Page 40 of Her Hidden Smile

Her eyes widened. “You know?”

“Irv told me you survived the fire your parents died in. He mentioned you’d been in the burn unit for quite a while. I figured out pretty quickly that your leg must have been injured when I saw you limp. It was confirmed when I saw you cramp up. What I don’t understand is why you don’t want me to touch you.”

She struggled to get out of my lap. I considered keeping her where she was. Proving to her that I would not let her go because of some silly scarring, but I didn’t want to take away her autonomy. I helped her sit beside me, then turned so that we were facing one another.

For a long time, she just stared at me. Finally, she lowered her eyelashes. “Maybe we should just kiss again.”

“Oh, baby, we’re definitely going to kiss again.” I tucked a strand of her long hair behind her ear. “We might even go further. I have to tell you, in that top, I haven’t stopped thinking about how pretty your breasts look. I keep wondering what they would look like with just my hands holding them.”

She gasped.

Her blush is a delight.

She leaned forward and I leaned back. “But before we kiss, can we talk for just a moment? Three minutes, tops.”

She sat back and pushed out her bottom lip into an adorable pout. Yep, given a chance, this woman could wrap me around her little finger. “I suppose,” she grumbled.

“Millie, I have scars too. Not burn scars, but scars. They’re not pretty. But my two sisters from Africa both have scars. It took years for mom to help them heal the scars on their inside. Those were the worst.”

Millie shook her head, her hair flying.

“How bad? Be real, Renzo, how bad are their scars, really? Is their flesh mottled and pockmarked? Does their skin look discolored and gnarled? Because that’s what it looks like almost up to my waist, down to my knee. Yeah, that’s something I want to show off. That’s something I want someone to touch or see.”

I sighed. How could this beautiful woman not see herself? Could she only define herself by some scars on her body?

“Millie, after we had dinner together, do you know what I did?”

She was panting. I know her tirade had taken a lot out of her, but now wasn’t the time for me to back down.

“Do you, Millie?”

“No. What, Renzo?” She was sarcastic as hell.

“I went online and pulled up people with burn scars. I looked at every single image I could find. I zoomed in so I could see what they looked like. Then I also zoomed in on so many people who were smiling as they showed off their bodies. I clicked on their pictures and read their stories. A lot of them were older than you, but do you know what I found?”

She just stared at me, her eyes flat.

“They weren’t embarrassed by their bodies. They were comfortable in their own skin.”

“Well, goodie for them,” she practically yelled. “Aren’t they just perfect?”

She shoved me so hard that I rocked back. She tried getting up off the sofa but fell back down. That didn’t stop her. She pushed against the back cushion with one hand, while using her other hand to push on the cushion she was sitting on, and shoved up. She swayed when she got to her feet, but it was obvious that she didn’t care as she glared down at me.

“Get out, Renzo.” She ground out the words like her mouth was filled with gravel.

“Millie, I didn’t mean to upset you,” I soothed. “I just wanted you to know that nothing I saw bothered me in the slightest. Anything you had to show me wouldn’t matter one bit.”

She grabbed my shirt sleeve and yanked. “I want you out of my house. Now!”

Ah, God. I could see the shimmer of tears in her eyes.

“Please, Millie, you have to know I would never do or say anything to hurt you. You’re special to me. In my eyes, you’re beautiful.”

“Get. Out. Of. My. House.”

She was barely keeping it together. I was worried that she would topple over. I got up and put my hands on her shoulders, making sure she was stable. She tried to wrench away, but I couldn’t let her.

I just couldn’t.