“I don’t do Italian, Sweetheart,” he comments plainly.
“We both know that’s a lie,” I state, a grin slowly growing upon my lips, but it doesn’t last long. “If I hadn’t have let you have your way with me, I’d still be on some sort of plan. Not telling you what I really am. If I had just listened to my rational side and not the side you bring out in me, then maybe I might have gotten what I was supposed to.”
“So, was that always your plan?” he asks, his jaw tensing with the question. “Seduce me only to fucking poison me?” I can’t stand to look at him, to see that malevolent anger engulfing him. It’s his disbelieving chuckle that makes me look at him, the sudden swipe forcing me to jump down, but he has the bottle again and I gulp. “He really did a number on you, didn’t he?” Zane asks me rhetorically. “Us meeting...it was never a coincidence, was it? It was all part of some grand scheme that father of yours put you up to!”
“He knows what you’re up to,” I growl, my own betrayal at him looking into my life but never seeking me out seeping through. “We all know you’re trying to bring him down. It’s my job to stop you. Regardless of what my feelings are toward you, I have to do this.”
“Fuck,” he swears as the realization dawns. “I fucking fell in love with a murderer!” It’s with that he launches the small vial toward the far wall. On impact it shatters, the poison splattering across the surface before rolling down in tiny trickles. “And I should hate every-fucking-thing about you!” He’s lashing out and I let him. I take this because it’s the least I deserve. “It should change how I feel about you, Amelia! It should change absolutely everything!” His voice is bellowing, but slowly his face melts. “But it doesn’t.”
“What?” I squawk, my eyes widening.
He comes toward to me, his hands frame my face fiercely, and he looks into my eyes. “I’ve known for so long you’re the identity the PD have been after on the Femme Fatale case. I never voiced it. I never will, not even with the proof I just had.”
I squirm away from him. “I kill men, Zane. How can you possibly say that? I’m a contract killer on my father’s say so. You’re my next hit. How can you not turn me in now?”
“Because I know you can’t do it.” He calls my bluff, watching me, daring me to defy him. “If you had it in you, you’d have killed me a long time ago. You wouldn’t have given yourself to me like you have. If you were as ruthless as the tabloids have you down as, Amelia, I would have known. It’s how I know you haven’t changed.”
“I’m a killer,” I admit and divert my gaze.
“Not by will,” he comments so softly as his thumb grazes across my cheek. “Now look at me.”
I do and I speak, “We aren’t meant for forever. This isn’t for forever. He’s made sure of that.”
“We’ll deal with that matter when we cross it.” Zane steps toward me, instantaneously cradling my face. “If you wanted me dead, you wouldn’t be here. If you were a killer, Amelia, there wouldn’t be this amount of emotion. No matter how much you wanted to trick me, you wouldn’t make round two feel like round one.” He’s using the same saying on me, making me realize that this is almost liberation. “You don’t want to kill me, do you?”
“I don’t want to kill you,” I murmur brokenly, looking at him. “It’s not something I’ll ever be capable of doing, Zane. “
“Well then, for now, I want you. Not some guise he’s put on you, but the woman who makes me believe in love.” I try to remain strong, but I want him. I need him to wipe away the dirt I feel at the ridicule of my identity I’ve been dragging around for years. He seems to notice, and I find my back's pushed into the corner. The man before me is feral and in need of some sexual gratification that only I'm key to. He wants to forget about the scene that just transcended between us. He doesn’t care for what I’ve done. He knows I’m not here to harm him. He’s right, if I were, I’d have done it on our first meeting. "Shall we try this again, Princess?" he asks me, gripping my near naked form, his fingers kneading me with readiness. "Unless you've got a vial of that shit inside you waiting for my rock hard cock to shatter it, that is."
“That was it,” I whisper, my voice nothing more than a husk. My eyes look over his shoulder to the stain and then I divert my gaze back. “I’m powerless now.”