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Jericho St. James watches me. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t defend himself.
I look away from him because I can’t hold his gaze. It’s too much. He’s too much. Last night in the graveyard, I felt like he blamed me. Hated me. But now, it’s not that. It’s not hate.
I take a deep breath in, steel myself and stand slowly.
He watches, ready to catch me, I guess.
I sway for a moment but steady myself. He’s close, inches away. And he doesn’t move back. I square my shoulders and meet his gaze.
“Why didn’t you take it then? While I was knocked out? While I couldn’t fight.”
His gaze intensifies, searches.
“It was my blood you wanted. Why didn’t you take it? You could have. I was in your bed. Naked. Incapacitated.” I shrug a shoulder gaining some backbone from his silence. “Yours.”
He snorts, gaze moving over me as he shakes his head before meeting my eyes again.
“Why didn’t I rape you?” he asks and when he says it like that, uses that word, it makes me blanch and I can’t hold his gaze.
But he doesn’t let me off the hook. That’d be too easy. He brings one finger to my chin and turns my face up to his. He gives me that cold grin I’m getting used to. The one I hate. The one that shows how much he hates me.
“I didn’t rape you because I’m not a Bishop.”
19
Jericho
Her mouth hangs open. She clearly wasn’t expecting that response.
“Go to your room and get showered,” I tell her. “After breakfast you’ll be watching Angelique along with my mother.”
“Wait. What?”
“She was upset yesterday after the swimming pool incident.”
“Shocker.”
“Careful.”
“You’re giving me whiplash here. One minute you accuse me of almost drowning your daughter—”
“I never accused you of trying to drown her.”
“Now you want me to babysit?”
I feel my eyebrows rise. “Babysit? No, my mother will take care of her. I wouldn’t leave her in your hands.”
“Because I’m a Bishop.”
“And somehow regardless of that, she seems to have taken a liking to you and with my mother present, perhaps you can play your little game in the pool. What was it called?”
“You mean before you dove in fully clothed and created a tidal wave?”
I raise my eyebrows.
“Starfish,” she says, studying me suspiciously.
“It’s probably not a bad idea since we’re home that she learns to be comfortable in the water. But I do not want her left alone—”
