Beauty and the Reclusive Prince by Raye Morgan Read Free Book Online Page B

room to get some sleep. Isabella felt a flutter of nerves at being alone with Max again, but he treated her with distant politeness, making her sit closer to the fire to dry her hair while he dispatched poor Renzo off to get her car and bring it up for her. And then he began to pace the room again, staying as far away from her as he could manage.
    Her conversational gambits seemed to have dried up with Marcello out of the room. She fluffed her hair in the warmth of the fire and racked her brain for a subject as the silence between the two of them got louder.
    “I like your cousin,” she said at last, risking a quick look his way. “And I appreciate the medical attention.” She threw him a quick smile and made an attempt at a light joke. “You treat trespassers well around here.”
    He gave her a piercing look, then turned back to stare into the fire. She noted he was getting less and less protective of the right side of his face. Did that mean he was getting less self-conscious? Or that he cared less what she thought?
    “Yes,” he said at last, speaking slowly. “Marcello is my friend as well as my cousin.” He glanced her way. “He and I once looked very much alike,” he added softly, almost as though musing to himself. “People took us for brothers.”
    She nodded. She could tell that, despite the scar. “He’s very handsome,” she said before she thought, then colored slightly as she realized how he might take that.
    He glanced at her, eyebrow raised, but didn’t say anything. She didn’t speak again right away. She wanted to. She wanted to tell him his own face was so much more interesting than his cousin’s. It had all the beauty Marcellohad, but it had something more—character, history, a hard and cruel story to tell. Just what that story was, she didn’t know, but there was passion there, and mystery, and heartbreak. It was a face for the ages, a map of human tragedy, a work of art.
    The more she thought about it, the more she realized she preferred it. In fact, she found it beautiful in a rare and special way. But she couldn’t say those things—could she? He would think she was flattering him, perhaps even trying to get something from him.
    “You are both very handsome,” she said at last, feeling a bit brave to say that much.
    He shrugged, looking away. “My face is what it is. It is what I made it. My burden to bear.”
    She sat back, biting her tongue and wondering if she dared say any of the things she was thinking. He was wonderful to look at. Didn’t he realize that?
    Or was it her? Was she strange?
    That was a loaded question and she didn’t want to answer it. But she had to say something.
    “You know what I think?” she began. “I think you should come to my restaurant. You need to get out and…”
    He swore softly but it was enough to stop the words in her throat. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he told her roughly. “You don’t have a clue.”
    Of course she didn’t. She knew that. But he didn’t have to be so rude. She was only trying to help.
    She bit her lip, considering the situation. For some reason, when he ordered her about, she often found herself wanting to do what he said. It was time to nip that in the bud. He was beginning to think of her as a pushover, wasn’t he? Sure, he was a prince and she was a nobody—but that didn’t matter. She’d never been the amenable one in anyrelationship. Why let it get started now? She had to fight this drift toward subservience. Rising from her seat on the couch, she faced him with her hands on her hips, her head cocked at a challenging angle.
    “I thought I should let you know that I don’t really think you’re a vampire,” she said as an opening.
    He nodded, looking at her coolly. “I was pretty sure about that all along.”
    “But you do have cruel tendencies,” she said, looking at him earnestly. “Listen, about the herbs I need from your hillside—”
    “No.” He said it with utter