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Bee shrugs. “I’m just speculating here, to be clear. But if I had to guess… I’d say that she probably loved you so much that she wanted to avoid conflict. I’ve just never agreed with that kind of mindset. Differences of opinion, arguments, honest conversation—that’s what makes a relationship strong. That’s what makes a relationship real. Cracks are how the light gets in, y’know?”
“Our relationship was real,” I rasp. “It was very fucking real.”
Bee’s expression doesn’t change. Call her many things, but she’s no coward. She doesn’t wilt in the face of my anger. She never has.
“I know it was, Dmitri. That’s not what I was trying to say.”
“What were you trying to say?”
She gives me a small, thin smile. “I would explain, if I weren’t terrified that you’re gonna bite my head off if I do.”
At last, I sigh and relent. “You haven’t been terrified of that since the day we met.”
She rests a friendly hand on my forearm. “You loved Elena and she loved you. But sometimes, it felt like you were in love with the version of her you’d created in your head. And she did the same.”
“I have no fucking clue what that means.”
She shakes her head and gets off her high chair. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have said anything at all. I have to get ready for the charade. Meet you back here in, like, fifteen.”
“An hour it is.”
She rolls her eyes and gives me another middle finger. “You think you know me so well.”
When she’s gone, I’m tempted to pour myself another drink, but I doubt that turning up to the Zanetti estate drunk off my ass will improve the already-fraught relations with Don Vittorio. Instead, I walk over to the window that overlooks the city and try to get myself into a Zen mindset in preparation for?—
I twist around as Wren stomps into the kitchen. She takes one look at me and stops short. “I came to get something to eat,” she explains nastily. “That is, if Your Highness allows such indiscretions.”
I sweep a kingly hand toward the kitchen, smirking at her anger. “Everything the light touches is yours.”
Her face screws up with irritation. “How generous of you. We subjects are all so lucky to serve such a kind and benevolent tyrant.”
She stalks off towards the fridge and proceeds to stare at its contents for a while before she ultimately pulls out a bar of chocolate and a carton of milk. I watch her move, vibrating with agitation as she flits around the kitchen. Her jaw keeps flexing from side to side aggressively, no doubt fighting the urge to tell me to go to hell.
Finally, she succumbs. She whirls around and spits, “I like my apartment. It was the first place I ever had to myself.”
Her eyes are all fired up and for some sick reason, it’s getting me fired up, too. But instead of getting angry, I’m just getting hard.
“Consider this a step up then.”
She gestures to the kitchen. “This isn’t my apartment and it’s certainly not my home! This is the home you share with your fiancée! And I’m not interested in playing third wheel.”
“You seemed pretty content to play the third wheel with your sister and brother-in-law.”
Even as I say it, I cringe. It’s a low blow. A very low blow.
Wren’s jaw drops but the fire in her eyes burns a little brighter. “You’re an unbelievable asshole.”
“And you’re a stubborn little girl who can’t seem to understand the fact that all I’m trying to do is protect you.”
“Protect me? Or control me?”
“Sometimes, they’re one and the same.”
She takes a feisty step toward me, brandishing a teaspoon like a broadsword. “Tyrant.”
I step right up to meet her. “Brat.”
Fuck, how is it that she already smells like chocolate? All I want to do is lean in and take a bite out of her. Something ripples across her eyes. A similar realization that has her stumbling back a little, forcing some distance between us.
