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The words were so blunt they made my eyes burn.
“I know.”
“That’s how we do this. I know how because I’ve been forced to do it for ten years.”
“And you can just do it,” I said.
He hesitated. “Yes.”
I turned toward him.
He looked straight ahead, beautiful and controlled and infuriating in the morning light, the man I loved and the weapon they’d made, both occupying the same body.
“I won’t be crueler than I have to be,” he said at last. “But this only works if we deliver.”
I told myself it didn’t matter, that it was only temporary. That it was our one way out, and that the ends justified the means. But one perverse, tenacious little question wouldn’t leave me alone.
“And what about me?”
He looked at me. “Marlowe—”
“What would you have done with me?”
His jaw tightened. The sinews in his forearms flexed as he adjusted his grip on the wheel.
“I’d use the exact things about you that made me fall in love with you.”
I felt like I’d been gently punched in the throat. And I’d asked for it. “Such as?”
“I’d use the fact that you’re special, that you’re exceptional, and that no one notices because they’re too busy demanding things from you. I’d use the fact that you’re starving for what you deserve. To be seen, to be chosen. And it would work because there’d be no lie in what I said. And I’d quickly make you feel so loved, you’d forget Vivienne’s name, or how alone you feel.”
I dug my nails into my purse strap and blinked, hard, staring out the window, away from him, from the wound I’d just begged for.
“And you swear you never—” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Never, Marlowe. I never said a word to you that wasn’t true. I never told you you were special, even though I thought it every time I saw you. I told you the design school thing was still in you and then I shut up about it. I let you be tired and mean and scared and I wanted you anyway. The coven’s version would’ve made you feel chosen. Instead I felt chosen. That’s the difference. I actually saw you, and I didn’t do anything with it except fall in.”
I exhaled. Suddenly, it felt like I’d peeled back another layer. All the restraint, the control, the care he’d taken, it was more than just guilt and pain and self-denial. It was because he knew the question I’d just asked would be one he’d eventually have to answer.
Beyond the windshield, everything had turned lush and polished and expensive. Damian turned onto the drive that led to the estate.
“If anyone asks, we met ordering gelato at the farmer’s market,” I said.
“Gelato?”
“Very Emily Henry, I know.”
“Gelato it is.”
He let the jeep idle for a moment in the motor court, by half a dozen service vans.
“I’ll be back at two,” he said, then leaned toward me and kissed me. “Don’t think about what this is. Think about what it gets us. What it gets every woman who deserves better.”
I nodded, a jagged little lump still in my throat, then stepped out onto the gravel and watched him drive away.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Iwalked in to the sound of Sofia cursing under her breath and a plastic clatter against the floor tiles. She ferociously kicked an extension cord into the closet, followed by the garment steamer she’d just used on the linen dress I’d ordered her. She’d paired the dress with brown sandals, a neat bun, and a scowl.
