the latest in a long line of targets. Perhaps you are the bullet he aims at his enemies, then laughs about it later.”
Elena congratulated herself on achieving precisely what she’d set out to achieve, and in spades. She told herself his opinion of her didn’t matter. That the worse it was, the better. The less he thought of her, the less he’d feel compelled to betray her to Niccolo. She took another nonchalant sip of her wine, and ordered herself to enjoy her curiously bitter-tasting triumph.
“Niccolo is a man of many passions,” she said, and was perversely satisfied by the flash of temper in his gaze.
“Never mind what that makes you.”
She glared at him, determined not to let him see he’d landed a blow. She reminded herself that she could only be used as a bargaining chip if he believed she had some worth.
“Are you calling me a whore?” she asked softly.
This is good
, she assured herself.
This is what you want
.
But even the air seemed painful, shattering all around her. As if it was as broken as she felt.
“Is this some kind of twisted retribution for Rome?” he asked after long moments passed, no hint of green in those dark eyes of his.
“I’m not the one who started this,” Elena threw at him before she had time to consider it. Not that he was the first man to think she was a whore, not that Niccolo hadn’t covered the same ground extensively—but somehow, this didn’t feel anything like the triumph it should have been. It hurt. “I was perfectly happy on that boat. But you had to sweep in and ruin everything, the same way you did—”
She cut herself off, appalled at what she’d nearly said. Her heart was rioting in her chest, and she was afraid to look at him—afraid of what she’d see. Or what he would.
“By all means,” he invited her, his voice silk and stone. “Finish what you were saying. What else did I ruin?”
She would never know how she pulled herself together then, enough to look at him with clear eyes and something like a smile on her mouth.
“That was the first ball I’d ever attended, my first night in Rome,” she said, light and something like airy, daring him to refute her. “I felt like a princess. And you ruined it.”
“You have no comprehension whatsoever of the damage you do, do you?” He shook his head. “You’re like an earthquake, leaving nothing but rubble in your wake.”
It’s like he knows
, a little voice whispered, directly into that dark place inside of her where she hated herself the most.
Like he knows what you nearly let happen
.
She set her glass back down on the table with a sharp click. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“I would have thought that much was clear,” he replied, a self-mocking curve to that hard mouth she knew too well now. Far too well. “If nothing else. I want you, Elena. Then. Now. Still. God help us both.”
Elena clenched her hands together in her lap, everything inside of her seeming to squeeze tight and
ache
. Something deep and heavy sat over the table as the sun disappeared for good, and soft lights came on to illuminate the terrace. She could feel it pressing down on her, into her, and the way he was looking at her didn’t help.
“No clever reply to that?” His voice then was quiet, yet no less lethal, and it sliced into her like a jagged blade. “I don’t know what lies you tell yourself. I can’t imagine. But I know you want me, too.”
She shook her head as if that might clear it, pullingin a breath as if that might help. When she looked at him again, she wasn’t playing her part. She couldn’t.
“I want you,” she said in a low voice, letting all of the ways she loathed herself show, letting it all bleed out between them, letting it poison him, too. “I always have. And I’ll never forgive myself for it.”
She thought he looked shaken then, for the briefest moment, but he blinked it away. And he was too hard again, too fierce. She told herself she’d seen only what