Page 32 of His Innocent Unwrapped In Iceland

Yet a look of understanding shifted in her eyes. ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘Since I was a kid.’

He slowed, the conversation more important than the skating all of a sudden. ‘You were in the foster system, weren’t you?’

‘Yes. I was taken in by a family when I was around ten but...well, it didn’t work out. And so I went into a home.’

He watched her face, drawn by the emotions shadowing her blue gaze. He too had been in a home, and he remembered the agony of wanting prospective adoptive parents to like him, to want him, to take him with them, to give him the family he’d always craved. Except they never had. But for her to have had a family only for it to be lost... He knew well what that agony was like.

‘Why didn’t it work out?’ he asked and then, as a thought suddenly occurred to him, bringing with it a wave of protective anger so intense he could hardly breathe, he went on, ‘Were they abusive?’

‘No, nothing like that.’ She glided forward as he moved back, managing to slide around a patch of rough ice. ‘The couple already had a son and they wanted a girl. The son...didn’t like me and would do things to get me into trouble. He was just a kid, like I was, but one day he scratched his dad’s car and blamed it on me. And I’d taken the blame for months for various things, and that day I just...lost it.’ She bit her lip, a shadow crossing her face. ‘They didn’t believe that it was their son, they just thought I was badly behaved and acting out, and so when I had a temper tantrum, that was the last straw. They decided that it would be best if they didn’t adopt me after all.’

Orion was aware then of the strangest sensation in his chest. There was pain in her face and it was almost as if he could feel it too. Pain for her and what she’d experienced. Pain at the unfairness of it. Not to mention a violent anger at the carelessness of some people, who thought a child was a piece of furniture they could get rid of when it didn’t fit their house.

He stopped on the ice and gently pulled her in close, his hands on her hips, holding her steady. ‘And then what happened?’

She didn’t pull away, only looked up at him. ‘Then David adopted me. He liked my school marks and the reports from the people who ran the home. His late wife wanted him to adopt a girl and he needed an heir so he killed two birds with one stone.’

But this hurt her too and he could see that pain glittering in her eyes and he could feel it in his chest. He gripped her tighter. ‘But that didn’t work out either, did it?’

She took a small breath then glanced away. ‘It wasn’t...what I thought it was going to be.’

Orion put out a mittened hand to her jaw and gently urged her back to face him. ‘Why not?’ he asked, wanting to understand why this hurt her and perhaps why it also hurt him.

She sighed. ‘I thought—hoped—that he might be a father to me. I thought he wanted a daughter, but...he didn’t. He only wanted an heir, and he’s been...disappointed in my performance.’ She paused and then went on, ‘He’s been disappointed in his choice.’

A bright, fierce and protective anger turned over in Orion’s gut. How dare David do that to her? How dare he find something as rare and precious as she was, and find it wanting?

He didn’t question the intensity of the feeling, he only wanted to do something about the hurt in her eyes. ‘David is a fool,’ he said roughly. ‘And if he regrets adopting you then he’s even more of a fool than I thought he was.’

Isla’s blue eyes turned dark. ‘He’s got reason, Orion. I thought he was going to be my father, but after he brought me home, it was clear that he didn’t think he was. I knew that it was my school marks he wanted, my potential as a future CEO, nothing else. He didn’t actually want...me.’

The last word sounded as if she’d forced it out, and abruptly Orion was aware that he hated the thought of her thinkingshewas the problem. ‘I stand corrected,’ he growled. ‘Heismore of a fool than I thought he was.’

‘It is me,’ Isla said. ‘I have a temper and I’m too volatile and I—’

‘You’re passionate,’ Orion interrupted, not wanting to hear another word from her about all her shortcomings. Because they weren’t shortcomings. None of them were. ‘That’s not a crime. You’re smart, yes, but you’re also interested, and you want to learn. You want to understand. In the boardroom all you need is more practice and better guidance. A mentor who will bolster your strengths not focus on your weaknesses.’

She stared at him and he was conscious that he was sounding far too vehement. But he didn’t take any of it back. ‘You really think so?’ she asked, her voice husky. ‘You really think there’s hope for me?’

He couldn’t stop himself then. He knew it was a bad idea, but he didn’t want her hurt. He didn’t want her believing she was somehow less because one man couldn’t see the treasure that he’d found. He cupped her face in his hands, stared down into her eyes and let her see the belief in his. ‘For months I’ve wondered what it is about you that has so fascinated me. Months, Isla. Ever since that night in the gallery. And I studied you, watched you, unable to think of anything but you. And I’ve decided it’s not one thing. There are so many things about you that are interesting. Your fascinating mind and your passion. Your self-containment even when I can see there’s a fire burning inside you. Your determination and your spine of steel. The way you matched wits with me and stood toe to toe with me, even as I was threatening your company.’ Her eyes looking up into his were as bright as stars. ‘The problem isnotyou. The problem was him. You wanted a father and that’s what he should have been to you. A father, not a damn employer.’

She said nothing for a long moment. Then suddenly she reached up, took his face between her hands and pulled his mouth down on hers.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ORION’SLIPSWEREcool on hers, his body strong and powerful. It was stupid to kiss him on the ice when she could barely stand upright, but she couldn’t help herself.

The fierce way he’d listed all her strengths, with the conviction gleaming in his wolf-gold gaze, as if he believed every single one of them had made her eyes prickle with tears.

No one had said those things to her before, not one person. No one had seen her temper as passion. Her father had only wanted her because of her school marks, but he hadn’t told her she was smart or that she had a fascinating mind. Her determination had been detrimental to the board and her fire made her volatile, and her subsequent self-containment a blandness that was unacceptable.

They were all weaknesses not strengths.

No one had ever seen straight through to her heart and the secret fear that lay inside it that David had never wantedher, only her potential. That all the things that made her not CEO material, were also the reasons she’d never actually been his daughter.

Only Orion had seen those things. Only Orion, because he’d watched her, noticing things about her. Being interested in her. Months, he’d said. Months he’d been able to think of nothing but her. Ever since that night in the gallery.

She hadn’t intended to tell him about her adoptive history, but when he’d said that he was always alone, she hadn’t been able to stop herself. She knew what being alone felt like and she’d wanted him to know that too. Then he’d been so fierce when she’d told him about David, almost as if he was angry at David on her behalf and that’s when her heart had felt painful. That’s when she’d reached for him without thought.

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