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“I have several.”
“I mean on yourarm.”
She freezes, looks at me, drops her fork and quickly pushes her sleeve back down. I grab her wrist before she can move back, push the sleeve back up. Her arm is covered from wrist to elbow with leaves and small, five-petalled flowers. I look back up. “Deadly nightshade.”
She shrugs and tilts her head. “The devil’s flower.”
She tugs her arm, and I let her go. My stomach has a gathering storm inside it, a sensation I wish I could stifle down because it makes me feel ungrounded and on edge and breathless.
“You covered your scars up.”
“I can promise you they’re still there,” she snaps.
“But you covered them up.”
“They reminded me of something I no longer need to remember.”
And for a moment, I forget that we’re in a restaurant in New York. I forget about Evan and Sophie, watching wide-eyed and uncomprehending from the safety of their functional, loving relationship.
All I can see is Willow, and all I can think of is Willow’s body, Willow’s revenge list and the silk embroidery of the scars on her arms and thighs, and Willow’s pain and jubilance and desires, and everything I wanted to give her and everything she wanted for herself.
“I regret it.” The words fall from my mouth, hard and terribly real. “I regret taking Richard Thornton’s fate from your hands. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”
Willow shrugs, but I see the shuddering of her throat as she swallows. “It’s probably for the best, though, isn’t it? It’s not like I would’ve had the power to put him away. And I don’t regret not going to prison because of him, so don’t bother with—”
“But I could’ve asked you. I could’ve done it with you. I wanted to—it doesn’t matter. I’msorry. You have no idea how sorry—how much I wish I could take it back. It’s my only regret.”
She raises her eyebrow at me. “Youronlyregret? Not the contract? Not hunting me for sport? Not setting your dog on me?”
“You set your dog on her?” Evan exclaims, eyes wide in outrage.
“You shouldn’t have run,” I tell Willow.
“You know what’s a good idea, next time you like a girl? Instead of hunting her or setting your dog on her?” Evan says. “Asking her out.”
“That wouldn’t have worked,” I tell him, eyes on Willow.
“You could’vetried,” she says.
I can tell she’s enjoying Evan playing white knight to her poor damsel in distress act—a grift of a different sort. She probably loves being coddled, deep down, like the evil, self-indulgent cursed black cat she is.
She’d probably be quite partial to Evan’s dogged devotion or Sev’s obsessive romanticism or Zach’s all-consuming adoration. I don’t even want to think about how she’d feel about Iakov Kavinski and his pathological need to protect women.
I make a note to myself to never let her anywherenearIakov.
“May I remind you it wasyouwho drew first blood,” I tell her instead.
“It seems as though we’ve drifted back into not-so-useful territory,” Sophie interjects. “Why don’t you actually tell us your terms for the dissolution of the contract? We’re here to negotiate, aren’t we? So what is it youactuallywant, Luca?”
My eyes fall on Willow, stay on Willow. Isn’t it obvious what I want?
“He doesn’t want anything,” Willow says with a mocking scoff. “He just likes the illusion of power it gives him.”
“Luca?” Sophie asks, looking at me.
I turn towards her, I meet her dark, clever eyes. And I answer with complete honesty.
“I want Willow to move back into my house, I want her to cook her disgusting meals in my kitchen and read her disgusting comic books on my couch. I want her sleeping in my bed. I want to kiss her stupid mouth and lick her stupid cunt. I want to hunt her and fight her and fuck her on every surface of my property and in every Four Seasons hotel in the world. I want to put a collar on her neck and a ring on her hand, I want to make her my fucking wife and get her pregnant with my children.”
