Her mask cracked and then completely crumbled right before his eyes.
Finally.
She glared at him, her slight form trembling. She stabbed a finger in his direction. “Do you remember the first time I met you? You threatened tokillme.”
He winced. “Those were extenuating circumstances.”
“And the bullying? Constantly, you made me feel like I was worth less than you on our journey, an inconvenience. You told me I stank! I almost died twice on our trek underneath your so-called protection. At what point should I have felt safe?”
Dahlia stomped around the table and crowded into his space, her face so full of defiance that his body surged with another wave of heat. All he wanted to do was get lost in her fire and her body.
Pay attention.
She stabbed him in the chest with her blunt finger, the nail ragged and torn, a small testament of her struggles. “From the moment we met, we have been enemies. Nothing more, nothing less. In what world could I feel safe enough with you that I could speak my mind?”
Neve laid his hands on her pink cheeks, cooling his palms. “The one in which I love you.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Neve
For a moment,everything was just right.
The answering emotion shimmered in her gaze, and his hearts picked up. While it was stupid to tell her such a thing, he wouldn’t take it back. Their relationship was a deformed, damaged thing, but it was still theirs.
It was a relief to have it out there.
Neve was exhausted from trying to hide it from her. One of them had to be brave.
Her eyes filled and then slammed shut, the tears spilling onto his thumbs. Unable to help himself, he pressed his lips to her salty tears, feathering kisses over the bridge of her nose under her right eye. This felt right. There was so much distrust between them, but at this moment, there was nothing better than his mate in his arms.
“I didn’t know you were capable of such cruelty,” she whispered brokenly.
He frowned. “And I did not know you were capable of such violence, and yet, here we are.”
She jerked out of his hands, and it was as if a bucket of ice water had been tossed over his head. Lia shook her head, her lips thin as she backed away.
What had just happened?
Dahlia was acting like he’d wounded her. He had only stated the truth.
“You told me this would happen, and yet I walked right into it.”
Neve held his hand up in question. “What?”
“Your trap.”
“My trap,” he parroted, brows furrowed in confusion.
“Youtoldme this was how you broke people,” she said, wiping the tears from her face with her sleeve. “And I still almost fell for it.” She chuckled, the sound harsh to his ears. “What a stupidvallesI am. You almost had me.”
Neve scowled, running a hand through his hair. She thought this was all a joke? Some sick game? This was their lives, their happiness in the foreseeable future. He was trying to extend a bloody olive branch. His feelings were real. He had been brave enough to utter them out loud despite her betrayal.
Here is your out.
It would be so easy to laugh scornfully right now and pretend like he’d been playing her.
But he could not do it.
