Perhaps she was. Shaking her head, Natalie moved away from the desk and walked to the windows. She stared out onto the lush grounds, the tall, thick trees that bordered it, and wondered what she would do if Mike managed to destroy this chance for all of them.
“You should let me talk to him.” She turned to Saban, knowing, even before she did, what she would see.
His eyes narrowed on her, denial reflecting on the hard, savage lines of his face.
“Not gonna happen,” he informed her with a menacing purr. “Do you remember the last encounter? Did he look as though he would listen to you then?”
No, he hadn’t . She breathed out roughly.
“He’s not a bad man,” she finally said softly. “He just wasn’t a good husband.”
“He’s insane. Stop trying to defend him. He’d cart you out of here physically no matter your wishes, if you gave him only half a chance. I don’t intend to give him that chance.”
No, she didn’t either. But Mike had never been dangerous, not really. He was suspicious, paranoid, and sometimes a little over the top, but she couldn’t believe he would hurt anyone.
“When are you going to stop defending him, Natalie?” He crossed his arms over his chest and glowered back at her.
“I’m not defending him.” She hunched her shoulders against the accusation. “I just don’t want you killing him.”
“And if I promise not to kill him?” he rasped coldly. “What then? Will you accept that he’s f**king crazy and at least allow me the satisfaction of throwing him over the county line?”
Her lips almost twitched. He might be a Breed, but at the moment he was pure arrogant, irritated male.
“You should let me talk to him,” she said again, shaking her head. “You have to know how to reason with him, that’s all.”
“Well evidently you don’t know how to do it either, or you wouldn’t have ended up divorced, now would you?”
“Yes, I would have.” She met his gaze without flinching. “Reason or not, Mike couldn’t accept my need to be myself, and I couldn’t accept his need to control me. It was that simple, Saban. Everything else aside, that was what destroyed our marriage.”
“You loved him.” And he hated it. She could see it for the barest second, flashing in his eyes, the knowledge that she had felt something for another man.
Natalie nodded slowly. “When I married him, I loved the illusion he gave me. I loved the man I thought he was.”
His nostrils flared; if it was in anger or in an attempt to scent the truth of her statement, she wasn’t certain.
His arms dropped from his chest as he shook his head then, turning from her and running his hand along the back of his neck as though to rub away the tension there.
“I had a life before you, Saban. Just as you had one before me,” she reminded him.
“I never loved until you.” He turned back to her, that arrogance stronger, tightening his features, brightening his eyes. “But I don’t blame you for the emotions you had for him. Sucks, but there it is. My problem with this is your refusal to admit how dangerous he is.”
“A danger to himself.” That was the sad part, and what Natalie had admitted to herself before taking that final step to divorce him. “He’s not a danger to me, Saban. If he hurt me, he couldn’t continue to be the martyr he sees himself as. The world is against him.” She spread her hands helplessly. “That’s how he sees it. Use force or violence against him, and it’s only going to make him worse.”
She moved then, not certain why the memory of that had her moving to him, walking into the arms that opened for her. Why did she even need to be held? Mike was out of her life, at least for the most part. She didn’t need comforting, and she knew Saban sure as hell didn’t need it. He was arrogant enough for a dozen men.
But there she was, folded against his chest, his hands rubbing against her back, his warmth enfolding her.
The arousal that had remained a low throb inside her all day wasn’t building; the hormonal adjustments the doctor had made the day before had made it safe for her and Saban to actually leave the house for longer than five minutes. So it wasn’t overwhelming hunger driving her. She felt his lips press to the top of her head, though, and couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at her lips. For two days they had avoided the subject of Mike, as though he were a grenade in danger of exploding between them.
“Something will have to be done about him, Natalie,” he said softly, one hand curling beneath her chin to lift her face to allow his eyes to meet hers. “This won’t continue.”
She nodded slowly, regretfully. Yes, something would have to be done, and she knew she would have to do it. She couldn’t allow Mike to be hurt. He wasn’t a bad man, as she had told Saban. He was just a very needy man, a man who refused to accept that things couldn’t always go his way. Once he accepted he had lost, though, he would give up, lick his wounds, and torture some other poor woman who didn’t have the sense to see through the sad stories he wove.
She had seen through them a long time ago, and now, as she stood in Saban’s arms, she was willing to admit that she didn’t want Mike’s accusations and his paranoia to damage what she was finally admitting to being between them.
She had a chance here for the love she had dreamed of, for the life she wanted. She couldn’t let Mike destroy that. She couldn’t let herself destroy it, because she was learning that Saban just might be a man she could depend on. A man she could be free with.
TEN
S he was up to something. As the day went by, Saban could watch the gears working in her mind. It was fascinating, watching her, sensing her turning the problem of her ex-husband over in her mind until he wanted to snarl in jealous fury at the knowledge that she was thinking about him. He didn’t want her thinking about another man. He wanted to wipe Mike Claxton with his smarmy smile and avaricious gaze completely out of her memory.
Knowing he couldn’t grated at his temper. Knowing she was trying to figure out how to do his job and get rid of the bastard only made things worse.
He watched the process, though, and cataloged each shift of expression, each changing scent of emotion as she worked in the schoolroom, and later as they ate dinner at one of Buffalo Gap’s better restaurants. The hormonal adjustment Ely had given her the day before, as well as the adjusted capsule she took that morning had eased the heat enough to allow Natalie to think rather than to f**k with instinctive abandon. He would have preferred the abandon, he had to admit, because there was no hormonal treatment for the males.