“Oh, no…” she replied quickly. “But it was rough getting out of my marriage. After I told my now ex-husband that I was leaving him, he took our son and went all around the country. I didn’t know where my child was or what had happened…three months. Three months and a private investigator and then lawyers to get free of the marriage and away from him. Everything I did was to make sure my son was and is safe.”

Now her picture was becoming clear, Vin thought. And he was relieved that however bad it had been, she hadn’t been battered on top of all of that. “Must have cost a lot of money.”

She nodded and put her head down again. “My ex was a lot like you. Very wealthy, powerful…handsome.”

Okay…shit. It was great she found him attractive, but he didn’t like where this was invariably leading. How could he convince her that he wasn’t—

“Mark never would have done something like this, though,” she said quietly. “He never would have let himself be this…exposed. Thank you for this…. It’s actually the nicest thing a man’s ever done for me, in a way.”

As Vin lifted his hand, he did it very slowly, so she knew exactly where it was. And when he brought his palm to her face, he gave her plenty of time to move back.

She didn’t. She just met and held his eyes.

Moments expanded into minutes, and neither of them looked away.

As the silence thickened, Vin leaned in and her lips parted, her head shifting up off her knees as if she wanted to meet his mouth as much as he wanted to meet hers.

At the last second, he just kissed her forehead, though. And then he drew her into his arms, wrapping her up close and holding her. As her head rested on his chest, he smoothed his palm over her back in slow, big circles. In response, the shudder she let out was a surrender more complete, more profound, more intimate than if she’d given her body over to him for sex, and he accepted the gift of her trust with the reverence it deserved.

Resting his chin lightly on the top of her head, Vin looked across the room…and had the answer to the question he’d been asking himself since he’d first seen her.

Tucked into the frame of the mirror, just one among the other things, was a picture of the Madonna on a stiff card. In the depiction, she had jet-black hair and brilliant blue eyes and she was beyond lovely, her face tilted down, her golden halo a circle above her head, the aura around her whole form glowing.

He’d gotten the card from one of those evangelical types who’d shown up at the door here a long, long time ago.