Page 55 of The Worst of Them

“You just couldn’t help yourself,” he seethed. “Go ahead. Tell me she forced your hand. Tell me she was going to kill you. Tell me it was her fault and you had no other choice.”

If anyone had a right to be angry right now, it was Cecily. The last thing she wanted was to trail him around this infernal island—follow him, shadow him, and exist with him as a constant reminder that she was unsuitable for being anything more than his problem.

Shoving aside the hurt, she readied her claws and teeth, eager to tear into him. “No, I thought I’d pull the knife for fun because I love getting under your skin.”

“I gave you that knife to get you to comply, not to use against⁠—”

“Ooh, I’m well aware of why you gave me that knife. But perhaps the sun’s boiled your brain so much that it never occurred to you why I might’ve wanted it in the first place.”

“You agreed to keep it hidden. You agreed to not draw attention.”

“How could I help myself when Thea was hanging on you like a buck-tooth curtain and poor ugly Susan smashed her wrist to get you to hold her hand?” she asked, her voice laced with acid sarcasm. “Oh, my dearest Jack, I need your attention so desperately.”

She wondered if she imagined the hurt that cut through his eyes a mere heartbeat before his face contorted into revulsion.

“You’re a snake,” he said. “A damn conniving viper.”

Hester had called her a snake the day before. She’d called herself one shortly after, and neither of those had hurt. But this time—Jack might have just as easily slugged her in the nose.

“Do you think I wanted to brandish your knife?” she demanded, her words trembling. “Did you think I wanted to lie to the captain who, by the way, didn’t buy it for a second, and now I’m in deeper shit with him⁠—”

“No,” he said with an eviscerating laugh. “You’re in the deepest shit with me, because now I’m your warden again. Your manager, your punishment, your damned nanny because you can’t control yourself⁠—”

“She pushed me!”

“I’m sure she did! You’re never at fault—how perfect you are!”

Her voice rose over his, releasing the vicious pressure building within her. “It’s my fault I pulled the knife, but I controlled myself, Jack, because I didn’t shove it through her neck!”

“Maybe you should have.” His voice dropped, leaving her fiercely aware of how her ears rang after shouting. “That way I wouldn’t be stuck with you now.”

Her breath caught. He actually wanted her dead, if only she’d broken the articles. Perhaps he had wanted it this whole time, and the moment she was no longer gracious and smiling or easy to control, she was nothing to him.

Her wicked heart throbbed.

Well, he was nothing to her either.

“You think it’s so fun for me, you stupid sea prince?” The space between them dwindled, her feet moving of their own accord. “You ply me with gold coins and knives and swords and sweet words, and I bend to your whims because I have no other choice. You humiliate me.”

He drew nearer too. “Well, there we are matched. You cut my face and make me wear the humiliation every day. You make me look foolish to my father, and then you pulled this nonsense with the knife.”

Their faces were close enough that she could feel his panting breaths and see the rings of silver around his blue eyes, narrowed in contempt. Mere inches separated their bodies, and the heat of him beat back the cold bleeding out of her.

“You should have told him the truth,” she said, her voice softening to something that might have been sweet, were it not for the venom in her words. “That you gave me the knife. That you defied him.” She tilted her head, and maybe it was because she wanted to torture herself or hear him admit she wasn’t good enough, but she added, “You should’ve told him you gave it to me because you thought you could have me if you did.”

His features cooled to indifference. “Darling Cecily.” He spoke with a lover’s dulcet tone, the same one that had turned her name to velvet and silk only a day ago. “Did you believe I wanted you?”

There was that odd pain again, just beneath her anger. She leashed it and stared back, steely eyed, readying her offenses. “What thought have I for a man who lords over me? What affection would I ever desire from a filthy Copson?”

A knife glinted in his fingers, pointed at her gut. She hadn’t seen him reach for it, but she flinched at the suddenness of its appearance. “Cross me again,” he replied, “and I’ll show you what a filthy Copson I can be.”

It should have stoked her vengeance, but she only felt the wound on her heart grow deeper.

It was his fault. Entirely his fault for making her this way, and she despised him for it. She loathed that he had this kind of power over her. Even now, he’d taken her hand to drag her into these trees—forced her here—and it hadn’t occurred to her to cut him again. It hadn’t occurred to her to want to cut him.

“I hate you,” she said, pressure building behind her eyes—God, was she about to cry? She kept her voice low for fear that anything louder might summon the tears. “More than Morgyn and my wicked cousin, more than those men who would’ve forced me into their beds, more than Death for taking my father, or the man who withheld my bitter end so that I had to come here. To meet you.”

As soon as she said it, she was shocked to find it tasted like a lie. It wasn’t supposed to be one, but she felt it deep within herself like a chunk missing from her cold, dead heart—as though Jack had not only started to thaw it, but he’d cut out a piece and kept it for himself.