“And what about now?”
“Not the worst,” I choke out.
“But still pretty terrible.”
I nod. His eyelashes are so long. What a ridiculous detail to notice. I shift my gaze away from the way his throat shifts as he swallows.
“And now?” Niklaus dips me backward, lowering my weight with effortless ease.
And I let my head fall back with the blood rushing to my face. It feels way too good to let his hand arch my lower back like this. Why the hell does it feel that good?
I’m brought back slowly, meeting his eyes as he holds me a breath away.
“Good,” I say, and I swear, if I breathe a little heavier, my lips will touch his. That small movement would bring me into this grasp.
“Better.”
I’m twirled around once, but instead of sending me to the next partner, Niklaus tugs me into his chest again, skipping the swap with a possessiveness I haven’t seen in him before.
“Why did you do it?” I blurt out. Maybe it’s the alcohol. Maybe it’s the familiarity of this setting that’s giving me flashbacks.
“Do what?”
“Kiss me.”
“Hmm?”
“You took my first kiss.” I hold my breath. “I didn’t give it to you. You took it from me.”
“I remember,” he says.
“Well, why did you do it?! I wanted Dorn to be my first kiss! I spent hours getting ready for that ball. HOURS!” I look around in embarrassment after raising my voice. “How could you do that to me?”
Not that he hasn’t done worse. But that one stung. That one left me sobbing all night, still in my ballgown.
Niklaus darts his eyes away, unable to look at me. He raises his eyebrows and nods for me to look over at the couple next to us.
“Answer m—”
The voice to my right cuts me off. Cuts off my thoughts. Cuts off my oxygen.
“I guess it’s finally time for Aurick and me to get acquainted, hmm?” my father says in a low voice, hovering his mouth close to my mother’s cheek.
He attended this ball? How? He was a patient…
“Nooooo, absolutely not,” my mother responds, trying to block his view of Niklaus’s father.
Patient Thirteen twirls her around his finger. “You think I’m going to cause a scene?”
My father is dressed in an expensive, charcoal tuxedo that looks too tight around the arms and shoulders. And I have topause, hold my breath, blink away the drunkenness clouding my eyes. Because the way he looks at my mother is aconfused mix of a ferocious restraint not to fall for her and a devastating hopelessness because he knows it’s too late.
He’s fallen.
Though he’s trying hard to hide it, it’s blatantly obvious.
My father’s eyes are so dark, so cruel, they’re almostevil. Murder, torture, an eagerness to inflict pain in creative ways…yet there is a tenderness as they rest on her face, studying her concerned expression. A silent yearning to touch her. A hesitation to show her how black his soul really is.
Something about it all makes me want to cry.
