The Kiss Thief(25)

“Second, because I was not, in fact, happy with your little display of affection. I gave you a chance at a proper goodbye. Which, judging by the way you two held each other when I left the restroom, you took in both hands. Did you enjoy it?”

I blinked, trying to untangle the meaning of his words. Did he think that Angelo and I…? Christ, he did. His passive expression did nothing to hide the earlier emotion I caught in his eyes. He thought I’d slept with Angelo at the wedding, and he was reacting against a crime he did not even try me for.

Fury gripped every bone in my malnourished body. Walking into this room today, I couldn’t believe I’d ever hate him more than I did. But I stood corrected.

Now this? This was real hatred.

I didn’t correct his assumption. It made the humiliation of being cheated on a tad less painful. The balance between our sins now more even. I squared my shoulders, owning up to this for no other reason than wanting him to hurt as much as I did.

“Oh, I’d slept with Angelo plenty of times,” I lied. “He’s the best lover in The Outfit, and of course, I personally checked.” I laid it on thick. Maybe if he thought he’d gotten himself a rotten deal with an easy woman, he’d let me leave.

Wolfe cocked his head, his stare stripping me of whatever leftover confidence I’d had in me.

“How peculiar. I could have sworn you said that you wanted to kiss him at the masquerade and nothing more.”

I swallowed, trying to think fast. I could count on one hand the amount of times I’d lied in my life.

“As per the note. I was only following tradition. I’d kissed him a thousand times before,” I quipped. “But that night was about fate.”

“Fate brought you to me.”

“You stole my fate.”

“Perhaps, yet it doesn’t make it any less mine. Consider yesterday a one-off. I let you get the little menace out of your system. An engagement gift from yours truly, if you will. From here on out, I’m your only option. Take it or leave it.”

“I suppose the rules do not apply to you,” I arched an eyebrow, snapping the shears again. He glanced at them with an expression dripping of boredom.

“Quite clever, Miss Rossi.”

“Then, Senator Keaton, I’ll have you know they do not apply at all. I will sleep with whomever I want, whenever I want, as long as you continue to do so.”

I was arguing my freedom to sleep around, when in practice, I was more virginal than a nun. He was the only man I’d ever even kissed. This, however, wasn’t about my right to sleep my way through Chicago’s elite—but merely a principal. Equality mattered to me. Maybe because for the first time, I thought I might be able to achieve it.

“Let me be clear.” He stepped into the walk-in closet, erasing some of the distance between us. Though he was not close enough to touch me, sharing a space with him still sent a bullet of excitement and fear down my spine.

“You’re not eating, and I’m not going to back down from this arrangement, even at the cost of burying your pretty little corpse when your body finally gives in. But I can make your life comfortable. My problem is with your father, not you, and you’d be wise to keep it that way. So, Nemesis—what could I give you that your parents wouldn’t?”

“Are you trying to buy me?” I snorted.

He shrugged. “I already have you. I’m giving you a chance to make your life bearable. Take it.”

Hysterical laughter bubbled up my throat. I felt my sanity evaporating from my body like sweat. The man was unbelievable.

“The only thing I want back is my freedom.”

“You were never free with your parents to begin with. Don’t insult both our intelligence by pretending so.” His flatlined tenor whiplashed on my face. He took a step deeper into the room. I cemented my back to the drawers, their bronze handles digging into my spine.

“Think,” he enunciated. “What can I give you that your parents never will?”

“I don’t want any dresses. I don’t want a new car. I don’t even want a new horse,” I cried out, waving the shears in my hand desperately. Papa said whoever decided to marry me could buy me a horse to show his good faith. And to think I was devastated then.

“Stop pretending to care about materialistic things,” he snapped, and I twisted around and threw an Oxford shoe at him to stop him from getting any closer, but he just dodged it and laughed.

“Think.”

“I don’t have any wants!”

“We all have wants.”

“What’s yours?” I was stalling.

“Serving my country. Seeking justice and punishing those who deserve to be brought to justice. You do, too. Think back to the masquerade.”

“College!” I yelled, finally cracking. “I want to go to college. They’d never let me get a higher education and make something of myself.” It surprised me that Wolfe caught the fraction of the moment in which I had to school my face from being both embarrassed and disappointed when Bishop asked me about college. My grades were great, and my SAT scores were glorious. But my parents thought I was wasting my energy when I should be focusing on getting married, planning a wedding, and continuing the Rossi legacy by producing heirs.

He stopped his stride.

“It’s yours.”