It fell away, and the scar was revealed.
It ran from just below her left eye down to the corner of her jaw, a thick, ragged line of raised tissue, dark against her pale skin. Not a clean scar. Not the kind that could be hidden with makeup or dismissed as character. It was brutal. Deep. The kind of scar that told a story of violence, of pain, of survival.
It pulled at the corner of her mouth when she spoke, distorting her smile. It made the left side of her face look like a battlefield beside the smooth perfection of the right.
She turned sharply to face him, watching his reaction with the defensive readiness of someone who had seen this moment play out a hundred times before. The flinch. The quick glance away. The polite mask that could not quite hide the shock.
Dominique looked at her.
He looked at the scar. At the way it carved across her beautiful face. At the pain in her eyes that had nothing to do with physical wounds.
And then he looked at the rest of her.
