Mary Ann noticed the slight trembling and sat up straight. “How did you meet Nicolae?” Because that was what this was about. Something in the past was causing perfectly controlled Destiny to pace like a caged animal. Causing her hands to tremble and her soul to reject a wonderful partner.
Destiny’s shoulders hunched slightly. A small signal, but Mary Ann noted it. She watched the younger woman examine a painting on the wall. The silence stretched between them until Mary Ann was certain Destiny wouldn’t respond.
“He came to me when I was a child.” The voice, usually so beautiful, was strangled, a choked whisper of sound. “I might have been six. It’s hard to remember. Time isn’t the same for me anymore. It’s endless and stretches out forever.”
“Is it difficult to remember because it was a painful time?”
Destiny touched the painting, traced the outline of the child. “I prefer not to remember it. I closed the door on that part of my life.”
Mary Ann nodded. She laced her fingers and regarded Destiny over her hands. “That’s a self-preservation technique that abused and traumatized children often have to employ to survive. They have compartments in their minds to safely put things away in so they can move on.” Her voice was without judgment. “Do you associate Nicolae with that time in your life?”
“Nicolae is...” Destiny hesitated, searching for the right word. “Magic. Not real. A dream that can’t possibly be true. He’s like a white knight. The hero in an action film, larger than life and only a figment of the imagination.”
“Destiny.” Mary Ann waited until the other woman turned to look at her. “What would happen if Nicolae was real and not a dream at all?”
Destiny lifted her hand to eye level, held it out for Mary Ann to see. They both watched it tremble uncontrollably. “He could take everything away from me. Everything I am, everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve, to become. He could rip me apart, and I would turn to ashes in the sun.”
“You’re saying you’re very vulnerable to him, and that frightens you. He is capable of hurting you if you let him in.”
“I’m saying he could
destroy
me. I’ve been destroyed once and I rebuilt my life into something.” Destiny ducked her head. Nicolae had given her back her life, had made her into what she was. And now he was asking her to change all over again.
“I think it is natural for anyone entering into a relationship, a partnership, to be frightened of being hurt, don’t you, Destiny? When we allow ourselves to love, we’re always vulnerable. Everyone is, Destiny. It wasn’t that long ago that you were leery of having a simple friendship,” Mary Ann pointed out.
“Because it would bring you into a dangerous world. It
did
bring you into that world.” Destiny sighed and took another turn around the office. “I could destroy him.”
There it was. Out in the open. The words had slipped out before she could stop them. Maybe she’d wanted to tell Mary Ann all along. Maybe that was why she had been drawn to this place of peace. To tell the truth to someone who mattered to her.
Mary Ann pushed back her chair and moved around the desk to lean her hip against the edge. “That’s what you want to talk about, isn’t it? You’re worried about Nicolae.”
“You said you have a talent. That you can read women. What do you see in me?” Destiny lifted her chin almost belligerently, her gaze steady on Mary Ann’s.
Mary Ann allowed her breath to escape her lungs in a rush. “Seeing things is not always comfortable. You’re certain you want me to tell you?”
Destiny shrugged with studied casualness. “I could just as easily read your mind, Mary Ann. But I respect you and, unless it is for your own protection or the protection of others, I would never violate the trust between us by reading your mind without permission.”
“I know you are tied in some way that I can’t understand to Nicolae. It is beyond the boundaries of the earth. And I know you were hideously abused and you fear that staying with him will somehow cause his destruction. Nicolae is a strong man. I’ve never encountered anyone with his sheer power.” Mary Ann tilted her head to one side, regarding Destiny carefully. “Why are you so certain you’re not just what Nicolae needs? I think you are. I think you’re
exactly
what he needs. I know you’re what he wants. Every time he looks at you that longing is in his eyes.”
Destiny waved Mary Ann’s remark aside. They had come full circle. She had already ranted about the way Nicolae looked at her, she didn’t need Mary Ann to point it out to her. She knew he wanted her, that he needed her. She also knew the price might be more than either of them could afford. She swept her hair away from her eyes. “There aren’t just a few small problems, Mary Ann.”
Mary Ann watched as Destiny threw herself carelessly into a chair, her legs stretched out in front of her. “I’m going to speak very plainly with you, Destiny.”
“Please do.” Destiny intended to speak plainly with Mary Ann.
“Women who have been raped or sexually abused as children have problems with intimacy. Those problems don’t just go away. And even when you think you’ve beaten the past, it will suddenly be there, between you. That’s a normal reaction, Destiny, and one to be expected.”
“I do expect it. Well, the chemistry between Nicolae and me is much more explosive than I had counted on. I had no idea it could be so strong. I also realize I don’t want to surrender control in any way. I’m honest enough with myself and with Nicolae to admit that.”
Mary Ann looked pleased. “As long as you understand that, you should be fine. Nicolae seems man enough to give you the space you need when you need it. You should be able to work out that aspect of your relationship.”
“You would think so.” Destiny sighed heavily. “But our attraction to one another is far more than just physical. We
need
to be together. We need to come together, physically as well as mentally. It’s part of what we are. I can’t explain it other than to say it’s intense and sometimes uncomfortable.”
“You find it uncomfortable?”
Destiny nodded, her small white teeth tugging at her lower lip. “He takes everything in stride. I’m the mess. It’s just so intense. There’s no other word. When I’m with him, I feel so out of control. It’s so frightening to be like that, to want someone so much you don’t care about anything but being with him.”
Mary Ann laughed softly. “Destiny, you don’t know yourself at all. You obviously care a great deal about this man or you wouldn’t be so worried that you’re in some way going to harm him. Do you think loving him or wanting him so intensely is going to hurt him?”
“My blood is tainted.” Destiny blurted it out, leaping to her feet to pace around the room again. Movement enabled her to avoid Mary Ann’s eyes.
There was a small silence. “Would you mind elaborating?”
Destiny gestured rather helplessly with her hands. “The vampire converted me. His blood was tainted and he tainted my blood. Sort of like a disease.”
Mary Ann frowned. “Sit down, Destiny. You’re making me nervous with your pacing. This is important and out of my realm of knowledge. Is the tainted blood dangerous to you?”
“To Nicolae.” There was only acceptance and the need to understand in Mary Ann’s voice; the terrible knot in Destiny’s stomach relaxed. She returned to the chair. “I don’t know all that much about Carpathians, but there is a darkness in the males, from what Nicolae tells me. That darkness is what allows them to turn vampire. They fight it, of course. Nicolae has been fighting for a long time.”
Mary Ann hitched her chair closer. “And your blood somehow makes it more difficult for him? What are you saying?”
“I don’t know what will happen if he takes my blood. When we make love, it’s difficult, nearly impossible not to”—she hesitated, searching for the right word—”