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“Nothing to be sorry about. I didn’t understand why you were painting that at first—it didn’t seem like your style at all.” He paused, as though he didn’t want to say the next part. It wasn’t hard to guess what he wanted to know, given what had happened. Still, he pushed on and said it. “That was from when you were shot, right? That’s you?”
I nodded but couldn’t bring myself to peer over at the piece itself. If I saw the red, I didn’t know how I’d react, and I didn’t want to fall headlong into that anxiety again, that dark place. “Yeah. I picked the dress out with my sister. I didn’t want to get married. I’d begged my dad not to make me. None of it mattered, though. No matter how much I didn’t want to do it, I still put that dress on, still played my part, still walked down that aisle.”
“You went that far?” Vance frowned as he ran his left hand up and down my arm in a reassuring gesture.
“Yeah, I did. It turned out the wedding was never intended to go through. My dad planned to have me killed then anyway, to use the event to secure himself more power. If Nem hadn’t shown up, he would have gotten exactly what he wanted. When she showed up, when he realized he’d lost control, he tried to kill Nem. The Fox took that bullet for her, and my dad dragged me out to escape. Nem followed us, and it was the three of us in the forest alone.”
I let out a thin laugh as I thought back on it. “It’s funny because it was almost like a family gathering, the three of us, back together. Even then, even as I saw that my sister was alive, as I realized that my father was at fault for our mother’s death, I still didn’t think he’d hurt me. I didn’t want to think that.” I touched my side, where the scar sat beneath my shirt. “He targeted me because he knew it would hurt Nem the most. He didn’t really care enough to even want me dead. I was that unimportant to him.”
“You don’t have to talk about this,” Vance said. His comment didn’t feel like a shut down, as though he were trying to get me to be quiet, but rather like offering an out.
“I remember a doctor cutting my dress off. I wonder sometimes what happened to it—thrown away, I’m sure. Maybe it’s stupid, but I guess I wonder because it was still my wedding dress. It still mattered, in some weird way, and the idea of it getting tossed feels wrong.” I sighed when I wasn’t sure how to explain that. “Maybe I just want to burn it myself?”
Vance moved his hand from my arm to my cheek. The touch comforted me so much that I couldn’t stop myself from nuzzling against his palm, from the warmth and strength there. “You’re important to more people than you think.”
“Yeah, to people who have to care about me. My sister, the Quad, even the Fox. People who give a damn about me do so because of my family or my blood or my name. Do you know why I paint? Because it’s something I can do that isn’t about anyone else. It’s my skill, and my work, and things like my last name or my parents, those things don’t control it.”
“I care about you, and I had no idea what your real name was until you’d already wrapped me around your finger.”
I jerked my gaze up at his words, at the way I struggled to make sense of them. They were so honest that it surprised me.
He laughed softly. “I’m not the only one, either. Hayden, Tor and even Char—as stubborn and surly as he is—all care.”
“Because you need me to get what you want,” I pointed out.
“That’s why we bought you, sure, but we could have tried to trade you over anytime. We could have used you as bait, but we haven’t.”
“You’re all good people, even if you try to hide it. None of you want to make innocents suffer for your own revenge. That isn’t about me.”
Vance sat up straighter and leaned in. As he neared me, my heart raced again, but for a very different reason than earlier. Was this it? Would this be my first real kiss? Not the one from last time, when he’d stolen it, when it hadn’t been real.
Except, it wasn’t. His lips touched my cheek, so close I could have turned just a hair to catch his lips.
When he pulled back, I stared at him, the question in my gaze. Why?
“I screwed this up the first time, and I won’t do that again. So if you want a kiss,you’regoing to have to decide. I won’t steal anything else from you.”
I pressed my lips together, not caring for thatat all.
Sure, it was sweet, and I knew it was for me, but that didn’t mean I liked being put on the spot like that. Being chased felt far safer than having to make the first move—especially since I kept getting rejected.
“Sorry to interrupt,” a woman said, waking me from what had felt like a private moment.
I jerked backward, hitting the back of my head on the wall in what was no doubt an overreaction.
“We’re going to be locking up in about ten minutes.”
Vance chuckled as he stared at me, and that made my cheeks heat. He set his hand on the bench and used it to stand. “Sorry, I lost track of time. We’ll pack up here and get going.”
“If you need the room again, just let us know,” the woman said, her expression the same one I’d seen many times from women looking at Vance—smitten.
Suddenly the idea of kissing him didn’t feel so far-fetched. In fact, a part of me wanted to do it right now, in front of this woman, to make a point.
Except, the woman turned and left before the half-baked idea could spur me into anything embarrassing.
Vance didn’t move away, and him standing above me while I sat put me at a very distinct disadvantage. He cupped my chin, tipping my face up toward him. He ran his thumb along my bottom lip, as though teasing me when he knew what I really wanted. “You know? I think I like you jealous.”
“I wasn’t jealous.”
