“...Again she did not seem to hear, still looking into Cale’s eyes. Then slowly, hopelessly, she dropped her gaze. “I understand,” she said. It was that, of course, that pierced him as if she had stabbed him through the heart. To him it was the sound of lost faith and it was unendurable. He felt he’d become a kind of god in her eyes, and it was simply impossible to give up her adoration.”

“And he absolutely had to find her at once to tell her that he adored her, but the large audience before him separated him from the door, and the notes reaching him through a succession of hands said that she was not available; that she was inaugurating a fire; that she had married an american businessman; that she had become a character in a novel; that she was dead.”

“He lifted his gaze to the framed photograph of Tanya and him taken on their wedding day. God, she had been lovely. Her smile had come through her eyes straight from her heart. He had known unequivocally that she loved him. He believed to this day that she had died knowing that he loved her. How could she not know? He had dedicated his life to never letting her doubt it.”

“I am Kian.” “Mercy ” she replied. Swallowing hard she forced her gaze away from him. She was being too bold in her perusal but she could not stop looking at him. “Kindness ” he whispered. Their eyes locked and Mercy felt a jolt of some foreign but not unwelcome sensation pierce her. “I could use some of you”he said thoughtfully as his cool gaze devoured her. “Most definitely I could use you.”He rose and walked around the pond perusing her body as he came to stand beside her. “The milk of human kindness how sweet the taste.”He actually licked his lips and Mercy shivered her core heating and wetting. Then he lowered himself until they were eye to eye. “I believe I could drink you dry.”

“That only shows you have no heart,’ she said. But her eyes said that she knew he had a heart, and that was why she was afraid of him”

“His hands tightened on her shoulders as the truth washed over him. My God, she really had told him yes.He opened his mouth to ask if she was certain then didn’t. If he did, she might change her mind, and he had no intention of giving her that opportunity. Underneath his hands, her shoulders quivered. She raised her gaze to him again, and his heart plunged into the depths. She had her lower lip trapped between her teeth, and her eyes were tormented pools of blue green. His heart broke just looking at her.She was not in love with him. He knew that. Her acceptance of him had nothing to do with the sort of desperate longing he had for her. Not that he hadn’t known that the first time he proposed to her, but to have her say yes out of despair added an edge of pain to his euphoria. He knew she wasn’t indifferent to him, after all, and for the moment, that sufficed to keep the hurt at arm’slength.”