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I didn’t want to look at his handsome face, to see the arrogance and the possession. I didn’t want to see the victory in his eyes. Not only did he keep me as his prisoner, but he had a prisoner that was too weak to kill him.
I never felt more pathetic in my life.
He lifted me onto the kitchen counter and stood between my legs, his strong arms scooping me and holding me against him. My countertops were high, so it brought me to eye level with his gaze.
Gently, he leaned in and kissed me on the mouth, giving me a good morning kiss that was softer than all the others he gave me. Then he rested his forehead against mine, his eyes looking down at my lips.
“I hate you.” My hands slid up his arms until they gripped his biceps. “I do…”
“I know, baby.”
“I wish that I killed you. I wish I could do it.”
“I know that too.” He kissed the corner of my mouth.
“I don’t know why I didn’t…” My eyes shifted down because I was too embarrassed to meet his gaze. I’d never been filled with such self-loathing. If my father knew what I did, he would be disappointed in me. “I was going to kill you and keep that painting. Getting rid of you is the only solution to my problem. I’m ashamed of myself.” I closed my eyes, unable to take that icy stare.
His fingers went to my chin, forcing my head up.
I opened my eyes and looked at him again.
“I couldn’t do it either, baby.”
“Why?” I whispered.
His fingers slid down my neck, right over my pulse. “Seemed like a waste to me. You’re so smart, strong, beautiful…so much potential. You have more strength than most men I come across. Every woman should be raised the way you’ve been raised. Maybe if my mother had more of your qualities, she would still be alive right now.”
Anytime he mentioned his mother, I felt a twinge of sadness. It was the one characteristic that humanized him. He loved his mother and never cared that she was a prostitute. Other people would turn their backs on their mother or daughter for resorting to that livelihood, but Bones never judged her for it. It made me respect him.
“Why didn’t you kill me?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. “I…I don’t know.” The only way out of this mess was to kill him, and I passed on the opportunity. I should have a stronger reason for letting him live, but I wasn’t sure what that reason was. Maybe I thought it was a waste too, that Bones had the potential to be something more. “I think this…” My hands moved to his shoulders, and I squeezed him. “Stops me from thinking clearly. I fall into you, and I don’t think about anything else. It’s like there’s two different versions of us. I despise everything about you, but we have this…I don’t even know what it is.”
“Passion. Lust. Connection. Affection. Respect…”
“Yeah, I guess.”
He pressed his forehead to mine. “I understand that all too well.”
“I don’t know what to do…” I closed my eyes and held on to him, seeking comfort from my tormentor. He could take me to bed right this second, and I wouldn’t fight him. I’d spread my legs and pull him deeper into me. I’d want more than what he could give. “Please leave my family alone. Just drop it, okay?”
He stood in silence, his hands still on my waist.
I opened my eyes and looked at him. “Please.”
“You know I can’t do that…”
“I could have killed you, but I didn’t. You owe me.”
He stared at me with his blue eyes, his expression unreadable.
“Bones, hurting my family isn’t going to bring yours back. It’s not going to rewrite history. You’ll just make your life feel more hollow. And you’ll only hurt me… I know you don’t want to hurt me.”
“I do want to hurt you, Vanessa,” he whispered. “My intentions toward you have never changed. You still hate me, I still hate you.”
“But we both feel something else besides hate toward each other…”
He didn’t deny it. “Yes. But we’re still on opposite sides of the battlefield. Your family not only destroyed mine but ruined my inheritance. If my mother had what she needed, she wouldn’t have been a whore. And I’m sure being a prostitute was just as painful as her eventual death.”
“My family was just trying to protect themselves. Surely, you must see it as a retaliation, not a provocation. Your father killed my aunt and raped my mother. You think those crimes don’t deserve to be punished?”
He held my gaze, his expression unreadable. “I won’t say what he did was right. But your family’s actions ruined my life. My mother was innocent. I was innocent. You got to grow up in a family who adored you in a beautiful mansion. You had everything I never did. I will always hate you for that, for having the life that should have been mine.”
