Behind the Mask: A Billionaire Romance novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Lights On

For a long time he said nothing, and I sat in the dark on the arm of a chair and let him.

Then I heard him cross the floor, and the first lamp came on.

It was the one by the bed.

He walked to the next one and turned it on, and the next, until every lamp in the private rooms was burning.

He found the switch by the door and the ceiling light came up, bright and white, so hard it made me blink.

"Elliott."

"In the dark I can pretend," he said.

He stood in the middle of the room in his shirtsleeves with nothing between him and me.

"Tomorrow I walk into a lit room and he turns it black," he said. "So tonight I want you to see everything. The way it is. In this light."

"I've seen it."

"You saw it in the sun, standing at a distance. I mean all of it."

My mouth went dry.

I stood up, and I crossed the room, and I put my hands on the first button of his shirt.

"Then hold still," I said.

He held still.

I opened the shirt a button at a time, and I looked at every inch as it came open.

The scar began under his jaw and spread over his shoulder and his upper chest in ridges and smooth pale patches.

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