Page 90 of Bitter Burn
I don’t speak as she comes to my side, but I do offer her a drink from my glass, which she takes. I watch the smooth slide of her throat as she swallows. The play of city lights over her skin.
She hands me the glass. “I know what you’re doing.”
I find this idea rather amusing. Even I barely know what I’m doing, least of all when I’m with her. “Oh?”
“I just wish I knew why.” She tucks the blanket more tightly around her. It’s a thin one that’s normally folded at the bottom of my bed, and it’s not really warm enough for January, not in a glass cavern like my penthouse. She’s all goose bumps now, and the glow from the window limns the fine gold hairs of her arms, all raised in a futile effort to keep her warm.
Impatiently, I take her hand, tug her to the sofa, and make her sit on my lap once we get there. I set my scotch down and fuss at the edges of the blanket, grumping under my breath about misplaced masochism and how it won’t matter how much work I’ve put into keeping her alive if she insists on dying of hypothermia instead.
I hate it when she’s cold. So many nights in the hall when the plan was to have her kneeling on the floor and then she’d wind up in my lap instead because I’d look down and see the goose bumps on her thighs.
She’s staring at me as I finish tucking the blanket around her feet.
“You love me,” she says, like it’s a statement of fact, which it is.
“Yes.”
“And you love Tristan.”
Another fact. Inconvenient but incontestable. “Yes.”
“So why are you acting like you’re about to disappear?”
This surprises me. “What makes you think that?”
She doesn’t roll her eyes, but there’s a pointed flick of her gaze that must be the etiquette-friendly equivalent. “The loft. The here’s how to hurt her, here’s how to top him. You wouldn’t go to the trouble if you knew you’d be there to do it for us.”
I don’t respond, mostly because any easy response would be a lie, and any difficult one would be mostly incomplete anyway.
“You said no more lies. You said no more secrets. Remember? On New Year’s Eve? You promised.”
I kiss her forehead. Because I want to and because I need to interrupt her study of my face. She’s too perceptive. I’m adept at giving nothing away, but she’s getting very good at taking what isn’t being given instead.
This is the problem with baby cutthroats, of course. Baby heroes are so much easier to manage.
On the other hand, she’ll understand better than our baby hero in the end why I had no intention of keeping my promises about secrets and lies. She’ll hate me for it, she’ll build elaborate fantasies about throttling me, but she’ll understand.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen next or who will make the first move.” I speak the words against her temple, moving my lips to her soft, moonlight-colored hair. “But I do know that you have to take care of Tristan. We know he’s strong, we know he’s brave, and we know he would die protecting you. But he’ll never think to protect himself. He’s not wary enough or watchful enough. He’s not made for this.”
“And we are.” The words are leached of all feeling, but I hear the desolation underneath them.
I’ll lie about a lot of things, but I won’t lie about this. “Yes. We are.”
“Even if I don’t want to be.”
This time, I do let her see my face. I take her chin between my thumb and forefinger so that she has no choice but to meet my eyes.
“This again?” I ask softly.
A bitter twist to her lips. “Why not?”
“I cannot tell you to forgive yourself for what you’ve done as a saint. But I can tell you that if what you are keeps yourself and Tristan alive, then you are the best and holiest thing I can imagine.”
Her lashes drop to her cheeks, nothing but silver in the city’s artificial burn. “I am so far from holy.”
I debate telling her what I say next, but I’m keeping so much else hidden that it feels like I should share this at least. “That first night of ours, on your father’s desk—I don’t think I ever fully explained why I left.”
Her eyes snap to mine. “You said it was because you realized you had feelings for me. That you were scared of what they could change.”
