Their Million-Dollar Night by Katherine Garbera Page A

between his fingers. “I don’t know how else to deal with this, Blondie. It’s either joke with you or give in to the anger that someone would hurt you.”
    â€œI used to love my body,” she said, because Max was the first person she’d met whom she didn’t know from before the accident. “I was more than a little vain about it, and I was mean about people who didn’t take care of themselves. I’ve been struggling with the fact that maybe this is some kind of cosmic payback for that attitude.”
    He shifted the papers on his desk. “I don’t believe in things like karma. I think we make our own. No matter where we start or what kind of baggage we are dragging with us, it’s how we handle the present that defines us.”
    â€œI hope you’re right. But I’m struggling, Max. You’re the first man to look at me and make me forget that I’m not who I used to be. And that frightens me, because we both know that this isn’t ever going to go beyond an affair.”
    Max left his desk area and joined her on the low couch toward the front of the plane. She didn’t have a magazine and thought about pretending to go to sleep but knew Max wouldn’t fall for it. She wasn’tsurprised when they reached their cruising altitude and he unfastened his seat belt and hers.
    â€œTake your sweater off.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThe only way you’re going to get past it is to stop viewing your body as something abhorrent.”
    â€œI don’t think seeing it in broad daylight is going to help.”
    â€œHow about seeing it through my eyes?” he asked, stretching his arm behind her and drawing her into the curve of his body. He was big and strong. Solid in a way so few men in her life ever had been.
    She stared at Max, afraid for a minute to trust him. Okay, she was afraid to trust herself. She’d been serious when she mentioned the fact that all they had between them was the possibility of an affair. Max wasn’t a forever kind of guy…at least not for her.
    â€œTrust me,” he said.
    Strangely she wanted to. She’d never have left Vegas with any other man she’d known only twenty-four hours. There was something very trustworthy about Max Williams. “I think I do. But the last man I trusted…”
    â€œDid this to you?” He slipped his hand under the layers of her clothing and traced over her scars.
    â€œI’m not sure about this,” she said, grasping his wrist and trying to stop him from moving any farther up her body. From discovering the extent of her scarring.
    â€œTell me what happened.”
    She took a deep breath. No one knew the whole truth. She’d been too embarrassed ever to utter the words My ex-boyfriend is stalking me.
    The words appeared in her head— A guy I dated over a year ago never got over me. And one night when I went into my dressing room, he was waiting. We had a fight and he…he…stabbed me. Several times. He left my face alone because he said it was my body that I loved and worshipped.
    But they made her feel dirty and guilty and she couldn’t say them out loud. Especially to Max, who was all that was sophisticated and polished. For God’s sake, the man took her to breakfast in another state. How could she say that her own vanity had driven an ex-boyfriend to come after her?
    She couldn’t. She liked Max. She wanted him to like her, to think that she was worth this trip to the beach on his Learjet.
    He framed her head with his hands and leaned down, kissing her with exquisite gentleness and making her doubts fall away. She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder. Then quietly told him the story of the night that had changed her life.
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    Max knew that it would take more control than he had at the moment to conceal his anger from Roxy. The quiet rage that had grown as she spoke in thatsoft, hesitant voice. He