Lovegame(81)

“Is that a hypothetical question or is that really how you feel?” His eyes sharpen, grow darker still as they search my face. “Do you want me to ask the questions?”

“Like you did last night?” Despite everything that’s happened today, a little spurt of heat works its way down my spine.

“No!” He pulls me closer. “God no. Not like last night at all.”

“Then…what? I don’t understand.”

“Wow. I’ve really f*cked up with you, haven’t I?” He shakes his head, gives an appalled laugh. “I’ve been a real f*cking * almost from the beginning.”

“No, you haven’t! Not at all—”

“Don’t defend what I’ve done.” He shoves a frustrated hand through his hair, then wraps his arms around me and pulls me even closer. “Look, can we try just having a conversation, maybe? I ask some questions, you answer them if you want, don’t answer if you don’t want. No power exchange, no dominance issues. Just two people keeping everything amicable. I know it’s a new concept for us, but maybe we can give it a try?”

Tears bloom in my eyes at the tenderness in his voice, at the hand that strokes my tangled, messed up hair away from my face. At the way he blames himself for what happened and how he’s obviously trying to fix things even after I made a total and complete fool of myself.

I look away quickly, blinking my eyes a couple times as I pray he doesn’t notice. There’s something about this conversation—this moment—that leaves me feeling more exposed than I ever have, more exposed even than I was in his hotel room last night, standing against the window with all the lights on.

Maybe it’s because that was play.

Maybe it’s because so much of our time together has been a battle of wills.

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because I’m not used to the people in my life trying so hard to meet me halfway. Or, in Ian’s case, more like three-quarters of the way.

I don’t know. I just know that staying right here with him after everything that’s happened is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Especially when I want nothing more than to shed my skin and crawl away from this mess I’ve created. If I could do that, if I could just start over, maybe I’d have a chance at getting him to look at me again the way he looked at me last night.

Like I was strong and powerful and desirable.

Like he wanted me.

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.”