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“Okay, maybe that wasn’t the right question.” He thinks for a moment. “What have I done recently?”
“Seriously?” My nostrils flare. “Because you don’t know.”
“No, actually, I don’t.”
“Mateo, you can’t be that dense. You shot a man in the head right in front of me.”
“That’s your problem?”
“My problem...” I grit my teeth in an effort to keep my temper in check. “It might be normal business for you to walk around shooting people, but some of us in the real world, we don’t look at it quite so casually.”
“I didn’t intentionally do it in front of you. It’s not like I wanted you to watch. But time was of the essence and I didn’t have time to ask you to leave before I did what needed to be done. I’m sorry I wasn’t more sensitive to your feelings.”
“My feelings?” God, someone needs to teach this man the things that he can and cannot say to a woman when she is under duress. “This has nothing to do with my feelings. It has to do with you.”
“Me?”
“You don’t get it. It wasn’t about me at all. It was you. Watching you take someone’s life without batting an eye.”
“And that scared you?”
“Scared me? It fucking terrified me!”
He grimaces at my choice of words.
“You really shouldn’t talk that way. It’s not very becoming.”
I can’t tell if he’s purposely trying to rile me up or if he’s serious.
“Fuck you,” I say it slowly and clearly. “Fuck you! You are so not the person that I thought you were.”
“And what person is that?”
“Someone who has a heart and maybe a conscience.”
“I never claimed to have either.” His expression is dark, the humor that laced his eyes moments ago long gone.
“Well then, I guess it was my mistake for assuming. Good to know I’m exactly what I thought I was to you. Nothing but leverage and a pair of legs to climb between.”
“You’re insane if you think that’s all you are to me. And let’s not forget about the shit you pulled.”
“Me?”
“You spent the night in my arms then turned around hours later and tried to escape with the man responsible for leaking information to your father that nearly got me killed. You want to talk about something, let’s talk about that.”
“I already told you, I thought you sent him.”
“You’re not that naïve. I’ve been very selective about the men I trust to be in close proximity to you. If I were going to send someone, it would have been either Niko or Dimitri. But you already know that.”
“Maybe if I hadn’t just walked in to find Niko’s throat slit I would have been thinking more clearly,” I fire back. “And for the record, had I gotten in that boat with him no questions asked, he wouldn’t be dead rotting somewhere and I would be long gone. I’m here because when it came time to choose a side, I chose you. I chose you at the dock and I chose you again by telling you that my father and his men were on their way to the island. If not for me, you’d be dead. Though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t regretting that decision now.” I narrow my glare at him.
“What do you mean you chose me at the dock?”
“Danny...He told me he was working for my father. He told me that he was going to get me out of there and take me to him. And what did I do? I stayed. I stalled. I didn’t jump into the boat and leave. That is how I chose you.”
“I didn’t know ... I just assumed...”
“You just assumed that I willingly got into that boat,” I bite. “Tell that to the bruise on my hip from where he threw me into it.”
