Yes, there was more clarity and for once she felt like she was getting a broader view into that complicated head of his.
For the last hour, she finally felt like she understood him, though the notion baffled her considering she’d thought she had known him pretty well.
Or at least known him enough to make vows on the sunny shores of a beach in Bora Bora.
Kit stood the second Donna was out of the room, the door clicking shut quietly behind her. But he didn’t cross to her and invade her space, making demands.
Instead, he sat on the table directly in front of her, hands resting on his knees as he regarded her.
She hadn’t noticed at first, too lost in the tales of their love and heartbreak to see the change that had come over him.
In his quest to get her back, he had been kinder, gentler even than he had ever been in the years she had known him. And even during this session, he had offered secrets she was sure he wouldn’t give had she asked for them.
But, just as she had when she’d swallowed her pride and gone to see him to help Celt, that darker almost demanding side of him was now bleeding through—more so than ever.
She didn’t like it, not when it felt like he was breaking her will.
“What do you want, Kit?” she asked, voice barely above a whisper. She remained rooted in place, locked beneath his gaze.
“You,” he said in return, with absolute conviction. “But we both know this. The question is, what do you want, mi peque?a luna.”
How long had it been since he had used that pet name for her?
Just the sound of it made her ache for him. All the strength and resilience she had built up over the last several months undone by three little words.
Before when he had asked her that question, the answer was easy.
She wanted away from him.
She wanted to never see his face again.
And more than anything, she had wanted him to hurt the way he hurt her.
It ached when she left him, like someone had taken a knife to her chest and carved, but the spiteful side of her knew that it hurt him more.
“I didn’t know it was because of Uilleam,” she said, reminded of his words. “When I found out you had accepted a contract with my mother, I …”
“You thought I was trying to hurt you?”
Luna shook her head. “Not in the way you mean.” She knew he would never do something like that, not purposefully. “I thought you were trying to make a point—teach me a lesson—that business was separate from what we have—had.”
He noticed her slip, but he didn’t call her on it. “There are rules, even ones that I can’t break. It’s not about the enemy in front of you, it’s the one standing at your back that you can’t see. And if you think for a fucking moment that she’s not going to answer for what she did to you, then perhaps I haven’t shown you what you mean to me enough.”
No, she knew, though the notion may have slipped her mind in the midst of her hurt.
There wasn’t a single person that she could think of that hadn’t answered for the part they played in her being here, in this moment.
Not her father.
Not the men that had taken her to the warehouse.
Not Lawrence and his friends.
Uilleam too.
Even Kit, though it was she that was punishing him for his part, though now she wondered if he was punishing himself by keeping his distance.
“Who told you about the contract?” he asked, gaze searching her face.
“Does it matter?”
“To me? Yes.”
“Why?”
“Humor me.”
Though she wasn’t sure why it mattered, Luna told him anyway. “Someone of the Den.”
“Luna.”
“I don’t remember his name,” she said quickly, hearing the thread of impatience in his voice. “And he didn’t tell me, per se. He was talking about working a job out in California and happened to mention ‘the facilitator’ being out there as well working with the Contreras Cartel. I just happened to overhear him.”
“A coincidence then,” he stated, but he didn’t sound like he believed that at all. “So you’re not still in contact with Belladonna?”
Belladonna.
She hadn’t heard the name in years, not that she had given the woman much thought after the last time she saw her. Too lost in her own raging emotions.
“Why are you asking about her?” Luna asked. “You want to punish her for leading me to the truth?”
“I find it curious that she knew the truth at all, don’t you?”
No, Luna had never considered how the woman she knew. Despite how vast their world seemed to be at times, it was also incredibly small.
“But no, to answer your question, I don’t plan on harming her for telling you. You would have found out soon enough if Uilleam had had his way.” Kit took a breath, his phone’s vibrations cutting into their moment, but he ignored it.
That ache that had always been there where he was concerned flared again. “Kit.”