“I’m ruined,” I repeated with my back to the door, not to sound pitiable but to shine another light on it. He’d ruined me with his love, branded me with an outmoded way of loving that I wanted more than anything in the world.
“No.” He laid a hand on each side of my head and stretched his arms, looking at the floor between his feet. “I’m the one who’s ruined. I was left a widower of a wife I loved, and I fell in love again. I can’t leave the wife; we have a child together. And I can’t leave the woman I love. I can’t be with either.”
“You can go back to her. It’s best for your family.”
“No. I cannot.”
“Why not? Because you feel sorry for me? That’s just—”
“No!” He spoke so sharply I jumped. “No one should feel sorry for you. I pity the man who feels sorry for you. Do you feel sorry for a starving tiger today? Or the animal she rips apart tomorrow?” He stood straight and sliced the air with his hands. “No. You can’t get rid of me so easily. I’m not turning my back on you. You’re mine. You’ll always be mine. We live together, or we die together. There is nothing in between.”
I shook my head, pressing my lips together as if tightening them against the words that wanted to come.
“There isn’t a good end to this,” I said.
“It’s decided.”
He was out of his mind, but I didn’t know how to talk him back to reality. We didn’t both have to be miserable. A measure of happiness could be meted out if he’d just accept that he couldn’t, and shouldn’t, have me.
But he seemed determined to let me drag him down. Then fine, he’d have his damned way. I’d be present at his side, and I’d protect him from harm, but no more.
“There is no sex,” I said. “No kissing. No touching. I do not have affairs with married men, and I don’t play second fiddle. We’re partners. Business partners. Which means if you’re up shit’s creek with the Sicilians, I am too. It means however we decide to remedy that, I’m right there with you. You can’t put me in a box and lock it until it’s safe for me to come out. That’s not what this is.”
“Nothing will happen to you,” he said, softening.
“Well then”—I put my hands on my hips, feeling taller and more powerful than I had even ten minutes before—“nothing will happen to you either.”
His lips were on me so fast, I didn’t have a second to turn away. He smelled so right, and the arches of his body on mine were such a tight fit, I forgot they were a wrong answer brought on by a flawed assumption.
I pushed him away. “I mean it. Do not test me. The next time, I bite. Your tongue will go back in your mouth a bloody piece of meat.”
He smirked, the asshole, and slinked closer without touching me. “I’ll die before I kiss you again.”
In contrast to my voice, his was silken, as if he was saying the exact opposite, that he would kiss me. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but he would kiss me.
My heart sank right into that thought. I wanted that kiss. Wanted it ready to be given when I was ready to take it. I turned my face a quarter of an inch, just enough to feel the heat of his cheek on my own.