Page 70 of The Worst of Them

“Acting as though I’m as heartless as you are.”

She pulled ice over the wounds his words lashed into her. “If you had a heart—at the very least one for me, even as the friend as you claimed I was—you might’ve defended me to your father. Maybe you would’ve told him the truth about the knife instead of making me lie to him⁠—”

“I told you when I gave you that knife⁠—”

“I know what you told me!” she said, fighting to keep her voice down. “But you still made me into a villain when I didn’t mean for any of that to happen. He stuck me with you because of it, and now you take every opportunity to remind me how much you can’t stand me.”

She gasped as tears threatened to rise, then spun toward her door before they could appear.

She was strong. Strong enough to face Jack and hate him. Strong enough to force the distance to grow and splinter because there was no future with a man like him. There never would be.

“Cecily.”

She fussed with the key in the lock, cursing when the damn thing refused to turn.

He held out two more coins. “Truce. One minute.”

“No,” she snapped, her eyes blurring. “There is no truce between us. I won’t bow to your gold or your blades.”

“You really hate me so much?”

His voice had turned gentle, quiet, and Cecily thought of her little house where she could someday have the life she wanted with a husband who loved her—a good man who would give her children and a place where she was safe and happy.

Jack was not the way to that life. He broke every rule she wanted to live by. He could only give her piracy and all that came with it.

Jack Copson was not meant for her, and she was not meant to be his.

And yet…

She peered at him with the eye that didn’t have a tear rolling from it. “Yes, Jack.”

His hands moved to his pockets. “Have you always, or was it the conversation you overheard?”

She faced forward, focused on breathing evenly as she gripped the key that still refused to budge.

“Was it our argument yesterday after we left the Fortuna?”

“What does it matter?” she asked. “We are at odds, and I don’t care for it to be any other way.”

His chin hovered by her head, his breath caressing her braid. “We weren’t at odds,” he said. “For a whole week.”

“Because you gave me a sword to make me compliant.”

“That’s what I told the captain,” he said, unperturbed. “Why don’t you ask me why I gave you that sword? Why not ask what that sword is?”

She stared the key. If she looked at him, she’d crumble. If she saw any bit of sincerity, if he offered her answers, she’d be hopeless.

She closed her eyes and saw her little home. Jack didn’t belong in a house like that.

“Why won’t you look at me?” he asked softly, his words edged with the slightest taunt.

She shook her head.

“I heard you crying last night,” he said. “I thought about coming to apologize for being horrible yesterday, but I didn’t. I wasn’t really so drunk when we left the beach, but I drank the rest of that bottle before you stopped.”

“I was only relieved to find a bit of soap. My tears had nothing to do with you.” Another lie. With a forceful twist on the key, the lock finally gave way.

Jack stopped her with a hand on her waist, his touch so light she barely felt it. Still, warmth spread over her skin, and she paused.