“Would you like to see a tantrum?” she asked very quietly. The kind of quiet that was never safe for anyone. “I think Iwillthrow a tantrum. I’ve never been allowed. If I cried, I was sent to the kitchens. If I yelled, I was beaten until I apologized. If I rebelled…” She shook her head. The tears didn’t justtricklenow, they poured out.
But she didn’t sob. No, there was as much anger as hurt in her expression and her tears.
And it was too easy to imagine what she spoke of. King Enzo’s fists and her delicate build. If anything tested his resolve, it was that. “Evelyne.”
She whirled away from him, kicked over the box. The contents clattered around, but didn’t spill out. That clearly didn’t satisfy her, so she gave it another kick. When that did little more than clatter around again, she marched over to a little decorative shelf—new since the last time he’d been here. On it she’d arranged some colorful bits of shells and glass and tiny vases. She picked one of the vases up, hurled it across the room, where it crashed against the wall, glass splintering.
“How is that for childish?” she demanded. “Perhaps now that you’re leaving me alone, I will justalwaysact like a child. Perhaps now that you’re abandoning me after I was forced to leave everything I’ve ever known,thatis what I will lean into. Perhapschildishis who I am, Gabriel.”
Her breath was heaving, her eyes wide and wild. He wanted to find himself disparaging of her behavior, but it was hard not to understand. Yes, he had saved her—something he accepted knowing he’d enjoyed it too much, knowing the dangers ofsaving, but it’s not like being removed from a threat and being plunked down in the middle of luxury meant she couldn’t beangrythat choice and hope had been stripped from her.
He had known she could be mad, but he’d assumed she’d handle it with icy, royal dignity. Some pithy remarks.Maybehe’d anticipated some tears. But not this wild, immature undoing.
Certainly not his reaction to it. Fascinated, aroused. She was usually so poised. Even when they’d been sneaking out of Alis, hopping from plane to train and back again, she’d kept up that regal princess-like behavior, wilted—yes, but held together. Even when she’d come to his room in her skimpy nightgown, tempting him, attempting to seduce him, she had maintained her control.
Now it was gone. She was the ocean, crashing against the rocks, furious and glorious all at once.
She grabbed another tiny vase, hurled it against the wall again. This one did not shatter, but it dented the wall, fell to the floor with athud. “You get to choose to leave me. You get to choose to reject me. What do I get to choose? Nothing. Not even you.”
He watched her eyes track to the last vase, and then the giant window. “But if you’re abandoning me, you have no say in what I choose.” She said this with an almost eerie kind of calm after the outburst directly before it.
She reached for that vase, her eyes on the window. He wasn’t sure it would do damage against the thick glass, but he wasn’t about to let her find out. He crossed the room and took her by the arms. He gave her a gentle shake.
“Enough,” he ordered, but he kept his grip on her arms so she could not fight him or try to destroy more. “Stop this now.”
She tossed her hair back, chin darted up to stare him down, even though she was nearly a foot shorter than him.
“What are you going to do if I don’t stop? Beat me?” she demanded.
But touching her was such a curse. He could think of nothing but the kiss they’d shared. The way she felt against his body. He couldn’t even fully absorb her words, because he was lost in the golden threads in her eyes.
Even amid this wild tempest her scent was something sweet and delicate. For a month that scent had been at the edges of his life. There had been times he’d find himself distracted by it, look around whatever room he was in expecting to see her.
“You haunt me.” He said the words as if he’d been cracked open and they’d simply fallen out. Against his will. Against his everything.
Some of that fury in her expression faded, but the chin didn’t go down, the tension in her muscles didn’t relax. She held his gaze, defiant. “Good.”
Good, she said.Goodas if any of this wasgood.
He knew what he had to do. Release her. Walk out of this house. Never,everreturn no matter what Alexandre asked of him.
There was still a way out. Just disentangle himself. Walk right out the door. Resist this one more time and then he would never, ever allow this temptation in his life again.
She bent her arms, and he did not let her go, but he did not stop what she was doing. Which was reaching up to her shoulders and pulling the straps of her dress down. Nothing could happen if he did not let her arms go. The straps would be stuck. She could not make this happen.
He dropped his hands. The dress fell. There was nothing particularly alluring about the underwear she wore under it. Serviceable cotton, he supposed.
But there waseverythingalluring about the woman who stood before him. Her hair, glinting honey in the cascading afternoon light, wild around her shoulders. The pale golden expanse of her skin. She leaned back against the wall behind her as if in offering to him.
Even as his body raged with want, he catalogued every beautiful feature. He thought he could have spent his entire day just looking at her.
But Evelyne had other plans.
“Touch me.” She reached out, took his hand. “Feel how much I want you.”
Madness. Obsession. Danger that would obliterate everything he’d built. Some echoing voice in the back of his head told him to stop. This was the last step before stopping was not an option.
But he did not pull his hand away. He let her draw him to the apex of her thighs. He cupped her there, half convinced there was still some exit route behind this.
