Strategy,I tell myself.Choosing my battles. Studying the enemy.
But the truth is darker than strategy or studying the enemy. I want to see his eyes darken when he sees me in this dress. I want his breath to catch the way it did last night, that small hitch that makes me feel powerful, even if the power is only over his desire.
I want him to want me.
The admission twists in my stomach, sick and hot, because saying it out loud, even just in my head, makes it real.
I pull the dress from the hanger. The silk whispers against my fingers, cool and liquid. I step into it slowly, letting it glide up my legs, over my hips, settling against my bare skin like it was made for this moment. No bra, the cut doesn’t allow it. That’s the practical excuse I give myself. The real reason is harder to face. I like how his gaze tracks every line of me through the thin fabric, how it feels to be wanted even when every rational part of me screams that I shouldn’t crave that look.
I leave my hair down. He prefers it loose, and I know that now, have noticed it in the way his eyes linger when it falls over my shoulders, the way his fingers twitch as if he is trying to stop himself from touching it.
The mirror shows me a stranger.
Auburn hair wild and untamed around my face. Green silk clinging to curves I’ve never paid much attention to before. The hickey on my neck blooming purple and unmistakable. His mark, his claim, impossible to hide or deny.
My eyes are too bright. Cheeks flushed. I look like someone who wants to be touched.
Who is this woman?
Not Violet Murphy from Boston. Not the restorer who spent years keeping everyone at arm’s length. Not the girl who learned that needing people gets you hurt. Someone new. Someone being built from the rubble of who I used to be.
The plan,I remind myself.Stick to the plan.
Go to dinner. Study him like a restoration project. Find the cracks in his foundation. Find something to hurt him with.
Make it easier to hate him again.
Because hating him was simpler. Clean lines. Clear enemy. Now everything is complicated. Now I understand him. His mother, his damage, the grief buried deep behind his eyes. Now I want him despite knowing exactly what he is.
Wanting a monster is the most dangerous crack of all.
I walk to the dining room.
Each step deliberate. Not a prisoner being summoned. A woman choosing battle.
Even if the battle is with herself.
18
VIOLET
The dining room is candlelit when I arrive.
Dozens of flames flicker from iron candelabras, casting the stone walls in gold and shadow. Like a cathedral. Like a seduction. Like both at once.
Elio is already seated at the head of the table. Watching the doorway.
Watchingme.
His attention locks onto the green silk first. Tracks down my body with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. Then up to the hickey on my neck. His mark, purple and proud. Satisfaction flashes across his face, then hunger. His hands tighten on the chair arms, knuckles going white.
Good.
I wanted a reaction. I got one.
I cross to the table, the silk whispering against my bare thighs, and I know he’s tracking every movement as I walk to the chair across from him.
His jaw tightens as I sit. Almost imperceptible. But I’m learning to read him now, and that micro-expression might as well be a billboard.
