Read Online MasterofSilk by Gia Dawn - Free Book Online Page B

your
imperfections, Isabella. They add to your beauty in ways you do not fully
understand.”
    “So was your Laylia perfect? Is that why the immortals
snatched her away from you?” Had she really asked such a rude question? She
wished she hadn’t as she saw his expression shutter.
    “Laylia was far from perfect.” He shut his eyes and
hesitated, as if uncertain he wanted to continue the conversation. “She was
angry at her country, angry at her God. She was angry at so many things beyond
her control that I grew concerned for her safety. I wanted to protect her, keep
her from being harmed. In my eagerness to save her I became the thing she hated
most—a husband who took away her power.”
    Now he uncrossed his legs and moved back toward her, his
eyes as dark as a moonless night. “It took me many months to realize I had lost
her affection. Where once she admired and respected the freedom I gave her, she
grew resentful of my demands that she cease her protests and focus on our
marriage. She refused. She became involved with a man who promised to let her
do anything she desired and she planned to leave me after we returned from a
last humanitarian trip to Iraq.”
    “Where she was killed.”
    “Yes.”
    “It wasn’t your fault.” When she saw the guilt he tried to
hide she reached out to close her hand around his. “You know that, right?”
    He shrugged but did not take his hand from hers. “I have
spent many years trying to dissect my feelings and yet I still cannot help but
feel I played some part in her death. If I had given her more freedom…if I had
tried to better understand her thoughts perhaps she would have been more
content with what I had to offer.”
    “Or not.” Isabella finally pulled away. She did not want to
feel his pain from the loss of another woman. “There are many of us who are not
satisfied with just being a wife or a mother.”
    “I understand that now.” He leaned forward and placed his
elbows on the table, steepling his fingers together. “So you will tell me
something in exchange for all I’ve shared with you.” He pointed one finger at
her cheek. “How did this happen? Did someone hurt you?” His voice promised that
if they had he would hunt them down and make them pay. Isabella shuddered. She
had not seen this cruel side of his nature. And yet it aroused her, made her
feel as if he truly cared.
    “No. Nothing like that. It was an accident, mostly my fault.
I was fifteen and out with a friend. We were bored and in our stupidity decided
to borrow a friend’s car. Neither of us had our driver’s license but we weren’t
going far, just around the corner.”
    He raised one pitch-black eyebrow. “A night of mischief that
did not go as expected.”
    “Janelle was driving but I grabbed the wheel and tried to
spin us into a doughnut. We lost control. Rammed into a wall. I hit my head on
the window as it smashed. The glass sliced all the way to the bone and shredded
the skin. This was the best surgery could manage.”
    “It managed well enough, Isabella,” he told her gently, “compared
to some of the terrible things I have seen.”
    Her cell rang, breaking into the silence that fell between
them. With an apologetic glance at Zayne she answered before slipping it back
into her pocket with a sigh. “Work. I’m sorry, I have to go.”
    “But you will be my guest next week? I will not take no for
an answer.” He stood with her, putting his own cell to his ear. “My driver will
drop you off at the hospital. Thank you for your company this evening.” He
bowed over her hand, always formal and polite…except in the bedroom.
    It gave her a thrill of satisfaction to know she was the
only one in the city to have ever seen his dangerous side. But it also brought a
deepening depression she would never see that side of him again.
    “I will be there next week, I promise.” She stuffed her
hands into her pockets to keep from doing something stupid, like kissing him
until they both