“Well, that is the start of it all, is it not?”
Yes, but, “I thought you had moved past that.” How long has it been? Hell, she’d seemed quite over it this morning. Had something happened between then and now that she wasn’t telling him?
“How can I, when I’m constantly reminded of how I am but a tip of a finger in this world of wagging claws?” A helpless note remained.
Warrick wanted to drag a hand through his hair, pinch the bridge of his nose, rub his temples, and slam his fist against a wall. He didn’t have enough hands for all his urges. So, he settled for clenching them.
“Forgive me for pointing this out,” Warrick said, “but you are not making a whit of sense. How are you a fingertip?” If she was a fingertip, what the hell was he? “You didn’t raid your brother’s liquor cabinet, did you?”
“How male of you to assume that if I’m not making sense, I must have been drinking.”
Well, what else was he to assume? How else was he to get her to speak to him, to share what’s truly bothering her? “If you wish to blame me forever, I can take it.” His shoulders were broad. “But I sense there is more than just the list behind this, and I can’t do anything if you don’t tell me what it is.”
Again, she looked away.
“Selena.”
She kept her gaze averted.
“What aren’t we telling each other?” He pushed the desperation that surfaced back down, but some still spilled out. “I can be whatever you want me to be, too.Who, is the only question. Who do want me to be? Who do you want me to be toyou?”
Her eyes lifted to his. “Why should we define and claim inconsequential terms?”
Warrick stared at her. She knew how to make his heart palpitate in all sorts of undesirable beats. “Are you talking about us as lovers?”
“I am speaking in general.”
Warrick shut his eyes. “Damn this miserable curse. It must be flaring up again.”
Calamity would befall him if he didn’t marry before the age of thirty. What was this if not a form of calamity? What was this if not form of a curse?
A bitter truth dawned on him: He was dancing with disaster, and at any moment, the music could stop. And when that happened, he would either be standing with her by his side, or utterly alone.
Chapter Sixteen
Selena’s heart chasedthe beats of the furious clatter of Warrick’s coach as it rattled through the streets of London. Her wrist still tingled where he had led her away in an almost death grip. She rubbed the spot gently, absentmindedly.
He’d been late, so he hadn’t heard. He didn’t know.
Cut ties with Warrick.
How many times had she almost blurted the truth to him from the moment they entered carriage? But she had held back. A part of her wished he’d arrived sooner to overhear her conversation with that woman. Another part of her dreaded the very thing.
She snuck a look at the man’s grim face. Guilt jabbed at her heart. She hadn’t lied to him, she told herself. Everything she told him was the truth. Not the entire truth, but still part of the truth.
Selena, you fool.
She shouldn’t have made it sound as if they had used each other. That was the only part that couldn’t be further from the truth. But she had floundered. She hadn’t known how to act toward him in the wake of hearing that woman’s conditions. Thatonecondition.
Everything she wanted was within her grasp, but the price was hefty. And if she paid it... it might just be the cost of a chunk of her soul. He hadn’t been wrong there. He hadn’t been wrong with many things.
“Are you cold?” His question came so suddenly she jolted.
“I beg your pardon?” She hadn’t even noticed the cold.
“You’re shivering.” He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. Heat spread across her cheeks. The action was so simple, so intimate, it made her heartbeat jump. But then his scent enveloped her, mocking her with the memory of all she desired but hesitated to claim.
“I’m sorry.” He deserved this much. “I made things harder for you, didn’t I?” She felt those dark eyes on her, but she couldn’t meet them. She would not be able to hold back if she did. She would blurt everything out. “I should never have stayed.”
