Something closed behind her eyes, and he didn’t like it. “It matters to me.”
“If it mattered to you, you would have answered me honestly and openly. Forget I asked anything.”
“Violet.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Let it go, Drake.”
No. “It’s not that it doesn’t matter, it’s merely that I find titles rarely improve anything.”
She sent him an astonished glance. “That’s the first blatant lie you’ve told me. Youthriveon titles, whether they improve things or not.”
“Christ, that’s—”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.” She shuffled off the bed. “In fact, I’d prefer it if you didn’t. I shouldn’t have asked such an impertinent question.”
Damn it, no. How had this matter slipped beyond his grasp? Drake pushed himself upright, too, dragging a hand over his face. “Let’s discuss this another time. I’m not in my right mind. Your question caught me off guard.”
“It is quite all right.”
He gritted his teeth at her polite response.
It was notquiteall right. It wasn’t damn all right at all. And he was proving himself even more of a fool. The gravity of his foolishness was only now beginning to dawn. He should have stayed away from her from the start. A part of him had known it since the very first time he’d laid eyes on her.
He hadn’t.
How was he to proceed now, when she wouldn’t even look at him? Distance had ceased to be an option. And now it was no longer a question ofwhetherthis would cost him, but how much.
Chapter Seventeen
What do youbelieve a lover to be?
Violet scowled into her cup of tea from her solitary seat in the tavern. The brother called Saint had brought her a cup before disappearing again. On the one hand, she was grateful, on the other hand, she wished to vent. Knight, with his hard face and rolled up sleeves, had stopped her when she’d wanted to return to her shop. No amount of glaring had moved the man. He had, however, allowed her to send word to Angelica to pause all orders. But these Furys had better know that they would be compensating her for the business lost!
This is what curiosity got, Violet.
She should have left well enough alone from the very start.
Perhaps then she wouldn’t be haunted by humiliation and that blasted question. Haunted by the face of the man she’d once glimpsed her brother patting on the shoulder in their stables when she was waiting for her horse to be saddled. She had thought nothing of it at the time. Her brother kept unsavory company as a matter of habit, and she had long since learned not to look too closely at the men who came and went from his world.
Now, with this memory, Violet had what she’d hoped never to gain.
Confirmation. Confirmation that her brother was not justpartof this feud with Drake Fury, butthefeud.
That man had been her brother’s cutthroat.
Her brother’s cutthroat had tried to kill Drake.
Violet sighed.
What did it matter at this point what she believed a lover to be? Or how much she wanted her lover to be Drake. An invisible wall had been erected between them the moment her mind caught up to the whisper of familiarity of that dreadful ruffian’s face.
Still . . .
What did she believe a lover to be? The blasted question would not let her be despite the fact that the longer she kept her identity a secret, the more complicit she became.
Lovers were lovers.
Was that not obvious? What were lovers? People who shared intimacy. Was that no more than what they’d been doing, starting with their first kiss in the courtyard? Perhaps she was too innocent. Hah. Not innocent enough not to bed, but innocent enough to not keep bedding.
