The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(75)

“Why so somber all of a sudden?” he murmured. He stroked a palm over her back in smooth, calming circles that only made her want to cry.

And she didn’t cry. I’m not Cleopatra Killoran. I’m . . .

Tears blurred her vision, and she swung herself upright. Reluctantly, she shifted onto the tiny sliver of space at the corner of the sofa, needing some distance between her and Adair . . . and her inherent weakness for him.

From the corner of her eye, she watched him.

He stood, beautiful in his naked splendor, and gathered his garments. Grateful for his diversion, she sought to put together a shattered heart. Futile. It is futile. She wanted what she could never have—him. Too much divided them. It had divided them from the moment she’d come squalling into the miserable world that was St. Giles, and it had only grown in time.

Her relief was short-lived. Adair fished a white kerchief out of his jacket and returned to her side. He dropped to his haunches beside her and proceeded to wipe the remnants of his seed and her blood from between her thighs.

Averting her gaze . . . praying he believed it was false modesty, she took the cloth from him and finished the task. She set it down on the floor and jumped up. She winced at the soreness there. Ignoring the discomfort, she scrambled into her garments. At her back, the rustle of clothing indicated Adair went through those same rituals.

After she’d finished, Cleopatra glanced at the opposite wall.

“I’m sorry.”

She blinked slowly. Had she uttered that aloud?

“I should not have touched you,” Adair said hollowly.

Let him believe that is what compels your silence. Then, there would be no questions. There’d be nothing more than his own guilt. And she’d certainly caused others enough pain and suffering in her existence where a misunderstanding on Adair Thorne’s part was the least of her crimes. She pressed her hands to her face. Who would believe she, Cleopatra Killoran, was incapable of that lie?

“I wanted this, Adair,” she insisted, turning about to face him.

“You have regrets.”

Not for the reasons he believed. Not even about what he believed. Don’t be a coward. Tell him. Mayhap it wouldn’t matter.

You’re a fool if you believe that.

She needed to tell him. Needed to have it out between them—who she, in fact, was. Cleopatra strolled over to the doorway and looked out at the mess that was the main rooms of his gaming floor. Given their connection to Diggory, Adair was certainly right to have his reservations where she and her family were concerned. She rested her cheek against the smooth doorjamb. “I’m so sorry.”

Feeling him beside her, she looked up. He held himself whipcord straight, but revealed nothing.

“About your club.” She searched for evidence of the same fury that came with any reminder of the blaze. “We did not do this.” She needed him to know that—more . . . to believe it. Just as she needed one thing to not matter to him.

A grimness settled over his features. “That’s not why I’ve brought you here,” he murmured, and regret pulled inside that he should still doubt her word and whom her family were as people.

She planted her feet, digging in. “Mayhap it’s not. But we’ll have the discussion. You don’t know the manner of man my brother is.”

“I know precisely the type he is,” he said flatly, pulling his jacket on. “I’ve dealt with him and men of his ilk since I was a boy of seven.”

The idea that the two men she loved most in this world hated one another as they did gutted her.

“Ya can woipe those thoughts from your head,” Cleopatra said tightly. “’e was . . . is the best brother.”

“You’d defend a man who’d sell you at the marital altar.”

She recoiled. “That is . . . was . . . will be my decision,” she said quickly, her words rolling together, as just the mention of marriage sent fear surging through her.

Cleopatra rushed forward, until just a foot of space divided them. “You think he’s selling me for a title—”

“I know that’s what he’s doing.”

“But he looked after me. He stood up to Diggory when no one else did to protect my siblings and I.” She paused. “He gave me a name and lived to see another day for it.”

That revelation brought him up short. “He named you.” She didn’t know what to make of that halting statement.

Cleopatra nodded. “And he fought Diggory when most others who’d tried, failed,” she added as an afterthought. “He called me Cleopatra”—she dared him with her eyes to make light of her name—“and told me I didn’t have royal blood in my veins, but I was as fierce and as clever as that queen herself.” An Egyptian woman Cleopatra had never even heard of until her brother entered her life with his fancy words and love of books.

“It is a name befitting queens and warriors,” he said, almost as if to himself. “It suits you.”

Unnerved by that husky acknowledgment, she doffed her spectacles and cleaned the lenses. “He swore that someday we would have connections to kings and lords.” She’d laughed at him then. The sheer lunacy to believe street brats like Cleopatra and her sisters would ever be looked at as anything more than women those toffs might one day want to take up against an alley wall.