She stood there nearly a minute before Rafe’s hand moved past her to yank the screen open. She swept through it like royalty.

“Would you like a coffee? I can make almost anything.”

His gaze scanned the room, landed on the dough she had ready to make the beignets with. He inhaled deeply, dragging in the scent of sex. He couldn’t fail to notice it. Fury burned across his expression, making her shiver, and then it was gone and his cool mask was back in place.

“Sit down, Catarina,” he said. It was an order, but as usual, he couched it in low, soft tones.

He wanted to build her terror. She could see it was important to him that she feared him. Most of his employees were frightened of him for good reason. If they did something he didn’t like, he took them into a room and scared the hell out of them without ever raising his voice. They did it again, they disappeared, never to be seen, and Rafe’s leopard was a very satisfied hunter.

She complied, moving to the chair at the end of the table. She should have known it wouldn’t work to try to keep a distance from him. He simply toed a chair close and straddled it, face-to-face with her, his demon eyes burning into her.

“You left again. I told you what would happen. Why did you leave me?”

“You killed April.”

“That’s it? That’s the reason?”

She pressed her lips together and then tugged her lower lip between her teeth briefly to show him she was nervous. “You didn’t like me very much, Rafe. I tried so hard and no matter what I did, you pushed me away from you. I hated what you did to April, but even after that I tried to take care of you the only way I knew how, but then you…” Deliberately she trailed off. Ducked her head. Looked at her hands, twisting her fingers together in the way she knew he didn’t like.

Rafe preferred stillness and he’d been on her all the time about learning to be absolutely still. Now, she realized he’d been preparing her for her leopard in his own way.

He reached out and gently laid his hand over hers to stop the movement of her fingers. “Be still, Catarina,” he said, in the same low tone, but his dominant male leopard retreated even a little more.

Without the leopard driving him to dominate or kill, Rafe would be easier to manipulate. She nodded her head and allowed her hands to relax under his. She remembered his hands forcing hers into the well of April’s blood and she nearly jerked away from him, the memory was so vivid. She could actually smell the blood for a moment, but she held it together.

This was for Eli. She could do this because Eli made her aware of her own strength. She had outsmarted Rafe once and she could do it again, because it didn’t matter right then that she wasn’t formally educated. It didn’t mean she wasn’t intelligent enough to turn the table on Rafe Cordeau. She knew she was.

“You left me because you think I didn’t want you?”

She swallowed hard. It was difficult to tell him, because it was the truth. She had tried so hard and felt so alone and unloved. She’d gone to try to see her stepmother, hoping the memories of her childhood were skewed and maybe the woman did love her. Then she’d lost April, and she’d retreated from everyone, horrified, ashamed and guilty. She’d needed Rafe to reassure her. To come to her and hold her. To make things right, even when intellectually she knew there was no right to what he’d done. He hadn’t. He’d left her alone with her nightmares, guilt and shame.

She knew Rafe could hear the ring of truth in her voice, she could see it in his eyes, in the way he looked at her. His thumb slid over the back of her hand.

“Don’t stop, Catarina. I need to know everything. I need to understand. If I understand what happened, what drove you away from me, it will help determine how all this ends and if that man will live out his life safely or not.”

Her stomach muscles clenched. Hard knots formed. It took a lot of control to breathe normally and not give in to the desire to jerk her hands away. The worst of it all was she felt sorry for him. He seemed so alone and she’d hurt him. She didn’t want to see that, but she did.

“Do you remember the dinner you had with the Lospostos family? I was so careful. I wanted you to be proud of me. More, I wanted you to look good to them. I chose every dish so carefully and prepared it. It took me hours. Even the bread was made from scratch. Everything was perfect. They loved it. They loved the dessert. And then you forced me to read that poem. You knew I couldn’t read. You wanted to make fun of me. Worse, you wanted them to make fun of me.”

The memory brought heat to her face. She would never be able to look back on that night without feeling the embarrassment of her lack of education. Rafe had done it on purpose, and no matter what he said now, he could never take the moment back.

“You said I was good in the kitchen, but not good for much else. I heard you. You laughed. They laughed. You implied I had a subpar IQ and couldn’t learn anything in school.”

She allowed her lashes to lift because she knew he’d see genuine pain there. She didn’t want to show it to him. The only person she trusted enough to see her that vulnerable was Eli, but this was for Eli.

Rafe’s fingers tightened around her hand. “I had no choice, Catarina. None. They had noticed you. They asked too many questions and they wanted to meet you. I couldn’t have them speculating on whether or not you meant something to me. That would have put you in danger.”

“You want me to believe you humiliated me in front of your friends because somehow that would keep me out of danger?” Catarina poured incredulity into her voice.