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I mean, I’m her sister, for crying out loud. She’s known me a hell of a lot longer than she’s known him. Doesn’t that count for a little more loyalty? A little more diplomacy, at the very least?
“How exactly do you plan on getting my sister and father back?” I ask, mostly because staying silent is like hurling lighter fluid on the blaze of my terrified thoughts.
“We have to locate them first. Once we know where they’ve been taken, I’ll go in with a team.”
“Will they be in danger?” I ask anxiously. “The Bellasios…They won’t hurt them, will they?”
He shrugs without bothering to look over. “I can’t speak to that.”
I stare at him in shock. “Are you serious?”
“Let me save you some time and assure you that I am always serious. I can’t promise you something I can’t control, Taylor. The likelihood is that Celine and your father will be safe. They were taken alive for a reason. I don’t think Benedict will kill them, but hurting them…? That’s different.”
I can only gawk at him for a long time, trying and failing to figure out how a human being could possibly be so cold.
“What?” he asks eventually.
“She’s yourfiancée,” I whisper, just in case he forgot. “And you’re acting as though she means nothing to you.”
“You want me to fall to pieces?” he asks in that same detached tone. “Would that make you feel better?”
“Actually, yes.” This man makes me want to simultaneously scream and roll my eyes so far back I can see my brain. At least one of us has one. “It would reassure me that you haven’t just proposed to my sister for some nefarious, manipulative, bullshit reason. And since it’s pretty clear that she has actual feelings for you, I’m hoping that’s not the case.”
“Tell me more about what you’re hoping for,” he says sarcastically. “I’ll pretend I’m fucking Santa Claus and deliver all your dreams to your doorstep.”
What I’m hoping for.Great question. Isn’t that what he asked me the night we met?What doyouwant?I knew then what I wanted: him. So how do I answer it now? As the car hums and chews up the road, I think about it with the same kind of breathlessness I thought about it back then. And when the answer surfaces, I know in my heart that it’s true.
I want two things. Two things that are in direct contradiction to one another, actually.
I want to keep the baby in my belly.
And I want my sister to be happy with the man who got me pregnant.
“Can I ask you a question?” I ask softly. I can dispense with bickering for the sake of five minutes of honest conversation.
“Go ahead.”
“What made you propose to Celine as fast as you did?”
I’m pretty sure I see his knuckles tighten on the wheel. But then again, I could be just imagining it. When he speaks, there’s nothing to suggest he has anything to hide.
“She was a breath of fresh air,” he tells me. “She was so open and honest and…sweet. It was hard not to like her.”
“That’s a nice answer.” It really is. It’s also vague as hell. “But it sounds like you read it off a Hallmark card. It’s hardly indicative of a whirlwind romance that’s wild, and passionate, and fiery, and…and all-consuming.”
He raises his eyebrows in a silent question.
“Well, it would have to be, wouldn’t it?” I press. “To have inspired a proposal in such a short span of time, I mean.”
“The kind of love you’re describing sounds painful.”
“‘The kind of love’?” I repeat, shaking my head. “That’s the only love there is, Ilarion. Real love is painful. It’s messy and chaotic and gut-wrenching. If it doesn't hurt, you’re doing it wrong.”
We stop at a red light and he glances over at me with an expression that’s half curiosity and half pity.
“What?”
“I just realized how young you are.”
