Neil narrowed his eyes until they looked like two smoldering blades, and then he gave me a mocking smile.
“I’ve been busy,” he volleyed back arrogantly. Then he just went back to stowing the groceries in the cupboards and pretended that I wasn’t even there.
“For sure, you were busy. I can only imagine the kind of commitments you had. And, after all, I’m nothing and no one to you!” I snapped.
I couldn’t even recognize myself. No longer was I the reasonable, docile girl who would never raise her voice at anyone. Neil turned to face me, and the icy glare he sent my way was nothing short of terrifying. Still, I held his gaze confidently and stared him down.
Something seemed to waver inside him. It looked to me like his typical arrogant disregard was getting mixed up with something else.
“Selene,” he said softly, and he looked pained. He bit down slightly on his lower lip, and I wondered how many other girls had kissed him since we’d last met. How many had touched and stroked him?
My self-assurance was wavering, getting ready to abandon me to my true emotions.
And what was it that I really felt? Jealousy.
Mostly, I pitied myself. How could I be jealous over a man who didn’t even belong to me? And yet…
My gaze sank down to the floor. It was too hard for me just then to hold his stare.
“You really don’t get it,” he continued. A few seconds later, I could feel him standing in front of me again. I didn’t bother lifting my face to look.The smell of him declared his proximity.
“I do get it, though. You don’t care about me.” I was confident in the words, but my voice trembled, and he grabbed my chin, lifting it until my eyes were forced to lock on his.
I let him do it.
I read sincere shock in his golden eyes along with a tumultuous darkness that made me go weak in the knees.
And maybe dying would have hurt less.
Could you be hurt just from looking into a man’s eyes?
“Is that what you think?” he murmured in surprise.
“Could I think otherwise?” I asked challengingly.
His stare shifted to my lips, and the suffering that flickered across his face made me feel terribly guilty.
How could he turn the tables on me so easily?
I was the one who had been let down and was angry; I was the one who was hurt.
“You know what I could do?” He caressed my chin with his thumb and gave me a sad smile. “I could tell you just how much of the sky you took away with you on the day you left, Tinkerbell. But that wouldn’t do anything to change the situation.”
Neil was so good at sowing chaos in my head with just a few cryptic words, and he was so good at seducing women in general. And yet…
Wait a minute.
He had called me Tinkerbell.
So I was still Tinkerbell to him? Like we’d never even parted? In that moment, he looked so sincere that it brought tears to my eyes.
“Do you remember when I told you that I only wanted to fly in your sky?” he continued, transporting me back in time. It happened in my room—my bathroom, specifically. And of course I remembered it. I remembered everything about the two of us.
“I wasn’t lying to you. I never lied to you.” He licked his bottom lip uncomfortably. I could see how hard it was for him to talk like this with me.
We were silent together for a few seconds, but I knew that moment ofpeace would be followed by something awful.
“But?” I prompted him because I knew he was about to tell me more.
