“Etta,” he said gently.
She pivoted back. “Don’t call me that.”
The order stung and Theo found himself stepping back from her as if he could avoid a dagger flung at his chest. “Wh-why?” he asked.
“Because it doesn’t belong to you,” she gasped out, and there was the pain again, pulsing beneath the anger. “You do it and you try to make it special. Pretend thatI’mspecial to you, but I’m not.”
“That’s not true,” he began, despite how dangerous those words were.
She threw up her hands. “How? The truth of it is, we knew each other as children when we were pushed together by the circumstance of the friendship of our wretched fathers. You didn’t choose my company. And then you didn’t speak to me beyond a boredgood dayuntil Valaria came to the Row and you were forced back into my sphere by the feelings of your best friend. None of what you do, how you talk to me, what you say to me meansanything.”
That accusation tore through him, and in that moment he recognized the absolute lie of it. It was terrifying to feel the truth and he should have left. But somehow he couldn’t. He couldn’t walk away like this and destroy whatever was being built between them.
He did step toward her then. “I would hope that what just happened between us in that room in the hell shows you that whatever I do, it meanssomething.”
He saw those words move through her, shock her, tempt her, but then she hardened herself to them, to him. She shrugged. “If gossip is to be believed, you do that and far more with many women.”
She wasn’t wrong. His reputation had been born from truth, even if he hadn’t cultivated it on the same level in the last year or so. Why he’d stopped playing so much…well, that was not something he wished to consider. There was too much to this situation to do so. Once again, he was being left with a chance to walk away. To keep himself from wading into waters with this woman that felt too deep, too dangerous.
Only he didn’t. He drew a deep breath and shook his head. “Not like what just happened with you, Etta. It’s never been like it just was with you.”
CHAPTER6
Bernadette stared at Theo, uncertain if she was dreaming…or if she’d simply taken his meaning wrong. But he was looking at her so evenly, so certainly…
“You—you don’t mean that,” she whispered.
A shadow of a smile worked over his handsome face. “You have an awful lot of opinions about my feelings. But you aren’t inside of my head. So let me disabuse you of some misconceptions.”
Bernadette shifted. “Fine.”
“You didn’t mean nothing to me when we were children. I considered us friends of a sort.” He ticked one finger off his hand, but then his expression grew a bit troubled. “I-I know you remember that day in the gazebo.”
She stiffened because she often thought of that day so long ago when she and Theo had connected over their lack of control over their lives. “Yes.”
He leaned a little closer. “Do you think I admitted my struggles to everyone the way I did with you that day?”
There was a flash of vulnerability that crossed his face, just as it had that long ago day. Something hechoseto show her, it seemed, even though she could see how uncomfortable it made him. “No,” she said softly. “If you say you didn’t, then I believe you.”
“Then I hope you’ll also believe that when I call you Etta, it’s because I always felt it suited you.”
“How did you hear it?” she asked, blinking back tears. “Only my grandfather ever called me that.”
He shifted. “I met him once, just before his death. He was your mother’s father, yes?”
She nodded and a flood of thoughts about the man rushed through her. His kind smile, his gentleness, the way he’d sneaked her sweets.
“My father mentioned he was friends with yours and he lit up. He turned to me and said that I must know his Etta. I never thought of you as anything else ever again. But if you don’t like me to call you that,Bernadette, I won’t.”
She drew in a long breath and turned away from him, pacing across the room to the fire. She placed a hand on the mantel, steadying herself as she stared into the flames. “He was the only person who…” She choked on the words and struggled to continue. “Who cared about me. And that little name made me feel special.”
“Because you are.”
She faced him to determine if he was saying that with pity or with something else. But he was too hard to read now. He no longer showed the truth of himself. But by God, he was handsome as he stood there across that small room, his attention focused entirely on her.
“I do like it when you use it,” she said. “He’s been gone so long that it’s becomeyournickname for me, no longer his. All that’s left is that feeling. But you should also know that it’s the secret name I gave at the Donville Masquerade. For my membership.”
His brows lifted. “I see. Well, I’ll be careful in how I use it then.”
