Chapter Four #4
Catarina felt a sudden urge to laugh, but it came out as a bitter, humorless sound of exasperation. “What am I playing at? I recommend you reassess the situation.”
She didn’t even know where to start with how wrong his accusation of playing was.
Yes, she had continued his kiss, but only after he’d kissed her and looked at her in a way that made her feel like he was going to devour her.
What was his expectation? That she would sit back and wait for him to take the lead on everything, starting with the terms of their marriage all the way down to how and when they kissed?
How very arrogant of him, to assume that even that last space between their lips should have been under his control, that she should act according to his unspoken parameters.
It was almost as if he did not consider her as a person, with her own will.
This was her worst nightmare. So why did her body burn like he was exactly what she wanted?
She pushed that question out of her mind.
Her breaths were still coming fast from the kiss as she looked up into his dark eyes, full of recrimination.
“You kissed me.” She had meant it as an accusation, but her voice had taken on a husky tone that made this statement sound more like an invitation.
She should hate this man for whatever game he was playing or manipulation he was trying, but her gaze flicked down to his lips again, and a shudder of pleasure ran through her.
He saw it, too, and he released her and stepped away, as if she were made of fire and he had just been burnt.
“We will save this discussion for later, when you can be more rational about this,” he said darkly.
This last sentence seemed perfectly designed to spark her temper, despite all the years of perfecting the art of holding it in.
It was yet more evidence that he had mistaken a quiet, media-shy daughter for an obedient ornament.
But just because she didn’t love attention didn’t mean she lacked a will of her own.
It didn’t make her an unformed piece of clay to mold into whatever shape he chose.
She had to get away from him before she made any further mistakes—because the kiss had, in fact, been a mistake.
But Catarina was better at dodging problems rather than confronting them head-on.
It was how she had ended up in this mess in the first place.
She had run from her father instead of confronting him about the marriage arrangement.
But it was too late for regrets in that department.
She needed a better plan. She needed space to cool down and think.
“Why don’t I show you to a room,” she said, then added, “You can attend to some of your important business.”
He was watching her in that calculating way he had, as if assessing her motives.
Before he could say anything more, she took a deep breath and forced a long-practiced calm she didn’t feel into her voice.
“We are stuck here for the foreseeable future. The house is big enough for us to stay out of each other’s way, and the generator should keep us warm for a while. ”
His eyes narrowed, and she answered with a placid smile, then turned away and started for the staircase.
At the top of the steps, the hallway spread out in two directions.
She turned to the right and walked the length of the hall to the end.
Next to her, Massimo loomed. She wasn’t even facing him, and yet Catarina had never been so aware of another man.
Turning the handle, the door swung open and Catarina walked into the bright room, lit with the fall of the snow. “Everything you need should be here.”
A king-size bed in rough-hewn wood was the centerpiece of the large room, and it was surrounded by a dresser, small tables and a rocking chair in the same wood.
Over the bed hung a large painting of their fjord, the deep blues of the water and sky contrasting with the peaks of the forest of pine trees and stark gray rock.
In the middle of the wooden floor was a soft white carpet.
Catarina had not entered the guest room in years, and as her gaze swept across the room, she caught a glimpse of the single framed photo on the rough-hewn wooden table next to the rocking chair.
It was of Catarina and her mother, sitting on a stretch of bare rock at the top of a mountain not far from the house.
Catarina’s aunt and two cousins had visited from Oslo the summer before her mother’s diagnosis, and the five of them had wandered up paths and stopped for a picnic lunch to take in the panoramic views.
Her aunt had meant to capture the stark beauty of the landscape, but what the photo captured for Catarina was a sense of before, a time that sometimes felt like it no longer belonged to her.
Massimo’s gaze was on the photo, too. Then he looked at her with an expression that she couldn’t read.
“I trust you to make yourself at home,” she said quickly and turned for the door.
“If I need anything, I’ll find you,” he said, and his voice stirred inside her, sending a hot lick of desire through her body that echoed far too long.