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Bringing his hand to his lap, he stays silent, watching me for several beats. I shift my weight around on my feet as numbness settles in my calves, uncomfortable under his scrutiny. It feels like that’s all he’s done since we met, and I can’t stand what he’s seen—how he peers into my eyes and sees right to my dirty, blackened soul.
“What does it make you, Caroline?”
“What?”
“When I call you pet names. Terms ofendearment.What happens to you when I do that?”
I shake my head. “Stop trying to distract me.”
Getting to his feet, he takes a singular step toward me; he’s slow and deliberate, hands spread in front of him, the way you might approach a rabid raccoon. My palms grow sweaty, though I can’t tell if it’s from the nerves bouncing around my brain or his stupid, delicious scent.
“When I call youmio amoreandcarina, how does that make you feel?” He takes another step, and I shift, pointing the gun right at his chest. It doesn’t deter him the way I hoped it would. “Does it make your chest swell, make your heart inflate with implied affection? Do you feel dizzy when I look at you, wish you could explain away how the sight of me makes your breath stall out by simple sexual attraction? Does it anger you, realizing it’s more than that?”
My lips part as he stalks even closer, the mouth of the gun a hair away from the fabric of his t-shirt.Jesus.
“Or do my words make you feel dirty because they’ve been tainted by men who never had permission to call you anything in the first place? So, you focus on the evil within me, use it to fuel your hatred toward me, hoping it expels the truth lying dormant inside you.”
I lift my gaze to his, defiance bleeding through my every pore. “Take another step, and I’ll put a bullet in you.”
He chuckles, ignoring me, steppingintothe gun. The grip I have on the metal slips as my heartbeat skyrockets inside my chest, pounding against my ears like arrhythmic cymbals. A bubble lodges in my throat, and I swallow over it, hating all of this.
Him, the effect he has on me, my entire situation. He’s ruining everything.
My entire life.
“Tell mewhyyou hate me so much, and maybe I’ll return to the couch.” His chest heaves with each breath as we stare at each other, like we’re two separate halves of one soul, being kept apart by invisible force fields. “Talk to me, and I won’t rip that gun from your hands and hold it up against your temple until your secrets pour out of you.”
I lick my lips, unable to tear my eyes from his. “I don’t hate you.”
“I know.” His fingers wrap around the barrel, but he doesn’t push or pull. It’s almost as if he’s trying to connect us, keep us together somehow. “Talk to me.”
Something inside me deflates, an anchor sinking to the bottom of the ocean. “I—I can’t.”
“You need to.”
“No, I don’t. Stop talking to me like you’ve got me figured out, and like you know me. Tell me what you did with Sheldon, or I swear I’ll kill you right here.”
“Do it. Save me the fucking trouble of having to sit around the next four months while you pathetically attempt to exact revenge on men from a world you’re completely unprepared to go up against—of watching you leave when you’ve got what you need from me.”
“I’m supposed to go when this arrangement is over, Elia. That was the plan all along.”
“Planschange, Caroline. People, feelings, and circumstances change all the time. The Universe gives and takes away, and our job is just to try and keep up.”
“Minedidn’t change. That’s the whole problem.”
“You’re a liar.” His grip on the gun tightens, jaw clenching. The anger sparking in his eyes sends heat through my core, but I press it down. Ignore it, like everything else. “If you would just take a second and open up to me, you’d—”
“I’d what?” The words come out louder, harsher than I mean for them to, but once they’ve been spit into the air between us, I can’t suck them back inside. The blood whooshing in my ears doesn’t stop me; the fire licking down my spine doesn’t hold me back. I shove the gun against his chest, knocking his hand from it, and let my index hover on the trigger. “What would talking toyoudo for me, Elia? Ease my pain, erase my memories? You think a conversation will fix me, make me whole again?”
His lips part, a response already curling on his tongue, but I move forward instead, knocking him back toward the couch. Dropping to his ass, he releases the gun, and I raise it, letting the cool metal line up with the middle of his forehead.
“I just want to help you.”
A million different thoughts run on repeat in my mind, tiny forest fires no one ever quite extinguished that kept rekindling and spreading.Tell him about his baby. Tell him how he really makes you feel. Tell him youwanthis help, wanthim, for more than just six months.
Tellhimsomething.Make all of this mean something.
“Newsflash: I’m not some broken little girl in need of fixing. Those men didn’tbreakme. I don’t need to be saved.”
