“She said no.” I tried to say the words as gently as they could be said. “And that she doesn’t… like you.”

Ian laughed. “I can respect that. I can respect her. Well, it was worth a try.” He sighed. “Kind of puts a damper on things, having an audience.”

What things? Mel growled.

I grimaced. I didn’t like feeling her anger. It was so much more vicious than mine.

Get used to it.

Ian put his hand on my face. “I’ll let you think about things, okay? So you can decide how you feel.”

I tried to be objective about that hand. It was soft against my face. It felt… nice. Not like when Jared touched me. But also different from the way it felt when Jamie hugged me. Other.

“It might take a while. None of this makes any sense, you know,” I told him.

He grinned. “I know.”

I realized, when he smiled then, that I wanted him to like me. The rest—the hand on my face, the fingers on my arm—I still wasn’t sure at all about those. But I wanted him to like me, and to think kind things about me. Which is why it was hard to tell him the truth.

“You don’t really feel that way about me, you know,” I whispered. “It’s this body.… She’s pretty, isn’t she?”

He nodded. “She is. Melanie is a very pretty girl. Even beautiful.” His hand moved to touch my bad cheek, to stroke the rough, scarring skin with gentle fingers. “In spite of what I’ve done to her face.”

Normally, I would have denied that automatically. Reminded him that the wounds on my face weren’t his fault. But I was so confused that my head was spinning and I couldn’t form a coherent sentence.

Why should it bother me that he thought Melanie was beautiful?

You’ve got me there. My feelings were no clearer to her than they were to me.

He brushed my hair back from my forehead.

“But, pretty as she is, she’s a stranger to me. She’s not the one I… care about.”

That made me feel better. Which was even more confusing.

“Ian, you don’t… Nobody here separates us the way they should. Not you, not Jamie, not Jeb.” The truth came out in a rush, more heated than I’d meant it to be. “You couldn’t care about me. If you could hold me in your hand, me, you would be disgusted. You would throw me to the ground and grind me under your foot.”

His pale forehead creased as his black brows pulled together. “I… not if I knew it was you.”

I laughed without humor. “How would you know? You couldn’t tell us apart.”

His mouth turned down.

“It’s just the body,” I repeated.