‘Too late for that,’ she says. ‘I’m no longer a virgin, thanks to you.’
For a second the statement sits between us, sharp-edged and bright, but I’m still wrestling with my temper to fully process it. Then I do, and surprise yawns wide inside me.
‘You were a virgin?’ I demand, trying to think back to that moment in the church, and whether she’d given me any inkling that she was still an innocent. I hadn’t given her previous sexual experience much thought at all, admittedly, though she was very clear she’d been with my father.
I’d think this another of her lies if not for the sudden and bright flush of colour blooming in her cheeks. ‘I mean, I didn’t—’
‘Don’t lie to me,’ I interrupt, holding on to my temper by the skin of my teeth. ‘Were you?’
Her pretty mouth tightens. ‘What does it matter to you?’
It shouldn’t. Virginity is a social construct that I should have no interest in, yet the primitive beast in me disagrees. It wants to be her first, her only.
‘I see. So you were, then,’ I say flatly, because if she wasn’t, she would have said so straight out. ‘Why the lies? Are you protecting my father or yourself?’
She’s still flushed, sparks of anger glittering in her eyes. She’s probably angry that she betrayed herself, but it’s too late for that now.
‘You assumed.’ Her chin lifts. ‘And I saw no reason to challenge your assumptions, since you seem so wedded to them.’
You did assume. And you know what they say about assumptions…
My temper heats, yet it’s myself I’m angry with. I’m not even sure why, because she’s right. I shouldn’t care about her virginity, not one iota. And yet…
You don’t like the way she sees right through you.
No, I don’t.
‘What about the lies concerning the baby?’ I demand. ‘Is anything that comes out of your mouth the truth?’
‘I wouldn’t have to lie if you weren’t such a complete bastard,’ she says hotly. The brilliant sapphire blue of her eyes glitters with temper, and in the air around us tension gathers, crackling and sparking. As ever, it’s fuelled by our mutual antipathy, and it pulls tighter and tighter, making it difficult for me to concentrate on anything else.
If I want to get anything real out of her, this tension needs to be gone. We need to sate it, and now, before we deal with anything else.
So I take another step towards the window seat, intruding on her personal space, my trousers brushing her knees. And all of a sudden the burning blue flame in her eyes darkens, flickering into violet.
‘If I’m such a complete bastard,’ I say in a low voice, ‘why do you want me so badly?’
Her pale throat moves as she swallows, her attention dropping to my mouth and back up again. ‘I don’t,’ she murmurs, and it sounds like a plea.
‘Prove it to me, then.’ I reach down, taking a handful of the fabric of her dress and slowly gathering it in my fist. ‘Tell me you don’t want me to touch you. Tell me that you’re not desperate for me. That you don’t crave me inside you.’ I pull more fabric up, baring her knees. ‘Tell me and make me believe it.’
Chapter Nine
Beatrix
My breath lodgesin my throat as Santiago gathers my dress slowly in his fist, his black gaze burning into mine. It’s all challenge, all fire, making my heartbeat race and the ache between my thighs intensify.
I shouldn’t let him get to me the way he does. I shouldn’t let him needle me, but he trapped me in my lie about my virginity, and now I’m furious. Both with myself for being so susceptible, and with him for being so awful and yet so bloody hot at the same time.
Perhaps you shouldn’t have let yourself soften when he asked you if you needed something to eat.
I wish I could deny that, but I can’t. For a second, I actually thought he was being conciliatory, but when he turned around I could see he was forcing it. That he didn’t actually care. He was only concerned with the health of his ‘incubator’.
Which shouldn’t matter to me. I shouldn’t care about my importance to him or otherwise, since he’s right about one thing: the health and wellbeing of our child is what truly matters. Yet, to my continued fury, there’s a part of me that does want more, that wants to matter to someone in some way, though why I’m fixating on him, I have no idea.
Now, though, what I know is that I can’t allow him to take charge of this. He did so in the church, and I got so lost in what he did to me that I didn’t even realise we hadn’t used protection. I can’t afford to get so lost again.
I’m alone and pregnant, and in his house, and I need to take back some of the power I left behind when he dragged me here.
