and refused to leave the room. Hope told me to go, but as I suspected she only said it to appease Tyler, because I could see it, the terror in her eyes. I snuck around the back of the house and watched through the French doors.”
Grace crossed the room and sat on the edge of her bed, looking wrung out. The ache in his chest got stronger, seeing the normally full-of-life woman he’d been so fascinated with these past few weeks look deflated and defeated. He forced himself not to run to her side, to keep the distance for her sake. Nothing must stop her from telling the whole story. He deserved to hear it and she obviously needed to get it off her chest.
She picked at her robe with one hand, clutching the collar with the other. “I couldn’t hear them, but from my vantage point I could see the pleading, fear and anger on my sister’s face. She was sticking to her guns and refusing to get back together with him, just like she told me she already had at school. My fingers were ready to hit Emergency on my cell phone.”
She paused.
Mitch wondered if her mind tried to rewind and change the outcome, even as she told the story. He wished he had the power to do it for her.
“Tyler must have realized he couldn’t bully her into getting what he wanted anymore. Then I saw him reach into his back pocket for a brown glass bottle.” She stopped briefly, closed her eyes as if shutting out horrible thoughts, the burden of knowing what would happen next.
“I didn’t know what it was, but he was a science major and instinct told me to bolt into that room and knock it out of his hand before he could do anything to harm Hope. I tried to push him away as he uncapped and splashed the acid. Hope jumped back. He shifted and aimed the bottle toward me.” She clenched her eyes tightly closed, wringing moisture from the sides. “He got me instead.”
Fury rose up in Mitch’s gut. What monster could do such a thing? For the first time in his life he suspected he was capable of killing someone.
Tears streaked down her cheek. She’d done the noble thing of protecting her sister from a crazy person and had paid the price with her own flesh. Tiny pins pricked behind Mitch’s eyes, moisture gathered and brimmed on his lids. He ached to hold Grace and tell her how beautiful she was, even as he imagined smashing in the face of the maniac who’d done this to her. His fists opened and closed. Please tell me the sick bastard’s in jail.
Sensing she wasn’t through, he used every fiber of restraint and held firm where he was, leaning against the wall, keeping quiet, knuckles nearly cramping.
“I missed a semester of med school during the trial, but was determined to make up for it once I’d healed. Since then I’ve gone through countless skin grafts and extensive plastic surgery. But nothing will ever take away all of these scars.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said quietly.
“Yes, it does.” She pleaded with him with her stare. “I was in love and engaged to be married back then. Ben was the greatest guy in the world. At least, that’s what I thought. He’d stayed by my side throughout the hospital stay, coming every day, bundling up in gowns and gloves just so he could hold my hand when I was in isolation.”
Her jaw tightened and her chin quivered. “But I was always bandaged up, and when we were finally together—” emotion bubbled from her throat, she fought it back “—he was horrified. Didn’t want to touch me. Couldn’t. I mean, why would he? I looked like uncooked meat back then.” She hung and shook her head. “How could I blame him?” She bit her lower lip and swallowed. “I haven’t been intima
te with anyone since. Can’t take the risk. Besides, who would want me?” She squeezed her eyes closed again. “I never want to see that look again.”
Finally she glanced at Mitch, offering him a doleful smile. “I’m afraid you’re still looking for perfection, and the sight of me will ruin things between us.”
She’d finally said it: she was afraid to show herself to him. She was willing to make love to him in the dark, because she didn’t want to see his reaction. Oh, God, how could he make her know he didn’t give a damn about the status of her skin? It was her, her heart and soul, that he wanted.
“I’m a surgeon, Grace. I’ve seen it all. Nothing could shock me, surely you understand that?”
“Did you hear anything I just said?” A puff of air pushed through her lips. Her face contorted. She peeked out from between tightly clenched eyelids. “He couldn’t look at me. My scars turned him completely off.”
“I’m not him. You’ve got to trust me, my love. Whatever that jerk’s name was, he didn’t deserve you. All I see is beauty when I look at you. You’ve got to believe that nothing can stop me from loving you.”
“I can’t live through another rejection like that ever again.”
He shook his head, his body covered from head to toes with chills. Overcome, emotion flowed so powerfully he couldn’t speak. Only one thing occurred to him. He had to show her how he felt about her, how her inner beauty was a hundred times stronger than her scars. She was the most beautiful, authentic person he’d ever known and nothing, nothing—especially her scars—could ever change that opinion.
Mitch came to her. He looked at her as if she were the most beautiful woman in the universe. There wasn’t a hint of pity in those sea-green eyes, shiny with moisture and empathy. It seemed all wrong, his sexy intent. How could he still find her attractive? But his determined expression almost made her believe him.
Trust flickered in her chest. “Don’t pity me. Please, don’t.”
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