Page 13 of Ice Cold Christmas
“Do you mind taking off your sweater?” Victor asked, and he thought it was a very polite question. Especially since he was feeling far from polite. In fact, he was holding onto his control by a thread.
“Are you quite insane?” Melody returned as her eyes widened. “Yes, I one hundred percent mind. I’m not about to take off my top for you! Get out. I don’t know what you think is going to happen here, but you’re clearly confused.”
He nodded. Yes, he had been confused. I needed Melody back. “Just wanted to check. Make sure you still had the scar. About two inches long, faint, along your right shoulder, pointing toward your collarbone.”
She wet her lower lip. “I’m not taking off my sweater for you.”
Another nod. “Fair enough. I do apologize if I frightened you.” It would be simple enough for her to pull her top to the side and show him the scar. To prove such a simple thing existed on her body.
But she made no move to reveal the scar that she should possess. Instead, her chin notched up even more. “It’s normal to be frightened when a stranger breaks into your bedroom. Even if it is a guest bedroom.”
A stranger. Yes. That was what he appeared to be. Before he did something that he would regret, Victor needed to get out of that bedroom. “Be sure and lock up after me.”
“Don’t worry, I will. Though a lock hardly prevented your entrance the first time, now, did it?”
No, it had not. Victor turned on his heel. Marched for the connecting door.
“Why did you kiss me?”
The question cut right through him. But it shouldn’t have. The answer was really quite obvious. “Because I thought you were someone else.”
She gasped.
He opened the connecting door. Strode forward. Shut the door behind him with a soft click. He pulled in a deep breath. Then one more. With determined steps, he crossed the guest room he’d taken for the night. Screw the snowstorm. He would have driven right through it in order to get home, if she hadn’t been there. But she had been. Melody Mage had walked out of the snowy night, and everything had changed.
He yanked off the cut shirt. A small cut from the tip of her knife. There were drops of blood on the garment, so he threw it to the side and hauled a fresh, white, dress shirt from his bag. A bag he always kept in his car, just in case. Then Victor exited his room. Hurried for the staircase. His feet thudded down the stairs. At the landing, with no hesitation, he turned and advanced for the den. He threw open the door. The little group was still there. Waiting.
Dario, drinking and glaring near the fireplace.
Olivia, pacing near the Christmas tree.
Sebastian, still hunched in his chair.
Sebastian’s nurse, Tracy Ryder, had joined the group. She hovered near Sebastian, faint worry on her face.
Even Hatterson lurked nearby, twisting his hands in front of his big body.
All eyes locked on Victor.
“Well?” Dario bit out.
Victor’s fingers curled too tightly around the doorknob. “We need a DNA test. Immediately.”
Dario’s breath expelled in a rush. “I told you, I told you all! I don’t think that’s Melody. She looks different. She acts different.”
Yes, she did. She looked different. Small differences. She acted differently. Big differences. She’d called him her enemy. A stranger. She hadn’t kissed him. Had seemed shocked that he’d ever want to kiss her.
She’d refused to show him her scar.
“I know my daughter.” Sebastian was adamant. “That’s her.”
Victor wanted it to be. He did. But… “DNA test. There’s too much money on the line. You can’t just accept her into this house without proof.” But he didn’t really mean into this house. He meant…You can’t accept her into the family. We can’t bring her into our lives.
I can’t?—
“She is Melody!” Veins bulged in Sebastian’s forehead.
Was she Melody? Or was she just a very carefully produced look-alike? “She wanted to know when you got sick,” he told Sebastian.
