The Tupperware hurtled through the air, hit him on the head and dropped to the ground.
He winced. Fuck! How could plastic hurt so much?
“Pick it up, Zachary. Hold it in front of you, so the next time the sight of my face makes you want to be sick, you’ll be prepared.” She turned to glare at him, hands on her hips, eyes blazing.
The scars on her face stood out, pink against her red cheeks. He couldn’t stop staring, couldn’t tear his gaze away.
“I’m hideous. I know. Grotesque. Repulsive. A freak, a monster. An abomination.” She counted the words off on her fingers. “I’ve been called them all. Doesn’t matter how many treatments I’ve had to make the scars less obvious, I still can’t hide them. Can’t avoid them. So don’t be shy. Add your descriptions to the list. Believe me, the name-calling hurts a lot less than watching the man I love close his eyes so he won’t have to tolerate the sight of me.”
“You think I reacted like I did because I find you repulsive?” He moved on instinct, hadn’t even realized he’d left the support of the doorframe until his hands were wrapped around her arms. “You think I think you’re…a…monster?” The very description made him want to be sick.
“I don’t think. I know.” She pulled her arms back, tried to yank them from his grip, but he refused to let go. Hell, he was never letting go of her again.
She howled in frustration, yanked harder and then gave up, panting. “When the man who’s just fucked you senseless reels at the sight of you, it’s a dead giveaway.”
Zachary saw red. “Okay, we are going to get one thing straight. You’re going to stop fighting me, stop yelling at me, and you’re going to listen.”
She didn’t stop, just kept thrashing her arms, trying to get free.
In sheer desperation, Zachary marched her backward to the fridge, pinned her against it and held her in place with his own body, his flush against hers.
“I don’t think you’re a freak, a monster, an abomination or any of those other…foul words you used to describe yourself. I don’t think it now, and I didn’t think it last night. You are not grotesque and you are not repulsive. But if you think I could have seen your real face for the first time and not reacted, then you badly misjudged me.”
“I did not misj—”
He pushed his body against her harder, squashing her chest. She needed only enough air to breathe, not to talk. Because if she spoke, if she argued, she wouldn’t hear him, and damn it, he needed her to hear him.
“I did not close my eyes because I found you…grotesque. Not even close. I closed them because I was shocked. I had no fucking idea. And no fucking preparation for what I saw. I thought I knew you, Eve. Thought I knew what you looked like—as you and as her.” The redhead. “I had no fucking clue that window had damaged your face. No idea the explosion wounded more of you than the one scar you did reveal.”
Eve gasped as if she couldn’t breathe, and Zachary backed off, took a step away, leaving her standing against the fridge. He shoved a hand through his hair. “When you first told me about…about the bomb, I’d never felt so powerless, never been less able to protect the woman I loved. I wanted to hurt someone. Wanted to injure the people who’d done this to you. But then last night… Last night when I realized just how…how extensive your injuries were, I was gutted. For you, Tiny. I couldn’t comprehend how you’d endured such…violence, such hatred. Such pain. How you’d borne those scars and lived with them.”
His chest heaved, filled with pain and impotence and desperation. “The part that knocked me flat was how fucking much you must have hurt. How fucking long it must have taken you to recover, and how fucking unfair life could be. And I was mad too. Mad that anyone could do that to you. It hurt…me.” And if it had hurt him, he could only imagine what it had done to her. “Felt like someone was poking my stomach with a burning stake. The impotence, the anger, the injustice. All of it. Except you, Eve. You don’t… You could never repulse me.”
The fight fizzled out of her. How could Eve possibly remain angry with him after that?
She wanted to walk over to him. Wanted to lean into him, have him wrap his arms around her and assure her everything would be okay.
But she couldn’t, and it wouldn’t.
Zachary might not have been repulsed by her, but he had pitied her. And every time he saw her face, he’d pity her all over again.
Eve didn’t want his sympathy. She didn’t want anyone’s sympathy. She just wanted to lead a regular life with a regular guy, and that, she’d learned once again, would never happen. Not for her.
Her sigh was long and jagged, kind of like the glass that had cut through the muscles in her chest. “I believe you,” she said simply.
The breath whooshed from his chest. “Oh, Jesus. Thank you.”
“But I’d still like you to leave now.”
He went white all over again. “What? Why?”
“Because I don’t want your pity.”
“Pity?”
“I couldn’t bear to see that look in your eyes every time I removed my makeup.”
He gritted his teeth. “That look in my eyes was not pity. It was shock. There’s a difference.”
“If you say so.”
“Fuck, Eve. I don’t pity you. I admire you. Admire your strength and your backbone. Admire your ability to pick up the pieces of your life and move on. Admire that you took the worst thing that could happen to a person and made the most of it. You turned the instinct to hide your scars into a profession. A successful profession. You made a name for yourself. Pity is the last thing on my mind.”
“I don’t want to be admired either. I just want a normal, day-to-day relationship with a man.”
“And you think I don’t want that? You think I haven’t been waiting for it all my life? Waiting for you all my life? You think it’s easy to fall in love when you’re a fucking rock star? Think there’s anything normal about that? Yeah…uh. No! Being with you was the most normal I’ve been in the last three years.” He held up his hand. “No, scratch that. There is nothing normal about the way I feel about you. Nothing normal about the intensity of my emotions. I fucking love you. I’m crazy mad about you. I…I feel things I’ve never felt before” He pounded his chest. “Feel them deep inside, like your emotions are mine. I hurt when you hurt, laugh when you laugh. It’s like we’re connected somehow. Like we… Like you’re my fate. You are, Eve. You’re my fate. You’re mine. You’re a part of me.”
She wanted to let him back in. God knew she wanted to be his fate. He even made it sound like they had a chance. Made it sound romantic—and possible. But a part of her, one she couldn’t ignore, still believed he’d never really be able to see past her scars. No matter what he’d said, it wasn’t feasible that anyone could get past that scarring. Hadn’t experience taught her that, time and again?
“Go, Zachary. Please. We’re over. There’s nothing left between us. Just…leave.”
Zachary growled fiercely and looked at her in pure frustration. Then he growled again, and before she could move, he grabbed both her hands in his and held tight.
What the…? That was deliberate. No question about it. Zachary knew exactly what he was doing.
Her palms tingled. Electricity raced up both of her arms. Spots danced in front of her eyes before the world around her turned grey and then black.