I allow the smile to breach my face. “After everything I’m sure you’ve heard about me, I can only describe your little plan as naïve. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Her chin tips up and a tear rolls down her cheek. “What do you want from me?”
Now, there’s a question. WhatdoI want from her?
No one has asked me that before.
My brothers think they know the answer already. Even Vivienne thinks she knows. They think I want to punish her for what she did, make her hurt, if only a fraction of the hurt I endured for years. But that isn’t enough. Now that she’s here, I want more.
There’s really only one word for it.
“Everything.”
She sucks a bottom lip between her teeth, her arms wrapping around her middle, protectively. Another tear falls.
“Can you be more specific?”
I pause, then let my head shake, slowly.
“Why do you want to leave?” I ask. “Some people would give their right arm to work here.”
She sniffs. “I’m not ‘some people.’”
Fuck if she isn’t right there. Pfeiffer McAllister is like no one else. She’s otherworldly. Untouchable—literally. Which reminds me of her one condition.
“Why ‘no hands’?”
Her arms tighten around her torso. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
I like how defiant she’s being, though I can see the tremble on her lips from all the way over here. I sit forward, resting my elbows on my knees, my hands still clasped, and let my gaze stroke from her toes all the way up her body to those disarming eyes.
“Why do you stare at me?” I ask, softly.
Her lips part, then close, then part again.
“I don’t,” she says finally, but it lacks substance.
I huff out a quiet breath, leaning back just enough to study her properly. “Liar.”
Her eyes flash, irritated.
My next demand is taut. “Answer the question.”
She shifts her weight and digs her fingers into her own arms like she’s holding pieces of herself together.
“Because I like it when you stare back.”
My lungs collapse.
Christ.
I wasn’t expecting that. Her honesty makes my throat dry.
“Why?”
There’s an agonisingly long pause before she replies. “Because the way you look at me makes me…feel.”
I swallow hard. “Feel what?”
