“I was,” he said callously.
“So, what is going to happen if I am not your pawn?”
Dorian rubbed his jaw, “I do not know… yet. But I will figure it out in time.”
She slumped into her seat. “We fight like cats and dogs. We have nothing in common, and I have no interest in giving up who I am to be your wedded ornament.”
He tilted his head. “Let me guess, you will only marry forlove.”
“Precisely,” she narrowed her eyes. “What of it?”
“Love does not exist,” he scoffed.
She gasped. “It does! How dare you!”
“Sure, in those sordid novels your sex reads,” he continued, “maybe princes do exist, sweetheart, but none of them will be the hero you envision riding in on a white horse to save you. In your case, you’ll have to do with a villain with his bag of tricks and shadows.”
Ellie held onto the fraying edge of her temper. “I wouldn’t expect a man like you to know anything about love and romance if it smacked you in the face.”
“I’d rather it not bruise my jaw,” Dorian replied matter-of-factly. “It is my best asset. But back to the topic at hand. I may not know about thisloveyou speak of, but I do know human nature, and it is a far cry from the tender-hearted notion you expect.”
“What is it then?”
“There's no trust, no faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, all forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.”
Her lips parted in shock while her eyes flickered between his two. “You know Romeo and Juliet. I thought you didn’t give such things your attention.”
“I said I was a brute, not a savage.” Dorian stood and moved to the kitchen.
She followed him to the stove, where the four flaky, round pies sat cooling. He quirked a brow at her. “Did you bake those or did you sneak away and buy them?”
Ellie dropped her lids to half-mast. “Is my hair still attached to my head?”
“It is,” he fished for a fork.
“You warned me if I did sneak away, your men would drag me back, so no, I did not go out and buy them,” she rolled her eyes. “I made them all.”
Sinking the tines into the middle of one, a corner of Dorian’s lips curled when it came out clean. He lifted a forkful and ate. “This is done well. I am surprised.”
“That it is edible? I am too,” Ellie replied. “But I still object to your marriage offer.”
He let out a grunt. “You are so stubborn.” Placing the fork down, he strode out of the room, and Ellie followed him as he went to a room she’d never set foot in yet. “You want to negotiate? Let’s do it.”
From the large desk near a window and the leather furniture dotted around the room, she deduced it was his study. Dorian rounded his escritoire, flipped open a book, and ripped a page out of it. He then dumped a quill into an inkpot and pushed both to her.
“Write out your demands for this marriage,” he said, both palms flat on the table. “What I can assure you is that by simply having my name, you will have the freedom and protection to do whatever you please.
“Aside from the things we will show as a married couple, I have no interest in what you do, but I am telling you, you will not be safe alone as long as Carrington is alive.”
When he’d saidmarriage, a part of her had been sure he’d been jesting, but the set of his brow and the hard jut of his jaw told her he was not. “You’re… serious.”
“I am.”
Her eyes dropped to the paper, but then back to him. “There is no other way?”
“Not as far as I see it.” He nudged the paper.
She swallowed, then looked around. “My first demand is that you find the boy who used to live here.”
