Eve inclined her head. “He does. Then Antoine did that sweet French thing where he calls youma chérie, and you told him never to do that again.”
Cally blinked, her jaw slack. “Oh,fuck.” It came out as a breath, her shoulders slumping, her anger deflating. “I can’t believe I said that.” She stared at the pattern in the carpet, and the circle of white paint that wasn’t coming out anytime soon. “He’s not even going to want to see me.”
Eve rolled her eyes. “Girl, you’re a witch-taekwondo badass, his bonded whatever-it-is, hot as hell even when you’ve been crying, and all vulnerable and teary. He’d never turn you away.”
“Right.” Cally nodded. “You’re right,” she said again, then took a breath and straightened her shoulders. But she’d told him not to call her ‘ma chérie’! What had she beenthinking? She bit her lip as her resolve weakened. “What about the spells?” That was good procrastination.
Eve gave her a flat look, seeing straight through it. “Nice try. Go on, get out of here. I’ll keep working.”
Cally gestured at her face, at her eyes she knew were red. “I can’t go in there like this.”
“Best time to go in if you ask me,” Eve said matter-of-factly. “Tears lend authenticity—he’ll know you mean it.” She picked up her book again, and opened it to her previous page. “If you’re still here when I look up again, you’ll get my foot up your ass.”
With that tone, she probably wasn’t kidding. Cally crossed to the door, then paused with her hand on the handle. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Whatever.”
Cally managed a weak smile as she pulled it open. Her steps faltered with Antoine’s door only a short distance away.
Shit. He’d have heard all that.
Had he been listening? She worried at her lip. How could henothave been?
Cally shook her head. It was too late now; she still had to face him.
For the first time, she knocked on their door.Hisdoor.
“Come in,ma ch—Cally.”
Well, that just made it worse.
He stood near the bed, shoulders slumped, head down, fingers stuffed in his jeans pockets, his T-shirt tight across his lean chest. A few days’ beard growth on his clenched jaw, and a line of worry on his brow. As irresistible as ever, and the raw hurt in his gaze squeezed her heart painfully.
I put that there.
She turned and closed the door behind her, using the action to prepare herself, and the click of the lock was like the starting gun.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the door. It sounded so inadequate. She faced him and tried again. “I like it when you call me ‘ma chérie’. I was an idiot for telling you not to.”
His head had come up, watching her, a flicker of vulnerability in the tightness of his expression. “You used to call me a monster, and I have never felt more like one than when I had to tell you your mother died because of me.”
“I lashed out because I was angry.” She took a pace toward him. “Eve set me right. It wasn’tyourfault.”
“Perhaps not,” he said, voice husky, “but I am still responsible, however indirectly.” He swallowed hard, his throat working. “I do not blame you for your reaction,ma ch—” He cut himself off, and pressed his lips together.
“Ma chérie,” she finished for him. “Say it, please.”
He didn’t, and the silence between them stretched. Her frustration flared. “Damn it, Antoine. It was a shock, all right? I thought it was Nico, until I learned it wasn’t. But for you to just come out and tell me youknew… That it wasBelle…” She let out a breath, and forced herself to take a slower one. “My mother isdead,but she died a long time ago. Yes, it will always hurt. Yes, I want to hate Belle. But I haveyou, and part of me knows that if Belle hadn’t done… what she’s done… I wouldn’t have you. It’s youI want. No one else.” She took another step as he watched her, too many emotions playing across his face to know his thoughts. “You want to run? Leave all this behind, and just… go be us? I’d come with you in a heartbeat.” She let her chin come up, defiance in her eyes. “You want to stay and fight? I’m by your side. I havepower, Antoine. I will use it for you.”
“You have always had power. That, I have never doubted.”
She stopped before him, almost close enough to reach out and touch. “What do you want? Revenge? Peace?”
“You strip me of my resolve,” he said quietly, almost reverently. “Entombed in that box, some days only the promise of vengeance sustained me. But more often, it was the thought of you that kept me from madness. Nothing is more important; for you, I would give up everything.”
“I’m not asking you to give up anything.” She reached up to cup his cheek, his stubble rough beneath her fingers. “Take it all. Take me too.”
Antoine fell silent, going still, his shoulders bunched and his very presence darkening. “Somehow, Roberto has learned what you are,” he said at last, barely-held anger in his voice. “That is why he tried to claim you for himself. I won’t allow it.” His face hardened, eyes turning from blue to red. “You’ll never be his.”
