Page 90 of When She Loves
A beat passes before he does as he’s told.
I move my hand from her shoulder to her chin and turn her face toward me.
My wife stares at me with her piercing green eyes, the color of emeralds. Who knew they could hide so much deceit inside their depths?
“He offered you a good deal,” I whisper.
She licks her lips. “Everything I thought I wanted.”
“And tonight, you told him no?”
“I told him no.”
I lean closer. “Took you two fucking weeks to do it, though.”
When she swallows, a part of her neck brushes against my blade.
You know what’s infuriating? Even now, with my knife pressed to her throat, she doesn’t seem scared. Upset, yes, but not scared. Like she knows I’d never harm her, even after what she just confessed. And she thinks I have no weaknesses?
“What finally made you decide not to turn on me?”
Another tear slips down her cheek, but she doesn’t answer.
I press in, my hips pinning hers. “Hmm? What was it? The jewelry, the money, the staff that’s at your beck and call?”
Slowly, she shakes her head. I have to pull my knife back a few millimeters so that she doesn’t cut herself on it.
“Was it the way I ate your cunt a few days ago?”
She bites down on her lip and shakes her head again.
I’m so close, our noses are practically touching. “Then what the fuck was it?”
She exhales a broken breath. “It’s the way you see something in me. Something that no one else does. Around you, I’m not just a fuckup that needs fixing.”
My chest caves in. Something inside me wavers.
A sob escapes her. “I should have told you earlier.”
Glistening eyes. Wet cheeks. Parted lips. I know guilt, but I know sincerity too. It skims off some of my anger, turns the temperature down.
“You shouldn’t have even considered it. Your father is a fucking idiot, and his plan would have never worked. You should have known that.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I lower my knife, tuck it back up my sleeve, and open the car door. “Get in.”
She slides inside, keeping her gaze on me the entire time. I follow after her and slam the door shut.
Sandro looks at me in the rearview mirror, his jaw tense and his skin as pale as a sheet. “Where to?”
“Home.”
Cleo huddles on the other end of the seat, her pink-rimmed eyes glued to me. I look away from her. We drive through a maze of skyscrapers, and I attempt to settle down, but ten minutes later, I’m still buzzing.
She didn’t do it.
But she thought about it. She imagined her new life without me in it.
