He was gazing deep into her eyes now.
Do I trust him?”
“What about it?” she stammered.
“Am I someone you can trust?” His question felt like a test.
“I suppose I do,” Isadora replied. “You have kept your promises thus far.”
It was a small confession, but she could feel Evan softening towards her.
Their feet moved in perfect rhythm, but the conversation felt dangerously unbalanced—as if she had already revealed too much.
She needed to regain control.
His turn.
“And what of you? Did you ever imagine yourself married?”
“Oh, I always assumed I would marry eventually.”
She lifted a brow. “For love?”
“Certainly not.”
Something about his easy confidence made her pause.
“You say that as though it is obvious,” she said carefully.
“Why,” he shrugged, “because it is.”
“So, you do not believe in love?”
“Oh, I believe in it,” he said smoothly. “I just have no use for it.”
“Because it is not practical?” She picked at his brain yet again.
Evan hesitated for only a second before he said, “Because I have seen what love does to people.”
Once again, he had managed to catch her off guard. Revealing something so personal with such ease. He seemed to have a real knack for doing that.
“Love is a weapon,” he murmured. “It turns the strongest men into fools, makes them reckless and blind to reason. It gives others power over you, a power they may or may not wield with care.”
Here I was thinking I was the one who was pessimistic about love.Isadora swallowed.
“That is a rather bleak way to look at it.”
“Perhaps. But it is the truth.”
She hesitated. Then—before she could talk herself out of it—she asked, “Have you ever been in love?”
It was not the first time she had wondered that. Of course, she wanted to know if there had been any other women in his life before. Though—the jealous feeling she got when she considered the possibility was alarming.
She pushed it away and focused on the conversation at hand.
“No,” he said at last. “But I have seen enough to know I never will be.”
Never will be.
