Noah continues to devour his pancake, completely focused on the task.
I barely look at Dante. “Thanks for breakfast.”
I don’t make it to the exit before he catches up with me. He grips my wrist and pulls me behind him through the swing doors. On the other side, he pushes my body against wall.
“You’re a bad loser, Tatiana.”
Biting hard on my lip, I blink away the tears building at the back of my eyes. “I hate you.”
He utters the same words of last night, cruelly reminding me of my weakness. “But you loved me once.”
Only then does it dawn on me. Yes, I loved him. I told him so on two occasions, and I remember each of them as if it happened yesterday. Every little detail is imprinted in my mind. Yet he never said those words back to me, and for some reason, the fact escaped me up to now. Maybe I’d been too infatuated back then. Maybe I thought it didn’t matter. But the realization slams into me now, knocking the air from my lungs.
Always seeming to read my mind, he delivers crueler words, still. “You loved enough for both of us. If you could do that once, you can do it again.”
I don’t think he’s aware of how those words carve into me like a blunt knife peeling off my skin.
I wrestle from his grasp, fighting like a wild animal until he lets me go. It takes enormous self-control to calm myself, to straighten my T-shirt, and to lift my chin. “I’ve been a fool for you once, Dante. I won’t be an idiot twice.”
Turning on my heel, I walk down the hallway, but I don’t escape his words that follow me. They shoot like sharp, poisonous darts into my back.
“I told you already. You can make this easy or hard on yourself. Being bitter about it is one thing, definitely not the easy way, but whatever you choose, don’t lie to yourself.”
I flip him off over my shoulder.
Ulysses leans on the wall next to the staff exit. He straightens when I near, his expression alarmed.
I look around and realize the reason for Ulysses’s reaction too late. Dante is stalking toward me with long, angry steps. I break into a run, not caring who sees him chasing me through the hotel, but he’s too fast. He scoops me up and throws me over his shoulder as if I weigh nothing more than a feather pillow.
“Watch Noah,” Dante instructs Ulysses in a cold, hard voice.
I slam my fists on his back. “Put me down.”
He holds me around the back of my knees and opens the door with his free hand. People stare at us as he stalks through the lobby. They gawk until the elevator doors close on us.
“Put me down,” I demand again.
Dante doesn’t listen. He acts as if I haven’t spoken, carrying me past Reino through the quiet suite to the bedroom. Once inside, he kicks the door shut and locks it.
“Dante.”
He walks to the foot-end of the bed. “It’s too late for that, darling.” Taking his phone from his pocket, he leaves it on the nightstand.
My voice is choked. “Too late for what?”
He throws me onto the mattress and flips me onto my stomach. “Too late for begging.”
I turn my face to the side so I don’t smother in the covers. “I’m not begging.”
He straddles me. “You will.”
Panic gets the better of me. “W-what’s that supposed to mean?”
He stretches my hands above my head and keeps them pinned to the bed in one hand while untying the scarf from my neck with the other.
“Dante,” I shriek as he ties my wrists with the scarf. “What are you doing?”
“That was the second time you disrespected me with a vulgar gesture. I was lenient the first time because you were in shock.”
