“You haven’t said much.” She looks to me.
I breathe in, not ready to form words, and walk past her towards the doors leading to the deck outside. Cane. Hope Cane. She suits the family name well.
But Hope Cane isn’t mine. Hope Winters is mine.
MINE.
My eyes watch on for a while as she sits on the floor, cuts and scrapes on her knees. She seems calmer under my stare, less edgy and more like her old self. Perhaps she’s purged herself of the horrors she had to share. I don't know, but I do know I needed to hear them from her, too. It's helped me to see a sliver of sense amongst the sea of hatred I was feeling. Helped to sate something inside of me.
My fingers roll over my beads in thought. So clever. Talented, really. To have played me so long, managed me, all the time hoping to destroy an enemy when the time came. It’s worthy of my respect on some level, rather than my gun. Not that my hand isn't still twitching like hell.
“That it?” I eventually ask, walking in. She sniffs and straightens herself, trying for polished again. I'm over at her and snatching her chin in my fingers before she takes a goddamned breath, not quite ready for her to feel completely safe. She isn't. Not by a long shot.
Truth or not.
She nods and blinks, fear still etched into her features. Good. She can hold onto that for a while longer. Give me time to process all this information. “All right, Hope.”
Although, I’m far from all right. I have no fucking clue what to do next, but I do know that there’s no way I could have killed Hope Winters when I hated her most, so I'm not gonna do it now.
Twenty-Two
Night draws on, and we continue to sit, me on the floor, him in a chair. The pressure in my chest is still there, a dull ache, but at least the initial fear and panic that washed across me are over. Seems my bedtime story routine was good for both of us. We both needed to hear the words spoken. I bottled them up for so long they’d become more destructive than I could have thought. And hearing them seemed to give Benjamin the perspective he needed not to kill me. At least I’m still hoping that’s the case.
I don’t press him further and let him process all that’s transpired. He looked so hurt, so angry when he realised what I was saying. It’s clear to me, even if he won’t admit it, that he has feelings for me. When I think with a logical head, that is. Not that that is easy.
My stupid, damaged heart longs for the words to come from his lips, but I don’t think that will happen. He’s too stubborn. But his actions? That’s what’s giving him away. He could have killed me for such treachery, but so far, rather than that, he's showing me that he has feelings for me. Enough so, that I don’t have a bullet through my skull anyway.
I pull myself to my feet, unsure how he’ll react to me anymore. Every time he touched me, I could feel his power, his need to let go. It coursed through him like a living being.
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?” My words are gentle, like testing the water with your big toe before plunging into the bath. He barely looks at me, staring at the empty fireplace instead.
“Tell me why you flipped the other night,” he says, far too calmly.
“Flipped?” I reply, confused.
“Yeah, shouting, demanding shit from me. What set you off?”
I think about all the moments leading up to that, and how I can explain it in a way that Benjamin will understand. Honesty is my only defence, and I’m sticking to it. “Not telling you about the Canes, hiding my motives and what I've done has been eating away at me. Little by little at first, until it became so overwhelming. They were so close. I could finally see what I’d always thought I wanted. Yet it took them to be here, in front of me, to realise what I really wanted. Plus, everything I felt for you and the thought of you in danger at my hand. You were out nearly getting killed. You started shutting me out. I panicked. I was distraught. I didn’t know what to do.”
He’s silent for a while, playing things over in his mind.
“You told me the truth expecting me to kill you.” It’s a statement and not a question.
“Yes. I know you. How important trust is. And I knew I’d ruined that, but I couldn’t not tell you the truth. I had to put it out there or it would have only made things much, much worse.” My fingers knit in front of me, unsure how to make him understand. “The opportunity that they presented by being so close morphed into this horrible web that I couldn’t untangle without hurting you further. Anything I thought I could do to them would hurt you. I didn’t want that. I never wanted that and so you won. You won over them.” He finally turns to look at me.
“Even if it meant I’d kill you?” The truth of those words hits straight into my stomach again, warning me of who he still is.
“I had to take the risk. What have I got without you?” I try to make my voice sound matter of fact, but it comes out sad and woeful. My eyes flick to him, hopeful now we're discussing this without his anger haunting the room so intently. Although, that calm could easily evaporate into thin air. “I’m sorry.”
“Damn it, Hope.” He rises, practically throwing the chair back with his force before storming towards me.
I scramble up from my position and wait for him to reach me. There are no more words left to say. No more tears. I need to meet Benjamin head on.
“I’m so fucking pissed at you. Do you know what you’ve done? What you’ve done in here?” He pats his chest. His body hums with violent threat, jaw tense, his body primed, but I won’t turn away.
The searing kiss comes from nowhere. Benjamin’s hands tangle painfully in my hair and hold me still as his mouth works over mine. The kiss is filled with raw need, his lips demanding my submission and surrender. Instead of questioning his actions, I give in. I let him in and give him anything he wants.
He senses the change in me and presses harder against me, grasping me and carrying me over the broken fragments on the floor to a clearer area. His fingers tear into the fabric I’m wearing, shredding it. His lips lift from mine and his eyes, black like the night, eat me up.
