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I chuckle. “What? In the gutter?”
She bristles, fighting me off with a quick yank to free herself. “No.” She starts to pace, shoulders square, body tense. “You were meant to be here waiting like you always were. Nothing should’ve changed.”
“We both know that was never going to happen. When Nicolas died, someone had to take over.”
“And it was meant to be me!”
“Was it, though? You pretty much renounced your position in the family and in The Company.”
“Not by choice,” she mutters bitterly. “But you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”
“As much as you do.”
I told myself that if I ever crossed paths with Natalia—which was always going to happen—I wouldn’t engage in petty squabbles and lock horns with her, but I’m only human, and Natalia gets under my skin almost as much as—if not more than—my father.
“I guess this is all quite funny.”
“What is?” I ask, cocking a brow.
“You think you’ve got me.” She starts to laugh, but not out of mirth. There isn’t any humour to her now. “I could take you down, Beckett. I know things about you no one should ever know.”
“Right back atcha, doll.” I grin smugly. “My dirt? It’s yours too, isn’t it?”
I fix her with a look, and I can see she hates me with every fibre of her being, but I can also tell the internal fight she’s having with herself whenever I’m around.
“So, you tear me down, and I promise I will bury you, darling girl.”
“I’d take the crown with me,” she bites back. “You’d have to take it from my cold, dead hands.”
I push my hands into my pockets because that threat isn’t one that worries me. I’m king of the castle, and the men around me are answerable to me. No matter how this goes, they’ll go down with me. Nothing Natalia has to say will alter that because she’s the disloyal one.
“You’ve got to pry it away from me first, princess.”
“I should have pushed that knife deeper.”
“Yet you didn’t, Natalia. And you and I both know why.”
There’s a beat before she replies. “Why?”
I caught the way her voice wavered. She was too slow to catch it.
“Because somewhere in that black heart of yours, you’re still in love with me. And before you tell me I’m wrong, I thought of all of the ways I’d get you back, and each of them included bringing you nothing but pain. But when we fucked, it was like all past transgressions no longer existed. You weren’t the enemy. I wasn’t the bad guy. We were just us. Lonely, needy Talia and Beck.”
I take a step forward, but she takes one back. As if that will stop me.
“That is all we’re ever going to be, darling girl. You and me? We’re in each other’s veins. I’ve had you under my skin for years. No amount of time or space could alter that. We’ll always be lonely and needy because we made it impossible to survive outside of the other.”
Her lips part for a moment, and a heavy exhale follows. “That’s not right. I don’t need you. Not after you took everything under the pretence of loving me. You loved me as a means to get what you wanted. I was convenient until I wasn’t.”
“I think that worked both ways. I was good enough for you until I wasn’t.”
I didn’t intend for the snarl to wrap my words so vehemently, but I like the way they hit her, nonetheless.
“I don’t know why I didn’t see it coming, really. You never were one to settle. No one was ever granted a definitive place in your life.”
“You were, you bastard!”
I laugh in disbelief. “I was?” I mock, laughing a little harder. “Natalia, when the going got tough, you ran, and when that wasn’t enough, you set out to destroy everything we ever had. When you realised I wasn’t enough, you just pulled the ripcord. Tell me that isn’t true.”
