Like I was worthy.
It shocks me a little, how badly I want to be worthy of him. How badly I want to not be the movie star with dirty little secrets in her past…and now, her present.
“Veronica.” His voice is as steady as it is no-nonsense. But there’s an authority there, too—the same kind I heard in his voice last night when he kept me pinned against that window. “Look at me please.”
I do, of course I do, my gaze jumping to his like he’s the puppet master who holds my strings. It’s not an analogy I necessarily like, but in this moment it’s so completely apropos.
“Is that okay with you? Can I maybe ask you some questions now?”
“Ask me a—” My voice breaks, so I clear my throat and take a couple deep breaths before trying again. “Ask me anything.”
He smiles and for a moment, just a moment, I see the man who’s been my adversary—my equal—from the moment I first strolled into that sidewalk café. “We’ve come a long way if you’re giving me carte blanche,” he tells me. “Especially considering four days ago I couldn’t get a straight answer out of you to save my life.”
“Yeah, well, I just finished trying to claw your eyes out. I think that gives you some leeway.” I lift a hand to his cheek, rub my thumb over the scratch I put there when I was trying to get away from him. I didn’t draw blood, but it’s red and angry looking and I hate that I did that to him. Hate even more that there are other scratches, other marks, on his body that I put there in fear and rage and distrust.
“Don’t,” he says, and once again it sounds like an order.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t blame yourself for a few scratches when your body is covered in the bruises I gave you.” He glides his thumb over a particularly livid one on my thigh.
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure I enjoyed getting mine a whole lot more than you did yours.”
“To be honest, I don’t remember getting any of these scratches. I was too busy worrying about you.” My smile slowly fades at the reminder of what just happened—and what’s still to come. He nods, like he knows what I’m thinking, then proves he does when he says, “Talk to me, Veronica. Then maybe we can get this out of the way and move on to other things.”
I nearly laugh. Like that’s even a possibility? I have a feeling what happened here tonight is going to linger for a long while to come. Insanity tends to do that, after all.
I should know.
“Tell me about the brooch,” he instructs after giving me a few seconds to prepare myself. “What is it about it that bothers you so much?”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“Should I? Is it some famous jewelry of your mother’s?”
“It’s famous jewelry of the Belladonna’s. The costume designer on the movie found it at an auction in D.C. and we kind of made it into her signature piece. I used it in all her important scenes.”
“Oh. No wonder you were so revolted when you found it in your hair.”
The look on his face tells me he knows that when I say “important,” I mean “violent.” And he’s right. Every time I think of the scene where I had to dismember the body—the gallons of fake blood drenching my hands, dripping down my legs, splattering my clothes, my shoes, my face as I hacked away at prosthetic arms and legs and head—I want to vomit.
It’s been months and I still can’t sleep for more than a few hours without having nightmares about that scene. I can’t cut into a piece of meat without thinking about it, can’t even take a shower without flashing back to the hours I spent trying desperately to get the blood off. Trying desperately to wash away the memories of what I had pretended to do, of what she had actually done.
Ian doesn’t let me dwell, though. Instead, he rubs a soothing hand down my back even as he shifts my attention over to the issue at hand. “So the brooch is part of the props for the movie, not a part of your personal collection?”
“Yeah. It’s not my style at all.”
“I wondered, when I saw it in your hair. But I figured it was just part of the look.”
Oh right. The look. Her look, not mine. The one he found so hot and sexy at the party tonight.
I shove the thought aside, pretend it doesn’t bother me as I assure him, “After what I had to do in the movie while wearing that pin, I would never willingly put it on again.”