“I want you, but you won’t let me have you.”
“Most normal people accept that when someone doesn’t want them, they have to move on. That’s what sane people do. They don’t hold them hostage with their power. They don’t threaten them or harm the people around them,” Honey argued, feeling as if she were talking to a brick wall, and she was sure Antonis felt the same.
“I am not a normal man. I am Antonis Tsagkarakis. I get what I want. I have ruled this tristate for decades. Most women would be begging on their knees to have me, but you—” he gritted his teeth.
She didn’t care if every woman on earth wanted him. She never would.
“The moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you were mine,” he said, his face open with a level of vulnerability that she had never seen on him before; one that made him look less like a monster and more like a desperate man. “Why can’t you see the same? I can give you everything you’ve ever wanted. You don’t have to work in the backrooms. You don’t have to dance for other men. If you want to cook, you can cook for me.”
Honey scuffed and looked away, but Antonis reached over, grabbing her chin, and forcing her to look at him.
“I can give you the world, but you won’t let me. I can give you everything he gave you, but you won’t let me. Just like this wine and food, you won’t try me. I’ve waited long enough, but if I wait any longer for you to see me, I’ll wither away and starve.”
Honey tried to pull her chin away, but Antonis wouldn’t budge.
“I want to live with you,” he confessed, and Honey slapped his hand away, looking at him with fury. How dare he say that when he had just taken another man’s life away?
“You want to know the difference between you and Nikos,” Honey said. “He gave me all of those things with no stipulations. I didn’t need to fuck him for him to allow me to work in the backroom or give floor performances. He allowed me to do that all on his own and when I got hurt working the first time, he was willing to give me money just to be in my company… in my fucking company, Antonis. He could have taken advantage of that, and I thought he would, but he didn’t. He never forced me, he never used his power over me. He wanted me to stop working at the club so I would be safe, and I could follow my dreams. Not so I could be a doll he could play with. He was nothing like you.”
Antonis’s green eyes were enraged, and Honey knew he was probably imagining what every moment had been like between them. But even then, he wouldn’t be able to do it because the way Nikos had treated her was a way that Antonis would never be able to. He would never be able to love her properly, never be able to treat her the way she deserved. He would never be able to cease being the man he was.
“Well, too bad he’s gone now, and touching what’s mine got him killed.”
Honey’s eyes watered, an automatic reaction that wouldn’t go away, and quite frankly, she was tired of him reminding her of something that she already knew because if Nikos were here, she wouldn’t be in this restaurant right now, forced to play a doll.
“It doesn’t matter if he’s gone now,” she said, “ because you’ll never be able to have me the way Nikos had. You can force me all you want, but you’ll never be able to have me the way that you truly desire. You want to know what I first thought when I laid eyes on you,” she said, looking him in the eye. “I thought ‘This is a dangerous man, and I will stay away from him,’ and I was right.”
Antonis slammed the table loud enough that it drew everyone’s attention. The restaurant was quiet as everyone watched their table warily. She could see the waiters, looking caught between wanting to come over and assess the situation and fearing to. She could not blame them. She had rattled a snake, and it looked ready to bite everyone, even her.
She waited with a bated breath, wondering what he would do next, seeing the veins of anger in his jaw and roping along his wrists.
“Let’s go,” he announced as he stood abruptly. “I’m done with this meal.”
As he walked away, she nearly sighed with relief, glad that this farce of a meal would be over with, but then he paused, and she stiffened again as if she were a doll wined up back to life.
“Don’t think this is enough to end us. I’ll make you love me one day. I promise it, Honey.”
She watched his back in disbelief as he charged towards the exit.
He was delusional if he thought she would ever love him. He could be the last man on earth, and she would never love him. Not only because she despised him so, but because it felt like her heart had already been stolen by someone else.
C H A P T E R
47
HONEY SAT NEAR THE WINDOW, LOOKING OUTSIDE while Kai played with the big race track that Nikos had got for him. She was glad her son had something to distract his mind because he had been asking about Nikos a lot lately— asking why he wasn’t answering the phone and when he would visit again. But instead of telling the truth, she had made up every excuse possible because she could not find the right words to tell her son that the man he had grown attached to would never come over again.
Just the thought of it made her eyes water again, and she turned her body further to the window, so her son wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes and ask her what was wrong. As she lookedout, she noticed the familiar black truck parked across the street and scuffed. She felt like a prisoner in her own home, having Antonis’s men watching her twenty-four-seven.
She guessed that Antonis was more scared than ever before that she would flee, but right now, she felt weak, and she didn’t have the strength to run anywhere. There was no point in even trying anyway.
Antonis’s power had too much reach beyond her control. Running would be pointless, and though her funds were much better now, and she could probably relocate to a different state, she knew Antonis would be able to find her.
“Alright. Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” Olivia asked as she sat down on the chair in front of her, and Honey blinked before sighing deeply when she realized she had forgotten that her sister had come to visit her today. She had been so deep in her own thoughts that it slipped her mind.
“Nothing.”
Olivia gave her a look, and Honey knew she had been pushing her luck.
